Newspaper headlines: Truss call for unity and 'bitter blow' for Putin

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By BBC News
Staff
Reuters

Kerch bridge in Crimea after Saturday's explosion

Several of Sunday's front pages feature large photos of the bridge between occupied Crimea and Russia, after Saturday's huge explosion. Clouds of black smoke are billowing from a burning freight train, and parts of the structure have collapsed into the sea.

The Observer thinks the attack is a "bitter blow" for Russian President Vladimir Putin, while the Sunday Times suggests it has boosted Ukraine's hopes of re-taking the occupied peninsula.

The Sunday Telegraph warns that Moscow will step up attacks on Ukraine in response. It quotes a Russian senator, Alexander Bashkin, describing the blast as "a declaration of war without rules". Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British Army, tells the paper there is a risk that President Putin "might go nuclear".

The cartoonist in the Sunday Times , Newman, pokes fun at the situation. A Russian general is seen standing next to one of the huge tables that Mr Putin sits at during meetings. "We need a new bridge to Crimea," he is saying. "Can we borrow your table?"

The front page of the Mail on Sunday focuses on what it calls the "feud" between Liz Truss and the former Conservative cabinet minister, Michael Gove. Writing in the paper, Nadine Dorries, who recently stepped down as culture secretary, says Mr Gove should remain "out in the cold" because of his rebellion against the government's tax plans.

The Mail's editorial takes a dim view of the continuing divisions within the party. "How many times are we going to have to offer this advice?" it asks. "If you fight among yourselves, the voters will believe that you are not fit for government".

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The Sun on Sunday is equally frustrated by the in-fighting, stating that: "Liz Truss is not so much running a government as a political shark tank". It continues: "So many rival factions are circling that her chances of creating the stability she needs to govern are vanishingly small".

An unnamed "red wall" Conservative MP tells the Sunday Mirror that if the prime minister pushes ahead with her plans for a below-inflation rise in benefits she will face a major rebellion. The MP is quoted saying: "There is no way we can allow those with little money to be left with less, even if it does mean the government falls and an election follows".

The People suggests that as many as a 120 letters of no confidence in Liz Truss may have been submitted by Tory MPs to the chairman of the 1922 committee of backbench MPs.

And finally, the Observer reveals how in 1884 the novelist Bram Stoker frightened residents of Aberdeenshire, where he was staying as he worked on Dracula. It reports that Stoker was normally quite genial, but was inspired by his theatrical links to get under the character's skin, in the same way a method actor might.

His wife Florence is quoted saying that, while visiting Cruden Bay, north of Aberdeen, Stoker would "sit for hours like a great bat, perched on the rocks of the shore". A local historian, Mike Shepherd, hopes his discoveries will shed light on how the remote area helped shape the famous horror story.