Newspaper headlines: Field quits 'nasty' Labour and Grenfell fraud By BBC News

Staff Published duration 31 August 2018

image copyright PA image caption Frank Field has been a Labour MP for almost 40 years

The decision of veteran MP Frank Field to quit the Labour Party whip is widely reported in Friday's papers.

The Daily Telegraph is one of several to pick out a quote from his resignation letter that says Jeremy Corbyn's Labour "has become a force for anti-Semitism".

The Independent online says there are reports of a potential parliamentary breakaway, with MPs saying Mr Field's departure could trigger a "full-scale existential crisis for the Labour Party".

The Politics Home website highlights a challenge from the shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon for Mr Field to do the "right thing" and call a by-election.

Claims of a "new maternity deaths scandal" is the top story for the Daily Mail

The paper reports that an investigation by the Health Service Journal has found more than 60 babies and mothers are feared to have died, or been seriously harmed, at the Shrewsbury and Telford hospital Trust since 1998.

The trust's own review was originally looking at 23 suspicious incidents.

Unnamed experts are quoted by the Mail as saying it could be worse than the Morecambe Bay hospital trust in Cumbria, where 16 babies and three mothers died in 12 years.

There are multiple separate investigations into maternity care at the trust.

NHS Improvement has said it will examine any new cases and has promised to learn from any previous failings.

'Toxic rivalries'

Another hospital is under scrutiny on the front page of the Times

The paper reports that a coroner is considering fresh inquests over dozens of fatalities at a heart surgery unit in London.

A review of St George's hospital found that what it called "toxic rivalries" between surgeons had contributed to higher death rates than the national average.

The trust tells the paper it is implementing the findings of the review - but the Times editorial argues that an independent inquiry is needed and that "no hospital can be left to mark its own homework."

image copyright PA image caption A review was carried out into the heart surgery unit at St George's in London

The Financial Times leads on the currency crisis in Argentina, where interest rates have been hiked to 60% to try to halt the decline in value of the peso.

Argentina's Ambito Financiero described the trading scene in Buenos Aires as a "climate of maximum tension, bewilderment, and in some cases, scenes of panic" as the dollar continued to climb because of distrust over government policies.

Cronica reports that the dramatic rise of the dollar led to people having their photos taken in front of the record high on currency display boards.

Funeral parlour break-in

"I stole my mum-in-law's dead body", is the eye-catching headline in the Sun

It is one of several papers to tell the story of a man from Kent who broke into a funeral parlour which was going bust.

The paper explains he had been unable to contact the undertaker in Rochester and feared he would not be able to get the body to the planned service in time.

The man, who did not want to be named, said he still had not told his wife what he had done.

A bite to eat

And tastes are changing when it comes to sandwich fillings, according to a survey in the Daily Express

The 1960s favourites of jam or corned beef, along with the 1980s BLT, are now apparently being overtaken by fillings like pulled pork, hummus and falafel.