Image caption, The Times leads with the news that Just Stop Oil protesters have been given lengthy jail terms. Five activists, including the group’s co-founder Roger Hallam and 22-year-old Cressida Gethin, were jailed for between four and five years for conspiring to organise protests that blocked the M25 motorway in 2022. It quotes environmental campaigners calling the sentences a “gross miscarriage of justice”. The Times also has a headline saying that US President Joe Biden’s “old boss” Barack Obama wants him to reconsider whether to continue his run to become president. Image caption, The Guardian also leads with Just Stop Oil, pointing out that the jail terms are possibly the longest sentences ever given in the UK for non-violent protest. The paper also features a photo of UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shaking hands, noting that the Ukrainian president is due to meet the new UK cabinet on Friday.Image caption, Extinction Rebellion co-founder Roger Hallam’s picture takes up a large section of the Daily Telegraph’s front page. “‘Fanatical’ XR founder jailed for five years”, reads the paper’s headline. Hallam said in a statement during the trial that there was “an obligation” to halt “the unimaginable horrors of climate and social collapse”. The paper also reports that some Democrats believe President Biden could withdraw from the presidential race as soon as this weekend. Image caption, The Daily Mail claims a judge who handed the Just Stop Oil activists hefty jail sentences “spoke for all of us”. But TV presenter and conservationist Chris Packham has criticised the sentencings, calling the law under which they were convicted a “reckless and irresponsible erosion of our human rights”.Image caption, “Time is up” is the message Mr Obama is said to have given Mr Biden, according to the i. Its lead story says workers will get the right to ignore their emails, texts and phone calls in the evening, under new rules outlined by the new Labour government. The rules are not mandatory but part of a “new code of practice for workplaces”, it says. Image caption, Top Democrat Nancy Pelosi is also said to have raised doubts about President Biden’s chances of winning the White House race, reports the Financial Times. It adds that Mr Obama has told allies Mr Biden’s chance of beating Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump later this year have greatly diminished. Image caption, “They failed us all,” is the Daily Mirror’s headline, in reference to Thursday’s Covid inquiry findings. It says the report “blasted Boris Johnson’s handling of the crisis” and quotes Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK saying “the last government failed its citizens”. The former prime minister has previously apologised to victims for the “pain and the loss and the suffering” people experienced during the pandemic, but maintained that ministers did their “level best” to respond to the virus in difficult circumstances.Image caption, The Metro leads with a “damning report” that says Andrew Malkinson, a man who was jailed for 17 years for a crime he did not commit, could have been exonerated a decade earlier.Image caption, The Daily Express hails “progress” after a British vessel reportedly took migrants back to France for the first time “in a new sign of improving co-operation over the small boats crisis”. It also asks “is it all over for Joe?” as speculation grows over whether he will step down from the presidential race.Image caption, “Scorchio!” the Daily Star says, as a wave of hot weather hits the UK on Friday.
There is widespread coverage of the findings of the first report of the Covid public inquiry in today’s papers.
“They failed us all” says the headline of the Daily Mirror, next to a photo of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, wearing a facemask. The Guardian quotes from the report, which says UK Covid planning was “beset by fatal flaws”. The Sun says the UK’s Covid flaws left 235,000 to die. But it says the only real fault of successive health secretaries was accepting the complacent assurances of health experts advising them.
The Times says the report lays bare “a culpable lack of imagination among politicians and scientists alike… to consider the full range of potentially disastrous scenarios when there was still time to do something about it.” It must never happen again, the paper says. The Daily Express agrees and says “next time, we must be ready”.
The i, Financial Times and Daily Telegraph all report on attempts by Democrats to get US President Joe Biden to end his campaign for re-election. The Telegraph reports Mr Biden may stand down at the weekend. It quotes a friend of the president, who says: “I pray he does the right thing. He’s headed that way”.
The i’s editorial says Mr Biden’s aides “have been hiding growing concerns about his fitness for the campaign, and eventually for the highest office”. The Financial Times says Democratic grandees are pushing behind the scenes, but says Mr Biden’s campaign team are staunchly defending him, insisting he is staying in the race.
“Judge who spoke for all of us on Eco-Fanatics” reads the headline on the front page of the Daily Mail, beneath photos of the five environmental protesters, jailed for up to five years on Thursday for blocking the M25 over four days. But there’s criticism of the sentences in The Times. The paper quotes the entrepreneur, Dale Vince, who says the jail terms – the longest ever for non-violent demonstrations – “can’t be right”, given the overcrowding in prisons. To the Guardian’s columnist George Monbiot, “these are sentences of the kind you might expect in Russia or Egypt”.
Image caption, The sketch writers focus on Sir Ed Davey’s appearance at the Post Office inquiry on Thursday
The sketch writers focus on Sir Ed Davey’s appearance at the Post Office Horizon inquiry. In the Daily Mail, Quentin Letts said it was fortunate that the appearance happened after the general election. Had Thursday’s “bottom-wriggler” of a session come before polling day, he says, the Lib Dems “might have gone down with their pants on fire”.
For John Crace in The Guardian, “this was, at times, a shifty Ed. At others, a bewildered Ed. An Ed who couldn’t believe what had happened to him.”
Tom Peck in The Times says Sir Ed’s eyes narrowed and his jaws clenched. “I have personally looked in those very same eyeballs, as their owner steadies himself to be shot 80ft in the air by a giant pendulum swing. I’ve seen them bank around a high corner at 68 miles an hour and turn into the only quadruple barrel roll section of rollercoaster anywhere in Europe. I only realise now that I’d never actually seen the man look nervous,” he says.
