Today’s news summary – Paper Talk
Paper Talk: Met Police probe new Russell Brand allegations
Many of Tuesday’s front pages carry the news that the Met Police has confirmed it is investigating new allegations of sexual offences following media reports about Russell Brand.
The continued speculation over HS2 also makes several papers.
Russell Brand allegations
The Sun says the force has received “a number of non-recent allegations”. The Metro carries a picture of Brand taken from a video he posted online on Monday denying the allegations. The paper describes the video as a “rant” in which Brand “alleged a government plot to stop him speaking on social media”. The Daily Mirror says that the latest allegations come from “across the UK”, though notes that no arrests have been made.
HS2 future
The Times reports “PM alarmed by runway cost of HS2” and quotes an official saying executives involved in the high-speed railway project have acted like “kids with the golden credit card”. Rishi Sunak is set to delay a decision on how much of the line should go ahead until the Autumn Statement in November.
The FT carries a warning to the prime minister against cutting the link between Birmingham and Manchester. Birmingham City FC’s new owners wrote to the PM saying the HS2 was a factor in their decision to invest in the club and scaling it back would damage trust in Britain.
Green U-turn puts Labour ahead in the polls
The Sun claims the PM’s decision to delay the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2035 has narrowed Labour’s lead by eight points.
But polling expert Sir John Curtice draws a different analysis. Writing in the i newspaper, he says the PM’s speech last week on the changes to environmental policy has “at most just tweaked the party popularity dial”. He says that four polls conducted afterwards have Labour’s lead at 17 points.
Suella Braverman speech
Braverman latest migrant reform In what the Daily Mail bills as a “hard-hitting speech”, Home Secretary Suella Braverman is expected to say that Channel migrants should no longer be treated as refugees. According to the Daily Telegraph, she will suggest the UN Refugee Convention needs reform because the threshold for asylum claims has become too low. But writing in the Daily Express, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, warns against “returning to the old days in which countries pull up the drawbridge”.
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