Newspaper headlines: MP's £6m second job and Meghan says sorry to court
By BBC News
Staff
- Published
Several of the papers have further claims about the earnings of MP Sir Geoffrey Cox, as the debate about parliamentarians' second jobs continues. The Guardian says the former attorney general has earned at least £6m from legal work since he entered the Commons - but Sir Geoffrey says he does not believe he breached the rules and prioritises working for his constituents.
The Daily Mail - which has the slightly different figure of £5.5m - calls him the "MP with no shame" in its headline. It says he worked 10,700 hours as a lawyer, as the prime minister said MPs must devote themselves "primarily and above all to your constituents".
"Exposed: Tory MP's homes greed" is the headline on the Daily Mirror front page, which says Sir Geoffrey rented out a taxpayer-funded London home while claiming £1,900 a month for a second home in the capital - even while he was working overseas. The paper says he has not broken Commons rules, however.
The i newspaper says Tory chief whip Mark Spencer is "in peril" after giving his approval to Sir Geoffrey working in the Caribbean instead of attending Parliament. The paper also says former Tory Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is earning £100,000 a year working for the Hong Kong ports company.
"A bit of a cop out" is Metro's take on the prime minister's response to allegations of "sleaze" against MPs amid the controversy over outside interests. At a COP26 climate summit press conference, Boris Johnson said he did not believe the UK was "remotely a corrupt country", but the paper says he was "left wriggling".
The Duchess of Sussex admitted misleading a court over whether she had authorised aides to brief the authors of a biography about her, the Daily Telegraph's front page reports. The paper says she had "not remembered" the email exchanges, which emerged in an appeal over a privacy judgement concerning the Mail on Sunday's publication of a letter to her father.
The Daily Express calls it "explosive new evidence" and describes the testimony of her former aide as a "bombshell" in the case.
"Little Miss Forgetful" is the Sun's headline, alongside a mock-up of a blue-faced Meghan as one of Roger Hargreaves' Little Miss characters.
The Times' lead story reports on an HMRC team which has been ordered to recover £1bn of "fraudulent or mistaken" claims on the government's furlough scheme during the pandemic. The paper says among the companies under scrutiny are hundreds which were only established after the scheme was announced, and which billed the taxpayer for £26.6m.
The Financial Times leads on news that US consumer prices rose last month at the fastest rate for three decades. President Joe Biden says tackling inflation is a "top priority" as rising energy costs contributed to the 6.2% hike.
And the Daily Star reports that the UK is becoming "a nation of cocktail drinkers" with sales of mixed drinks surging as the public abandons ales. "Two pints of mojito and a packet of crisps, please!" is the paper's headline.