10/02/2014 The Papers

career begins. He is not wanted by his country any more. And there is

the latest from Sochi. British medal hopes have been dashed by eight

crash. That is all coming up after The Papers. -- by a crash.

Welcome to our lookahead to what the papers will be bringing us tomorrow.

With me are the Deputy political editor of the Financial Times, Beth

Rigby, and the writer and broadcaster John Kampfner. We start

with the Independent, each has an exclusive story about the possible

influence of a lobbying company on the NHS. It claims NHS bosses

allowed the firm, which was employed by some of the world's biggest drugs

companies, to write a draft report which could help shape NHS policy.

The Metro has a pun on the weather situation. The Financial Times has a

striking photograph, showing the impact of all the floods, referring

to the claim by Lord Smith, the head of the Environment Agency, that he

had told ministers massive cuts would hit flood defences. The

Telegraph has picked up on slightly different comments from Lord Smith.

It says he has inflamed the situation by telling flooded

residents they were partly to blame I choosing to live in high risk

regions. The Prime Minister has waded into the row, according to the

Guardian, ordering ministers to stop the blame game. Finally, the Express

features the floods. It says, even Windsor Castle has got a new moat.

Some of those headlines, trying to have a laugh about all of this! The

Daily Telegraph, homeowners, you knew the risk, the boss of the

Environment Agency inflames tensions, it says, by saying anybody

who buys on a flood plain needs to think about that threat. Does that

not sound sensible? It does. But insensitive? Yes. The problem for

Kris Smith I do not think has been the actions of the Environment

Agency, or necessary his own actions, it has been the

perception, of which the Cabinet and the government are also culpable, of

just being a bit too slow and casual. And maybe,

behind-the-scenes, all of the stuff was happening which should have been

happening, within the financial and other constraints, but that

perception was allowed to be built up. But on the specific point, if

you live next to a river, and a high flowing river, or if you live in a

potential flood plain, if you are in America, and you live in an

earthquake zone, on a fault line or whatever, your insurance premiums

are much higher anyway. So, in that respect, everybody does calculate

risk. We do it all the time. I was on the Somerset Levels yesterday, in

Burrowbridge, by the River Parrett, and the people there, they are used

to flooding, it happens every year, it is part of life. It is the

frequency of the floods this year is freaking them out. And also, the

fact that they believe that with the increased frequency, there should be

increased government involvement and that does not seem to have

happened. And actually, tonight, David Cameron has cleared his diary,

off he goes. He now knows that he is in a crisis situation, where he

needs to be seen to be doing stuff. There was a COBRA meeting today, and

a flurry of it over to you tonight, apparently. They are cutting the

cost of flights from Newquay and increasing airport capacity. They

are centralising the control of sandbags, putting the military on

stand-by. Because what they are trying to do is actually to get a

grip on the situation. And what the Daily Telegraph is picking up about

homeowners who knew the risk is just a sort of inflammatory headline,

whereby Lord Smith is getting blamed for what is happening. It is a

situation where there has been a gradual build-up over many weeks, of

water. It does not help those thousands of people who have got

three feet of water in their living rooms. What is perplexing is that

for all of the previous inaction, and Beth has just come out with a

very good list of measures, but they have been having these COBRA

emergency committee meetings for weeks. They love the external

panoply, it sounds terribly military, they do it for

anti-terrorism, they do it for wars. It invokes a warlike spirit, and the

attempt is to show that the Government is in control, but on the

rather than glamorous and basic lists which you have just

reviewed... We were talking about the foot and mouth crisis earlier,

which set Gordon Brown, when he first became Prime Minister, and he

took it on and was at the forefront, and his son the ratings spiked. --

his poll ratings spiked. He was in a sweet spot. David Cameron knows that

this is going to put him in a really bad spot, especially if his cabinet

spends the whole time arguing about who is to blame. E-border not care

about that now. Have that discussion in a few weeks' time. -- people do

not care about that. Moving onto this one, Nick Clegg, we would tax

the rich to clear the deficit. You have just finished a book on the

super-rich. People got cross last time when I plugged a book! I am

looking for deep insight into this now. What would the Medicis have

felt about that? What is interesting is the differentiation. It is

obviously a policy thing, but it is Nick Clegg saying, not quite lying

in the sand, but it is saying that there is only so far -- line in the

sand -- that any government wants to go. This idea that you have to

always have low tax to encourage enterprise, but at what cost? Do

politicians really think that if tax rates go from 50 Pete to 40 5p,

somehow, you are going to stop this mass exodus to Switzerland in

Cyprus? -- from 50p to 40p. A lot of it is showboating. Nick Clegg is

making it clear, it is a rehash, but it is very calf early targeted

insane, -- very carefully targeted, in saying, while using the language

they like to use, we, the Lib Dems, are different. Lib Dems want to tax

wealth, not income. That is the point of the mansion tax. It is to

tax assets, not income. In this story, the Telegraph says, how could

this affect a possible second coalition deal with the Tories? I

think the Lib Dems are trying to find five or six key policies to put

on the manifesto, to say, this is what we are about, which can then

become their red lines. The fact that he is highlighting the mansion

tax, something that they wanted to do within the coalition, but they

could not, because the Tories are absolutely opposed to it, but does

that mean, what does that mean, for trying to form a coalition, if this

is Nick Clegg's redline? The Institute for Fiscal Studies last

week said that the top 1% pay 30% of income tax. Does that explain the

emphasis on taxing assets, because the rich are being soaked enough as

it is quick and Mark also, there is a principle, which is, why just tax

income, why not tax assets? Lots of people come here and have second

homes and live abroad. -- enough as it is? Why can we not start taxing

these properties instead of hitting everybody with income tax? The

problem is, if you are super-rich, if you are in not just the 1%, but

the 0.1%, you do not own properties in your name, they having credibly

completed devices, they are not even paying the council tax. The

extraordinary thing is, you look at those amazing ?70 million apartments

in Knightsbridge, a lot of oligarchs, they are doing it through

offshore devices, Cayman Islands, whatever, Westminster Council and

the others, they cannot get the money.

The Conservatives would argue with a policy like this that what is unfair

is that somebody might be a wealthy pensioner, in the sense that they

have an iPhone that they have lived in all their lives and it has

appreciated because it is in London. -- nice home that they have lived

in. They don't have disposable income to pay an extra tax. It is

interesting. It is a differentiating policy. It will not raise much

money, will it? Really? It is the same thing with is Labour are going

back up to 50% tax rate. It is not always just a question of how much

you can race but how much you will raise by people not disappearing.

You always get the counterargument against higher taxes by saying that

everybody will like it too Switzerland or somewhere else. And

actually for all the huffing and puffing, very few people, very

little happens. Let's go back to the flooding. The PM says stop the

flooding blame game. Chris myth of the Environment Agency issued a

warning to ministers. -- Chris Smith. It concerned the funding for

the Environment Agency. The FT did an interview late in the day-to-day

with Lord Smith, and it is on our front page, in which he says that he

did warn the Government that massive cuts to their budget, the

Environment Agency budget, would affect their ability to defend the

against flooding. This goes in direct contradiction to what the

Government have consistently said over recent weeks, which is that as

a whole, they have increased spending in this area. Actually the

independent climate committee, the details are in the FT, but they say

there has been cut to funding. Lord Smith has actually been slightly

hamstrung by the fact that he has not been able to put the money into

flood defences that he would have liked. That comes back to the point

of don't attack the Environment Agency when you are in the middle of

a crisis because what actually begins to happen is that he feels

defensive and said you are partly to blame. Ministers say they are to

blame and it is very tawdry. You would have thought that Eric Pickles

would have been brought up to speed with the exact situation with

funding and the Environment Agency and so on and so forth when he was

given the job of stepping into the breach to take over from Mr

Paterson. Which is what the Guardian and other newspapers are quoting. So

bizarre. Shooting from the hip? If that was the case, why was he not

briefed? Saying it was all down to Environment Agency and what a bunch

of bloggers they are. Today it is saying that it is entirely wrong to

say I have made the slightest criticism of their marvellous work.

It is ridiculously hammed up. My admiration for the Environment

Agency exceeds everything. And Owen Paterson, who has gone off to have

an eye operation, and according to the Guardian was so cross about Eric

Pickles's attacks on Chris Smith as the Environment Agency, and we had

two Cabinet ministers fighting each other, Pickles said of Paterson that

they are two peas in a pod. We are brothers from another mother. What

is he on about? I heard that as well! A mental typo. We will stop it

there. You guys will be back in another hour for a look at the other

stories. Stay with us on BBC News for that. At 11 o'clock we will have

much more on all the flooding situations and the developing

situation around the Thames Valley because more rain is forecast. Not

looking good. Stay with us for that. Now it is time for Sportsday.

Hello and welcome to Sportsday. I'm Hugh Ferris. Coming up on the

programme: He won't play T20 for England any more but he will be

playing in England. Kevin Pietersen re-signs for Surrey for the revamped

T20 blast. British medal hopes on day three in

Sochi are