5 July 2012 Last updated at 02:03 ET

Newspaper review: Diamond deflects MP inquisition

Paper review

Evidence given by former Barclays boss Bob Diamond to MPs on Wednesday forms the basis for stories on most of the newspaper front pages.

"A load of old Bollinger" is the Daily Mirror's headline. The paper mocks the banker's insistence that he was unaware of the rigging of interest rates by Barclays traders, and asks whether the "champagne-swilling bank boss" was incompetent or just "telling porkies".

The Daily Telegraph believes Mr Diamond implicated senior ministers in the last Labour government, by claiming that Barclays repeatedly warned them that banks were improperly fixing the Libor interest rate.

But The Times believes Mr Diamond's evidence failed to back up claims by Chancellor George Osborne that former ministers were involved.

'Cheep of remorse'

Writing in the Guardian, Simon Hoggart says Mr Diamond's technique was to "stonewall", with contrition as hard to find "as a Higgs boson in the Grand Canyon". He goes on: "You could whirl him round in the Hadron collider without getting a single cheep of remorse."

The discovery of what is thought to be the elusive Higgs boson particle prompts the Independent to shout "Eureka!" as its main headline. The paper says the breakthrough took almost half a century of deep thought and a machine that cost £2.5bn.

The Times says British physicist Professor Peter Higgs, who first suggested the particle's existence, is "surely the world's most likely future winner of a Nobel prize".

Meanwhile the Sun sums up the complexity of the subject: "Never in the field of human knowledge has so much been written about something understood by so few."

Murray mania

As the defence secretary prepares to announce cuts to the army, The Telegraph reports that all five Scottish infantry battalions have been spared the axe.

The paper claims last minute negotiations at Downing Street resulted in the Scottish units being preserved in reduced numbers "to undermine the pro-independence lobby".

The main image that appears on broadsheet and tabloid alike was the agonised look of the Duchess of Cambridge, as she watched Andy Murray in Wimbledon action on Wednesday.

The Daily Mail says the duchess has caught "Murray mania", and highlighted the "dazzling array" of business people, sporting legends and celebrities who joined the royal couple to watch Murray's victory over Spaniard David Ferrer.

Murray faces Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semi-finals on Friday. The Daily Express says the 25-year-old Scot has been given the "royal seal of approval", and is optimistic that he can reach his first ever Wimbledon final.