Newspaper headlines: 'The end of smear tests' and new Speaker Hoyle By BBC News

Staff Published duration 5 November 2019

image copyright PA Media image caption Sir Lindsay Hoyle was elected Speaker on Monday

"The end of smear testing", declares the front page headline in the Daily Mirror which speaks of a "game-changing advance" in screening for cervical cancer.

The Daily Mail, which also leads on the story, says a simple urine test could allow women to test themselves for the disease in the privacy and comfort of their home, avoiding the ordeal of going to the doctors.

The Mail says the findings are crucial because cervical cancer screening rates have plunged to a 21-year low, with just seven in 10 women going for tests.

Meanwhile, the new Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, is pictured on many front pages, including the Guardian, which says he's promising to fulfil the role with "humour and quiet words".

The Financial Times draws a contrast with what it calls his predecessor John Bercow's "combative manner and antiquated oratory".

It says Sir Lindsay's election is likely to mark a return to a less flashy style.

The Sun points out that it took five hours to choose Mr Bercow's successor, leading the Guardian to complain that this House of Commons can even make a meal out of something so simple as the Speaker vote.

Quentin Letts in the Times says the voting was absurd: "glacial waits between each knockout round for new ballot papers to be printed, quite possibly by William Caxton on wooden blocks".

"Booze-up-in-a-brewery syndrome", Quentin Letts adds. "The cockpit of our elected politics incapable of running a slick secret ballot."

When the winner emerged, the Daily Mail's Henry Deedes says Sir Lindsay Hoyle's face was that of an honest farmer whose prize pig had just been judged Best in Show.

The Times leads on analysis claiming that Labour's aim to introduce a four-day working week would cost the taxpayer at least £17bn pounds a year because of the impact on the public sector wage bill.

It says research by think-tank, the Centre for Policy Studies, has found that reducing the hours of public sector employees, including doctors, teachers and police officers, would impose a significant burden on the Treasury because the workforce would have to expand.

A Labour spokeswoman tells the Times that the move to a 32-hour week would take place over a decade and would be funded by rising productivity.

The Guardian says Boris Johnson's opponents have accused him of a cover-up after No 10 refused to publish before the election what the paper describes as a "potentially incendiary report" on Russian infiltration of British politics, including the Conservative Party.

A day after the Brexit Party unveiled its election candidates, the Daily Telegraph's Matt cartoon shows a voter shutting the door in the face of one of them.

She tells him: "if you're from the Brexit Party, show me what leaving properly looks like".

Several papers, including the Daily Express, raise the prospect of the general election being hit by a postal strike in the run-up to polling day.

According to the Telegraph, the Business Secretary, Andrea Leadsom, has accused the Communication Workers Union of making a "politically calculated" threat to wreck the election by refusing to deliver millions of postal votes as part of a dispute about pay and bonuses.

image copyright Getty Images

The Guardian's reporter in Delhi, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, describes how thousands of women gathered in the waters of the city's Yamuna river yesterday to mark an ancient Hindu festival on the most polluted day in the Indian capital for three years.

It was, she says, a ceremony meant to bring good health and prosperity.

But instead the women had to immerse themselves in a putrid bubble bath of toxic waste while inhaling air thick with smog.

image copyright PA image caption Baby goods retailer Mothercare said on Monday that 2,500 jobs were at risk

The demise of Mothercare is widely reported.

The Daily Telegraph says the race is now on to protect thousands of staff and former employees from cuts to their pensions.

Sarah Vine in the Mail says that as a "reliable port in the storm of early motherhood" the retailer has a place in all our hearts - all the more tragic, she says, that the management have succeeded in destroying it to such an extent.

A postcode lottery?

Figures show that Birmingham is the place to live if you hope to get lucky on the National Lottery.

The Express reports that 5,500 Lotto millionaires have been made since the first draw 25 years ago - and England's second city comes out on top with 168.

Belfast is in second place with 133.

Meanwhile, anyone thinking of giving their child a drone this Christmas might like to take note of a report in the Telegraph.

It says aspiring drone pilots of all ages will have to pass an online multiple choice quiz to show they're capable of flying their device "safely and legally".

The Civil Aviation Authority has said anybody who fails to do the test will face a fine of up to £1,000.

Finally, it is of course Bonfire Night tonight, and with it come perennial warnings that people should not play with fireworks.

Such appeals often fall on deaf ears though, as highlighted on the front of the Sun which shows a man launching a rocket from his bottom.