Papers debate Royal Mail sell-off
|
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/uk/7909336.stm Version 0 of 1. The government's proposal to part-privatise the Royal Mail receives support from most newspapers. For the Financial Times, the long-overdue plan should pave the way for a radical revamp, without which the organisation faces a grim future. The Sun says "this shambolic operation" should have been sold long ago. But the Daily Mirror thinks the plan would be a disaster. Ministers who found unlimited sums for banks, it argues, can save Royal Mail. No place like home A study showing that one in nine people living in Britain was born overseas raises a few eyebrows in the papers. The Daily Express finds it astonishing; the Daily Mail thinks it extraordinary. Present levels of immigration will have a far more profound effect on the shape and nature of our society than previous migrations, the Daily Telegraph argues. But Stina Backer in the Independent warns the "hypocritical anti- immigration brigade" would deny the UK so many innovators and hard workers. Colour TV Several titles cover what the Times calls a TV first - a one-off EastEnders episode with an all-black cast. The Guardian finds it surprising that it has taken more than two decades to do this on a show that claims to represent life in multicultural London. Intriguingly, the Daily Mail notes that the programme was broadcast on the 10th anniversary of the Macpherson report on the Stephen Lawrence case. This is, a BBC spokesman tells the paper, simply pure coincidence. You've got mail Fraudulent cash pleas may clog up many an inbox, but one scam was a bit more audacious, as the Daily Mirror reports. It came from the e-mail account of Jack Straw, with the justice secretary supposedly admitting he had lost his wallet in Africa and requesting £3,000. As the Independent notes, "it seemed strangely out of character". It turned out that Mr Straw's Hotmail address had been hacked by scammers. "It was so obviously ridiculous," the sheepish MP tells the paper. |