Hayley Cropper's farewell, Francois Hollande's moped ride and fracking
Continue reading the main storyA fictional TV plot finds its way onto the front of two national newspapers.
Both the Sun and the Daily Mirror use Coronation Street's latest storyline - which sees long-standing character Hayley Cropper use a drugs overdose to end her life - to highlight serious issues.
The Sun has commissioned research suggesting that 73% of Britons support changing the law to give terminally ill people, like cancer-stricken Cropper, "the right to end their suffering". Some 38% of respondents said they'd help a relative take their life, according to the paper.
Labour peer Lord Falconer writes in the Sun in favour of his private member's bill, advocating a change in the law to allow help to be given, while Bishop of Carlisle James Newcome says such a move would "place vulnerable individuals at risk".
In the Daily Mirror, Dignity in Dying campaign group boss Sarah Wootton praises ITV's "sensible and sensitive" handling of the subject, while Alistair Thompson from pressure group Care Not Killing says the soap should have shown "how people can access good palliative care".
For the Samaritans, a bigger concern is the risk of "copycat suicides".
The charity, which advised the show's producers, tells the Mirror that "portraying an overdose... as a gentle and peaceful way to die, can be be very dangerous and bears no resemblance to the reality of slow liver failure afterwards".
Foreign affairsClaims that French President Francois Hollande has been having an affair - and was seen being transported to his secret rendez-vous by moped - provide inspirations for cartoonists.
The Daily Telegraph's Matt pictures a wife eyeing her pipe-smoking husband wearing a motorbike helmet and asking: "Are you seeing someone else?" Pugh, in the Daily Mail, varies the theme by picturing a couple peering through a window at a motorcyclist arriving at the house opposite. The husband remarks: "I'm not sure if 34's having a pizza delivered or a tryst with President Hollande."
The Times, which declares the president "a laughing stock", has a cartoon with two women examining a newspaper with a headline including the words: "First lady". One turns to the other and says: "And she won't be his last."
"All the President's Women," is the Daily Express headline, as it profiles the characters said to be involved in Mr Hollande's "tangled love-life".
The Independent is not impressed by the fuss. "The amount of media coverage devoted to the affair, if such it is, is quite disproportionate to the vastly more important issues he and his nation face," it says. On the same topic, the paper's columnist, Grace Dent, reckons: "It's of some comfort to us Brits that the French really aren't so blase and evolved about infidelity after all."
Gas panic"Frack the environment, feel the votes," is Independent cartoonist Dave Brown's take on the prime minister's attitude to the environmental arguments against shale gas extraction. He sketches David Cameron in a hard hat, looking on proudly as a tremor rattles Labour leader Ed Miliband's teeth.
Sister paper the i uses a photograph of Mr Cameron - again in protective headgear - under a front-page headline reading: "Fracking bribes for all." And a number of papers take this view of the PM's decision to allow councils to keep all the business rates derived from shale gas, instead of the usual 50%. The Daily Mail's editorial asks: "By bribing councils to accept fracking before properly making the case for it, doesn't the government risk inflaming the suspicions of communities worried about its impact?"
The Guardian agrees the financial incentives "look suspiciously like bribes" and says: "This feels more like an ambush than an attempt to woo a public that is still uncertain what it's being sold."
For the Daily Telegraph, "the only problem is that they are not bribing them enough", adding: "As it stands, the amounts on offer are so small that they threaten to stifle the shale boom at birth. Ministers must learn - as Mr Cameron once put it - to share the proceeds of growth."
Language barrierThe Daily Mail is outraged by the British Board of Film Classification's decision to be "more flexible about allowing very strong language" in films rated 15, characterising its members as "censors who refuse to fight for decency". Its editorial asks: "Is it any wonder the battle for decency is being lost?"
Reviewing the papers for the BBC News Channel, Guardian diary editor Hugh Muir said: "Every so often the censors have a process where they ask the public 'what do you think we should do'. I'm not sure much of that consultation happened in the offices of the Daily Mail."
Times defence editor Deborah Haynes added: "Unfortunately, it's a sign of the times. There seems to be a tolerance of swear words [in society] that there wasn't 30 years ago."
The Telegraph reports that the consultation led to the censors being told to "get tough on sex scenes" amid fears that young girls are "being sexualised by what they see on screen and in pop videos". The BBFC has promised to pay "close attention" to the matter, the paper says.
The Guardian reports that the body will pilot an age-rating system for music videos in the near future and runs down shocking examples of the past, from the sex-charged Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Erotica by Madonna, to MIA's Born Free which depicted a genocide of red-haired people.
Paint jobArtist Stuart Pearson Wright's portrait of Labour MP Diane Abbott makes an impact on the Guardian's front page. It was commissioned by MPs to record those who had made a "significant contribution to public life", the paper says, but - noting the £11,750 cost - uses the headline: "The art of annoying the taxpayer."
The tabloids are even less impressed at the total of £250,000 spent on "vanity" portraits. "If there's one thing we've seen more than enough of, it's politicians' ugly mugs," says the Daily Star.
The Daily Mirror describes the subjects as "Easel weasels", noting that the £10,000 spent on a picture of Work and Pensions Secretary - or "welfare slasher" - Iain Duncan Smith is "equivalent of three years' dole for an unemployed worker".
To the Sun, it's a "Framin' liberty". It adds: "Perhaps the public should get some use out of them. As dartboards."
Making people clickThe Times: Microsoft on the threshold of deleting 'appalling' Windows 8
Guardian: The off-putting things we (almost) overlooked at the 2014 Golden Globes
Daily Mail: Prince Edward's daughter Lady Louise, 10, has surgery to correct her sight
Daily Mirror: Mum who drank 24 cans and seven pints a day begs to die at home - aged just 35
Financial Times: Credit Suisse tells junior bankers to stay home on Saturdays
No comments:
Post a Comment