The General Election is the only story in town on Thursday, with some papers making their recommendations and others reporting on a likely close race.
The Daily Express, The Sun and the Daily Mail have urged their readers to vote Conservative, while the Daily Telegraph flags several pro-Tory columns on its front, but leads with the election being poised “on a knife edge”.
The Daily Mirror urges readers to elect the Labour Party, while The Guardian reports on opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn calling on voters to “shock” the establishment.
The Times says the Tories are facing a last-minute threat from the Brexit Party, with a study suggesting they might cost the Conservatives 16 seats.
The Independent reports on polls forecasting a slim Tory majority, but says a Brexit deal will be impossible by 2021.
The i and Metro play a straighter bat, saying today is the day Britain decides its fate.
The Yorkshire Post takes a different tack, with a front page editorial calling for electoral reform after a campaign laced with “spin, conjecture and downright deceit”.
Editor James Mitchinson, who has won widespread acclaim during this general election, said the northern paper is “on the side of truth”, calling for an end to the “lies, the deception and the fakery”.
In an impassioned editorial, he goes on to say:
“From the very beginning, the run-in to this General Election above all others has been fraught with danger for anyone seeking trustworthy, fact-checked information from credible sources that have no political motivation, affiliation or agenda.
“We have seen a video of Sir Keir Starmer cynically tampered with in an attempt to discredit him; the partisan social media account for Conservative Campaign Headquarters morphed into a supposed ‘fact-checking’ service; political parties of all persuasions putting out ‘free local newspapers’ which mimicked the real thing in order to trick people into believing and trusting what was nothing more than propaganda.
“Just this week the journalism of this newspaper and that of our sister title – in relation to the tragic plight of a poorly four-year-old boy seen recuperating on the floor of Leeds General Infirmary – has been called into question after a sophisticated and concerted attack on the veracity of our story by online trolls and activists.
“For this newspaper the tipping point came when loyal, committed, life-long readers began contacting the editor to advise him they would no longer be buying or reading The Yorkshire Post because they had seen a ‘Facebook post that proved we were lying.’ Of course, we were not. They had been duped, but certainly not by this newspaper.”
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