Newspaper headlines: Labour 'axes' candidate and 'Corrie Ken's £550k tax bill'

Presentational grey line
By BBC News
Staff
PA Media

Labour's decision to cut ties with its candidate in the Rochdale by-election dominates most of the front pages. The Daily Mail has more details of the comments it's understood caused the party to withdraw its support for Azhar Ali.

The paper says Mr Ali told a Labour meeting shortly after the Hamas attacks on 7 October that Israel planned to "get rid of Palestinians from Gaza" and "grab" some of the land.

The Mail claims he also blamed negative coverage of a pro-Palestinian MP on "people in the media from certain Jewish quarters". Mr Ali has previously apologised.

The Daily Telegraph says Labour has been forced to "disown" Mr Ali. It says the move means the party is effectively conceding Rochdale, where it has a majority of around 9,000.

In its leader, the Times notes that Sir Keir Starmer had promised to tear out the antisemitism in his party "by the roots" but says those roots cling as "stubbornly and destructively to the foundations of the British left as Japanese knotweed".

The Sun's leader column accuses Sir Keir of "dithering" on whether to ditch Mr Ali, but the i's Chief political correspondent, Richard Vaughan, writes that the Labour leader's team might argue the decision was "better late than never".

Labour supporters in Rochdale could rally around Simon Danczuk, the party's disgraced former MP for the constituency, according to the Guardian. He is standing for the Reform Party. One source tells the paper the choice between Mr Danczuk and George Galloway, who is running for the Workers Party of Britain, was like "the devil and the deep blue sea".

In other news, writing in the Times, Rishi Sunak says he "understands people's anger" that, as he puts it, "the dream" of homeownership feels too far away. But he urges voters to back the government's plans to build more houses, proposals Labour has branded "laughable".

Above the prime minister's piece, the Times political sketch writer, Tom Peck, describes how uncomfortable Mr Sunak looked while trying to defend his record during an appearance on GB News. He says the prime minister looked like a man "struggling with an unmentionable part of an ostrich" during an I'm A Celebrity Bushtucker trial.

Sign up for our morning newsletter and get BBC News in your inbox.

Under the caption "a perk for a berk", the Daily Mirror claims the former health secretary Matt Hancock used a chaffeur-driven Jaguar during the Covid inquiry at the taxpayers' expense. A spokesman for Mr Hancock said it was "reasonable" for the government to cover his travel expenses.

The Express reports that officials are trying to stop the sale of a visitors book from 10 Downing Street. The red-leather book, which contains the signatures of world leaders and royalty, was used during the premierships of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. It gas been put up for auction by a civil servant who found it in boxes of papers he rescued after a flood in Whitehall in 2017.

And Britain could be about to face a "cuppa crisis", according to the Daily Star, with Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea putting tea "up the spout". The Times carries a warning from retail analysts who say that tea drinkers could face shortages, price rises and "shrinkflation" in the months ahead.