“One’s in the sun” is how the Guardian captions a photograph of King Charles III and Queen Camilla arriving for the Christmas Day church service at Sandringham.
The Times says Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s daughters “walked tall in a united front” at Sandringham. The paper describes their presence as a public show of support by the Royal Family, as their parents have been “frozen out” over their friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
For the Sun, it was the sisters showing support for the King and Queen. The Daily Mail’s take is that Andrew’s girls opted for “the Firm over Mum and Dad”.
The Times warns that thousands more homes than expected could become eligible to pay the “mansion tax” announced in November’s budget, because of the way property values will be calculated. It says a computer-based system – which will be quicker to implement – could over-value properties by as much as £30,000.
The Daily Mail says Barclays is predicting a £1bn Boxing Day sales slump compared with last year. The paper says analysts believe fewer people will be going out to the sales because the chancellor’s recent tax announcements “stretched household budgets” and caused “a collapse in consumer confidence”.
The Daily Mirror warns that bargains are no answer to low wages, soaring bills and an economy stacked against ordinary, hardworking people.
The Daily Telegraph says a teacher who showed videos – including one about Donald Trump’s inauguration – to his US politics A-level class was reported to Oxfordshire’s child safeguarding authority. The body concluded that he should be referred to the government’s counter-terrorism programme, Prevent. The paper says Henley College gave him a £2,000 pay-off to quit. In an official email, the college told the teacher that some of the videos had not been related to the syllabus – and one had made a student feel “quite uncomfortable”. The school was quoted as saying: “The Henley College does not comment on individual allegations or ongoing investigations.”
The Sun says some gangs are raking in £50,000 a time by sending drones into jails packed with contraband, such as phones or drugs. The Times warns that, according to the head of the Prison Governors Association, “any day now” a new generation of larger drones that can lift an average man could be used to help inmates escape.