Several of Sunday’s front pages focus on the Southport stabbings, just days after a government review found that counter-terrorism scheme Prevent “prematurely” closed its case on killer Axel Rudakubana three years before he went on to murder three children in Southport. The Sun speaks to “Southport Hero” Joel Verite who confronted the attacker, and his interview generates the heartrending headline “Horror will live with me forever”.
The Sunday Times also leads with an interview on the Southport stabbings, but with the parents of two of the children killed that day, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Bebe King. The paper says the parents gave a three-hour interview so that “people remember their girls for their personalities”. Bebe’s father describes her as “so confident and full of life”, and Elsie’s mother says her daughter was “truly” one of a kind.
Because giving the interview with one newspaper is such a big step for the families, traditional media rivalry is put aside as other papers report on the Sunday Times interview. The Sunday Mirror gives most of its front page over to pictures of Elsie Dot and Bebe with the headline “They are our angels”.
The Sunday People takes a similar approach but limits its main headline to a single word – “Angels”.
The Sunday Express also highlights the same interview, picking up the quote from Bebe’s mother that she is “still looking for light in the dark”. More prominently on its front page, however, is a call from top Conservatives to leader Kemi Badenoch. Prominent members are calling on her to “save” the UK, the paper writes, by making an “election pact” with Nigel Farage’s Reform party.
Meanwhile, the Sunday Telegraph reports on health minister Andrew Gwynne who, the paper writes, was “sacked for saying a pensioner should die”. Gwynne released a statement on Saturday apologising for “any offence caused” and said he understood the PM’s decision. Further down, the paper jumps to the other side of the pond as it writes that US President Donald Trump has “ruled out” deporting Prince Harry – while calling his wife, Meghan, “terrible”.
Both stories have also taken the top slots on the front page of the Mail on Sunday, which describes the prime minister as “besieged” while “dramatically” axing Gwynne. Covering Trump’s comments on the Royal couple, the paper shares an image of the duke and duchess and places the president’s comments on Meghan front and centre.
Taking a different focus than the other papers, the Observer leads with Labour’s plan to “fix [the] benefit system to get people back into work”. Benefit rules are set to be “redrawn”, the paper understands, in a “radical overhaul to cut cost of welfare”. Separately, it also features an image of a small Palestinian girl dressed in red and barely coming up to the waists of gun-carrying Hamas fighters she was standing between during Saturday’s handover of three Israeli hostages.
Coldest February for six years? That could be the case, the Daily Star writes on its front page, as it says the cold weather could stick around until March. “Brrrrrilliant” – it writes.
