Newspaper headlines: Royal Mail 'cyberattack' and mortgage default warning

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By BBC News
Staff
PA Media

The Times and the Independent online both report claims that Boris Johnson joked at a drinks do at Downing Street, during Covid restrictions, that it was "the most unsocially distanced party in the UK right now".

The Independent says the disclosure makes it more likely that he will be found to have misled parliament at the forthcoming Partygate inquiry - and quotes a Tory MP saying: 'It's the final nail in his self-created comeback coffin'.

The Times adds that it's been told that aides to the former prime minister had sex in Downing Street at a raucous party on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral.

A spokesman for Boris Johnson said during the pandemic, he led the country through the most dangerous peacetime crisis in living memory - and did everything possible to save lives.

The Daily Telegraph leads on a warning from the financial regulator that more than 750,000 households are at risk of defaulting on their mortgages over the next two years as rising borrowing costs make payments unaffordable - with young buyers especially at risk.

The paper says it will trigger fresh fears that a wave of forced property sales could bring down house prices in the coming months.

The Times reports on a proposed benefits revamp aimed at boosting employment to allow people to keep claiming sickness benefits after returning to work and offering tax breaks for getting a job.

The paper says the prime minister is said to be concerned he will struggle to fulfil a pledge to achieve economic growth this year if the government can't tempt many of the nine million economically inactive people back into work to deal with chronic labour shortages.

The Financial Times leads on Royal Mail being temporarily unable to send letters and parcels abroad because of problems with its computerised systems.

The paper says the incident, along with a recent ransomware attack at the Guardian newspaper, have stoked fears about a surge in cyber crime.

The Daily Mail leads on a claim that pregnant women and new mothers are being "abandoned" by the NHS - citing a Care Quality Commission (CQC) report that the number of women saying they had a positive experience of maternity care has plummeted.

The CQC found that almost four in 10 women struggled to get staff to help them while giving birth.

More than half were not always able to get advice on feeding after being sent home and one in four said they were left alone during labour at a time when they were worried.

In an editorial, the paper asks, "if the NHS can't perform the basic task of looking after expectant mothers and their babies, what on earth is it for?"

On a more upbeat health note, the i leads on a new study offering hope for sufferers of long Covid.

It found that symptoms should disappear within one year for most people who develop the condition.

And the Times says a study has suggested that acts of kindness could help tackle depression; participants in a trial who were asked to perform kind acts for others, showed a larger improvement after 10 weeks than those who'd been offered cognitive behavioural therapy.