Today’s news summary – Paper Talk
Thursday’s front pages lead with a few different stories, some papers lead with the latest developments in the industrial action that has caused chaos for Britain, and other papers lead with the news that the virus that causes polio has been discovered in the UK.
Several papers feature a picture of the newly unveiled statue marking Windrush Day at Waterloo station – and a speech made by Prince William. A number of front pages splash on Rishi Sunak defending a 10 per cent pension rise.
The second rail strike of the week has officially begun and the Daily Mail focuses its anger on what it calls the “risible, archaic working practises that plague the railways.”
The Times reports on a 7 per cent pay rise that’s been agreed for Merseyrail staff. The head of the TSSA union says it shows the unions re “in no way a block” to ending the current industrial action. However, an industry expert says Merseyside rail can’t be compared to other rail operators because it’s not “propped up by the taxpayer” in the way that they are.
For Matt – the cartoonist at the Daily Telegraph – he looks at the strike and one of the factors fuelling it: the surge in the rate of inflation. The cartoon shows a disgruntled traveller waiting on a platform being told by rail staff “while you’ve been waiting for your train, prices have gone up. You owe another £4.87 for your ticket.”
The left-leaning Daily Mirror unsurprisingly takes a different approach. The front page splashes on what it calls the “fat cat bosses” at firms facing strikes over pay. It says these include the chief executive of Network Rail, British Airways and Royal Mail.
The paper compares their pay to the average amount received by other staff. It states that workers “rightly ask why their bosses are entitled to lavish pay, but they are denied extra money to help with the cost of living crisis.”
The Guardian leads on the strikes too. The paper says Wednesday’s talks broke down in “acrimony” and passengers have been advised to travel only if necessary – fewer than one in five trains are expected to run on Thursday.
The discovery of the polio virus in sewage samples in London makes the lead for the i – and a number of other papers. In its opinion piece, the paper same some parents will have decided not to vaccinate their children against a disease “that feels as anachronistic as nationwide strikes and double-digit inflation.” But concludes that “things we believed were consigned to history can come back to bite us.”
