The Papers Lead on Pensions. The Financial Times Leads on Europe.
Every front page is dominated by the speech, most of them hostile: “Burnham’s triple shock”, “Triple lock scrapped by 2030”, and one paper launching a “crusade” to save it. But the Financial Times picks a different thread, saying the most unexpected moment was the suggestion that Labour’s three European red lines could be “up for grabs” at the next election.
That is the announcement nobody shouted about and it may matter longest. Reopening the Brexit settlement was trailed alongside the pension change and electoral reform as one of three radical moves, yet the right-leaning papers relegated Europe to a side issue and aimed their fire at pensioners instead. The Financial Times also notes the obvious problem: it is far from clear what outcome the Prime Minister actually favours, which makes the red lines a direction rather than a policy. Elsewhere the coverage divides on temperament rather than substance, with one paper calling it the most left-wing speech by a prime minister since the 1970s and another leading on his promise to build a Britain his father would have been proud of, weeks after losing him to Alzheimer’s. Watch whether Europe is pressed on him today.