‘Amazon tax’ to save High Street

In its leader column, the Daily Mirror calls it a “welcome boost for the ailing high street” and calls on Mr Ashley to promise to protect the 59-store chain’s workforce.

But the Daily Express says the fact the department store is struggling is “extremely worrying”. It says the traditional British High Street is dying in front of our eyes and businesses should be taxed more fairly to create a level playing field with internet-based firms.

The Sun newspaper agrees and says the chancellor should cut business rates and ensure online companies like Amazon pay everything they owe.

But the Independent says it is the government’s fault there are tax loopholes – not the fault of businesses.

The Guardian reports that the Equality and Human Rights Commission called the former foreign secretary’s comments “inflammatory and divisive”.

The Sun says Tory bosses have been branded “a joke” after it emerged Mr Johnson could be sent for diversity training as a potential sanction for his comments.

And the Daily Telegraph blames the summer silly season for allowing the row – which it calls an “increasingly bizarre controversy” – to dominate headlines.

The newspaper says the issue is a “self-inflicted wound” for the Conservatives and claims no-one is being allowed to discuss serious issues for fear of being branded a racist. “We are in the realms of censorship and thought crime”, it says in its leader column.

According to the Daily Mirror, Mr Johnson – who is on holiday in Italy – remained relaxed after being informed the Conservative Party was holding a probe into his comments about the burka.

The paper says it understands that after being told in a phonecall, the former foreign secretary dived into the pool at his villa.

Turkey’s currency crisis is the main story for the Financial Times, after the country’s lira lost nearly a fifth of its value on Friday as US President Trump announced new tariffs.

According to the newspaper, the “defiantly unorthodox reaction” of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – urging people to trade gold and dollars for lira and referencing God – “spooked” the markets further.

The Times calls it the financial markets’ “most serious crisis since the global crash a decade ago”.

On the front page of the Daily Mail is a picture of Jeremy Corbyn in Tunisia which the newspaper claims shows him standing close to the graves of Palestinian militant leaders during a memorial service. The newspaper reports that sources close to the Labour leader say the event, in 2014, was to commemorate Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike in 1985.

Meanwhile, leading female scientists are calling for urgent changes to the way research funding is distributed to tackle gender bias, the Guardian reports.

Data acquired through a Freedom of Information request seen by the paper reveals almost 90% of grants handed out by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council over the past decade have gone to projects led by men.

In 2016/17 less than 7% of grants went to teams led by a woman. And when women were awarded funding they got less money than their male colleagues. The Council tells the paper it has made progress with improved representation of women on its peer review panels and a £5m initiative to speed up culture change.

“The name’s Elba, Idris Elba,” says the Daily Mail as it reports that the producer of the Bond film franchise, Barbara Broccoli, has said a black actor playing the spy “will happen eventually”.

The Luther actor has been a leading candidate since leaked documents revealed four years ago the company’s co-chairwoman had put him forward for the part, the Telegraph reports.