28/01/2014 The Papers

latest from Lewis Hamilton and the crash he had interesting today.

That's all from Sportsday in 15 minutes after the papers.

Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow. With me are Peter Kellner, chairman of the

pollster Yougov, and political commentator Lance Price. Let's have

a look at some of the pages now. The Independent features a picture of

flood water on the Somerset Levels. The caption says "how Defra ignored

the warnings of flood disaster to save money". The paper also has the

latest from the phone hacking trial. The front page of the Telegraph

shows a picture of France's former first lady Valerie Trierweiler in

India.The paper leads though on its report that the number of elderly

patients having to go into A - has doubled in five years - because of a

lack of confidence in out-of-hours GPs. The paper leads on the report

that the number of elderly patients going into A has doubled in the

last five years was of a lack of confidence in GPs.

The Financial Times leads on revelations from Barclays bank that

its chief executive intends closing a quarter of its UK branches. The

whole front page of the Daily Mail is dedicated to the outrage being

felt by flood victims who feel they've been abandoned to the

elements by officials. The Metro reports that drinking too much

increases your risk of developing a particularly deadly form of skin

cancer. A strong image on the cover of the Guardian of an Afghan child

refugee - it's lead story, though, reports that MPs have received legal

advice warning that mass spying programmes by GCHQ are "probably

illegal". Finally, the Daily Mirror claims Scotland Yard detectives

investigation the Madeleine McCann abduction are set to arrest three

men. We are going to start with the

Independent. The stories about the Syrian refugees, and there was

pressure building on the Government but even Nigel Farage. Yes, over

Christmas he said he thought Britain should take its share. The Deputy

Prime Minister is trailing the story. Whether it will take its

share, I think we are taking a share, a pretty small share compared

to some of our European partners, which is not to take away from the

efforts that the UK government are quite rightly making to help

refugees in the region, and a lot of the refugees are better helped in

the region rather than taking them out, and that is great but there are

those very vulnerable ones who have to be taken out of the region and

helped. It just disappoints me that the whole debate about immigration

in this country makes it difficult for the Government even to concede

this much. Is there any polling on this, given the toxic debate about

immigration at the moment? What are the public think about Syrian

refugees coming here? We polled this last week and we found that people

on balance don't want Syrian refugees here, but by a narrower

margin than any other. I think in reality people will not be appalled

when it happens, and a couple of days ago David Cameron said actually

it looks like not many Romanians and Bulgarians are coming here, and the

big immigration issue from the last few weeks has been about the EU

rules allowing any Romanian and Bulgarian coming to Britain, and

people saying we will be flooded with them, it's not happening. I

just wondered with the lack of flooding of people from Romania and

Bulgaria, and a pretty principal response by the Government supported

by the Lib Dems and the Labour Party, a real cross-party consensus

that we do need to do something about the Syrian refugees, maybe we

are moving into a more adult conversation about immigration than

we were a few months ago. That would be refreshing! And I wonder if

you'll all is simply forces the parties into acting. Remember what

happened to the Gurkhas and Joanna Lumley a few years ago, people were

on the side of the Gurkhas having rights here, and I remember a Tory

MP down in Dorset who got into a dreadful mess about somebody being

thrown out, and the locals dead, actually this person may have

technically broken a rule but we like him. When you get into specific

groups and specific people, the debate changes. As you said, Lance,

Nigel Farage showed how nuanced this argument is by coming out in favour

of the Government bringing in some Syrian refugees. That announcement

is due tomorrow in full. Let's pick -- stick with the Independent and

the foam packing trial. Andy Coulson is linked to this because he

apparently listened to one particular message in his time as

editor. Of course we have to be very careful, this is an ongoing trial,

Andy Coulson has pleaded not guilty and we are long way from hearing all

of the evidence, let alone getting a verdict of the jewellery, but at the

heart of this Andy Coulson was not just the editor of the News Of The

World these allegations referred to, when he became the Prime Minister's

press secretary, so Andy Coulson is in the dock but in the background

David Cameron's reputation is sort of in the dock with him. When it has

been a dramatic day, it forces its way onto the front page. It looks

like the prosecution case will be wrapped up by the end of this week

and the beginning of next week, and we will hear the defence of Andy

Coulson. Yes, what is interesting here is that the person who has

given this evidence that has been difficult for Andy Coulson has

himself pleaded guilty, and therefore is giving evidence in that

way, but what it shows is... Peter is right to say that David

Cameron's judgement is in the dock but so is the whole reputation of

journalism and certainly tabloid journalism, and if you look at the

pressure on this particular journalist to come up with a story

that would shift newspapers off supermarket shelves, it is

interesting, we come onto this programme to talk about the front

pages. Newspaper sales are dropping but somehow the papers like the Sun

and the other newspapers are still managing to fill their pages and we

don't necessarily have to have a diet of celebrity divorces. Debates

about press regulation have not ended and I think it is bound to be

explicit if not implicitly backwash from this trial into the ongoing

debate about the role of Parliament or not in the future of press

regulation. Andy Coulson, Rebekah Brooks and seven others all deny the

charges being levelled against them. Let's go to the Telegraph, the

scandal elderly forced into A A number of patients failed bike out

of hours GPs has doubled in the last five years. They are pointing the

blame of the story onto the contracts of GPs, suggesting they

are simply not there when elderly people need them out of hours. If

somebody has a fall or some sort of problem, the answer is to pick up

the phone and ring A We have seen many stories about the pressures on

A and there are adverts all over the place saying A should not be

the first port of call and they are not succeeding. There has been a

doubling in the last five years in the number of patients over 90 being

sent to A, does not represent a lot of people? I don't know if it is

a huge absolute number but an increase of that scale... I mean it

is not just people over 90. A is clogged up with people who should

have gone to their GPs, their local surgeries, and I think there is an

underlying problem that everybody who looks at the health system knows

we have too many hospitals in Britain. We need a smaller number,

bigger high-tech hospitals, and beefed up surgeries possibly

operating 24/7. But of course, when it goes to the specific, are we

going to close this hospital, this GP surgery, people say no, keep it

open, and we have too many hospitals, inefficient use of scarce

money and this is one of the symptoms of the system that neither

the last government or this Government has really got to grips

with. Can you very briefly explain, this wasn't the kind of problem it

was in your time at Number Ten, it didn't seem to be as big. Were you

guys preparing for an ageing demographic? Very much so. Everybody

was very aware of that problem, but I do not think anybody was

anticipating that the problem would be directed towards A I think

there were mistakes made, if we have to be honest. Staying with the Daily

Telegraph, the plumber with intelligence links held in

anti-terror raid... This is a truly extraordinary story. I read it with

my eyes popping. What you have got is a very senior diplomat, according

to the Telegraph, with links to the intelligence services, that is

usually code for, he is a spy. And his son James was arrested on

terrorism charges. It looks as if the police got the wrong person. It

is an extraordinary story. In an odd way, I suppose, it is not just, as

it were, kids from poor black ghettos who get wrongly arrested, it

can happen to the sons of senior civil servants. But they have chosen

not to lead with that as the headline for the story, which

suggests that perhaps you would not bother reading it? But I remember

when I was a young journalist on the Sunday Times, the editor, one of his

mottos was, a headline should sell a story, not tell a story. The

headline, true, it does not tell the story, but by golly, it is selling

the story. They got the wrong house! It is a fascinating story. I am with

you on this one, Clive, the headline is misleading. Frankly, the story

does not justify being on the front page. If the headline had been, son

of a diplomat wrongly arrested, then I think it would be a rather less

impressive piece of journalism. There you go!

Moving on to the Financial Times, Barclays chief, ready to wield the

axe. The investment bank is going to lose jobs, as well as branches? The

whole of the banking industry has been thrown up in the air. The

changes have been brought in not because politicians say they have to

change but because the people running the banks have recognised

that they have to change. It has begin to occasion is for jobs, a lot

of people will be going. A lot of our banking will be done online and

less will be done in branches. This is the other side we have had some

good economic news, which has not been on any of the front pages,

oddly enough. But in the old days, before you were born, Clive, when

Lance and myself were in our prime... Speak for yourself, not

Lance. It was the industrial north where the jobs went. But if you were

in the southern half of Britain, in a job or in an insurance company,

you had a job for life. But these are now the jobs which are on the

line. Unemployment is coming down, employment is going up, but not in

the banks. There are going to be a lot of very unhappy Barclays branch

staff. Technology is changing the way we bank, reducing the need for

people to go into the branches. This is the other side of the

unemployment coin. Much more to talk about, we will be back in an hour.

Stay with us on BBC News, because at the top of the hour, we will have

much more on the fact that Britain is going to accept some of the most

vulnerable refugees from Syria, that is according to the Deputy Prime

Minister. He says priority will be giving to women, children and those

who are disabled. That news is expected in full tomorrow. But now

it is time for Sportsday. Hello and welcome to Sportsday - I'm

Tim Hague, and here's what's coming up... Super Sturridge helps

Liverpool to a 4-0 thrashing of Everton in the Merseyside