The Star is one of a number of Thursday’s papers to pay tribute to singer Tina Turner, who died on Tuesday aged 83. The headline reads: “Simply the best”, a reference to arguably her most famous lyrics.
The Sun has a similar headline and says Turner enjoyed an “astonishing career spanning six decades” and died at her home in Switzerland after a long illness.
The Mirror’s headline also focuses on the lyrics and says Turner sold 100 million records after rising to fame in the 1960s and quotes Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger calling her an “enormously talented performer”.
Ministers are on a “collision course” with the Covid-19 public inquiry, according to the Times. The paper says the Cabinet Office is considering a legal challenge after the chair of the inquiry requested access to what the paper says are “hundreds of potentially embarrassing” WhatsApp messages exchanged between former prime minister Boris Johnson and 40 other people central to Britain’s handling of the pandemic, including current prime minister Rishi Sunak. It says officials fear handing the messages over would set a precedent that all government communications should eventually be made public and harm future decision-making.
The Guardian says Mr Sunak is facing calls to scrap Mr Johnson’s resignation honours list after the former PM was referred to police over fresh allegations of lockdown-breaking events during the pandemic. The paper says the list is “nearing approval and could be published within weeks” but that Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and even some Conservatives think the prime minister should step in and stop the honours from going ahead.
The Financial Times reports that gilt yields have hit levels not seen since last year’s mini-Budget. The yield on gilts is the interest paid by the UK government on its debt, so a rise in the yield can be read as a fall in investor confidence in the country’s economy. The paper quotes one analyst describing the market reaction to the figures as “an amber flag, if not a red flag” and predicting rates will have to rise “aggressively” in response.
Around 3.7m of the 5.2m people on out-of-work benefits have an exemption from having to look for work, meaning taxpayers face “bankrolling their benefits indefinitely”, according to the Telegraph. The paper says it follows a rise in claims of mental ill-health and joint pain over lockdown and that the cost to the state now stands between £22.5bn and £26.5bn.
The Daily Express leads with the news that Jaguar Land Rover is set to choose the UK as the location for a new electric car battery plant. The paper says it comes after a “bidding war” with Spain and is being seen as “the most significant investment in the car industry since Nissan set up a factory in Sunderland in 1986”.
The officer who led a disastrous Scotland Yard investigation into false VIP sex abuse allegations is to face an investigation for gross misconduct, the Mail reports. Steve Rodhouse, a former deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police who now serves as deputy head of the National Crime Agency, ran an operation that probed invented claims that MPs and generals abused and murdered children. The operation was largely based on claims made by Carl Beech, who was jailed in 2019 for making false allegations. The Mail says the development has “plunged Britain’s biggest police force into yet another crisis”.
And the Metro reports that an online influencer has pleaded guilty to waging a “terrifying stalking campaign” against England footballer Mason Mount. The paper says that model Orla Sloan, 22, changed her phone number 21 times so she could keep calling Mount after he asked her to stop texting him and blocked her number. Sloan also pleaded guilty to stalking Billy Gilmour and harassing Ben Chilwell, both teammates of Mount’s at Chelsea.
