Newspaper headlines: ICC warrant for Netanyahu and ‘lawyer dies from methanol’
Many papers lead on the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the former defence minister, Yoav Gallant.
“Israeli leader faces arrest if he flies into Britain” is the headline in The Times and “Starmer supports arrest of Netanyahu” is the Daily Telegraph’s headline.
The Financial Times says the court’s first warrant for a Western-backed leader is a “big escalation”, which shows how Israel has become “ever more isolated” since the beginning of the Gaza conflict. The Sun calls the ICC a “clown court”. The Mail’s editorial says “while the force of Israel’s retaliation in Gaza is not beyond reproach, the country is fighting for its survival”.
Vladimir Putin’s threat to target Western military installations is the main news in the Daily Mirror. The paper’s headline sums up what it describes as the warning to Britain: “You are in the war”.
The paper speculates that the new Russian missile used against Ukraine could one day be nuclear-armed.
Writing in the i, Foreign Secretary David Lammy says the Kremlin’s violations of international law make it a threat to world order, not just European security. In an article written with his French counterpart, Lammy says Britain and France will “relentlessly” fight what he calls “Putinisation”.
The Guardian claims the Treasury is looking at reworking the new inheritance tax rules for farmers, to make it easier for those aged 80 and over to hand their properties down without incurring the tax.
It says officials are assessing the impact of the announced changes on small and medium-sized farms, compared with smallholdings. Treasury sources have denied that the department is considering any mitigations to the plans.
The Telegraph reports official forecasts which show, the paper says, that disability benefit claims among working people will rise by a quarter of a million each year until the end of the decade. It says 4.2 million people will be claiming personal independence payment, an increase from the current figure of 3 million. It says the figures “underscore the challenge facing Labour to resolve Britain’s worklessness crisis”.
In its tribute to former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott the Mirror observes that: “in the sometimes monochrome world of Westminster, he was a rare dash of Technicolour.”
Writing in the paper, the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown says “he believed in the good in everyone, even the egg thrower in Wales he famously punched.”
The Daily Express calls him a “true political heavyweight”. The Times, noting Prescott’s elevation from humble beginnings to a seat at the centre of power, recalls him observing “I no longer keep coal in the bath. I keep it in the bidet”.
