It is the first student loan rise in eight years, the Metro reports, which it says means the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has made a “180-degree uni U-turn”. Previously he promised to abolish tuition fees, the paper says, but now his government is “putting them up 3.1%”. Sir Keir said he wanted to abolish tuition fees altogether when he was running for the leadership of the Labour Party in 2020, but he warned last year that Labour was “likely to move on” from the pledge.
“Now that’s what you call a U-turn!” declares the Daily Mail, also leading with the tuition fees rise. “Students face paying hundreds of pounds more a year after Sir Keir Starmer broke another promise,” it says. The main image on the front page is of The Queen’s Gambit star Anya Taylor-Joy and her husband Malcolm McRae. The actress was in a bedroom at their London mansion when it was raided by violent robbers, the paper says.
According to the Daily Star, the tuition fees move shows the new government is as “tin-eared” as its Tory predecessor. It is the “return of the clowns”, it says, over a circus caricature of the prime minister which it dubs “Sir Krusty”.
A call for a Labour U-turn on a different issue makes the front of the Daily Express which says it is launching a “crusade” against plans for a “farm tax”, which it describes as “spiteful”. There has been an outcry from many farmers following changes to inheritance tax for farms announced in the Budget. New Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch waves out of the paper’s main photo behind the headline “Dame Priti’s back for Kemi’s team”. Badenoch is expected to name Dame Priti Patel as her shadow foreign secretary.
Dame Priti also gets a mention on the Guardian, as do tuition fees, but it is Tuesday’s US presidential election which steals the page. Over a composite image of candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the paper says: “Harris or Trump: US faces its moment of reckoning.” The picture caption suggests it may be the closest result since 2000. Smiling down from the top left-hand corner of the page is a photo of another American: celebrated musician and producer Quincy Jones, who has died aged 91.
“America decides – as world holds its breath” says the i paper. Americans are “deeply divided”, it reports, after a “toxic campaign and attempted assassinations”.
The Daily Telegraph leads with advice for Trump from Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who tells the paper he should accept the result of the US election if he loses decisively to Harris. “Washington is braced for unrest,” the paper says. Back on this side of the Atlantic, it is Guy Fawkes Night and the paper’s cartoonist Matt features the man who tried to blow up Parliament in 1605 grappling with 21st Century “net zero rules”. “I’ve had to replace the gunpowder with a heat pump,” he says.
Both US candidates are all smiles on the front page of the Financial Times which says opinion polls are showing a “dead heat”. The tuition fees boost for England’s “cash-strapped universities” also gets a mention on the page.
The universities fees rise also lead the front page of the Times, which reports that vice-chancellors’ pay packages are “under scrutiny”. And the Prince of Wales makes an appearance on the page, clearly having fun on a rugby field in Cape Town as he is photographed being tackled by some schoolboys.
Strictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden will not be returning to the series this year after she began “feeling unwell” during the main show two Saturdays ago, a spokesperson for the BBC show has announced. The story makes the main headline on the Daily Mirror which says: “My broken heart: Shattered dancer forced out of show by injury.”
Another story from the world of entertainment leads the Sun which reports that the Gallagher brothers will only be paid after their much-awaited Oasis reunion tour actually starts because of fears the “feuding pair” may fall out.
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Nativity dolls of Kamal Harris and Donald Trump in Naples, Italy
The Guardian says the US is facing its “moment of reckoning” as voters choose either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump as their new president. The paper calls it an election like none before with a choice between a “black woman and a former president branded a fascist by his own former officials”.
The headline for the i is “America decides – the world holds its breath”. It suggests that global leaders from Moscow and Kyiv to Beijing and Tehran are waiting to discover the future of the US. Its editor, Oliver Duff, suggests that Kamala Harris has fought an “unimpressive campaign” but he points out that the alternative is “returning a convicted criminal to the White House”.
The Mirror‘s opinion column states simply “Let’s hope it’s Kamala”. It concludes that Trump is “no friend of Britain”. But the Sun seizes on a comment by Trump that the election is “ours to lose”. It says the former president insists he is on the verge of a historic comeback.
The Financial Times has front-page pictures of Harris and Trump side by side. It says that although the polls are “razor thin”, the Democrats have been cheered by what they believe is a decided shift towards their candidate.
Comments by Nigel Farage, a Trump ally, make the lead for the Daily Telegraph. It reports that Farage, who is attending Trump’s election day party at his home in Florida, has advised his friend to accept the result of the election, if he loses decisively. He is quoted saying if that happens, Trump should “go and play golf at Turnberry”.
But the Times is in favour of the move. Under the headline “degree of confidence”, its opinion column argues that the cap on fees has left many universities teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It thinks raising them amounts to a “confrontation with reality”.
Finally, the Sun leads on what it calls “Oasis bust-up fears”. It suggests the organisers of the band’s forthcoming re-union tour are so worried about the possibility of a fresh feud between Liam and Noel Gallagher, they are not going to pay the brothers their joint £6m fee for each gig until they turn up. The headline is “Be here now or you don’t get paid”.
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