Newspaper headlines: 'Thumping' council tax rises and 'plot to thwart Brexit' By BBC News

Staff Published duration 8 February 2018

The story dominating many of the front pages is what the Daily Mail describes as the "thumping rise in council tax" the majority of local authorities are planning.

And it is not just council tax bills that are going up, the paper says as households will also have to pay more for services such as burials, parking permits, planning and meals on wheels.

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Even with the additional revenue, the Mail reports some local authorities are considering further cuts.

The figure comes from research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and suggests Surrey has the largest deficit reported by any of the 150 English local authorities.

It will alarm Downing Street, the Times suggests, as it is a solidly Conservative council.

'Bring down government'

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The article - co-written by Theresa May's former chief of staff, Nick Timothy - says Mr Soros is one of three senior figures linked to the Remain campaign group Best for Britain.

In a statement, Best for Britain, denies it is subverting democracy, as the paper alleges.

Several of the tabloids report the anger of James Bulger's family at the 40-month sentence given to Jon Venables for possessing child pornography.

The Daily Mail says James's father has launched a legal challenge to have Venables' new identity revealed, to protect other people from his potential future offending.

In its editorial, the Daily Mirror says its sympathy is with James' family but it draws attention to the risk of Venables being "hounded by vigilantes" and "disappearing off the police radar" if his new name is revealed.

'Candy floss hair'

Elsewhere, the Guardian reproduces a series of sketches , which range from studies of a cat, to a diagram of a skull, to a map of Tuscany.

They are some of the 550 drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci - owned by the Queen - which are to go on display around the country next year.

Collectively they represent, the paper says, perhaps the greatest work of art in the UK.

image copyright Royal Collection Trust/PA

The pictures, which are being loaned out to mark the 500th anniversary of D Vinci's death, are also extremely fragile, the Daily Telegraph points out.

They are so delicate that they're only permitted to go on show in the light at rare intervals.

Finally, providing something of a contrast to the sublime work of a Renaissance polymath, the other images to feature widely in the papers are somewhat blurry photos of Donald Trump's windswept hair.

The "famous mop", the Daily Mail says , was "like a child's candy floss snatched away by the wind".

The Daily Express reprints some of the less charitable descriptions of the president's hair such as likening it to "a bin lid of barbershop sweepings".