30/12/2015 The Papers

to see an award coming this way for it. He is one of the hundreds being

honoured for their work in the local community.

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

With me are the campaigner and broadcaster Lynn Faulds Wood

and the Independent's Political Correspondent, James Cusick.

The Guardian has a picture of Dumfries in Scotland under water

after the River Nith burst its banks.

The paper says George Osborne has been accused of jeopardising

Britain's flood defences by prioritising cutting the deficit.

Top women in business who have received honours are pictured

Its main story: A review of Britain's banking culture has

been ditched by Britain's financial watchdog only months

The Express says the UK's payments to Brussels are another reason

Train tickets could become a thing of the past.

And The Mirror has an image of the man accused of shooting

dead his wife in a care home in Essex.

Let's kick off with the ST FrontPage. This was the central

plank of the Financial Conduct Authority's plans. They were going

to review the culture of pay and promotion within the bank and

concerns about their practices and so on. It has all been scrapped. I

worry about reviews. I am conducting one for the moment for the

Government into unsafe products and things which I did for watchdog. It

is worried -- worrying that they are kicked into the long grass. I hope

that does not happen to mind. This was launched and put to Parliament

and business scenario has all gone. I do not know if that is associated

with the fact that the Chief Executive of the Financial Conduct

Authority was forced out just around the time they were launching this

review. Now it looks like it is being scrapped. Scrapped or delayed?

A Conservative MP told that he hoped it was delayed rather than

cancelled. I think it is actually dead. I think that is what happened.

This has been coming. There have been noises from Downing Street that

effectively the Government needed a new relationship, a closer

relationship, with the city. Another is of banker bashing is not wanted.

That is what has happened. -- era of banker bashing. There is potential

for criminal investigations and lots of stuff to happen. They want to

draw a line and move on. I'm sure they want to do that. They're worthy

foreign exchange scandals and the LIBOR scandals. We still have court

cases going through on that. It is very low fruit, the catchment on

that. The focus on the culture in financial services firms remains a

priority. There is ongoing work in this area within firms and

externally. How long does that take? I still remember days when people

like Fred Goodwin were honoured for their services to banking. Why don't

they publish the Christmas bonuses, to stop us being cynical? We have

only had a few days since Christmas! Take us to the other story. Rubel

plunges as oil is in second year of recession. The Russian president has

said he expected the crisis to have passed. That does not look as if it

has happened. On international markets, Saudi Arabia has what is

called a pump and dump strategy. They continued to use this strategy

because they are trying to hurt the shale industry. There will probably

be new supplies from Iran and Libya coming. The amount of supply of all

-- of oil will do nothing. Unlike Russia. The predictions of an easy

year are gone. This story is well explained. It basically says, the

rouble has nothing to look forward to. Good news for us consumers who

feel our cars with petrol. My favourite phrase in all of this is

an economist from Russia saying the current crisis has no concrete

bottom. That is putting it mildly. That may be a bad translation. Fair

enough. In the Express. Britain pays EU ?1 billion a month. This is

coming from the chief Executive of the league campaign. I would like to

have this audited. We gain and we lose. This 1 billion may not in

fact, be an exact 1 billion. They are claiming 1 billion a month will

make us want to leave Europe. This is as a result of him saying we have

spent half ?1 trillion into the budget since joining. I have done a

lot of work in Europe and helped matters. I think we get a lot out of

Europe we cannot quantify on health. We are still among the worst in

Europe for things like cancer. We do a lot of business with Europe. How

you can quite say, can you work it out, that this is a billion quid a

month? If we take the Prime Minister at his word, we are potentially six

months away from a referendum. Increasingly, we are liable to see

this kind of campaigning. As dark as this, whether is no attempt to

balance two sides of the equation. This is effectively an opening

gambit. Over the next six months we need to be vigilant that Europeans

have told only one side of the story. Stay with it. James, quite

telling image on the front from the storms that a lot of people have

ensured. 100 miles an hour wind. The BBC has been good on this. The BBC

has been trying to explain how, if you like, this is happening. It is

not freak weather. This was effectively coming, this scale of

stuff. Once it reaches this amount, when you see fairly established

towns underwater, Dumfries and your, these are horrific images. The

climate change deniers are in a very difficult position. How much have we

known it was coming? How much have we could you be two to it? Earlier

in the summer there was torch about farmers were straightening out the

rivers. -- there was talk. We need to know the contributory factors. We

knew it was coming and we knew it would be horrible. We did not know

it would be this horrible. We need to get more prevention strategies

going. If we are increasingly going to have this happen, do we have to

look at Dominic Grieve can either abandon your home and go somewhere

else and give it to someone who will want to live there and be flooded? I

have covered the floods down in Gloucestershire. It is a horrible

thing when you're flooded. The houses were getting ready and all

the electrics were lifted. If you want to live right beside the River,

there will be so much flooding and cowboy builders will have a field

day. Some of the flood defences, the first time the river flooded, it's

not the walls down. We have to be very careful and put much more

effort... We keep reading about the cutting the budget. That takes us on

to the front page of the Guardian. James... This is the George Osborne

quote. The Guardian has been quite clear. It is the National Audit

Office figures. They say there is a 10 cents decline in flood defence

spending since 2010. -- a 10% decline. The professor has analysed

the data transferred, what we really expect is to see spending at a much

higher level. Over the last five years, we have had climate change

deniers in fairly senior positions in the Government. We do have David

Cameron promising to invest ?400 million year in shoring up flood

defences. It is how you shore them up. At the moment we are trying to

contain the rivers survey do not overflow. We need to go deeper and

earlier and find how the rivers are getting so fall in the first place.

I live on a flood plain. He said you are mad if you live in a flood plain

and you are mad if you build a house in a flood plain. They do not take

into account the dramatic changes. If the Government is serious about

this, and it needs to be, they need to make your detailed enquiry. Two

they have their policy correct? If we are going to believe the Oxford

professor, they have not. One more from the Guardian. UK builders hold

back enough land for 600,000 new homes. Osborne said there is a

growing crisis facing home ownership. The biggest

house-builders in the land have enormous land banks of places they

could build on. I live in an area near Twickenham Studios. That was

going to be taken away and replaced with housing. The house-builder that

was interested in that said we have plenty of other land. There is

plenty of land. The problem is, they are not building affordable houses

on it. Take us to the Telegraph and the end of the line for train

tickets. This is the same way as London works with Oyster cards. I'm

hesitant about this story. I do not want to be in Waterloo, Euston or

King's Cross on the day that this begins. I really do not. Ayew

imagining it will not go smoothly? There is a line here is that says,

this is the managing director of the project saying, the new ticketing

system would improve the experience. Two the line where the computer

says, no? I just have visions of massive queues. The idea is we do

not need to have a paper ticket any more. We can even use credit cards.

I'm just not confident we can do it quickly. Find Mac in other countries

they are streets ahead. I live in London and I go on the tube. I can

tap in my credit card and it is half the price if I bought a ticket or

used cans. They want to do away with all the nice people who are sitting

there and selling me something and having it automated.