A new law for the protection of police officers and nurses as well as a briefing war on Downing Street are splashed across the front pages.

The Government has announced those who kill an emergency services worker while committing crime will be given mandatory life jail sentences, according to the Daily Express and the Daily Mail.

The Independent says experts have claimed ministers in England have “lost the message” over Covid-19, with scientists warning Downing Street to take the virus “more seriously” amid high case numbers.

AstraZeneca’s jab may offer longer-lasting immunity than other vaccines, reports The Daily Telegraph, which also quotes the firm’s chief executive Pascal Soriot as saying giving the shot developed with Oxford to the elderly could be one of the reasons the UK is not seeing “so many hospitalisations relative to Europe”.

The Times, meanwhile, says health chiefs have drawn up plans to cut NHS waiting lists by moving the sick around the country.

Returning to Downing Street, where the i reports on an “undercurrent of mistrust” in a briefing war between the Prime Minister’s and Chancellor’s teams.

The Guardian also covers the “frustrations”, as it says Rishi Sunak’s department is understood to be concerned about Boris Johnson’s “tendency to over-promise and the fumbled timing of decisions”.

David Cameron lobbied a Tory he ennobled while he was Prime Minister to save a Greensill’s deal with Lloyds Banking Group, according to the Financial Times.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have banned the BBC from screening their Christmas carol concert amid “fury” over a royal documentary, reports The Sun.

The murders of a couple in their Somerset home as their young children slept upstairs lead Metro and the Daily Mirror.

And the Daily Star says a “moron jailed for causing chaos on Britain’s roads wants YOU to help pay his rent. What a joker!”