It is the first student loan rise in eight years, the Metro reports, which it says means the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has made a “180-degree uni U-turn”. Previously he promised to abolish tuition fees, the paper says, but now his government is “putting them up 3.1%”. Sir Keir said he wanted to abolish tuition fees altogether when he was running for the leadership of the Labour Party in 2020, but he warned last year that Labour was “likely to move on” from the pledge.
“Now that’s what you call a U-turn!” declares the Daily Mail, also leading with the tuition fees rise. “Students face paying hundreds of pounds more a year after Sir Keir Starmer broke another promise,” it says. The main image on the front page is of The Queen’s Gambit star Anya Taylor-Joy and her husband Malcolm McRae. The actress was in a bedroom at their London mansion when it was raided by violent robbers, the paper says.
According to the Daily Star, the tuition fees move shows the new government is as “tin-eared” as its Tory predecessor. It is the “return of the clowns”, it says, over a circus caricature of the prime minister which it dubs “Sir Krusty”.
A call for a Labour U-turn on a different issue makes the front of the Daily Express which says it is launching a “crusade” against plans for a “farm tax”, which it describes as “spiteful”. There has been an outcry from many farmers following changes to inheritance tax for farms announced in the Budget. New Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch waves out of the paper’s main photo behind the headline “Dame Priti’s back for Kemi’s team”. Badenoch is expected to name Dame Priti Patel as her shadow foreign secretary.
Dame Priti also gets a mention on the Guardian, as do tuition fees, but it is Tuesday’s US presidential election which steals the page. Over a composite image of candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the paper says: “Harris or Trump: US faces its moment of reckoning.” The picture caption suggests it may be the closest result since 2000. Smiling down from the top left-hand corner of the page is a photo of another American: celebrated musician and producer Quincy Jones, who has died aged 91.
“America decides – as world holds its breath” says the i paper. Americans are “deeply divided”, it reports, after a “toxic campaign and attempted assassinations”.
The Daily Telegraph leads with advice for Trump from Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who tells the paper he should accept the result of the US election if he loses decisively to Harris. “Washington is braced for unrest,” the paper says. Back on this side of the Atlantic, it is Guy Fawkes Night and the paper’s cartoonist Matt features the man who tried to blow up Parliament in 1605 grappling with 21st Century “net zero rules”. “I’ve had to replace the gunpowder with a heat pump,” he says.
Both US candidates are all smiles on the front page of the Financial Times which says opinion polls are showing a “dead heat”. The tuition fees boost for England’s “cash-strapped universities” also gets a mention on the page.
The universities fees rise also lead the front page of the Times, which reports that vice-chancellors’ pay packages are “under scrutiny”. And the Prince of Wales makes an appearance on the page, clearly having fun on a rugby field in Cape Town as he is photographed being tackled by some schoolboys.
Strictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden will not be returning to the series this year after she began “feeling unwell” during the main show two Saturdays ago, a spokesperson for the BBC show has announced. The story makes the main headline on the Daily Mirror which says: “My broken heart: Shattered dancer forced out of show by injury.”
Another story from the world of entertainment leads the Sun which reports that the Gallagher brothers will only be paid after their much-awaited Oasis reunion tour actually starts because of fears the “feuding pair” may fall out.
