“Shock for Jenas” and “anger over rejection of dementia medication”

Front page of the BBC Daily Telegraph, 23 August

BBC

News that the BBC has sacked presenter Jermaine Jenas following a complaint fills Friday's front pages, and the lead image in the Daily Telegraph is a portrait of the ex-footballer. The paper is first with the news that a new Alzheimer's drug has been “blocked from use in the NHS” because of the costs involved. The paper's Matt cartoon echoes the other big news stories of the past 24 hours, showing an overjoyed father jumping in the air to celebrate his son, who attends a private school, failing his GCSEs. His son is leaving school, he explains, so there will be no VAT on school fees under Labour.

Front page of the Daily Mirror, August 23

“Sacked,” screams the Daily Mirror, as “Jermaine Jena shock” dominates its front page. In other news, actress Martine McCutcheon says her husband Jack has “decided it's best” that they split.

“Anger as NHS patients run out of dementia drug,” reads the Daily Mail headline. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is quoted as saying that the benefits are “too small” to justify the “£30,000-a-year cost.”

Front page of the Daily Express, August 23

“Why are only the rich getting the miracle cure for Alzheimer's?” the Daily Express wants to know when reporting on the NHS's decision. Up to 70,000 people in England would otherwise be entitled to it, it says.

A photo of Jonathan and Judy Bloomer, who died in the superyacht disaster off Sicily, dominates the front page of the Times. “Our only consolation is that they are still together,” their family are quoted as saying. Another headline is a senior judge's order to courts not to “lock up criminals until next month” because of a lack of space in prisons. And Labour is being attacked by “leading academics” for “failing to protect free speech” after Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson “repealed laws that would have forced universities to defend free speech on campus.”

“Vaccination offers hope in the fight against lung cancer” is the headline in the Metro. “World's first trials” have begun in Great Britain, the newspaper says. It shows a photo of scientist Janusz Racz, who was diagnosed with the disease in May and was the first to receive the BMT116 vaccination in a clinic at University College London Hospital.

Front page of the Financial Times, August 23

A health story of a very different kind is featured on the front page of the Financial Times: “AstraZeneca threatens to move vaccine factory to US after Reeves considers aid cuts.” According to sources in the newspaper, the new finance minister, Rachel Reeves, wants to cut state aid for the flagship company's vaccine factory in Merseyside from around £90 million to £40 million. The latter, incidentally, corresponds to the estimated value of the “second largest diamond” in the world, found in Gaborone. A photo of the gem sparkles on the front page of the newspaper.

Front page of the newspaper from August 23

Unions are demanding more money for their members from Rachel Reeves, the i newspaper claims on its front page. Union leaders are “divided over how to get the best pay deals from the Chancellor of the Exchequer,” the newspaper's headline says. Meanwhile, Britain is facing higher fruit and vegetable prices unless Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer “delays EU controls,” the newspaper says.

Oh, if only we were as happy with our GCSE results as the two pupils from the City of London Academy in Southwark who grace the front page of the Guardian. But concerns about a “performance gap” are the paper's headline as exam results “return to pre-Covid levels”. Uniformity has returned, but there are “huge regional differences in results across England”, it says. As for public sector unions' expectations on pay, Rachel Reeves rules out giving them a “blank cheque”. The paper also quotes Tory leadership candidate James Cleverly as saying Labour has been “exploited by its union payers”.

Storm Lilian, which is due to bring gales and heavy rain to parts of Britain on Friday, has sparked a “chaos alert” in the Daily Star, but the paper is already hoping for positive aspects later this month when a “28-degree heatwave” arrives.