A number of papers lead with the arrest of a man after suspected shotgun cartridges were thrown into the grounds of Buckingham Palace on Tuesday evening. The Sun says police carried out a controlled explosion at the scene and that it is not thought the King and Queen Consort were at the palace at the time.
The Daily Mail says the man was tackled by armed royal protection officers and that officials were treating the incident as a mental health episode, not an attempted terrorist attack.
The area around the Queen Victoria monument had to be evacuated so police could carry out the controlled explosion, according to the Daily Mirror. The paper adds that the incident comes as security services prepare to oversee their “biggest operations in 70 years” at the King’s coronation on Saturday.
The Daily Express carries a picture of the aftermath of the incident on its front page. Multiple police vehicles and personnel can be seen near a line of cones apparently marking a police cordon.
New anti-protest laws have been “rushed in” ahead of the coronation, according to the Guardian. The papers says that, from Tuesday, protesters who block roads, airports or railways could be imprisoned for 12 months, while anyone locking themselves to objects or buildings faces six months in jail and an unlimited fine. It adds that the Home Office’s police powers unit has written to anti-monarchy campaign group Republic to advise it of the changes.
The i says former civil servant Sue Gray is “refusing to help” an inquiry into whether she breached rules by talking to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer about becoming his chief of staff while stile working at the Cabinet Office. Ms Gray headed a report into the Partygate scandal and later worked on a team that advised a Commons investigation into the issue, but allies tell the paper she never advised the investigation herself.
The Times leads with government plans to introduce a ban on unsolicited calls for all financial products and says the measure is intended to protect older people in particular from the most common scams. It adds that a new National Fraud Squad, made up of 500 specialist investigators, will be set up to help tackle low prosecution rates.
Artificial intelligence has claimed its first scalp, according to the Financial Times. It says shares in the education sector fell sharply on Tuesday after US company Chegg, which provides online study guides, said that a “significant spike in student interest” in AI tool ChatGPT was harming its customer growth. The paper says it marks “one of the first instances of a company acknowledging a hit to its finances as a direct result of advances” in the technology.
The Metro leads with the trial of Lucy Letby, who stands accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill 10 others while working as a nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital. The paper says Ms Letby, who denies all 22 charges against her, told a court she was sickened by the allegations and that she had written “I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough” on a Post-It note because she had felt her “mistakes” had contributed to the babies’ deaths.
And the Daily Star says the King has been accused of “hiding his sausage fingers” in official portraits released ahead of his coronation. The page features a picture of the King and Queen in which the King can be seen with his fingers resting inside the pocket of his suit jacket.
A number of papers lead with the arrest of a man after suspected shotgun cartridges were thrown into the grounds of Buckingham Palace on Tuesday evening.
The Daily Mail reports that, following the incident, “crowds of tourists were forced behind a cordon before specialists arrived to perform a controlled explosion”. The Mirror says the Palace was put in lockdown, calling the episode a “Coronation security scare”.
The Guardian says new anti-protest laws have been “rushed in” ahead of the coronation. The papers says that, from Tuesday, protesters who block roads, airports or railways could be imprisoned for 12 months, while anyone locking themselves to objects or buildings faces six months in jail and an unlimited fine. It adds that the Home Office’s police powers unit has written to anti-monarchy campaign group Republic to advise it of the changes.
According to the Times, the government is planning to introduce a ban on cold calling for all financial products. The aim is to prevent fraud, which it says is costing £7bn a year in the UK. The plans are part of a new anti-fraud strategy, to be announced on Wednesday, which the Daily Telegraph says will also include the use of spies to track down people who conduct scams via text. Writing for the paper, Home Secretary Suella Braverman says: “We have a bold solution that protects our citizens and will stop fraudsters in their tracks.”
The Guardian says extra training is being given to young recruits in two out of the UK’s big four accountancy firms. It follows concern at the firms that people who completed large amounts of their education remotely during the Covid lockdowns struggled with communication and teamwork tasks. Deloitte and PriceWaterhouseCoopers are offering newer recruits training on skills such as giving face-to-face presentations and participating in in-person meetings.
Image source, PA Media
Former Chancellor George Osborne has suggested smoking should be banned
Former Chancellor George Osborne tells the Times smoking should be banned and that the government’s sugar tax on soft drinks should be extended to cover fruit juice. He’s been speaking to the paper’s health commission, which is considering the future of health and social care in England, and compared his ideas to the smoking ban in public places and the safety measures in cars. He said. “No one now would reintroduce smoking in pubs and no one would now say you shouldn’t wear a seatbelt.”
Ahead of the coronation, the Daily Mirror asks whether Charles is destined to be “the last king of the Commonwealth”. It prints arguments from republican leaders around the world about why there should be a change – with the view from Australia being that “time moves on, countries evolve”, while the argument from Grenada is that this is the chance to cut ties once and for all.
The Daily Telegraph predicts that, “true to form”, the weather gods will show no respect for the big day. It says it looks as if rain will fall on the parade. But the Guardian speaks to royalists already camped on the Mall. One man from south London tells the paper: “There’s nothing more special than the coronation.”
