Newspaper headlines: Maggie Smith mourned and Johnson’s Covid ‘war cry’

The passing of actress Dame Maggie Smith features prominently on Saturday’s front pages. Tributes for the award-winning actress lead the front page of the Mirror. Dame Maggie’s Downton Abbey co-star Hugh Bonneville described her as a “true legend”, the paper reports.

The latest developments in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict are covered on several front pages. The Guardian says Israel launched its “heaviest air attacks” in almost a year of conflict with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The paper adds that Israeli media report that the attack was an attempt to kill the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

“Boris’s war cry in Covid – invade Holland!” declares the Daily Telegraph, reporting on an extract from former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s forthcoming memoir. The startling claim refers to his apparent consideration of a plan to use British troops to seize Covid vaccines at the height of the pandemic, when he was in office.

Johnson’s “political memoir of the century” dominates the front page of the Daily Mail, as it continues to serialise the book. It quotes him as saying he feared he would “never wake up again” when he was in intensive care with Covid.

The Financial Times says the UK needs to mobilise £1.6tn of funding by 2040 to meet the nation’s public infrastructure needs, according to new research. It comes as Chancellor Rachel Reeves is contemplating loosening her fiscal rules to allow the Labour government to ramp up borrowing to pay for higher levels of public investment, the paper reports.

“So vindictive!” reads the front page of the Daily Express, as it reports on campaigners’ frustration over Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ plans to free “up billions of pounds for investment” while refusing to “help struggling pensioners”. “The money is clearly there,” the Silver Voices group tells the paper.

The i says Israel claims it assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in air strikes on Beirut. Nasrallah’s fate is unclear, the paper says. Elsewhere on the front page, the paper reports that hundreds of Post Office prosecutions may be linked to a second faulty IT system.

Tuition fees will rise in line with inflation and maintenance grants will be restored for the poorest students under government plans to boost struggling universities’ finances, the Times reports. The paper’s main image is of Dame Maggie Smith.

The Sun’s lead story is about Phillip Schofield, who says he was “thrown under a bus” when he was forced to leave This Morning. Shortly after the exit, he admitted to an “unwise but not illegal” affair with a younger male colleague. The 62-year-old presenter “lets rip on his shock exit” in Channel 5 show Cast Away, the paper says.

The Daily Star claims Queen Camilla was “pinned to her bed in a haunted Tudor mansion” by a ghost. She scared it off with “a few choice words”, the paper says.