05/12/2015 The Papers

Simon Danczuk accuses the party leadership

Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the papers

With me are Caroline Wheeler, political editor of the Sunday

Express, and Tom McTague, political editor of the Independent on Sunday.

The Sunday Express leads with Storm Desmond and reports it has claimed

its first victim in London, a 90-year-old pensioner who reportedly

died after the gale force winds blew him into the side of a moving bus.

The Observer says the shadow cabinet is bracing itself for what MPs are

calling a "revenge reshuffle", following Labour's victory in the

The Independent on Sunday also carries the claims,

adding plans are afoot to sack the chief whip.

The Sunday Telegraph reports senior members of

the Conservatives are threatening to resign IF plans to build a third

The Mail on Sunday carries allegations that NHS chiefs tried to

destroy evidence, which reportedly proves that hospital staff failed to

spot and treat an infection that resulted in the

Let's begin. The Sunday express. Killer storm. It has unfortunately

taken on life. This has been developing story over the days. It

didn't even feature on our news list this morning. And yet by this

afternoon we see that one pensioner, who was sadly blown into the course

of a bus, has been killed. There are thousands of people without power.

85 mph winds battering Britain. You can see, in that dramatic picture,

several areas of the north-west are underwater. Pictures of Appleby. We

know places like Cockermouth and Carlisle were expecting flood levels

to rise. We haven't seen this kind of devastation for a while. It is

reminiscent of what happened before Christmas, in 2013, when the West

Country was badly hit. It will be interesting to see how this develops

over the coming hours. Mentioning earlier storms, memories of that go

back to a specially to bowser nine, when it was really serious. -- 2009.

This could be worse? Yes, this can rush to the top of the news list

within hours. We won't talking about this yesterday, and now, rightfully,

it is at the top of the news list. Indeed. Your newspaper, the

independent on Sunday, has a great picture. I wouldn't want to be there

at the time. Where is that? That's in South Wales. But this has

affected everywhere. I think it is mostly in the north, the north-west

and north-east, but it has hit South Wales, the south-west, London. And

it is coming this way. One of the problems is that the ground has

already been quite saturated, which has meant the floodwaters have risen

very quickly. So obviously it's a wait and see situation. But 44 of

the highest flood risk alerts being given and more than 200 in total. So

it gives the scale of the widespread potential for devastation here.

Indeed. People are always interested in these weather stories. Moving on.

Your name appears on the front page of your newspaper, which is nice,

because you've got a special report a couple of pages inside. But the

front page says it well. Hitting back at Jeremy Corbyn smears. What

is this about? This is Jeremy Corbyn on the front foot for the first time

in a few weeks, following the by-election in Oldham, which was a

surprise win for the Labour leader. It has allowed him to start to fight

back against Labour moderates, who have been really giving him a hard

time, ever since he was elected, really. We've been hearing in

Westminster at out rumours about his health. Rumours that leader passed

out dismissed as categorically untrue. Who is spreading that kind

of rumour? According to the Labour leader, this is just be the MPs who

don't want to see him succeed and he says it is absolutely untrue and if

you're going to fight him, fight him on the issues that he won the

leadership for. But, as you say, fighting back, possible plans to

sack the chief whip and reshuffle the cabinet. You set the chief whip

is one of his allies and got things sorted out for him in the early

stages. Why now turned his sacking? Jeremy Corbyn's allies see the chief

whip, Rosie Winterton, as a figure to stabilise things at the start of

Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. Now she is seen as somebody who is an old

guard, someone who is out to represent other moderate MPs and not

the leader. This is going to rattle along. It looks as though they would

like to see, I say they, the top of the leadership, especially Mr Corbyn

and his deputy or the Shadow Chancellor, would like to see some

of these moderates pushed out. What if they push them out, are there

others around of sufficient calibre to take their place? That's the

question. At the time, some of us were surprised as there were many

rumours about the types of people who could have formed part of his

shadow cabinet and actually he didn't make extensive changes and

still included some of those, what would be regarded as the old guard.

Now if he is going to push some of those out of the cabinet you have to

wonder who will be brought in. And does he have enough allies? With all

written stories to suggest there are only 16, 17, 18 members of the

Labour Party who are Jeremy Corbyn supporters and that's not enough to

fill a shadow cabinet. The Observer talks about a revenge reshuffle. I

don't wear that comes from. And the Shadow Chancellor says back the new

politics or get out of the way. -- where that comes from. This will be

a heck of a story for quite a time to come. Definitely. He's got a bit

of a problem because there are two stories that will rumble. The

moderates will continue to brief against him and we have seen more

revelations about this bullying that's been going on with Simon

Danczuk coming out and saying he has been targeted on Twitter and

threatened with death threats. And there will be a public meeting

tomorrow, where they will have to face critics. You've got that story

from that side of the party. The other side is that after the Oldham

by-election, which was a staggering victory in some senses for Jeremy

Corbyn, because UKIP have very much suggested they could cut the

majority in half, or even win it, which was unbelievable. You've now

got a Jeremy Corbyn who is thinking that he could start to stamp his

authority on the party. But it will be interesting to see how he does

that. If he then tries to purge the moderates, he will face the same

accusations, that he is trying to purge his critics from the party. It

will be interesting. Moving on. Still on the front page of the

Observer. Fresh bombing raids hit Syrian oilfields. Tell us what this

says. This is an interesting take from the Observer, who report on the

second RAF sortie over Syria in I think three or four days, since the

vote. They also mentioned that the RAF could be dragged into Libya,

where ISIS fighters are now said to be in control of large parts of the

country. That raises the prospect that they could even be dragged into

Afghanistan, where we saw this week that they are now trying to take

over... That was in the Times, yesterday, I think it was. We have

the Defence Secretary over there in Cyprus talking to the RAF crews and

so on, saying it won't be short or simple, what they're doing. That's

one of the understatement of the week. Yes and part of this is about

managing expectations and making it very clear to the general public

that this isn't going to be a short war, this will be long. It will be

messy. There is a suggestion that we could be dragged into Libya. They

say there have already been reconnaissance missions by the

French, looking into this issue. But I think Michael Fallon, he is just

the signalling and warning that we shouldn't expect results

immediately. But one of the other things we understand, we've got one

of our report is out there at the moment, our defence editor. In

Cyprus. Yes. They say that even though they have been targeting

oilfields, there's now a sense that they will target some the leaders of

Daesh and Islamic State. -- or Islamic State. So, this could be

another step in a campaign. The front page of the Sunday Telegraph.

Tories at war over Heathrow expansion. Now, here we go. It is

either Heathrow or Gatwick or maybe some else. Many people threatening

to resign on the conservative side. That's right. We've seen the crisis

in the Labour Party to what we see as a crisis over Heathrow in the

Conservative party. This has been coming for a while, we anticipated

it would be made last week... It is now up to the government to say

whether it is Heathrow or not. That's right. We were briefed

earlier that we thought the decision would be made this coming week,

although now they say it could be delayed further. Interestingly,

there are some influential politicians who live under the

flight path who are not especially happy about it. The likes of Boris

Johnson, the development secretary and others. So, what this story

seems to be saying is they suggest that if this does go ahead they will

resign. They've been put into a difficult position, because Cameron

said before there would be no Heathrow expansion. Obviously be

independent report coming out and suggesting expansion is the best

thing to do has put them in a tricky position. Where do we go from here?

We keep being told they will have to be a decision. Presumably it could

be put off as long as politicians want it to be? I think it could be a

complete fudge. How do you fudge it? You put in place legal barriers, or

a tight restrictions that Heathrow would have to pass, to be granted

the third runway. So you set impossible targets? That will be

pushed into the long grass until George Osborne comes along and

decide he will stamp the authority. They could already seek judicial

review. Some suggest it will be delayed any way for a couple of

years, some say decades before we get a decision on this. So,

nobody's career will be imminently over. David Cameron will be long

gone, I think. Still with us, I'm sure, just as Prime Minister. Well,

thank you very much. Very nice to see you both.