Several papers are leading with news that a company linked to peer Baroness Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman has been ordered to pay £122m in damages after a judge ruled it had breached a government contract for the supply of personal protective equipment during the Covid pandemic. The Metro describes the couple’s reaction to the verdict as “Mone Mone Mone”.
“Cough up Covid £122m” the Sun demands. It also reports a call from Chancellor Rachel Reeves for Baroness Mone to “quit the House of Lords”.
“Strip her of the title” is the headline on the Daily Mirror, under a picture of the baroness.
“Baroness bra told: hand back our £122m” the Daily Mail declares. It notes she was ennobled by then-Prime Minister David Cameron in 2015.
“Pay back the money, Mr Mone,” says the Daily Star. It also has Health Secretary Wes Streeting comparing himself to an onion, making reference to the paper’s 2022 campaign questioning which would last longer, a lettuce or then-Prime Minister Liz Truss, in her job. Streeting told the paper he had “many layers”.
“Home Office in fresh push for back door into Apple user data” is the main headline on the Financial Times. The Home Office has made the second such order of the year to US-based Apple, according to sources speaking to the paper, which it says was compared to “Chinese state surveillance” by the Trump administration.
The Guardian reports on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s comments that the “golden ticket” of “resettlement and family union rights” of people granted asylum will not continue. It also features a tribute to the late conservationist Dame Jane Goodall.
“Refugees stripped of automatic right to have families join them in UK” is the i Paper’s leading story. “Downing Street says it is ‘unfair’ that under the current rules small boat migrants granted asylum enjoy greater rights than those arriving through legal routes,” the paper reports.
“Automatic rights for refugees to be scrapped” the Times reports. In a separate story, it says Britain “blew” £1bn “turning off turbines during high winds”.
A judge’s remarks at the sentencing of a gang of paedophiles in the north of England makes the headline of the Daily Express. It reports the judge as saying rape victims in Rochdale were “let down by those whose job it was to protect them”.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s plans to “rip up” the UK’s “flagship climate change law” leads the Daily Telegraph. “We want to leave a cleaner environment for our children, but not by bankrupting the country,” she is quoted as saying.
