Newspaper headlines: ‘Love and hugs’ for Kate and ‘Shift to Reform’

Many of Boxing Day’s front pages feature images of members of the Royal Family after they attended the Christmas Day church service in Sandringham alongside the King and Queen. “With love and hugs” is the Daily Mirror’s front page as it features an image of the Princess of Wales smiling and poignantly embracing a woman who gathered to watch.

The Times features a story on a fatal airliner crash in Kazakhstan and it quotes experts who say the Azerbaijan Airline aircraft may have been caught in an air defence response to Ukrainian drone attacks on Grozny in the Chechen republic of Russia. Elsewhere, the paper touches on a personal message of gratitude from King Charles to health workers who have supported him during his cancer treatment. The lead story says Whitehall is “braced for private schools collapse” due to fee rises which come into force in the new year.

Images of the plane crash in Kazakhstan which killed 38 people in Aktau also feature on the front of Thursday’s Guardian. Elsewhere on the front of the newspaper, it leads on a story on weight-loss injections, including Wegovy and Mounjaro, being aggressively marketed to UK consumers. The Guardian says it has reviewed reports by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

The Daily Mail also touches on the King’s candid message, which was delivered in the Fitzrovia Chapel in London, where he offered his “heartfelt thanks” to the doctors and nurses who helped with the “uncertainties and anxieties of illness”. The Princess of Wales also features on the the front of the paper smiling as the Mail says Kate is an “inspiration” to all cancer patients.

Sprawled across the front of the Daily Express is a headline hinting that panicked retailers are pinning hopes on a Boxing Day spending bonanza to beat what the paper describes as “budget blues”. Also on the front is an image of Nessa from Gavin and Stacey – as the much-anticipated finale episode aired on Christmas Day 17 years after its debut.

As 2024 draws to a close, the i newspaper reviews the political year but says British political parties are moving into a three-way tie, with Reform UK almost even with Labour and the Tories, according to leading polling expert Sir John Curtice. “Britain’s traditional system of two-party politics now seemingly faces its biggest threat since the foundation of the SDP in 1981,” he concludes.

In other domestic news, fox hunters to face bigger fines under Labour’s plans, according to the lead story on Boxing Day’s edition of the Daily Telegraph. In addition to ban on trail hunting, the paper says people could be prosecuted if a fox is killed through “recklessness”