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rime Minister Rishi Sunak’s speech to the Conservative Party conference dominates the front pages of Thursday’s newspaper front pages.
Almost all of the national newspapers lead on the speech with some very different takes on its content.
The Daily Telegraph sums up Mr Sunak’s announcements with a line from the speech, saying it contained “Huge decisions to change Britain” including the plan to effectively phase out smoking, replacing A-levels and the expected scrapping of the HS2 link in favour of a northern transport network.
The decision to curb HS2 is condemned by former PM David Cameron on the front of The Times, which says the speech was a bid by Mr Sunak to “cast himself as Thatcher’s heir”.
The Daily Express calls the speech a “game changer” as it describes it as a “policy blitz to fix Britain” while the Daily Mail says he gave the party belief he can counter what it calls “Keir’s wokery”.
Not every paper is positive, the Daily Mirror describing the HS2 decision as a “train wreck” and the “PM’s great betrayal”.
Opposition to the HS2 decision from Mr Cameron and to the smoking ban from fellow former PM Liz Truss is picked up by The Independent, which says the speech went “up in smoke”, a theme continued in The Guardian which says Mr Sunak has ignited a “Tory civil war” as he positioned himself as a “change” candidate.
Declaring the Tories as the “party of change” is echoed by the Financial Times as it leads on the axing of the HS2 northern leg, while the i says the Prime Minister has turned on 13 years of Tory government to lay a “spending trap” for Labour.
The Metro also picks up on the promise of “change” as it says Mr Sunak declared he is “on track for victory”.
The Sun bucks the trend, relegating the speech to a small plug as it focuses on the decision to play what it calls a “bonkers World Cup” across three continents in 2030.
And the Daily Star says we have “hit the skids” as security tags appear on packets of toilet rolls.
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