Newspaper headlines: Sunak 'lays down law' and Lineker's 'Nazi jibe'

By BBC News
Staff
A variety of stories lead Wednesday's papers. The Times says Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has declared he is "up for the fight" with judges at the European Court of Human Rights over government plans, outlined on Tuesday, to block almost anyone who arrives in the UK illegally from claiming asylum. The paper says Sunak believes the Court has undermined "natural justice" by stopping the UK deporting people to Rwanda and that legislation is the only way to stop the Channel crossings.
The same story leads the Daily Express, which quotes Sunak telling the public: "It's this country and your government who should decide who comes here, not criminal gangs."
Match Of The Day host Gary Lineker faces a rebuke by BBC bosses after appearing to compare the government's asylum plan to the policies of Nazi Germany, the Daily Mail reports. Writing on Twitter, Lineker said the language in which the plans had been set out was "not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s". The paper quotes sources at the corporation saying that the comments "crossed a line".
The Daily Telegraph says the BBC has been urged to sack Lineker and quotes Tory MP Craig Mackinlay saying he has gone a "step too far". It also claims the presenter was expressly told by director-general Tim Davie last year to stay away politics.
The Environment Agency is now relying on water firms to report their own polluting spills, according to the i. The paper says the watchdog has admitted it "no longer has a target for inspecting sewage" and that prosecutions of polluters have fallen from 768 a year to just 17.
The Metro says the trial of Thomas Cashman, who stands accused of shooting dead schoolgirl Olivia Pratt-Korbel after chasing another man into her home in Liverpool in August, has heard the nine-year-old shouted "Mum, I'm scared" seconds before she was killed. Olivia got out of bed after hearing a commotion and was standing on the stairs when a bullet hit her in the chest. Mr Cashman denies being the gunman.
Olivia's words also appear on the front of the Daily Mirror, which describes them as "heartbreaking".
The Financial Times leads with comments from Jay Powell, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, who has said that interest rate rises "may need to be higher than previously anticipated" in order to keep inflation under control. It says the comments led to 1% falls on both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq share indexes and traders are now expecting a half-point rise when the Fed meets later this month.
And the Daily Star says it has joined a £1.4bn European Space Agency mission to Jupiter and been invited to meet a "team searching for ET". The headline reads: "Infinity and beyond!"

Many of Wednesday's papers lead with reaction to the government's plans to effectively ban anyone who arrives in the UK illegally from claiming asylum as part of attempts to reduce Channel crossings.

The i says there's going to be a "showdown" over the issue, while the Times says Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is "ready to battle judges" through any legal challenges. In an editorial, the Sun says Britain "wants the small-boats scandal ended" and that Mr Sunak's plan is "the only game in town". The paper criticises Labour's response to the measures, saying the opposition offered "plenty of abuse, but no solutions".

Daily Express columnist Leo McKinstry also argues that the plan must be backed. He says the measures recognise the central factor encouraging the illicit crossings - that anyone who reaches our shores is likely to be allowed to stay. But the Guardian's parliamentary sketch writer, John Crace, says the latest attempt to stop the boats looks "hopelessly flawed and completely pointless". He believes that no-one will be deported for years because most cases will get held up in the courts.

Reuters
US officials now believe last year's attacks on the Nord Stream pipeline were organised by Ukrainians and Russians opposed to the war in Ukraine, the Times reports

On their front pages, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail both say the BBC is under pressure to take action against Match of the Day host Gary Lineker after he tweeted that ministers' rhetoric about migrants was "not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s". The Telegraph says BBC management is furious and Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay tells the paper that Lineker should be sacked. The BBC said its staff were "aware of their responsibilities relating to social media".

According to the Daily Mirror, a deal to settle the pay dispute in the NHS could be reached by Thursday. The paper says there's optimism that the government will come up with an offer which unions will be happy to take back to their members. But the talks between the government and health unions exclude most doctors, and the British Medical Association is still planning a 72-hour walkout from Monday.

The Times highlights the assessment by US intelligence that Ukrainians and Russians opposed to President Putin's war are most likely to have organised attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipeline last September. However, Washington thinks Kyiv is unlikely to have been directly responsible. Officials say explosives were probably planted by experienced divers who weren't working for military or intelligence services at the time, although they might have received training in the past.

Reuters
EU regulators have told Twitter CEO Elon Musk to hire more human moderators and fact checkers, the Financial Times reports

The Telegraph carries more leaked WhatsApp messages exchanged between senior ministers and officials during the Covid pandemic, this time focusing on efforts to test vaccines in the first half of 2020. Separately, a report in the Times predicts that the most senior civil servant, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, could be forced to resign when some of his messages are revealed in the coronavirus public inquiry. A source told the paper that Mr Case was "the most indiscreet man in government" and that some of his comments would be "impossible to defend."

The Financial Times says EU regulators have told Twitter owner Elon Musk he must hire more human moderators and fact checkers to prevent the spread of harmful material. Since buying the company in October, Mr Musk has sacked more than half its staff, including the entire trust and safety teams in some offices.