The front pages
Saturday 22 March, 2014
Friday 21 March, 2014
Front page of the day has to be that produced by (or for) James Corden at the Sun. The actor was the paper's guest editor as part of the Sport Relief campaign and as such secured an interview with David Cameron in which he said he wanted Boris Johnson back in the Commons, that he aims to bid to host the 2020 Euros and whether (and how) he gave Michael Gove a bollocking. David Dinsmore should fear for his job.
The Independent and i lead the pack with this morning's news that meningitis B vaccine is to be available on the NHS for all parents who want their babies inoculated. The rest are split between the Indian Ocean hunt for the missing Malaysian Airlines jet and responses to the Budget. Token women abound: Scarlett Johansson in scarlet at a film premiere in the Times, Kylie Minogue in the Star, Dasha Zhukova alongside Roman Abramovich in the Telegraph, and L'Wren Scott in the Mail.
It didn't take long for the claws to come out: "The other Stones called her Yoko...they loathed her...she was too controlling...they refused to wear the stage outfits she designed...." The claims are all sourced to that reliable organ, the New York Post. Just don't go there. Jan Moir is also on cruel form on the same subject. She has an unnerving ability to turn a valid point into venom.
If the Sun has the best front, the Mirror has the worst by a similar measure. The paper is endlessly fascinated by the serial killer Joanna Dennehy, but her picture on top of the heading Ghost Jet sends the wrong message. If you looked at the page from a distance in the supermarket, you'd be inclined to think it was someone screaming or even a body in the jet. Pity.
The Independent and i lead the pack with this morning's news that meningitis B vaccine is to be available on the NHS for all parents who want their babies inoculated. The rest are split between the Indian Ocean hunt for the missing Malaysian Airlines jet and responses to the Budget. Token women abound: Scarlett Johansson in scarlet at a film premiere in the Times, Kylie Minogue in the Star, Dasha Zhukova alongside Roman Abramovich in the Telegraph, and L'Wren Scott in the Mail.
It didn't take long for the claws to come out: "The other Stones called her Yoko...they loathed her...she was too controlling...they refused to wear the stage outfits she designed...." The claims are all sourced to that reliable organ, the New York Post. Just don't go there. Jan Moir is also on cruel form on the same subject. She has an unnerving ability to turn a valid point into venom.
If the Sun has the best front, the Mirror has the worst by a similar measure. The paper is endlessly fascinated by the serial killer Joanna Dennehy, but her picture on top of the heading Ghost Jet sends the wrong message. If you looked at the page from a distance in the supermarket, you'd be inclined to think it was someone screaming or even a body in the jet. Pity.
...and the thinkers' thoughts on pensions and bingo politics...
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Polly Toynbee (Guardian) Children are not George Osborne's priority. For this captain, it is older people first to the lifeboats, women and children last. A smell of decadence and corruption hangs in the air of a society when tomorrow is sacrificed for today, like the Easter Islanders who cut down all their trees and so exterminated themselves.
Patrick Hosking (Times) Trust in pensions requires savers to be quietly confident the rules will be more or less the same in 30 or 40 years' time. That's an alien notion for featherbedded ministers riding the five-year electoral cycle. Fraser Nelson (Telegraph) The Chancellor unveiled a Budget that was every bit as radical as he claimed – and for reasons that Westminster has yet fully to comprehend. The pensions revolution he announced effectively signals the end of the social contract that has underpinned the welfare state since its creation. Tom Utley (Mail) What is it that John McTernan doesn’t |
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understand about the words ‘their own money’? How can it possibly be preferable to sink his life-savings into some pathetic annuity, to be picked at by the vultures of the insurance industry, when he and his wife can spend the money on what they want - with any left over for widowhood?
Andreas Whittam Smith (Independent) Despite the new freedom, it might still be wise to purchase an annuity. For it pays out until you die and thus removes the risk that you live so long that you use up all your savings and end up penniless in your final years. On the other hand, if unfortunately you die shortly after taking out an annuity, the “wasted” capital won’t be returned. Isabel Hardman (Telegraph) The Tories published a stupid campaign “graphic” suggesting, in condescending terms, that they thought all working-class people played bingo while sipping beer. Eric Pickles fell asleep in the House of Commons. These were the two best bits of the Budget for the Labour party, which decided |
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to bow out of debating any of the actual announcements.
Chris Roycroft-Davis (Express) By tearing up the tax rules which shackled pension pots and forced people to buy meagre annuities they didn’t want, the Chancellor did more than offer financial hope to millions. He also struck a mighty blow for the freedom of the individual. Mark Steel (Independent) I'm sure he imagined that mobs would greet him saying, “Bless you Mr Shapps, sir, you’re a kindly soul for helping us simple folk with them things we enjoy sir like bingo, sir, even though we don’t understand numbers like you clever folk so we don’t know what a five looks like so no one can ever win but even so it’s all what we enjoy sir, just like you said, that and dog-fighting, sir." |
Thursday 20 March, 2014
The Express faces its toughest decision - and makes the right choice. A handful of guest publications in the collage today in honour of the Budget. The Mirror and Star understandably went in the other direction. The surprise in the batch is the Independent, whose front is dominated by Crimea under a skinny Budget splash. The Sun gets the prize for imaginative presentation among a disappointing collection. The day after the Budget is one of the most important of the year for casual sales so designers and slogan writers (yes, slogans; one of the first editorial decisions after the Chancellor has sat down is to choose a label for the package), but nothing really zings here. Given that the idea of trusting pensioners with their own money came out of the blue, eit's odd that it didn't seem to capture imaginations. Is this another example of how blind spots appear in newsrooms dominated by fortysomething white men? It shouldn't be - Dacre is 65, Witherow 62, Rusbridger and Whittow 60. Maybe they're in denial or, more likely, they won't have to worry about financial security.
Wednesday 19 March, 2014
Money talk There's a lot of dosh sloshing around today, appropriately for Budget Day. There's the new £1 coin that's going to make using parking meters and vending machines difficult in a couple of years' time - yes, they say they'll be adapted but you can bet they won't all be. Still, by then we'll probably be swiping everything. It looks quite attractive, but the Mail splash head is poor because it suggests there will be no £1 in future, an inflationary idea if
ever there was one. Francis Elliott in the Times is meanwhile getting his reminiscences in a twist. If they had put the old threepenny bit in the Christmas pud the kids would have choked. The threepences that were steamed in, discovered in joy (and and in our family reluctantly returned for the following year) were the silver ones that went out of use during the Second World War, pictured left.
Children in families without a hoard of ancient coins (most of my schoolfriends) were doubly lucky: the sixpenny bit became the pud coin of choice, so it had twice the value. And they were allowed to keep their booty. Not that SubScribe is harbouring a grievance or anything.
One woman who definitely doesn't seem to be harbouring a grievance is Kirstine Hamilton, whose ex has just won £108m in the Euro lottery. Most papers have fun with the Del Boy jokes - the winner's name is Neil Trotter and, like his TV namesake, he has apparently always believed that he would become a millionaire. The Telegraph took a different line. Trotter sent Ms Hamilton a text to say he had won. He wasn't at the forefront of her mind at the time, since she was in Mexico on her honeymoon, but her response was a priceless "That's typical of you Trotter."
The Telegraph has some other jaw-dropping sums on its agenda after yesterday's splash about alleged corruption at the heart of the Qatar World Cup bid. This story has been taken up by every sports department with glee. If that competition goes ahead in that country it will be astonishing.
Elsewhere, thoughts are still with Mick Jagger, who has called off the Rolling Stones tour of Australia after the death of his girlfriend, the designer L'Wren Scott. A surprising number are claiming to have exclusives about him saying that he can't understand what led her to her apparent suicide.
Perhaps SubScribe should join the club and claim an exclusive as well. He made these comments in the Facebook update reproduced at the top of the page. It appeared under the picture, also reproduced above. When SubScribe took a look, his post had had more than 100,000 "likes" and had been shared 25,000 times. Which makes it silly to claim and exclusive and strangely unprofessional of the Mail to flip the picture as it did on page 8.
Children in families without a hoard of ancient coins (most of my schoolfriends) were doubly lucky: the sixpenny bit became the pud coin of choice, so it had twice the value. And they were allowed to keep their booty. Not that SubScribe is harbouring a grievance or anything.
One woman who definitely doesn't seem to be harbouring a grievance is Kirstine Hamilton, whose ex has just won £108m in the Euro lottery. Most papers have fun with the Del Boy jokes - the winner's name is Neil Trotter and, like his TV namesake, he has apparently always believed that he would become a millionaire. The Telegraph took a different line. Trotter sent Ms Hamilton a text to say he had won. He wasn't at the forefront of her mind at the time, since she was in Mexico on her honeymoon, but her response was a priceless "That's typical of you Trotter."
The Telegraph has some other jaw-dropping sums on its agenda after yesterday's splash about alleged corruption at the heart of the Qatar World Cup bid. This story has been taken up by every sports department with glee. If that competition goes ahead in that country it will be astonishing.
Elsewhere, thoughts are still with Mick Jagger, who has called off the Rolling Stones tour of Australia after the death of his girlfriend, the designer L'Wren Scott. A surprising number are claiming to have exclusives about him saying that he can't understand what led her to her apparent suicide.
Perhaps SubScribe should join the club and claim an exclusive as well. He made these comments in the Facebook update reproduced at the top of the page. It appeared under the picture, also reproduced above. When SubScribe took a look, his post had had more than 100,000 "likes" and had been shared 25,000 times. Which makes it silly to claim and exclusive and strangely unprofessional of the Mail to flip the picture as it did on page 8.
...and what the columnists say about Crimea....
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Martin Wolf (FT) Neville Chamberlain’s argument for doing nothing about Hitler’s 1938 annexation of Czechoslovakia was because he thought it, “a far-off country of which we know little”. That annexation, carried out by a revanchist Nazi regime, allegedly in defence of ethnic Germans, is an unnerving parallel to Putin’s annexation of Crimea.
Max Hastings (Mail) The master of the Kremlin has concluded that the West is weak, jelly weak. The evidence of almost three decades since the Cold War’s ending suggests he is right. The West must abandon its dismally failed attempt to appease its leader. The bear will continue to claw victims unless we display the will to drive him back into his |
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lair - before he comes hunting closer to our own door.
Hamish McRae (Independent) The problem with applying economic sanctions to Russia is that it hurts us more than it hurts them. The better news - or worse news, depending on which side you are on - is that Russia is in effect imposing sanctions on itself. In the short term it faces greater disruption. But by sharpening the economic fault lines between Russia and the West, it will make it harder to cope with the long-term headwinds it inevitably faces. ...and the Budget... Daniel Finkelstein (Times) It would be better if there were fewer budgets - maybe one every two years. There is nothing immutable about annual Finance Bills. |
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Simon Jenkins (Guardian) Osborne should tax under-occupied rich homes to the skies, as Iain Duncan Smith is taxing under-occupied poor ones. All taxes should be clear and hard to avoid, as benefits should be clear and hard to abuse. There will always be rich and poor, but specific actions of the state should not be what makes the rich obscenely rich or the poor obscenely poor.
Mary Riddell (Telegraph) Osborne’s challenge is to emulate the People’s Budget of 1909 and show, as David Lloyd George did then, that he is truly on the side of those who suffer. If he cannot do so, then Mr Miliband will have won what may be the decisive battle on the road to 2015. |
Tuesday 18 March, 2014
How to do it...and how not to do it The protests started the moment the front pages hit Twitter and the TV stations last night. Intrusion into private grief? But is Mick Jagger the story? What about L'wren Scott - the woman who died? Her death provides the main picture for every paper, yet in all but one she is there as an adjunct to Jagger. Congratulations to the Independent for giving Scott her own space
*A designer's death, a rock star's grief *To sign up for email updates, click here
*A designer's death, a rock star's grief *To sign up for email updates, click here
...and some views on the Budget and HS2...
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Polly Toynbee (Guardian) Almost everything about tomorrow's Budget will be bogus. Neither the big numbers nor the pernickety tax changes are intended to do what they pretend. Phoney promises of extreme stringency will not be kept – only useful for taunting Labour to follow suit. After four George Osborne budgets, we are well used to sham pledges to help the lowest earners that in truth give most to the better off.
Daniel Johnson (Mail) Even if they do not defect to Ukip, Conservative middle earners who feel unfairly penalised may not vote. They may stay at home. Labour does not need many of them to abstain for Ed Miliband to be installed in No 10 and his |
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Chancellor Ed Balls in 11 Downing Street. Tomorrow’s Budget is the Tories’ last chance to avert that calamity.
Steve Richards (Independent) Will many voters pay attention when George Osborne presents his Budget? If a few do, will they understand why he has acted in the way he has for the past few years? Osborne’s policies are determined partly by what he calls fiscal conservatism and monetary activism. Such a description is of interest to those who follow economics but will make little sense to most voters. Janan Ganesh (FT) George Osborne’s real achievement as Chancellor is that nobody very much cares about the Budget he will give tomorrow. It must be the |
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least hyped and anticipated for years.
Hugo Rifkind (Times) The best argument for building HS2 is that if we do, we’ll end up with a bloody great super-fast railway. And if we don’t we won’t. Fast trains to the North will help to spread wealth away from London and correct the UK’s economic imbalance. Philip Johnston (Telegraph) Surely we still possess enough entrepreneurial gumption to embark on an infrastructure project of this magnitude? It might help to address the North/South divide if work on HS2 were to begin in the North at the same time as in the South. Read more from Editorial Intelligence here |
Monday 17 March, 2014
The Sun has been looking into the al-Fatiha Global charity, which has been involved in convoys taking aid to Syria. The man in blue with his arms round a masked gunman in the blurry picture on the front is said to be Aleed Ali, who is reportedly the head of the charity. In fact he has has arms round two men holding machineguns. The charity's website does not list details of officers or trustees, which is odd, but it does mention a "Brother Aleed". The Sun says the Charity Commission are investigating al-Fatiha as well as some other groups involved in the Aid for Syria effort. The convoy was the subject of a Newsnight report last year that has been questioned by the American think-tank the Gatestone Institute and BBC Watch - both pro-Israeli organisations - and by the London-based StandforPeace, which describes itself as a Jewish-Muslim movement, mostly made up of students. It says it aims to combat bigotry and extremism, especially in universities. No mainstream media appear to have tackled this story before; it will be interesting to read more on this.
The Mirror and Star are again preoccupied with the missing Malaysian Airlines jet, and who can blame them? It is an astonishing story, though whether we believe that the hijackers (if hijackers there are) were inspired by Tintin is another matter.
The foregone conclusion of the Crimea referendum makes all the heavies, and with the Budget looming, money matters also feature.
The Express offers a jab-free test for diabetes. This is its first diabetes splash of the month; but so far this year it has advocated chocolate, yoghurt and a 'cure' to end the misery of jabs.
The Mirror and Star are again preoccupied with the missing Malaysian Airlines jet, and who can blame them? It is an astonishing story, though whether we believe that the hijackers (if hijackers there are) were inspired by Tintin is another matter.
The foregone conclusion of the Crimea referendum makes all the heavies, and with the Budget looming, money matters also feature.
The Express offers a jab-free test for diabetes. This is its first diabetes splash of the month; but so far this year it has advocated chocolate, yoghurt and a 'cure' to end the misery of jabs.
...and some thoughts from the comment pages...
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Independent) The ritual utterances on the deaths of Tony Benn and Bob Crow meant nothing. For the ravenous rich and their political champions (or slaves), that’s two more lefty nuisances dead and gone. Relief and champagne all round. Now back to big business as usual.
Trevor Kavanagh (Sun) Benn’s death silenced one of this country’s most ardent advocates of British sovereignty – and the true voice of Old Labour. Along with Bob Crow, Benn saw the Common Market as a betrayal of British workers who had been sold down the river by a faceless elite.
David Aaronovitch (Times) Could a party made in Tony Benn’s image could ever hope to achieve anything other than oblivion. If you want to see what I think Tony Benn’s Britain would have become, go to Venezuela – but take your own toilet paper.
Chris Huhne (Guardian) Don’t cry for middle Britain. Just 15% of taxpayers earn enough to pay the 40% rate, and they do not pay the higher rate on their entire income. It is absurd to describe anyone in the top group – barely one in seven of the tax-paying population – as part of middle Britain.
Dominic Lawson (Mail) says it is foolish to suppose Osborne can with a stroke of the pen do anything more this week to address what the Labour leader Ed Miliband constantly refers to as “the cost of living crisis”. Fortunately for the Chancellor, this undoubted problem is being addressed in the best possible way: by very large retailers reducing the costs of their goods.
Roger Boyes (Times) Tough Western sanctions against Russia are now a certainty but there is still no agreement between the US and Europe about their ultimate aim.
Chrystia Freeland (FT) If Russian troops move past Crimea, we must be prepared to respond aggressively. Russia and its elites cannot be part of the world community and economy if their soldiers are invading a sovereign state.
Trevor Kavanagh (Sun) Benn’s death silenced one of this country’s most ardent advocates of British sovereignty – and the true voice of Old Labour. Along with Bob Crow, Benn saw the Common Market as a betrayal of British workers who had been sold down the river by a faceless elite.
David Aaronovitch (Times) Could a party made in Tony Benn’s image could ever hope to achieve anything other than oblivion. If you want to see what I think Tony Benn’s Britain would have become, go to Venezuela – but take your own toilet paper.
Chris Huhne (Guardian) Don’t cry for middle Britain. Just 15% of taxpayers earn enough to pay the 40% rate, and they do not pay the higher rate on their entire income. It is absurd to describe anyone in the top group – barely one in seven of the tax-paying population – as part of middle Britain.
Dominic Lawson (Mail) says it is foolish to suppose Osborne can with a stroke of the pen do anything more this week to address what the Labour leader Ed Miliband constantly refers to as “the cost of living crisis”. Fortunately for the Chancellor, this undoubted problem is being addressed in the best possible way: by very large retailers reducing the costs of their goods.
Roger Boyes (Times) Tough Western sanctions against Russia are now a certainty but there is still no agreement between the US and Europe about their ultimate aim.
Chrystia Freeland (FT) If Russian troops move past Crimea, we must be prepared to respond aggressively. Russia and its elites cannot be part of the world community and economy if their soldiers are invading a sovereign state.
Sunday 17 March, 2014
A straight split between the Malaysian airliner - with attention squarely focused on the pilot and all the nonsense theories put to one side - and showbiz. The world must have been looking rosy for Lewis Hamilton on the eve of the new F1 season last night, but at least he had Nicole to console him this morning.
The Mirror says that Ronnie Corbett is bowing out of television after spending some time in hospital with chest pains. His last public appearance was giving a eulogy at David Frost's memorial last week and his wife, Anne, said: "He won't be doing any more TV. He's 83. He won't be like Bruce Forsyth."
So it's goodnight from him. Here's a little reminder that, even without Ronnie Barker, he could still make us laugh.
The Mirror says that Ronnie Corbett is bowing out of television after spending some time in hospital with chest pains. His last public appearance was giving a eulogy at David Frost's memorial last week and his wife, Anne, said: "He won't be doing any more TV. He's 83. He won't be like Bruce Forsyth."
So it's goodnight from him. Here's a little reminder that, even without Ronnie Barker, he could still make us laugh.
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