All but a few front pages featured a picture of the warden in his bearskin hat in relief from the heat, which on Monday topped 37.4C in west London and a national high of 38.1C in Santon Downham in Suffolk. The prospect of an even hotter day on Tuesday provides a flurry of headline warnings. “Record highs, travel chaos, schools closing … and it’s about to get hotter,” says the Telegraph with a large picture of the Irish Guards on guard at the front. A second front-page story features comments from Prince Charles that the record-breaking heat had proved him right about the “emergency” of climate change. A heat map by Britain’s Met Office makes a sensational front page in i along with the headline ‘Earth sends out a warning’. The Sun has a close-up of a possibly different Irish guard visibly sweating under the famous hats. “Britain is melting,” says the main headline, with subtitles reading “Record 41 C ‘to hit today’” and “Runways KO’d by sun.” The Guardian has a mix of different images from around the country, but it’s paired with a more politically focused headline: “Johnson accused of ‘checking in’ as Britain swelters in heat wave”. The Mirror’s headline is ‘Record baker’ over a photo of them sunbathing in sunny North Tyneside and the caption ‘Hottest day today with more to come’. The Times leads with the “Tory race wide open” after the latest leadership vote saw Liz Truss close the gap on Penny Mordant. It also has the weather story titled “Crazy heat stops trains and melts runways.” The Mail is also leading the Tory race, claiming “Mordaunt’s No 10 bid hits the buffers”. At the top of the page is the Guardian image with the headline ‘Sunny day Snowflake Britain had a meltdown’, showing inside coverage that seems to lean towards the skeptical variety. So does Express, where the headline has a sly reference to the weather: “Can Truss turn up the heat to fight Rishi in round two?” The Met is warning the country to “Get ready for… the hottest day on record” with 41C forecast in some areas on Tuesday. The Financial Times uses the guard for their front story and headline “Drop guard: Britain braces for more heat”. The lead story is about Cambridge-based tech firm Arm: “Arm’s London IPO plan on hold after Johnson fall sparks uproar.”
