Newspaper headlines: Ex-Labour MPs' plea to vote Tory By BBC News

Staff Published duration 8 November 2019

Many newspapers highlight the comments of two former Labour MPs who have made outspoken attacks on the Labour leader.

"Corbyn in Crisis" is the headline in the Daily Mail after both Ian Austin and John Woodcock said Mr Corbyn was not fit to be prime minister.

The Daily Telegraph describes it as "an extraordinary intervention" and pictures the two rebels in front of a billboard that calls Mr Corbyn a "disgrace" to his party and the country.

The paper says their comments "laid bare" the deep divisions in Labour on Brexit and anti-Semitism, and fuelled continued speculation that other Labour moderates could quit the party.

image copyright PA Media image caption Labour voters should support Boris Johnson, former Labour MP Ian Austin said

The former press secretary to Harold Wilson tells the paper "political pygmies" have destroyed the party he loves.

The Labour and Conservative election promises to boost the economy get plenty of coverage.

The i newspaper has the headline "spend, spend, spend" - the phrase used by the pools winner Viv Nicholson in 1961.

The Guardian calls it a "public spending bidding war" that would see borrowing return to levels of the 1970s.

The Financial Times says Sajid Javid has "ripped up" the government's rules to allow a new wave of investment.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail is scathing about Labour's plans, with its city editor Alex Brummer calling them "financial suicide".

image copyright EPA/Getty Images image caption John McDonnell and Sajid Javid set out their spending plans on Thursday

The paper's front page shows a frail 88-year-old woman who it says spent six hours on a hospital trolley.

It describes her as "another victim of heartless Tory cuts". The paper's editorial says it is a "shocking portrayal of the true state of the health service", and it blames a Tory administration, which it says, has starved the NHS of funds.

Remain electoral pact

There's also reaction to the electoral pact agreed by the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Greens not to stand against each other in 60 seats.

The Guardian's editorial argues the arrangement is a sign of a failing electoral system - while the Telegraph reports that the Conservatives want the Electoral Commission to investigate the pact.

Historians are going into battle over the term "Anglo-Saxon" according to the Times. It reports that some academics want to ban its use because of an association with "white supremacy".

It is generally used to describe groups from across the North Sea - including Angles and Saxons - who settled in Britain.

But a medieval specialist Mary Rambaran-Olm argues it only gained common usage much later "as a means of connecting white people to their supposed origins".

The Times says her view is gaining scholarly support, but the paper's editorial agrees with the historian Tom Holland who calls the idea of banning the term "as mad as a bag of ferrets".

Several papers including the Sun carry a report about "boozy Brits" drinking the equivalent of 108 bottles of wine a year.

The figures come from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and compare with an average of 99 bottles a year in other countries.

According to the Sun's report, the biggest culprits are people born in the 1950s, 60s and 70s who share a bottle of wine over dinner most nights.

The Daily Mail says that alcohol consumption in the UK is actually falling, though we still drink more than Australia, the US, Spain and Italy.

And the Times explains how the actor James Dean is to appear in a new film about the Vietnam war -more than 60 years after his death in a car crash.

A deal has been struck with the family of the Hollywood icon to recreate his image using archive film and CGI technology.

The resulting "avatar" will appear with real co-stars, and another actor will provide the voice.