Tabloid money… the hero of the Pride of Hull

⬤”Huge congratulations” to Harpreet Kaur (pictured) for winning the final of the BBC’s The Apprentice, says co-host Karren Brady in The Sun on Sunday. Kaur receives £250,000 in investment for her business, along with a partnership with host and tycoon Alan Sugar. “It is well deserved.” She and finalist Kathryn Burn have “proved themselves as true businesswomen”. So isn’t it annoying that, according to Kathryn, some fans of the show have turned their triumph into a political row for pointing out that the female contestants have posed in bikinis on Instagram? Kathryn is entitled to “celebrate her glamorous side as well as working hard and owning a company”. But some viewers say she can’t pose in a bikini and be a businesswoman, “as if it’s simply not possible to have both brains and beauty”. What an “outdated and archaic” concept.

⬤ The arbitrary firing of 800 P&O ferry crew at a minute’s notice was a “pretty miserable story”, but as with so many stories there are two sides, says Frederick Forsyth in the Daily Express. The manner of the dismissal was “brutal and stupid”. But while around-the-table discussions with the crew would have been nice, the company felt compelled to do something. P&O has made huge losses, reportedly over £100m. Quite why is something of an enigma. Regardless, the Dutch skipper Eugene Favier of the Pride of Hull offered a ray of light amid the gloom, backing his crew, closing the doors and refusing to let P&O aboard to throw them off the ship. If he is fired for his actions, no doubt another shipping company will “snap him up”.

⬤ The Caribbean tour of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was an opportunity to engage with the issue of slavery, says Jan Moir in the Daily Mail. But not, as they did, by “going back to the future in a colonial-era, Pathé News reel-style jaunt featuring William in the tropical dress of his old regiment… Dear God, it couldn’t have been more colonial if he had worn a pith helmet and driven a tank through the streets of Kingston”. It was made worse when the prince expressed “sorrow” at slavery, echoing his father by saying it “stains” British history. He didn’t mention the aid we have given Caribbean Commonwealth countries, nor how Britain led the world in abolishing slavery. “How I wish, just for once, somebody would.”