25/03/2014 The Papers

breezed past Jo`Wilfried Tsonga to set up a quarterfinal with Novak

Djokovic. All that and more in Sportsday in 15 minutes after the

Papers. Welcome to our look ahead to what

the papers will be bringing us tomorrow. With me Beth Rigby of the

Financial Times and journalist and author John Kampfner. We will start

with the Daily Telegraph, leading on new NHS guidance that it should be

easier for teenage girls to get hold of the morning after pill, the

photograph shows Mick Jagger with his sons and daughter shortly before

they attended L'Wren Scott's funeral. The Financial Times has

found that Wall Street banks and some of their foreign rivals have

had to pay out $100 billion in legal settlement since the financial

crisis. More news from across the Atlantic with the Guardian reporting

that plans have been drawn up in Washington to end the systematic

collecting of Americans' phone records by the National Security

Agency. The Daily Mail is reporting on the appearance of the

Metropolitan Police chief commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan`Howe

before a committee of MPs in which he admitted not knowing how many

police documents were shredded which may have revealed the extent of

alleged corruption within his force. Finally, the Daily Express is

leading with more analysis of what may have happened to that missing

Malaysian airlines plane. An aviation expert that the paper has

talked to believe there is evidence that the pilot was involved in a

suicide plunge. We will start with the Financial

Times, Beth, very interesting story, as the world, frankly, begins to

recover from the mess of the last four or five years, we are seeing

the cost of that mess to some American banks. We will also see a

political shift in attitudes, and I think that is what this story is

about, that 100 billion of fines in US legal settlements by Wall Street

and some foreign banks in the US, half of those penalties extracted in

the past year as lawmakers and regulators start poring over how

banks have been behaving and where they have found misconduct, they are

hitting hard. It says here, the sum reflects a substantial served in the

political attitudes towards banks as regulators and the Obama

administration seeks to counter perceptions that bankers have got

off lightly in their role in the financial crisis. And so this is the

sort of political fallout. In the US, they are going in hard with

fines. In the UK, we are going hard on regulation or bonus claw`backs.

We have had the LIBOR and mis`selling scandal here, but these

sort of sums, we haven't seen anything like that in the UK. You

talk about the perception that the bankers have got away lightly,

certainly America, and that is the perception your plants, and it will

continue, won't it, when you figure out the fact that not a single

person has gone to jail? I don't buy this interpretation. The 100 billion

figure looks startling, and American regulators have always been, for

many years, tougher on the banks, and they are tougher on

money`laundering. London is the money`laundering capital of the

world, and in Britain we seem to have a sense of, let the financial

services rip, we are a lot more lax in pretty much every area of

regulation. And yes, as Clive has said, not a single banker either

side, or in Switzerland or Germany or anywhere, has been convicted of

anything substantial. Look at any of the mis`selling scandals, any of the

sub`prime stuff, any of the pension mis`selling, LIBOR, whatever `

nobody has gone to jail. Meanwhile, the British Government objects when

the European Union tries to rein in bankers para`bonuses, saying

somehow... I am trying to say that it is great what the Americans are

doing, but it is a drop in the Oak shouldn't, and the perception among

the public is that the financial services as a sector have got away

scot`free. The point I would make in terms of bonuses is that the

European Union might want to put forward rules, but for the UK,

financial services is such a core part... Because we have allowed

ourselves to be like that. But while you are rebalancing the economy, you

have to be careful not to choke it. I would say as well that, actually,

there are signs of things toughening up, people's dismay of these huge

bonuses that are still being awarded... Still being awarded in

the last few weeks! They say they are just going to increase core

salaries to get away with it. The Bank of England have said that they

will put forward rules to have six`year claw`backs, so that this is

an effort to try and... What you are saying about no`one going to jail,

the point is that until people feel they have individual

responsibility, either through going to jail or having money taken back

of them, then how do you mitigate risk? I think the claw`back, the

idea of claw`back, you can take people's bonuses six years after

they have been awarded them, that could go some way to start beginning

to change the culture. I am not denying that things are not

toughening up at the margins. All I am saying is that I do not see it as

a greater seismic change. I think there are bits and pieces. There is

probably a lot more that needs to be done, and I suspect that is the view

of a lot of members of the public. The knock`on effect of the mess, the

financial mess we have all been suffering over the last few years,

is cuts, and at the bottom of the Guardian, cuts have left 250,000

older people without state care. We were just discussing this before,

interesting that there has been so much emphasis in the Budget around

it being very much focused on older voters and the fascinating new

flexibility for people to spend their pensions, to cash in their

pensions in the way that they wish. And in many ways it is very

appealing, the idea of trusting people, particularly trusting people

who have been around for a while and who know the way of the world. Let

them spend their pensions or save the way they wish, and discussions

now about whether David Cameron will finally make good on his original

promise to raise the threshold of inheritance tax. That is all the

good news, and it is a certain type of older voter or older person, but

obviously the flip side, according to the Guardian, hardly a friend of

the Conservative coalition, is the idea of the route cuts there is the

other sector of the elderly vote that is being left behind. ``

through cuts. Because councils do not have enough money to put into

services. What is interesting about this story, talking about the older

people in our country, 250,000 is not a huge number of people, but it

is symptomatic and symbolic of the kind of cuts beginning to feed

through. And I thought what was pertinent about this is that Labour

have been slammed a bit in the past few days because the Tories are

riding high on, you know, trying to attract the silver vote through

pension reform, through inheritance tax promises et cetera, or hints.

But actually people are still feeling, you know, the Labour

argument would be that people are still feeling the crunch, and in

lower income groups, in a vulnerable groups, actually the cuts to the

welfare state, the caps on welfare spending are actually hurting the

people at the edges. From a political point of view, George

Osborne doesn't want stories like this coming through, because it

plays back into the Labour sensed that this recovery is for the few,

not the many. We are running out of time. We'll go on to the Telegraph.

Royal consent. The suggestion is we should stop or end the practice,

which is what, hundreds of years, I would have thought, that the Queen

signs off on bills and legislation. It is one of those many quirks of

the British non`constitutional, constitutional system. The idea that

the Queen physically signs off on bills, although she is supposed to

be and is apolitical and the Commons constitutional reform committee,

it's hinting, it is basically saying ` do we, everybody, want to have

another look at this? Is it right that the monarch should physically

be signing, because it gives the impression that she has something to

do with politics and actually, she doesn't. Although lpts Go on. Go on.

Well, if there is a change monarch in the future and say Prince

Charles... A bit more interventionist. We get some idea of

what he is going on about. He might say ` I am not going to sign this, I

don't agree. Part of me thinks, that's ridiculous, the Queen signing

off bills fuels speculation that the monarchy has indue influence but

maybe constitutionally it would be right to properly make sure that

that... To have that final little check and balance It is a very

typically British way of dealing with constitutional reform, let it

wither away. Let's have a committee. She gives it the nod and that part

of parliamentary practice is dealt with. We can't all be hard`headed

Americans like you. I'm in the American. I know you are not, but

you love America. As they do at Chelsea.

Oh, that reminds me. There was a football result tonight. You could

be in trouble with Chelsea. We will not discuss that. You will

be back later. The sport is coming up. You will be a back in an hour

for another look at the stories behind the headlines. Stay with us

for that. At the top of the next hour, 11.00pm, we will have the

latest on the search of that missing Malaysian airlines plane. But now,

as promised, time for Sportsday. Hello and welcome to Sportsday. Our

headlines this evening: There's derby delight for City as they brush

off United to move up to second in the table. Bayern Munich lie in wait

for Moyes' Men. Today they won the German title in record`breaking

style. And Andy Murray