'Spy at heart of Whitehall' and PM criticised for 'housing slums'
- Published
The papers lead on a variety of stories. Prince Andrew's links to an alleged Chinese spy has made the front page of The Times for three days consecutively, and Sunday's paper has photos showing the suspect met former prime ministers Lord David Cameron and Baroness Theresa May - "fuelling concerns" about how deeply he was able to infiltrate the British establishment. It also carries a story about the "hidden archive" of atrocities carried out during Bashar al Assad's tenure as president. A war crimes investigator and a team of Syrians risked their lives to amass more than a million documents of evidence, the paper says.
Following the Prince Andrew Chinese Spy story, the Sunday Telegraph reports that an interpreter who worked for the Foreign Office for decades ran a website connected to a global network pushing the Chinese Communist Party agenda. Microsoft flagged the website in 2023, along with 50 others, alleging that it forms part of a "veiled global network of CCP news websites," the paper says.
Labour has been accused of allowing developers to start a new generation of "slum" homes over proposed plans to refit offices into flats - without planning permission, The Observer writes. The paper has spoken to a policy director at the Town and Country Planning Association, who calls the policy "shameful" and "Dickensian". A photo of a Syrian teenager, who witnessed chemical weapons being used on the outskirts of Damascus, is also on the front page.
The Sunday Express quotes Boris Johnson saying the government "must be stopped" from "reshackling" the country to Brussels, as he warns that Sir Keir Starmer poses a threat to Brexit. He says entering an Indo-Pacific partnership with countries including Japan, Malaysia and Singapore will "restore Britain to its rightful place on the global stage".
More than 1,000 women have been found to be homeless by charity workers, almost double the number reported by government figures, according to the Sunday Mirror, which has launched an investigation on the "hidden scandal".
In a belated nod to spooky season, the BBC's Homes Under The Hammer host Martin Roberts tells the Daily Star he and his crew quickly departed a "spooky house" while filming, after a lightbulb mysteriously broke and fell in one of the rooms of the house.
The Sun on Sunday writes that TV host Eamonn Holmes is reportedly planning to marry his girlfriend Katie Alexander. The paper also reports on the winner of the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing.
The Sunday People has spoken to a source who says Beinash Batool, who was found guilty of murdering her stepdaughter Sara Sharif, "has become pals" with Lucy Letby while in prison. Letby is serving 15 whole-life terms after being convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill seven others.
The Sunday Times reports the suspected Chinese spy who became a confidante of Prince Andrew met two former prime ministers, external Lord Cameron and Baroness May - on separate occasions. It's not clear if either was in Number 10 at the time, nor are there any suggestions that either of them knew the spy personally. But the paper says the claim has fuelled concerns about Beijing's penetration of the British establishment. The meetings came to light in a foreign television profile of the man, known as H6 for legal reasons.
The Sunday Telegraph raises similar concerns, with its front page story that a Foreign Office interpreter also ran a website pushing propaganda, external for the Chinese Communist Party. It says the interpreter was a translator on UK state visits by Chinese presidents as far back as 1999.
According to the Observer, Labour has been criticise, externald, external for allowing developers to build a new generation of 'slum' homes - by converting office blocks into flats without proper planning permission. A leading planning thinktank says the government is presiding over a 'free for all' with its drive to build 1.5m new homes in England. The paper notes that in opposition, Labour vowed to scrap housebuilding schemes which gave developers a certain planning leeway if commercial blocks on industrial estates or business parks were being converted. But the government's national planning policy framework last week made no reference to banning the developments. The Ministry of Housing said it was keeping permitted developing rights under review.
The Mail on Sunday reports, external Sir Keir Starmer is accused of forming what the paper calls 'an EU surrender squad' to reverse Brexit. It says 'an all powerful' team of more than 100 civil servants is being assembled to run the UK's negotiations with Brussels. Critics are said to have warned that the prime minister could jettison many of the freedoms won by the 2016 Brexit vote - and instead, as the paper says, lash the UK to an EU superstate, returning Britain into a 'rule-taker rather than rule-maker'. The government said there would be no return to the customs union, single market or freedom of movement.
The leading foreign correspondent Christina Lamb writes in the Sunday Times that the race is on to find the henchmen, external who implemented President Bashar Al-Assad's reign of terror in Syria. She quotes one war crime investigator as saying that the ensuing justice programme will be 'bigger than Nuremberg', a reference to the Nazi war crimes trials after World War II.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed tells the Sunday Telegraph, external that the public will be right to be angry when water bills go up later this week. The independent regulator Ofwat is expected to announce rises of more than 20 per cent by the end of the decade to fix Britain's water infrastructure. Writing in the paper, Mr Reed says the Conservatives had left the country's water system in ruins.
And several of the front pages feature pictures of that Strictly Come Dancing win by Chris McCausland. 'It's for all those told they can't do something', the Mail on Sunday quotes him as saying. 'Christoric,' says the Sunday Mirror.
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