Newspaper headlines: 'Student visa crackdown' and record migrant levels

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By BBC News
Staff
EPA

Royal Mail has paid out £1.9bn in dividends since it was privatised, but is still resisting calls for greater pay rises for workers, according to the Mirror

A variety of stories feature on Friday's front pages.

The Daily Telegraph says it's been told by an NHS source that thousands of elderly patients could be stuck in hospitals for Christmas because of the strikes by nurses next month. The expert said the absence of nurses at crunch points could mean there wasn't help available to discharge them. The paper says the walkouts are likely to result in the postponement of 30,000 operations and hundreds of thousands of outpatient appointments.

The Guardian warns that the nurses' walkouts are likely to be the first in a series of strikes over the winter and into the spring by other NHS staff, including doctors and ambulance workers. The paper says Britain faces a torrid month of industrial action and disruption before Christmas.

Under the headline "First Class Disgrace", the Daily Mirror says Royal Mail - whose workers are staging a 48-hour strike - is refusing staff a decent wage increase, while bosses enjoy bumper pay. The paper says its chief executive received £753,000 in the last financial year and that the company has paid £1.9bn in dividends since it was privatised in 2013. According to the Mirror, an 11% pay rise for staff - in line with inflation - would cost £500m.

Several front pages report government plans to cut immigration after figures showed that net migration had reached a record high. The Times says foreign students may be barred from Britain unless they win a place at a top university, while those allowed in could have new restrictions imposed on bringing family members with them.

The i says a major row is brewing within the cabinet because the Treasury is concerned that any drop in immigration could harm the economy, while Home Secretary Suella Braverman is determined to cut the numbers. Writing in the Daily Express, Conservative MP James Daly says concerns about high levels of immigration led many people to vote for Brexit, but he says some in his party haven't yet learned that lesson.

The Telegraph reports that Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are challenging Rishi Sunak's authority by joining Tory rebels demanding an end to the ban on new onshore wind farms. The two former prime ministers have backed an amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill which would allow wind farms where there's community consent. The Daily Mail says the act of open dissent, so soon into Mr Sunak's premiership, will raise alarm bells in Number 10.

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Comedian David Walliams is reported to have quit his role as a judge on ITV's Britain's Got Talent

On its front page, the Mail says GPs in England have voted to limit their hours of work to 9am to 5pm. The proposal was backed by a majority at a conference of local medical committees on the grounds that longer hours adversely affect GPs who have children. The paper says that if the NHS accepts the change, it would make it even harder to see a doctor.

According to the Guardian, scientists have found that the recommendation to drink eight glasses of water a day - which often appears in health guidance - is likely to be excessive. The latest study has concluded that most people need between 1.5 and 1.8 litres of water a day, lower than the two litres typically recommended.

And the Sun reports that David Walliams is stepping down as a judge on ITV's Britain's Got Talent. The paper says the decision came after he was forced to apologise for foul-mouthed comments about contestants.