Paper Monitor
10:20 UK time, Friday, 1 July 2011
A service highting the riches of the daily press.
The story of Carolyn Bourne, the woman who emailed her prospective daughter-in-law Heidi Withers to complain vociferously about the younger lady's alleged lack of manners, has everything.
It takes in warring females and - most crucially so far as the British press is concerned - open class warfare, with Mrs Bourne depicted as a sort of latter-day Hyacinth Bucket in contrast to the evidently less genteel Miss Withers.
The tale refuses to die, with Miss Withers' father's description of Mrs Bourne as "Miss Fancy Pants" providing a second full day's coverage.
And now it is apparent that the papers have divided neatly into two camps: Team Bourne and Team Withers.
Unsuprisingly, the Daily Telegraph is firmly in the former category. It has commissioned the UK's foremost arbiter of social norms, Spectator agony aunt Mary Killen, to And she clearly has every sympathy with forthright articulations of the code of etiquette.
"Who among us is ever entirely satisfied with our offspring's choice of loved one? It can be hard to feel unconfined delight when a stranger is parachuted into the bosom of a happy family by a love-blind child," she declares. "Which is why I'm sure we all read the e-mail from Carolyn Bourne to her future step-daughter-in-law, Heidi, and found ourselves gasping at each of the girl's breaches in etiquette."
Bel Mooney of the Daily Mail - the newspaper that, surely, Mrs Bourne peruses each morning with her toasted crumpets - is also
She recalls with a shudder the long-term former partner of her son. Ms Mooney's darling offspring was considerate enough to ensure that his consort was never seated adjacent to her during concerts, she recalls: "He knew she'd whisper, fidget and generally not know how to behave - which would spoil the evening for me."
How wonderful - a man who thinks of both his mum and his girlfriend. She clearly didn't deserve him.
Foremost among Team Heidi, somewhat improbably, is the Guardian's Alexander Chancellor.
He is particularly vexed by Mrs Bourne's admonition of the younger woman for failing to get up early "in line with house norms".
Chancellor splutters: "This doesn't sound very hospitable. Shouldn't working people from the city be allowed a bit of a lie-in on a country weekend?"
Likewise, he strongly disapproves of Mrs Bourne depicting Miss Withers' desire to get married in a castle as "brash, celebrity-style behaviour".
This, he says, "is to condemn every cash-strapped, castle-less couple in Britain with Cinderella dreams". Blimey. Paper Monitor now feels guilty for spending so many tea breaks flicking through the newspapers and sniggering at coverage of footballers' marriage ceremonies.
The Daily Mirror does not come out overtly for Miss Withers, but it is clear where the sympathies of the newspaper of Andy Capp lie. Its is interspersed with mother-in-law jokes, such as Ken Dodd's "I haven't spoken to my mother-in-law for 18 months. I don't like to interrupt her" and Les Dawson's "My mother-in-law fell down a wishing well. I was amazed, I never knew they worked."
Perhaps more mother-in-law jokes will be one innovation brought to the Independent by its new editor Chris Blackhurst. Previously, Indy owner Evgeny Lebedev had conceded that his paper was Surely its future lies in channelling the spirit of Les Dawson.
The 
