Newspaper headlines: Grand National protests and NHS 'mega strike'

There's condemnation on some front pages of the animal rights activists who attempted to stop the Grand National at Aintree yesterday. "National Disgrace" is the headline in the Sunday People, while the Mail on Sunday says the authorities were prepared because its journalist had infiltrated the group planning to sabotage the race.

The Sunday Telegraph and the Sun on Sunday welcome the government's decision to stop building new smart motorways. The Sun says more than 70 people have been killed on smart motorways and they've proved "a dumb development". The Telegraph puts the number of deaths at more than 50.

The Observer reports that the Royal College of Nursing is preparing to ballot its members in England on whether to join a "make or break" mega-strike that would lead to a mass action in every hospital trust in the country. The paper says the union will now hold one single national vote, rather than conducting ballots in each individual trust, as it previously did last October.

An editorial in the Telegraph describes pay demands by NHS workers as "unrealistic" and "insupportable". The paper also argues the health service is increasingly incapable of delivering the standard of care that people expect because it is unreformed; outcomes in the NHS never seem to improve, the paper says, regardless of how many billions of pounds are thrown at it.

The Sunday Mirror says that thousands of NHS workers, who are fighting for fair pay, have been invited to the King's coronation. A highly respected nurse - Professor Nola Ishmael - tells the paper she is furious at the double standards that exposes. She says, on the one hand, her profession is highly valued but on the other it is disregarded financially.

According to the Independent, furious Labour MPs are on a collision course with the party's leader, Sir Keir Starmer, over what they describe as "dehumanising" adverts, claiming that Rishi Sunak didn't think child sex abusers should go to prison. The website says the controversy will be discussed at a meeting of the Parliamentary party tomorrow.

The Sunday Times reports that a team of medical experts, put together by coroners, is investigating the deaths of 650 patients of a surgeon who carried out hundreds of unnecessary and inappropriate operations. Ian Paterson is serving a 20 year jail term after being convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent.

In a separate article, the same paper reports that Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is travelling to Washington tomorrow for talks about the recent big leak of classified documents. The paper says there's concern in Whitehall that even quite junior US security personnel have access to sensitive British secrets.

Under the headline "Royals on brink of collapse" the Sunday Express highlights a warning from the social policy think tank, Civitas, that the Royal Family is in danger of "abolishing itself by stealth" by spending less time engaging with the people of Britain. The study has found that ribbon-cutting and hand-shaking duties fell by 40% between 2014 and last year. The King and Princess Anne are named as "the hardest working" royals - with the latter having a slight edge in the total number of UK-based engagements in the last 10 years.