Newspaper headlines: Brexit 'boost' and Labour fightback

By Trevor Timpson
BBC News

Ignoring the fact that polls taken ahead of last year's general election failed to predict the result, most papers agree that recent opinion polls are encouraging for those wanting Britain to vote to leave the EU on 23 June.

The words "boost" and "surge" recur in articles on the latest polling, while the Remain camp is said to be in "blind panic" (in the Guardian) and "meltdown" (Daily Mail).

But Sir Lynton Crosby, the Tories' election strategist before last year's election victory, says in the Daily Telegraph that with little more than a week left before polling day, "it remains to be seen" if the pay-off from the Brexiteers' messaging and campaign tactics will come in time.

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Sir Lynton Crosby says in the Telegraph that the Leave camp's campaigning is starting to pay off.

There is wide agreement that among arguments for Brexit the desire to curb immigration is playing strongly with electors. The Daily Express seizes on figures showing that millions of immigrants have acquired EU passports, and therefore the right to enter Britain, in the last seven years.

The figures gave "yet more ammunition", says the paper, to Leave campaigners who say they provide proof that "Britain cannot control its borders unless we quit the EU".

The Guardian quotes a pro-EU Labour MP as saying the feedback from constituents has been "alarming" with the argument that Brexit would enable Britain to control its borders was "most noticeable".

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Cynthia Erivo with her Tony award

Theatre star

  • British actress Cynthia Erivo, who went to New York after complaining of a lack of roles for black women, has won a Tory award for her Broadway debut.

  • Ms Erivo, from Stockwell in south London, took the Best Actress award for her role in The Color Purple. She praised her mother who brought her up single-handed for her hard work and "the fire in her belly", says the Daily Mail.

  • A profile of Ms Erivo in the i says "the critics adore her; she was described as "incandescent" by the New York Times.

  • Accepting her award she praised fellow cast members for "kissing me on the forehead when you know I just need some love," the Times says.

  • This year's awards were praised, the Telegraph reports, after the four main prizes for acting in a musical went to black performers for the first time.

Not everyone is convinced by that argument. In the same paper Polly Toynbee writes that two years after a Brexit its supporters would "see no change, same migrants, same powerlessness" and be vulnerable to dangerous demagogues.

The papers are equivocal about the effort led by Gordon Brown to "boost Labour's flagging Remain campaign" as the Daily Mirror puts it.

The Times highlights a difference of views between ex-PM Mr Brown - who appeared to downplay the effects of EU migration on public services, saying illegal immigration was the main problem - and his former close associate Ed Balls. "We need to press Europe to restore proper borders and put new controls on economic migration, the former shadow chancellor is quoted as saying.

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With England fans, and perhaps Wales supporters too, facing the possibility of fresh battles with Russian fans in Lille this week, and the threat of disqualification from Euro 2016 for England if there is more violence, there is much criticism for the French authorities.

The Daily Star is among those praising FA chairman Greg Dyke, who it says voiced his anger that England followers were "lumped in with the Russian thugs who attacked them" under the disqualification threat.

The Russians "swept away" flimsy barriers when they launched attacks in the Marseille stadium, says the paper.

Mr Dyke "refused to accept equal responsibility" for the scenes, says the Daily Mail, and is urging a better security strategy when the fans come into contact in Lille.

Eye-catching headlines

The Daily Mirror says "bungling" French police have failed to catch any of the 150 hard-core Russian hooligans said to have been at the heart of recent clashes.

The papers continue their coverage of the massacre carried out by a gunman in the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, with several picture galleries and collections of profiles of the victims, and photographs of vigils and tributes around the world.

According to an account carried in several papers, the killer "laughed frantically" as he unleashed volleys of shots in the club, killing 49 people.

The Times has a report of how a severely-wounded barman from the club was rescued by a man sheltering behind a car as he staggered from the club. The rescuer bound wounds in both his arms with their two shirts, and pressed his hand against a bleeding wound in his back as he hustled him to safety.

Grains of truth

  • Wholemeal bread and small extra helpings of wholewheat pasta or brown rice can help you live longer, says the Daily Mail.

  • Also reporting on research combining at Harvard university combining studies of 786,000 people, the Telegraph says a large bowl of porridge each day could protect against death from cancer.

  • The Daily Express quotes UK experts as saying "eating more whole grains is a simple change we can make to improve our diet and help lower our risk of disease."

The effect of the event on the US presidential campaign is widely covered.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton warned that "We cannot demonise, demagogue and declare war on an entire religion," reports the i.

Her Republican opponent Donald Trump does not agree, and most of the papers report his call for more surveillance of Muslims and mosques, and for a ban on migrants from areas with "a proven history of terrorism" in the wake of the Orlando killings.

Broadcaster Rachel Shabi and the Associate Editor of the Spectator, Toby Young, join the BBC News Channel to review Tuesday's front pages.

The Mail and other papers quote him as saying Mrs Clinton "wants to allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country".

The Financial Times says Mr Trump used attacks on Muslims in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination despite warnings that this would harm his candidacy.

In the event he trounced "more calibrated" rivals and now "appears to have calculated the same approach will work against Mrs Clinton," the paper says.

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