03/06/2014 The Papers

bring you the latest from the French open as Novak Djokovic and Maria

Sharapova advance to the semifinals. Welcome to our look at what the

papers are bringing us tomorrow. With me are Beth Rigby, of The

Financial Times, and John Kampfner. We are going to start with a

Financial Times. It is reporting that RBS has become the second bank

to cap large mortgage loans. The Telegraph has a photograph of two

veterans who met today for the first time since they took part in the

D`day landing 70 years ago. The barrel bomb and the ballot box is

the headline on the front of The Independent, which has been

examining how President Assad has held onto power in Syria. The Metro

has the story of three parent babies to be born in two years after

controversial procedure was given the go`ahead. The Daily Mail says

that shoppers will have to pay 5p for plastic backs from next year. We

are going to start with The Financial Times. RBS, mortgages are

going to be capped amid fears of a housing bubble. The suggestion that

we are heading, potentially, for a crisis here, that is really

beginning to gain traction? This is one of those stories that has a fair

amount of politics in it. It is one of those things, when there is a

problem with your own country, people want to hear it more from it

comes from a countryman. They are less prone to hear it when it comes

from a foreign body. In one respect, the fact there is criticism from the

European Commission of Britain's policy, will be grist to the mail

for the Eurosceptics. At the same time, in quality terms, pretty much

everybody is saying the same thing, that there is an overheating housing

market, that the Government's well`intentioned moves to help

people get onto the housing ladder probably made it too easy, certainly

in London and the south`east. Therefore, the bubble we are already

seeing, and elsewhere we see 11% house price rises in the past year.

But the fundamental problem is a lack of supply. Actually, the

European Commission also said that in the report that they gave

yesterday, warning on the housing market. What is interesting about

this story is that the two banks, the two big mortgage lending banks

that so far have voluntarily capped mortgages, they are RBS and Lloyds.

Watch our state backed. Which are supposed to be independent. Partly,

in the case of RBS, the taxpayer owns over 80% of that bank. Are

these soft measures to try and prevent or stop the Bank of England

having to intervene? When you think about it, Help To Buy, the

Chancellor's scheme to help people onto the housing ladder, it is a

flagship Tory policy, going into the next election. They do not want the

Bank of England to half to clamp down's On that? On mortgage lending.

If you can clamp down the market by making it slightly harder to get

mortgages, maybe that is part of the issue. It is incredibly London

centric, this story. The Help To Buy scheme has hardly affected London?

It is 5% of the market. At the moment you can get it to fund house

prices of up to ?600,000. Lots of people have said, look, Government,

if you want to help people get onto the housing ladder without causing a

bubble in London or inflating a bubble in London, why don't you cut

the amount that people can borrow? Then this money gets funnelled to

other parts of England, where house prices aren't rocketing. But then

you are still left with the problem of a densely populated capital with

lots of young people and families not being able to to buy homes.

Actually, the problem is house building. Build some more houses.

That is what the European Commission is saying, Mark Carney said it, the

man in the street knows it, everybody knows it. Onto the

Telegraph. This is not a zombie government. Cameron and Clegg put

Queen's speech as they dismissed Queen's speech as they dismissed

claims that the coalition has run out of steam. This isn't new news.

This is legislation. So, it is a zombie government? They are trying

really hard for it not to be. There was a galloping number of

initiatives that are going to be announced in the Queen 's speech.

The final nine months of legislation before the election. There are lots

of things going on, pension reforms, a new pub code that we wrote about

today to help tenants of pubs struggling with the pub companies in

terms of rent. And helping Nick Clegg get on better with Vince

Cable! Sorry, an in`house joke. They both like a pint. An infrastructure

built, there are bits and pieces happening. The Government are keen

to say this is not a zombie, we are a coalition and we are going to keep

working through until the election. The reality is, both parties in the

next few months are going to have to... They will have to start

splitting apart? Even as Clegg and Cameron get together and insist that

they are taking forward a strong legislative programme for the next

nine months, they were carping on the Lib Dem inside, saying they were

the ones that did the Pope reforms, with the Tories dragging their

heels. `` Pope reforms. The Lib Dems were claiming they have entered the

Tories from introducing fresh immigration legislation into the

Queen's speech. At the front of the coalition, you have Cameron and

Clegg saying they will go all the way. I'm the scenes, people are

positioning. They have to, because, to use the well worn phrase of the

last few weeks, there has to be unconscious uncoupling? Or is it

conscious? Or the Westminster term. It's interesting for Westminster

anoraks. The merry dance of the coalition parties, the fact it is a

five`year fixed term parliament, everybody knows when the general

election will be, the first time in living memory that everybody knows

when the election will be. Everybody has their manifesto processes in

place. It's quite clear, the coalition is not going to fall

apart. It will go into the starting gun of the next general election

campaign, three weeks ahead, six weeks ahead, as a single government,

at least in form. Then, suddenly, the actual formal uncoupling will

just take place. Then, how do they do it? We are already beginning to

see it. We are saying, that bit was mine, that bit we don't like was

never hours. At the same time, they have to defend the same record,

while fighting each other. That, in of itself, will be interesting.

Curiouser and curiouser. Staying with the Telegraph, GCSEs and

A`levels being abolished? An unusual story, saying that Ofqual is

publishing a list of unusual courses. That is what used to be

derided in university terms as what they would call Mickey Mouse

degrees. Talking about O`levels, GCSEs and A`levels. This is one of

those stories, on face value, people would say, that's fine, with the

emphasis on literacy, numeracy and a much narrower interpretation,

through Michael Gove, of what constitutes a good education for

all. My concern, wearing my new day job hat, is, actually, the creative

industries, more broadly, is the single most booming part of the

British economy. Employment is six times the average other parts of the

British economy. There are certain parts, properly taught, of creative

subjects around arts, music, design, that are just being completely

sidelined by this government, in its otherwise legitimate focus on

literacy and numeracy. What that is going to do, long`term, Britain,

received in TV programmes, designers, fashion, it is rocking

ahead of other countries in this. If we continue down this route of

denigrating artistic and creative subjects, then those very people

that are top business people will not be the next generation. The

other thing I would say is that you can't have it both ways. On the one

hand, the Government has massively expanded the university sector and

higher education sector. There are thousands and thousands more places.

But everybody should be doing computer studies? Does everybody

have to go to the Russell group and read politics and philosophy,

history, chemistry or engineering? You can't have it both ways. If you

really want to pare down... But the best creative subjects are not soft

options. They should not be seen, they should not be taught as a soft

options. They are just as tough as traditional subjects. The Metro,

three`parent babies, what is this about? I had to read this quite

carefully to understand it, but this is really interesting, this is a new

technology whereby, through IVF, you can have donor DNA placed in a

mother's egg, and it is the sort of second mother, and it is implanted

into a defective egg to correct genetic faults from the mother. So,

in cases of genetic illnesses or disorders, this actually means that

it could prevent children being born with genetic diseases. So what it

means is the DNA of another woman who does not have these genetic

disorders is inserted into the egg, and then the sperm, you know, the

egg goes into the mother who is having IVF, and she grows the baby

and gives birth to the baby, but the baby will carry DNA from a third

person. Cancelling out genetic defects. Although you were freaked

out by the headline, it seems like a brilliant idea, to be able to

erase... You know, some people end up having children with terrible

genetic disorders because their partner and they have a recessive

gene or something, that when they get together, it throws up is an

intended consequence. It would, you know, mean that parents that are

carrying genetic disorders would be able to have children that do not.

Isn't that a great gift? I am sure there are people worried about the

potential abuse of this kind of technology. But on the face of it, a

lot of people would say it is probably a good idea. We are going

to very quickly skip to the Independent, very quickly, John,

Assad, three years ago he was on his way out, wasn't he? Now he will be

president for seven years, briefly. The combination of the West, rightly

or wrongly, saying it was not going to intervene one year or so ago,

which completely consolidated his position. It sapped the strength of

the more moderate opposition to Assad, the only opposition in town

now is the more fundamentalist opposition, and so as a result the

international community has freaked out at that prospect and has almost

reluctantly said, this is the lesser of two Peebles. But boy, is the

evil! The West is going to have to deal with him now, bet. Well, they

have not really been dealing with him for the last few years, have

they? I just don't see where this goes, it just feels like it is in a

chronic stalemate. The picture is very good, the British educated wife

looks terribly well presented while bombs raining down in Damascus

suburb is. Quite a contrast. Right, OK, you will be back in an hour for

more of the stories that Fleet Street have decided to put forward

for us. At the top of the hour we will have much more on the

revelations concerning that boys' school up in Rochdale and a

suggestion from a whistle`blower that he believes a report he had

written about the sexual abuse at the school was covered up more than

20 years ago. Now it is time for Sportsday.

Coming up on the programme, England are edged out as Sri Lanka win the

match and the one`day international series at Edgbaston. England's

footballers will be captained by Frank Lampard for the friendly

against Ecuador