A range of stories make Friday’s front pages including the Times which splashes on comments from a former Conservative justice secretary, David Gauke, about sending convicts to open prisons to ease crowding. Gauke, who is reviewing sentencing policy for the new Labour government, says he is taking lessons from Spain, where reforms have cut prison numbers and reoffending. At the top of the Times, Bruno Fernandes looks dejected after being sent off for Manchester United in their 2-0 Boxing Day defeat away to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Friday’s Financial Times leads with US and regional officials saying Russian anti-aircraft fire could have caused an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane to crash in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day. The lead story is accompanied by an image of a sniffer dog and emergency specialists investigating near the crash site close to Aktau. Elsewhere on the front page, Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch trade claims of fake party membership figures.
The story of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch exchanging political accusations is the lead story in the i newspaper. The paper says the two were “engaged in an extraordinary political fight over party membership numbers” on Boxing Day.
Nigel Farage poses in a picture on the front of the Daily Telegraph clutching a pint next to some horses as the Reform leader joined the Boxing Day hunt in Elham, Kent. The Telegraph also leads with the clash between Farage and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch – with claims an online membership tracker is “coded to tick up automatically” as number surpasses last known Tory total.
The Daily Express brands the campaign group Just Stop Oil “hypocrites” as it claims £20 T-shirts have been shipped 4,000 miles. In response, Just Stop Oil told the Express that a “war-style mobilisation” was needed “to end fossil fuel use by 2030, so all T-shirts can be made, shipped and sold without risking our traditions, our heritage and our hard-fought rights”.
“Horror at Christmas” is the headline on the Daily Mirror above a photo of police cars and tape outside the scene of a double stabbing in Milton Keynes. Two women were killed while another man and a teenager were seriously injured in the incident, the paper says. In other news, the paper reflects on Helen Worth’s final scenes in Coronation Street after her finale episode over Christmas.
The Daily Mail features on its front page an image of James Corden and Ruth Jones as Gavin and Stacey topped the Christmas Day TV ratings. The finale attracted an average of 12.3 million TV viewers – the largest Christmas Day audience in more than a decade – and even “trumped the King”, the paper says.
Dominating the front page of the Guardian is a a woman braving freezing conditions in the Firth of Clyde as people take part in a Boxing Day charity swim that raises funds for Ayrshire Cancer Support. The paper leads with a story on the NHS being “at risk of paralysis while waiting for Wes Streeting’s reforms”, according to the thinktank Institute for Public Policy Research.
Finally, the Daily Star carries a weather warning as its lead story, reporting that US hurricanes are to send “wild storms and chilling temperatures” to the UK at the start of 2025.
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