Newspaper headlines: Labour 'axes' candidate and 'Corrie Ken's £550k tax bill'

By BBC News
Staff
A number of Tuesday's newspapers lead with Labour withdrawing support for Rochdale by-election candidate Azhar Ali after his comments on Israel. The Daily Mail says it comes after the paper "uncovered more of his antisemitic comments". The paper says Mr Ali, "who claimed Israel 'deliberately allowed' Hamas' October 7 massacre of its own people, was suspended from the party pending an investigation". The Mail reports that it had obtained a full audio tape of his comments during a meeting of the Lancashire Labour Party shortly after the 7 October attacks.
The Guardian also leads with Labour's withdrawal of support for Mr Ali, days before voters go to the polls in a "key test" for Keir Starmer's party. The paper says a local Labour insider said some activists would "seriously consider" throwing their support behind Simon Danczuk, the "disgraced former Labour MP for Rochdale who was suspended from the party "after sending inappropriate messages to a teenager".
Also reporting on the Rochdale by-election candidate losing support from Keir Starmer is the i newspaper. The paper says this leaves Labour without a candidate in the forthcoming election and could "hand the Tories or George Galloway an unlikely victory". The paper also reports that the UK is heading "for recession" as the PM faces "growing pressure to reveal tax cuts".
In an article for the Daily Telegraph, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman says that suggesting the countryside is not welcoming to ethnic minorities because it is a "predominantly white environment" is wrong, dangerous and disempowering. The paper says her comments come after a group of wildlife charities said the countryside was a "racist and colonial" space where people of colour were often framed as "out of place".
The Financial Times reports that the founders and top executives of the largest US private equity groups have seen the value of their shares rise more than $40bn over the past year as new assets have "poured into their firms". The paper also reports that PwC is "forcing some junior consultants in the UK to spend an extra six months on its graduate scheme" because there is "not enough work" to promote them.
Rishi Sunak has pledged to drive through plans to build hundreds of thousands of new homes in Britain's big cities, as he admitted that the Conservatives had "much more to do" to help young people to get on the housing ladder, the Times reports. In an article for the paper, the prime minister says he accepts "people's anger" at being shut out of home ownership.
The Sun reports that Coronation Street star Bill Roache owes HMRC nearly £550,000. It says his debt is revealed in court papers obtained by the newspaper on Monday, weeks after the paper reported that the actor faces "bankruptcy again".
The Daily Express says that doctors may soon be able to diagnose dementia up to 15 years before the first symptoms emerge, after scientists developed a blood test "with 90% accuracy".
The Daily Mirror reports that Sarah Payne's killer Roy Whitting has been stabbed in a "frenzied jail attack". The paper writes that the paedophile was said to have been "saved" by a guard at Wakefield maximum security prison.
The Metro says that a school head has not hired much-need classroom staff because a PFI contract "forces him to spend £30,000 a year cutting grass on the playing field". David Potter says almost 20% of his whole budget is spent on the deal which helped build the school but ties it to the same maintenance firm for decades as prices rise, the paper says.
And the Daily Star reports on a "Red Sea cuppa crisis" and says the nation's "favourite brew is in short supply". It asks: "Are the Houthi rebels taking us for mugs?"

Labour's decision to cut ties with its candidate in the Rochdale by-election dominates most of the front pages. The Daily Mail has more details of the comments it's understood caused the party to withdraw its support for Azhar Ali. The paper says Mr Ali told a Labour meeting shortly after the Hamas attacks on 7 October that Israel planned to "get rid of Palestinians from Gaza" and "grab" some of the land.

The Mail claims he also blamed negative coverage of a pro-Palestinian MP on "people in the media from certain Jewish quarters". Mr Ali has previously apologised.

The Daily Telegraph says Labour has been forced to "disown" Mr Ali. It says the move means the party is effectively conceding Rochdale, where it has a majority of around 9,000.

In its leader, the Times notes that Sir Keir Starmer had promised to tear out the antisemitism in his party "by the roots" but says those roots cling as "stubbornly and destructively to the foundations of the British left as Japanese knotweed".

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The Sun's leader column accuses Sir Keir of "dithering" on whether to ditch Mr Ali, but the i's Chief political correspondent, Richard Vaughan, writes that the Labour leader's team might argue the decision was "better late than never".

Labour supporters in Rochdale could rally around Simon Danczuk, the party's disgraced former MP for the constituency, according to the Guardian. He is standing for the Reform Party. One source tells the paper the choice between Mr Danczuk and George Galloway, who is running for the Workers Party of Britain, was like "the devil and the deep blue sea".

In other news, writing in the Times, Rishi Sunak says he "understands people's anger" that, as he puts it, "the dream" of homeownership feels too far away. But he urges voters to back the government's plans to build more houses, proposals Labour has branded "laughable".

Above the prime minister's piece, the Times political sketch writer, Tom Peck, describes how uncomfortable Mr Sunak looked while trying to defend his record during an appearance on GB News. He says the prime minister looked like a man "struggling with an unmentionable part of an ostrich" during an I'm A Celebrity Bushtucker trial.

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Under the caption "a perk for a berk", the Daily Mirror claims the former health secretary Matt Hancock used a chaffeur-driven Jaguar during the Covid inquiry at the taxpayers' expense. A spokesman for Mr Hancock said it was "reasonable" for the government to cover his travel expenses.

The Express reports that officials are trying to stop the sale of a visitors book from 10 Downing Street. The red-leather book, which contains the signatures of world leaders and royalty, was used during the premierships of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. It gas been put up for auction by a civil servant who found it in boxes of papers he rescued after a flood in Whitehall in 2017.

And Britain could be about to face a "cuppa crisis", according to the Daily Star, with Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea putting tea "up the spout". The Times carries a warning from retail analysts who say that tea drinkers could face shortages, price rises and "shrinkflation" in the months ahead.