Newspaper headlines: Blair 'warned Trump' over UK spying By BBC News

Staff Published duration 4 January 2018

Many headlines focus on the bitter row between President Trump and his former adviser, Steve Bannon.

For the New York Times , Donald Trump's denunciation of Mr Bannon was a "statement brimming with anger and resentment."

The paper says Mr Trump had previously been dissuaded from attacking his former aide but Mr Bannon accusing his son of treason "crossed the line."

The website Politico has been studying reaction to the row , and concludes that in "round one of Trump versus Bannon" on conservative media, the president is "pummelling his former advisor".

image copyright Getty Images image caption Donald Trump with Steve Bannon in January 2017

The Washington Post considers how seriously we should take the book in which Mr Bannon's criticisms were made. It points out that the author, Michael Wolff, is a "provocateur and media polemicist", who has previously been accused of not just re-creating scenes in his books, but of "creating them wholesale."

The Spectator agrees. Mr Wolff, it says, has "a genius for sensationalism" and has "just pulled off a PR masterstroke." It concludes: "His book should sell like crazy now."

They include a claim that Tony Blair shared a "juicy rumour" with Mr Trump's aides that British intelligence may have spied on them during the presidential election. Mr Blair, it was suggested, was perhaps "seeking to prove his usefulness" to the new White House.

Tony Blair's office dismisses the claims as a fabrication.

The ongoing problems for the NHS are the focus of a number of editorials.

The paper says that no amount of planning can get around the "hard fact" that there is a shortage of capacity in terms of both beds and staff.

image copyright Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph offers a different perspective . The only remedy for the health service, its leader column suggests, is a transformed NHS. The paper says this "perpetual crisis" won't go away until the "nettle of reform" is grasped.

The Sun disagrees . The NHS's funding is already "mind-boggling", it argues, the truth is that the pressure on this "archaic system" is just too great.

'Intense lobbying'

It says, in future, they will be paid in return for improving public access to the countryside.

It says the Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, is to say that after Brexit farmers will only receive public money for public good.

The Times points out that, before that overhaul comes into effect, the government has been forced into a U-turn over how long farmers are guaranteed to receive the current level of subsidy.

After "intense lobbying" from farming unions, they will now get it until 2024, two years longer than was pledged in the Tories' manifesto.

The Guardian reports plans for a £130m national centre for film and television on London's South Bank have been abandoned - in a decision partly blamed on the uncertainty caused by Brexit.

The paper says the announcement effectively ends 10 years of exhaustive planning by the British Film Institute.

'Royal fail'

It says bosses at the Royal Mail have been "slammed" for commissioning a set of 15 stamps to commemorate the cult TV series, Game of Thrones - but have no such plans for marking Britain's departure from the EU.

image copyright Royal Mail

The paper lists some of the other special series commissioned since the EU referendum including on landscape gardens, windmills and the Mr Men cartoons. It also points out stamps were issued when the UK entered the EEC in 1973.