The papers - 26 January, 2011

Today’s papers are all about a tale of three men and a boy. King (Mervyn) makes it to most front pages with his warnings that families face the toughest times ahead since the 1920s. And that he had been right not to raise interest rates. The other King (Colin Firth) is pictured in stills from the film the King’s Speech – nominated for Oscars. Scotsman splashes with double dip recession fears, with City:am and FT dealing with interest rates and spending cuts.

Andy Gray, more used to the back pages (and probably page threes), makes it to the front pages either as a splash, or a dog-ear, with news of his exit from the world of Sky punditry for his nudge-nudge, wink-wink attitude towards women.
The Mirror’s Kevin Maguire though, thinks a yellow card and some formal re-education would have been more appropriate.

And now to the boy. Dear Gideon, what have you done to the economy? And, your meteorological skills are about on a par with your economic skills. Roundly derided for his: “it wasn’t my fault, it was the snow” whinge. And he has no plan B – which didn’t surprise most of us, because we didn’t believe he had a plan A. Loved the Mirror’s take with pix of Gideon under the headline Snow Idea, dressed as a weatherman parodying the Beeb’s hurricane denier Michael Fish:

“Earlier today a Mr Balls rang the BBC to say he had heard there was an economic hurricane on the way. Well if you are watching, don’t worry, there isn’t”.

But the Tory Lord Taylor did not manage to escape attention – and is now staring at a prison sentence after being convicted of fiddling his expenses.

The Mail ploughs its usual pensions furrow with news of a pensions tax bungle. The taxman has apparently lost GBP1.2bn – find that man!

News that the Government’s latest assessments of people on sickness benefit found “skivers” made its way to the Express front page – who claimed that 75% on the sick are skiving.

Surprisingly interesting piece on the economy, the Tories and their lack of understanding of working people’s lives, by Simon Heffer in the Telegraph http://bit.ly/hvwfQV

The Guardian continues its series on the Palestine Papers, but takes time out to tell us that 80% of councils remain “baffled” by the Big Society. Only 80%?

Johann Hari in the Independent (viewspaper) deserves credit for battling for a better deal in care homes for our elderly people http://ind.pn/hNthjn

The people’s champion, the Morning Star, splashes with its protest at a BBC tv and radio ban on mentioning the newspaper in any of its reviews http://bit.ly/hmBeJb

Finally, boffins have discovered that central heating, not food, makes you fat. They say that in our caveperson days, we burnt calories, not gas, electricity or oil, to keep warm. So, there you have it. And, as other boffins warn that global warming in this part of the world will result in colder temperatures, we will all become leaner.

ends