“Reeves is driving up prices, warns Bank,” is the headline on the Daily Telegraph which reports a warning from the Bank of England that Britain is “facing a fresh rise in inflation” after what the paper calls Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s “tax-and-spend Budget”. The Telegraph says lenders have been raising mortgage costs despite the Bank’s interest rate cut to 4.75%. Bank governor Andrew Bailey told the rates were likely to “continue to fall gradually”. “I do emphasise the word gradual and the reason for that is there are a lot of risks out there in the world at large and also domestically,” he said. Continuing its coverage of Donald Trump’s election victory, the paper runs a photo of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage alongside Barron Trump, the president-elect’s teenage son, who apparently helped his father woo “the bro vote”. The paper’s cartoonist Matt depicts a disappointed Maga supporter with a baseball bat and an abandoned megaphone who “had set his heart on storming the Capitol”.
The Financial Times reports that the Bank of England’s decision to cut interest rates is evidence of caution as the new government’s first Budget “fuels inflation fears”. But the paper’s lead story is Joe Biden’s appeal for national unity after Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election. The outgoing US president called on Americans to “bring down the temperature” just as his own party “turned its ire” on him over the defeat of their candidate, Vice-President Kamala Harris, the paper says. And trouble with bats gets a flying mention on the FT’s front page too: it seems that contractors on the High Speed 2 rail line were made to erect a 1km steel mesh arch to stop rare Bechstein’s bats from hitting trains.
An independent review alleging that abuse of more than 100 children and young men by a British barrister was covered up within the Church of England for decades makes the front of Metro with the headline “Church’s 40-year abuser cover-up”. John Smyth QC, who died in 2018 as he was in the process of being extradited from Zimbabwe, is believed to have been the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church. The paper says the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, “failed to pass on concerns”. The archbishop has said he was not aware of Smyth’s brutality before 2013 but added: “Nevertheless the review is clear that I personally failed to ensure that after disclosure in 2013 the awful tragedy was energetically investigated.”
“It’s been brutal,” the Prince of Wales is quoted as saying in the headline on the Daily Mirror as he reflects on the year his wife Catherine, Princess of Wales, and his father, King Charles, were both diagnosed with cancer. “I’m so proud of my wife and my father but it has been the hardest year of my life…” he adds. News of charges brought in Argentina in connection with the death of One Direction star Liam Payne came in too late for most of Friday’s newspaper print editions but the Mirror managed to fit in a story under the simple headline “Liam”.
The Sun, too, leads with William under the headline “It’s been the hardest year of my life”. Its second story is “Fury as farm demo blocked” – Jeremy Clarkson is said to be angry after a planned farmers’ protest in Westminster was axed “for legal reasons”.
Prince William’s “brutal year” quote also leads the Daily Mail with a photo of the royal couple and their daughter, Princess Charlotte. Elsewhere, the paper features journalist and author Bryony Gordon talking about “creepy things” she says Russell Brand did on their dates. Detectives investigating Mr Brand over allegations of historical sex offences recently sent prosecutors a file of evidence so they could consider bringing charges. The actor and comedian has previously denied the allegations, calling them “very, very hurtful”.
The Prince of Wales talking about his “hardest year” also leads the Daily Express. The paper mentions the HS2 bats story, leading with the cost of the barrier… £100m. “Just batty!” it quips.
A photo of Prince William dominates the Times which also carries his remarks about the royal family’s difficult year. But the main headline is a Trump story saying the election winner is eyeing a “quick start with tariffs and tax cuts”.
Trump “could threaten to hold back intelligence” from the UK, according to the headline on the i, which quotes British “security sources”. He could do so as a “bargaining chip” to “pressure the UK on key policy issues such as [the] Russia-Ukraine war”, the paper says.
“Biden pledges peaceful transition as Putin congratulates Trump” reads the main headline on the Guardian over a photo of the current US president. Russia’s president called Trump a “courageous man”. The paper also reports the inflation warning in the UK and a call for a tax on unhealthy food to tackle obesity.
The Daily Star’s take on America’s “orange manbaby” is a call for him to “finally release” US intelligence of a different kind – “secret U.S. info on existence of aliens”. The “galaxy’s most eminent ET boffin” is urging disclosure, it says, under a cartoon of Trump “the space cadet” in a flying saucer.
