Newspaper headlines: Johnson and Biden's 'love-in' and PM mulls 21 June delay

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-57436753

Version 2 of 3.

US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson met for the first time on Thursday

"Oh baby, what a love-in" is how the front of the Daily Mail sums up yesterday's face-to-face meeting between UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Joe Biden.

It has pictures of Mr Biden and the US First Lady in Cornwall, with the prime minister, his wife Carrie and their toddler son, Wilfred.

The paper's leader article accepts that the ongoing row with the EU about Brexit has cast a shadow over the G7 summit. But it points out that "crucially Mr Johnson and Mr Biden appeared to hit it off".

The Guardian suggests the start of the G7 summit in Cornwall was "soured" by a warning from French President Emmanuel Macron.

As the row continues between London and Brussels about the post-Brexit checks on some goods entering Northern Ireland from the UK mainland, the paper quotes Mr Macron saying that "nothing is negotiable", so soon after the details of a deal were set down last year.

The Mirror is dumbfounded that Mr Johnson is planning to hold his post-summit news conference during England's first European Championship football match.

It says the prime minister is "poised to snub" the Three Lions by addressing the media five minutes after their crucial game against Croatia kicks off on Sunday afternoon.

Mr Johnson's spokesman tells the paper: "It is looking likely there will be a clash, I'm afraid, but we will do our best."

The Daily Telegraph leads with a warning from former Prime Minister Theresa May that "global Britain is closed for business" because of the government's approach to coronavirus travel restrictions.

Mrs May is quoted saying the rules are "incomprehensible" given the vaccination programme's success.

And she laments that if fresh measures are imposed every time there's a new Covid variant "we will never be able to travel abroad again".

The Times says ministers believe a four-week postponement of the final easing of Covid rules in England - planned for 21 June - would allow more people to have two vaccinations.

Some in the cabinet, the paper explains, favour a two-week delay while others think that wouldn't give businesses enough "certainty" of no further hold-ups.

"Pfizer jab shortage warning hits hopes for the twenty-first of June," says the front of the i.

It suggests that supplies will be "tight" over the next few weeks, as efforts continue to give jabs to all under-30s.

The Daily Mirror's lead is about the appearance before MPs yesterday of Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

Matt Hancock's appearance in front of MPs makes several of the front pages

It's sceptical about his suggestion that there was no evidence some NHS workers faced a shortage of personal protective equipment, at the start of the pandemic.

Its opinion column describes his comments as "at best unconvincing and at worst deeply insulting".

But the Daily Express defends Mr Hancock, saying in its leader that he "displayed candour and resilience in his marathon evidence session".

It concludes that: "Rather than scapegoat ministers, aides or officials, he gave every impression he is part of a team and has fought to save as many lives as possible in the throes of a public health nightmare.

A new campaign is launched by The Sun to prevent what it calls an "environmental disaster", caused by the irresponsible disposal of single-use face masks.

It says the masks may have saved thousands of lives by stopping the spread of coronavirus.

But it reports that "some 53 million a week are chucked away in the UK, harming birds and animals and even washing into the sea".

The Times welcomes the legal victory of the woman who lost her job with a think-tank after saying people could not change their biological sex.

Maya Forstater yesterday won her appeal against the original employment tribunal ruling.

The Times thinks the outcome "strikes an important blow for free speech, which in recent years has all too often found itself outmuscled by the competing concern for the rights of those whom it might offend".

And finally, the Telegraph says Cambridge University academics, studying medieval skeletons, have found that a surprisingly large number of people in the fourteenth century had bunions.

They believe this was a result of the fashion at that time for pointed-toed shoes.

The bony lumps, which had been considered a more modern problem, were more common in those buried in urban areas, who were more likely to be fashion-conscious.

The headline is "a sore point".

FIVE STORIES FROM LGBT HISTORY: A Witness History special 50 years after the Stonewall Riots of 1969

IS THERE A FUTURE WITH CAPITALISM?: Tricky asks whether the system has run its course