rewrite this title ‘Labour U-turn on freebies’ and ‘Fayed was a monster’

Summarize this content to 1000 words Leading several of the papers on Saturday is the latest in the Labour donations saga. The Times reports the prime minister has “bowed to pressure from senior colleagues” and neither he nor his “top team” will accept donations for clothes going forward. It says Starmer’s allies “admitted… there was a perception issue” after accepting donations from a Labour donor.The Daily Telegraph also leads on the donations, reporting Chancellor Rachel Reeves says she too accepted money for clothes from the widow of a Labour donor. The paper says the “backlash over gifts from donors threatens to overshadow the Labour Party conference this weekend”.The Sun’s top story covers the rape allegations against late Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed. Reflecting comments from his accusers’ lawyers, it writes that Fayed “combined the worst of Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein”.The Fayed story is also the lead story in the Daily Mirror, which similarly reports the lawyers’ comments and that Fayed was “branded a monster”. A paparazzi photo of the prime minister’s chief of staff speaking to a senior staffer leads the Daily Mail, with the paper branding the conversation as “heated”. The image accompanies a report into the donations saga, as well as a report that Starmer’s popularity is in “freefall” after the row.Politics also dominates the i’s Saturday edition, which covers post-Brexit negotiations between the UK and EU. It says the “EU will demand easier access to the UK” for young people “in return for easing trade restrictions and creating a security pact”.Leading the Financial Times is a report into public debt. It reports that “fiscal gloom intensified” after public debt “hit 100% of GDP for the first time since the 1960s”. It says this fuels expectations of “painful tax rises and spending cuts” in next month’s Budget.The rollback of winter fuel payments leads the Daily Express. It says campaigners have warned that some older people will be “begging in the cold” as a result of the payments being axed for millions.The Daily Star details the story of a brain surgeon who tells the paper he experienced heaven while in a coma and that it “smells a bit like a KFC restaurant”. Keir Starmer, who the paper features in relation to Friday’s revelation that he would no longer accept donations for clothing, has been photoshopped poking his head out of the Colonel’s bucket.Several papers lead on the news that Sir Keir Starmer, his deputy Angela Rayner and Chancellor Rachel Reeves will no longer accept donations for clothes. The Times describes it as a “U-turn on freebies”, after Sir Keir bowed to pressure from senior colleagues. The paper says it is a significant reversal by the prime minister, who had previously defended the £100,000 he had received in donations for clothing gifts and hospitality, insisting it was all properly declared.The Guardian and Daily Telegraph say the backlash over gifts has threatened to overshadow the Labour conference this weekend. An unnamed Labour MP has told the Telegraph the prime minister should now pay back the donations. The paper says Sir Keir’s new stance does not include giving up hospitality such as football tickets, indicating he will continue to have his Arsenal corporate tickets paid for by others. “Labour’s wardrobe malfunction” is the phrase used by the Financial Times, which says the row threatens to undermine the prime minister’s claim, made just two months ago, that he will lead a government of public service and transparency.PA MediaUnder the headline “Starmer hit by calamity poll”, the Daily Mail says his popularity has fallen by 26% since the election. In a poll commissioned by the paper, three in five respondents said Sir Keir was failing to clean up British politics. A similar proportion said he should not have accepted gifts or free tickets for football matches. In a separate editorial, the Mail describes the mood as “a national outbreak of buyer’s remorse”. It says most new prime ministers enjoy a honeymoon period, but the results of the poll look more like the start of a divorce petition.The Daily Mirror raises questions about the funding of Reform UK. The paper says nearly three quarters of donations to Nigel Farage’s party come from wealthy people or companies linked to tax havens. Since 2019 it has received £16.5 million from donors with offshore business interests. Reform UK says all its donations comply with rules and are regularly declared.Both the Mirror and the Sun highlight comments by lawyers representing women who say they were sexually abused by the late Mohamed Al Fayed. They described him as a monster and likened him to serial sex offenders such as Jimmy Savile, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein. In an editorial, the Mirror says it is too late to put Fayed in the dock, but everything must be done to make it easier for women to report abuse.PA MediaThree of Fayed’s accusers: Katherine, Lindsay Mason and GemmaUnder the headline “EU to land Starmer with trade deal headache”, the i reports Brussels will offer the prime minister a softer Brexit trade deal if he agrees to make it easier for young people to move between Britain and the EU. The paper says the European Commission wants people under the age of 30 from both sides to be able to live in the UK or the EU for up to four years, which means the government will have to take a position on whether to allow potentially hundreds of thousands of young Europeans to move to the UK for extended periods of time.

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