Newspaper headlines: Budget to pledge billions 'to beat coronavirus' By BBC News

Staff Published duration 11 March

image copyright Getty Images image caption Rishi Sunak replaced Sajid Javid as chancellor last month

For many of the newspapers, the coronavirus outbreak presents the chancellor with a very different background to the one he expected for his first Budget.

In the Daily Mail's words, this was to be the Budget which marked the end of austerity, launching a comprehensive infrastructure programme, levelling up the regions and revitalising public services.

While those things are still vital - the paper goes on - the over-riding imperative for now is to beat the coronavirus.

The Huffpost UK website says emergency funds to help cope with the contagion are set to form the central plank of the Budget.

As the i newspaper puts it, Rishi Sunak has a simple task - break glass, retrieve emergency measures. For the Daily Telegraph, this is an emergency - and requires an emergency response.

In the Sun's view, the chancellor's priority must be to mitigate the effects of the illness by preventing firms going bust and the self-employed suffering hardships while off sick. It also calls for payment holidays, a VAT cut - whatever it takes, the paper says.

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There are many pictures of deserted streets and tourist attractions in Italy - and of people keeping a safe distance from each other as they queue outside a Post Office in Rome. The Daily Mail asks - could this be Britain in weeks?

The Times says the decision of whether and when to introduce such measures is inevitably one of political judgement - and where the balance is to be struck between the economic disruption of lockdown and the human cost in terms of increased deaths.

The paper thinks the choices that Boris Johnson makes in the coming days will be critical.

The Guardian reports that a former British army sergeant whose two sons are England rugby internationals is stuck in Fiji, prevented by immigration rules from returning to the UK to rejoin his wife as she undergoes cancer treatment.

It says Ilaitia Cokanasiga spent almost 14 years in the armed forces and served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. He tells the paper: "I feel betrayed after what I did for the army and the country."

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The Sun leads with a claim that Prince Harry has been duped by two Russian pranksters who made hoax calls pretending to be the climate change campaigner, Greta Thunberg, and her father.

According to the paper, the hoaxers had two conversations with the Duke of Sussex, in which he spoke openly about the decision to step down from royal duties and the tension surrounding it.

He's quoted as saying: "This decision certainly wasn't the easy one, but it was the right decision for our family, the right decision to be able to protect my son."