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The many businesses will use the 2.5% VAT rise to mask a bigger increase in their prices.

One analyst predicts increases of between 5% and 8%, or possibly more.

The straight away, but will add on the extra tax when shoppers come to pay.

The result, it says, is likely to be queues of people arguing with checkout assistants or refusing to pay.

Not every retailer will .

John Lewis and Marks & Spencer are said to be among those planning to delay the introduction of the higher rate, at least for a few weeks.

The , the Treasury can look forward to a sharp increase in fraud.

One expert tells the paper the value of VAT fraud is likely to double to as much as £4bn a year.

Under the headline "Betraying our trust", the not to raise VAT.

It says that "we must neither forget nor forgive the prime minister dipping his hand into our wallets and purses".

But the .

The paper insists "these cuts and tax rises, painful and swift as they are, will help to pull us back from Labour's abyss".

There are tributes to actor Pete Postlethwaite who has died aged 64.

The .

According to the "he brought to every role the same degree of scrupulous attention to detail, understatement and instinctive intelligence".

"In a world obsessed with celebrity and fame," says the .