UK News
Insights from the UK and beyond
Thursday’s front pages
 THE GUARDIAN: Recession alert as Brown fights back
Gordon Brown’s drive to recapture the political agenda with a programme of new laws to create “an opportunity-rich Britain” was badly shaken yesterday by King’s warning.
“The nice decade is behind us,” Mervyn King declared in funereal tones, warning that the economy was “travelling along a bumpy road” as he predicted rising prices would put a squeeze on take-home pay for millions of workers.
Full story here
FINANCIAL TIMES: No rate cuts before 2010
Britons should not expect another cut in interest rates for at least two years, the Bank of England indicated yesterday as it warned that inflation would rise far above its previous forecasts and persist at levels well above the government’s target until early 2010.
Story here
DAILY TELEGRAPH: Recession danger is real, says Bank governor
The British economy faces the real risk of falling into recession, the Governor of the Bank of England has admitted.
Wednesday’s front pages
The papers are nearly all agreed that Chancellor Alistair Darling’s 2.7 billion pound fix for the 10p tax row is the day’s main story.
“Darling seeks end to 10p tax backlash” reports the Financial Times, noting that the move will still leave 1.1 million poorer households worse off following the abolition of the lowest tax band in last year’s budget.
Tuesday’s front pages
The cost of living and falling house prices, school tests, knife crime and pictures from the Chinese earthquake feature in Tuesday’s headlines.Â
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Abolish Tests for Pupils at 11 and 14, Urge MPs
MPs who say pupils are being drilled to pass exams to inflate schools’ positions in league tables rather than being encouraged to learn, are calling for some tests to be scrapped, the paper says. Story here
Monday’s front pages
There were further potentially damaging revelations about Gordon Brown from within the Labour Party, claims about the rising cost of living, as well as coverage of Manchester United’s Premier League title win on Monday’s front pages.
DAILY EXPRESS: Family Tax Up 51 Percent
The tax burden has risen by 51 percent under Labour and the average family now pays a crippling 20,700 pounds a year, the paper says. Story here
Friday’s front pages
Abortion, Ant and Dec’s award – that wasn’t, and the confessions of the Austrian cellar man dominate the front pages of Friday’s papers.
THE INDEPENDENT: Abortion; the Battle Lines Are Drawn
The paper uses just three lines of text and three pictures for its main story about survival rates of premature babies and its significance in the abortion debate. Story here
Thursday’s front pages: anti-social behaviour
The latest initiative to tackle anti-social behaviour and an apparent loophole in airport security feature prominently on Thursday’s front pages, along with the Chelsea gun siege and the Austrian house of horrors.
The Guardian says Home Secretary Jacqui Smith  wants police to harass anti-social youths and make life as unpleasant for them as they do for their victims. Young thugs should be hounded and filmed. Story here
Tuesday’s front pages
The destruction and loss of life caused by the cyclone in Burma features on many of the broadsheet front pages, while Chelsea’s win, which keeps the title race going until the final day of the football season, is promoted in all the papers.
DAILY MAIL: Abortion: Fight to Save 2,500 Babies Every Year
MPs will begin a fight to cut the number of abortions by limiting a woman’s right to have a termination for social reasons, from the current 24 weeks to 20, the paper says. Story here
Were the media unfair to Madeleine McCann’s parents?
“This was no journalistic accident, but a sustained campaign of vitriol against a grief-stricken family.”
That’s the verdict of media commentator Roy Greenslade after the Daily Express and Daily Star apologised to Kate and Gerry McCann for suggesting they were involved in their daughter’s disappearance.
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