Newspaper headlines: 'UK mortgage crunch' and Tory MP's 'police probe'

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By BBC News
Staff
PA Media

The King met patients and staff at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh to celebrate 75 years of the NHS

A number of Wednesday's papers consider the future of the NHS, 75 years after its creation.

Writing in the Times, the Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, rejects calls for radical reform, and argues the NHS can prosper without a drastic change. One of his predecessors, Sajid Javid, has warned that British patients are left sicker than those in other countries as a direct result of the structure of the NHS and called for a royal commission to consider fundamental changes. But Mr Barclay says improving technology and medical advancements will enable the NHS to respond to the challenges it faces. He says it needs evolution, rather than a "big bang".

An editorial in the Daily Mirror accuses the Conservatives of "imposing the tightest financial strait-jacket in the NHS's history". The paper says the health service needs "love and money, not shock therapy".

The Daily Mail paints a completely different picture. It says the NHS and its model of taxpayer-funded provision is failing, and investing extra billions of pounds into it will not transform the system, because of what it calls its "intrinsic inefficiencies and epic wastefulness". The paper says the political class must stop treating the NHS as a sacred cow and consider a serious shake-up of the way it is structured and financed.

Similarly the Financial Times calls for a "no taboo review" to examine how the UK's health system is organised and funded, and what it might learn from overseas models. The Sun also says we should copy others "with far superior patient outcomes".

Several papers including the Daily Telegraph report that the US government is pushing for the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to become the next secretary general of Nato. It says Washington has rejected the UK Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, for the role.

The Sun describes Ms Der Leyen as a hapless former doctor with a long career of "failing upwards" and says she is the hot favourite despite Mr Wallace's vastly greater nous and experience. "May God help us all if she is entrusted to mastermind the defence of the free world," says the paper.

Both the Telegraph and the Times say at least 2,000 police officers in England and Wales face losing their jobs over the next year under the government's plans to introduce tough disciplinary rules. The Telegraph says the home secretary will give chief constables greater powers and freedom to remove officers for misconduct, or abusive behaviour. The Times says the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, has described the present system as "bizarre and overregulated" and hampering his ability to clean up the ranks.

On its front page, the I newspaper highlights predictions that the Bank of England will raise its main interest rate four more times this year. That could take the base rate to 6% from 5% today. The Daily Express is more optimistic about the cost of living. It declares that cheaper food is on the way because it says supermarkets are waging a war to drive prices down.

And finally the Mirror features an interview with the former TV presenter, and the paper's current columnist, Fiona Phillips, who reveals that she has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. The 62-year-old says she is trialling a new drug which may slow or reverse the condition.