Newspaper headlines: Tories 'slam Boris', and No 10 'smears'
- Published
After a weekend in the limelight, many of Monday's front pages carry a photo showing Boris Johnson sat on the ground outside his house, head in hand, looking down.
The Daily Mail says his comments likening Theresa May's Brexit strategy to a suicide vest have created "Tory Mayhem".
In an editorial, the paper calls his intervention "reckless".
And it reports that a senior Conservative has warned that 12 or more of the party's MPs would refuse to serve under him if he became leader - depriving the government of a majority.
The Times notes that Mr Johnson's remarks have been condemned by the father of the youngest victim of the 2005 London bombings.
But as far as the Sun is concerned, the former foreign secretary was deploying "a harmless metaphor" and describes the outrage as "confected".
"Like it or not," the paper says, "Boris Johnson remains the most popular Conservative politician in the country."
'Falling through the cracks'
According to the Guardian's lead story, the Metropolitan Police is increasingly dropping investigations into serious crimes such as sexual offences, violent attacks and arson, within hours of them being reported.
It says Britain's largest force screened out just over 36,000 crimes without further inquiry on the day they were reported last year, compared with 13,000 the year before.
A retired police officer tells the paper that increased demand, budget cuts and recruiting difficulties meant things were falling through the cracks.
The Metropolitan Police says investigations must be proportionate and timely, and inquiries could be re-opened if, for example, forensic evidence came to light.
The Financial Times says the EU is preparing to give its chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, new instructions to help close a deal with the UK over Brexit.
Its lead story - which is picked up by many other papers - says the informal EU summit in Salzburg is emerging as a significant moment in the Brexit talks.
British officials have blamed the deadlock on Mr Barnier being too rigid.
The paper quotes an unnamed European diplomat as saying the new guidance would help to serve as "a mandate to do the deal".
Software failure
In its lead, HuffPost UK reports that thousands of patients in Hertfordshire could be at risk because of a massive computer blunder at Lister Hospital in Stevenage.
The website says the failure meant that 25,000 letters, which gave family doctors medical information about patients after they had been discharged, were not sent.
Labour is demanding an inquiry into what it describes as a scandal.
In a statement, the trust says that, at present, there is no evidence patients have come to harm.
Several papers have the story of how fake Nazi medals were used by MI5 to trick German sympathisers at the end of World War Two.
The honours were given to two British Nazis who thought they were handing state secrets to Berlin, when in fact they were part of a group being run by an MI5 agent to prevent the material from being passed on.
Details of the deception come from the journalist Robert Hutton, who says the bogus medals were actually forged at the Royal Mint on the orders of Victor Rothschild - the banking heir who joined MI5 in 1940.
