Saturday’s front pages lead on Labour’s landslide victory as Sir Keir Starmer promises to build a “government of service” after becoming the UK’s first Labour prime minister since 2010. Most pages are awash with images of a smiling Sir Keir outside No 10.
Quoting his first speech as prime minister, the headline in the Times is: “The work of change begins”.
The Daily Mirror says the “morning’s drizzle didn’t dampen people’s spirits, such was the sense of relief and euphoria on Downing Street”.
But the Daily Mail strikes a different tone. It says: “Now he has to deliver”, after Sir Keir won what it calls a “loveless landslide”.
According to the Financial Times, the new prime minister knows that public support for Labour is “shallow”, but his “avowedly pro-business agenda appears to have paid off” already, with housebuilding companies making gains on the stock market.
The Sun says the government will “declare Britain open for business with a bonfire of planning regulations and a global investment drive”.
The i newspaper reports that the government will also set out its plans to nationalise the rail network.
While the Daily Telegraph suggests that Sir Keir’s priority in his first week of government will be tackling illegal migration, although sources tell the paper that he has “killed off” the Rwanda asylum scheme.
Also in the Telegraph, a Conservative insider claims Rishi Sunak “just didn’t have the instinct” for campaigning, as the paper reports on what it calls “the blame game” over the Tories’ election defeat.
The Daily Mail likens it more to a civil war, as one former cabinet minister tells the paper the Conservatives “were left vulnerable by a Boris-shaped hole in their defences, through which Reform was able to stroll unchallenged”. In his column in the paper, Boris Johnson sets out a 10-point plan on how the Tories can return to government as soon as possible, after what he calls “the atomic bomb that has detonated over the British political landscape”.
But the Tories will need to find a new leader first and according to the Daily Mirror the former home secretary, Suella Braverman, has already fired the starting pistol in a leadership race.
The Guardian names the former business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, as another “near-certain contender”. It claims her run “would most likely be characterised by her apparent ability to turn the most innocuous exchange into an argument”.
The Times adds James Cleverly, Dame Priti Patel, Victoria Atkins and Tom Tugendhat to the list of Tories said to be weighing up a leadership run, while the Sun says the former immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, could launch his bid on the Sunday morning political shows.
But, whoever is running, one moderate Tory warns the Financial Times that “the leadership contest will be dominated by one question: how do you beat Reform?”.
Reflecting on what it calls the SNP’s “hammering at the polls”, the Scotsman says John Swinney has been “forced into rethinking” his party’s approach to independence. The paper says he will have to “steer the Scottish National Party in a new direction, with a much-reduced crew”.
The National claims the result presents “an opportunity for a new start”. It recommends the SNP refreshes the arguments for a new generation of independence voters.
And, the front page of the Daily Express praises Rishi Sunak for displaying “warmth, generosity of spirit and true graciousness” as he stepped down, while also acknowledging that his successor is “undoubtedly decent and sincere”.
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