Newspaper headlines: ‘PM lays down peace demand’ and ‘New breed of danger dogs’

Several papers speculate that Sir Keir Starmer, who is to meet President Trump on Thursday, could announce an increase in defence spending soon. The Sunday Times says Britain’s ambassador to the US, Lord Mandelson, has advised ministers to set a firm deadline for the increase.

The Sunday Telegraph says the prime minister is weighing up the possibility of raising military spending from 2.3% to 2.5% of Britain’s economic output, by the end of the decade. The paper says he will tell President Trump that the UK is ready to “step up” and play a greater role in ensuring Europe bankrolls its own security.

Writing in the Telegraph, the former head of the civil service, Simon Case, says the PM, and one or two other European leaders, have an opportunity to help set “desperately-needed new contours in European security within Nato.”

According to the Sun on Sunday, Sir Keir will be walking a tightrope on his visit to Washington DC. In an editorial, the paper says he must convince the US president to maintain America’s security guarantee to Nato, because anything else would mean that ending one conflict only lights the fuse for another.

The Observer says the meeting at the White House is likely to be the biggest test of Sir Keir’s diplomatic and negotiating skills in his prime ministership so far, as he tries to retain good relations with Mr Trump, while making clear the UK and Europe’s red lines on Ukraine and Russia.

The paper says the PM has been advised to be very clear and very brief, because the president “gets bored very easily” and when he thinks someone is being boring he “just tunes out.”

The Sunday Express highlights a call by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch on the government to increase the military budget by re-directing some of the money that is currently spent on welfare and foreign aid. In an editorial, the paper backs her proposal and says “complacency in the face of clear and present danger is tantamount to treachery.”

A report in the Mail on Sunday says Sir Keir will present the US president with an invitation to come to the UK on a state visit. The paper says that would include an address to MPs and peers, which was blocked during the president’s first state visit, by the then Commons’ speaker, John Bercow.

According to the Times, BBC executives will hold talks to find out how the corporation came to broadcast a Gaza documentary fronted by a boy with links to Hamas. The film followed the lives of four young people during the war, and it is claimed one of them was the son of the deputy minister of agriculture in the Hamas-run government.

And finally, a warning in the Sunday Mirror that a new breed of dangerous dogs is flooding into the UK. The paper says the fighting dogs, known as Bully Kuttas, or Pakistani mastiffs, can grow to the size of a small pony and weight up to 95 kilos.

One woman who was attacked by a Bully Kutta tells the paper her wound required 84 stitches and two follow-up surgeries, and describes the dogs as “trophies for violent individuals.”