11360 newspaper headlines harry bombshell backfires and reform re education
- Advertisement -
0:00
- Advertisement -
It’s a mixed bag across the papers on Sunday, however several touch on the continued fallout from the Duke of Sussex’s BBC interview, which took place after after he lost an appeal over the levels of security he and his family are entitled to while in the UK. The Sunday People reports that the “bombshell” interview means that a meeting between Prince Harry and the King is “feared to be further apart”, quoting an unnamed royal insider who says it “proves why” the relationship has soured.
- Advertisement -
The Mail on Sunday also leads on reaction to Prince Harry’s sit-down interview after his court defeat, reporting that “government insiders flatly rejected” the prince’s call for an investigation into the committee that downgraded his security. Commenting after the interview, Buckingham Palace said: “All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.” The Home Office said it was “pleased” that the judgement was in the government’s favour. Continuing along the theme of family feuds, the Mail also bills a story on the Beckham family as it reports Brooklyn “snubs” his father’s 50th birthday.
- Advertisement -
The Sunday Times’s day-two take on the Prince Harry revelations includes comments from sources close to King Charles. The paper’s royal editor Roya Nikkhah reports that the King fears that conversations with his son would be leaked to the media. An unnamed friend of the monarch suggests that it’s not that the King won’t speak to Prince Harry, “it’s that he can’t”. Sunday’s lead story, however, reports bold plans from Reform if it were to win a general election, including to declare a “national emergency” on illegal migration and “remoralise” young people. It quotes party chair Zia Yusuf vowing that Reform’s first 100 days in power would be “more transformational even than Margaret Thatcher’s”.
Reform also takes the top spot in the Observer, which dedicates this week’s front page to the women who ran successful campaigns for the party in England’s local elections. Some of the group, wearing their cyan rosettes, are photographed standing under a large tree in flower behind the headline ‘Blooming Reform: The women who won it.”
Ahead of VE Day celebrations on Sunday, the Sunday Mirror leads with a “call-up” from the prime minister for the public to honour the “lion-hearted generation that defeated Nazi evil”.
The Daily Star’s Sunday edition also mentioned VE Day, however the top slot on the front page goes to the late television personality Paul O’Grady. A biography of “untold stories” is due to be released, it reports, based on “more than 100 hours of chat” with his friend Malcolm Prince.
The Sunday Telegraph’s chief US correspondent gets top billing this week for an interview with Peter Navarro, US President Donald Trump’s tariffs “tsar”. In comments described by the paper as an “intervention”, Navarro claims the UK risks having its “blood sucked” by Beijing. He labels the UK an “all too compliant servant” of the CCP, which he says spreads soft power via “string-laden gifts”. Photographed beside that story is Dame Mary Archer, wife of Tory peer Lord Jeffrey Archer, who has been sacked from the board of Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s net zero department.
And the Sunday Express leads on comments from the shadow environment secretary on Labour’s changes to inheritance tax on agricultural assets which is due to begin in a years’ time. Victoria Atkins tells the Express that elderly and ill farmers are facing a mental health crisis as they question “whether their family can afford for them to live beyond April” – when the changes come into force.
EPA
The Sunday Times reports that Reform UK will announce plans to – in the party’s words – “remoralise” young people, declare a national emergency on illegal immigration, and erect statues of prominent British historical figures across the UK – should it win the next general election. Reform claims that young people are being taught quite deliberately that they should hate their country. The paper says the party wants to reverse this by clamping down on what it believes is “woke” ideology in schools.
In response to the local election results, the paper also says that Tory donors and MPs have been plotting against Kemi Badenoch this weekend and that she’ll begin a policy review to pave the way for Tories to back withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights. That’s been described by one insider as a “break-the-glass panic moment”.
The Sunday Times also suggests the prime minister could use a reshuffle next month to fire the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy and move the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, to a less prominent role.
The founder of Blue Labour – which aims to promote culturally conservative values within the party – Lord Glasman – gives details of a plan in the Sun which he thinks will see off the challenge of Nigel Farage. He’s called for the armed forces to double in size, an industrial strategy to support defence, for the UK to leave the European Court of Human Rights and for an inquiry into grooming gangs. He says the inquiry should have powers of arrest and lead to televised trials.
A poll in the Observer suggests Reform is now the party supported by the greatest number of Generation X women. In the paper the former leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas, calls for the abolishment of the first past the post voting system. She says “any party could seize power with a third of the vote,” and asks readers whether they’re “comfortable” with this opening the way for Farage to become prime minister.
The Daily Express quotes a former Conservative cabinet minister saying that the election results have “woken up a lot of donors and supporters who didn’t think they needed to get involved” with the Tories. He claims many people regard Farage as “amusing”, but “they don’t want him in charge of their money or their lives”.
A woman who took part in demonstrations against plans for a new Chinese embassy in London has told the Mail on Sunday that members of her family in Hong Kong were subsequently arrested in dawn raids. Carmen Lau, a former politician who fled Hong Kong five years ago, tells the paper she believes the mega-embassy will become a hub for repression in the heart of London.
In the Sunday Mirror the prime minister says this week’s VE Day celebrations are an opportunity to remember what he calls the “lion-hearted generation that defeated Nazi evil”. The paper details some of the events which are planned – including a fly-past over Buckingham Palace involving the Red Arrows and a Lancaster Bomber, and a tea party for veterans hosted by the King and Queen.
EPA
