‘Jenas shock’ and ‘Fury as dementia drug denied’

BBC

News that the BBC has sacked presenter Jermaine Jenas after acting on complaints makes most of Friday’s front pages and the main image in the Daily Telegraph is a portrait of the ex-footballer. The paper leads on the news that a new Alzheimer’s drug has been “blocked for use on NHS” because of the costs involved. Reflecting the other big news for many of the past 24 hours, the paper’s Matt cartoon show an overjoyed father leaping in the air to celebrate that his privately educated son has failed his GCSEs. His son is leaving school, he declares, so there will be no VAT to pay on fees under Labour.

“Sacked” yells the Daily Mirror as “Jermaine Jenas shock” dominates its front page. In other news, actress Martine McCutcheon says her husband Jack “has decided it’s best” they separate.

“Fury as dementia drug denied to patients on NHS” makes the lead on the Daily Mail. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is quoted as saying the benefits are “too small” to justify the “£30,000-a-year cost”.

“Why is it only rich get Alzheimer’s wonder drug?” the Daily Express demands to know as it leads on the NHS decision. Up to 70,000 people in England would otherwise be eligible, it says.

A photo of Jonathan and Judy Bloomer, who perished in the superyacht disaster off Sicily, dominates the front page of the Times. “Our only comfort is they are still together,” their family are quoted as saying. Another headline is a direction from a senior judge for courts not to “lock up criminals till next month” because of a lack of prison space. And Labour is under attack from “top academics” for “failing to protect freedom of speech” after the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, suspended “legislation that would have forced universities to defend free speech on campus”.

“Jab hope in fight against lung cancer” is the Metro lead. “World-first trials” have begun in Britain, the paper says. It has a photo of scientist Janusz Racz, diagnosed with the condition in May, who was the first to get the BMT116 jab at a University College London Hospitals clinic.

A health story of a different kind leads the Financial Times front page: “AstraZeneca threatens vaccine plant shift to US after Reeves weighs aid cut.” According to the paper’s sources, the new Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, wants to slash state aid for the flagship company’s Merseyside vaccine manufacturing plant from about £90m to £40m. That latter sum, incidentally, is the estimated value of the world’s “second-largest diamond”, found in Gaborone. A photo of the gem sparkles on the paper’s front page.

Trade unions are expecting more money for their members from Rachel Reeves, the i newspaper suggests on its front page. Union chiefs are “split over how to get best pay deals out of Chancellor”, the paper’s headline says. Meanwhile the UK is heading for higher fruit and veg prices unless the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, “delays EU checks”, the paper says.

Oh to be as pleased with your GCSE results as the two students at City of London academy in Southwark who light up the Guardian’s front page were. But concern over an “attainment gap” is the paper’s headline as exam results “return to pre-Covid levels”. Consistency may be back but there are “wide regional variations in results across England”, it writes. As for public sector union expectations over pay, Rachel Reeves rules out giving them a “blank cheque”. The paper also quotes Tory leadership candidate James Cleverly as saying Labour has been “played by its union paymasters”.

Storm Lilian, which is set to bring gales and heavy rain to parts of the UK on Friday, has generated a “chaos alert” in the Daily Star but the paper is already looking to a bright side later this month when a “28C heatwave” arrives.

PA Media

The ruling that the first drug to slow the progress of Alzheimer’s should not be available on the NHS in England is the main news in the Daily Telegraph. The paper reports that the organisation which made the decision did not take into account the costs of the disease to families and society. The Daily Mail says the ruling has caused “fury” while the headline in the Daily Express asks: “Why is it that only the rich can get the Alzheimer’s wonder drug?” The Daily Mirror describes the medication’s benefits as “sadly out of reach” for most sufferers. The i reports that NHS England has 27 other Alzheimer’s drugs in advanced trials which may be approved in the coming years.

The front page of the Times says magistrates in England and Wales have been directed to postpone the sentencing of offenders who are on bail and likely to be jailed, in an attempt to ease prison overcrowding. The paper says the ruling will affect hundreds, and possibly thousands, of offenders. It says some magistrates have expressed scepticism about the plan, believing it to be a “sticking plaster” for problems in the criminal justice system.

The Financial Times reports that the drug manufacturer, AstraZeneca, is threatening to move a vaccine manufacturing site from Merseyside to Philadelphia, because of the government’s plans to reduce state aid for the project. The paper says the Chancellor wants to cut the amount on offer from £90m to £40m. The Treasury said it was in positive discussions with AstraZeneca, while the company said it was committed to the project in Liverpool.

The Guardian claims Rachel Reeves has dropped a hint that she may change the way that debt is calculated in order to meet the government’s self-imposed fiscal rules. The paper quotes the chancellor saying that “the precise way to measure debt” will be set out in the Budget, and that it is “reasonable” to borrow to invest. Ms Reeves also told the paper there was no “blank cheque” for pay deals. The Sun’s editorial warns that further pay rises would fuel a “wage spiral destroying all hope” of growth, while the Mail says a poll suggests that voters think Sir Keir Starmer should have “squared up” to unions, rather than “appeasing them”.

The Daily Telegraph reports another stumble for the director Francis Ford Coppola’s new film Megalopolis, which he funded with more than $100m of his own money. A trailer for the film has been pulled after it emerged it included fake quotes. It cited negative reviews of some of the film-maker’s previous work, including The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, as a narrator says “genius is often misunderstood” — but the quotes couldn’t be found in the original reviews. The Guardian says one of those miquoted said “even if you don’t like critics, we hardly deserve to have words put into our mouths”.

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