30/01/2016 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the papers

With me are Dawn-Maria France, Editor-in-chief of

Yorkshire Women's Life magazine, and James Martin, Executive Editor

The Observer claims the government is battling to protect a ?30 billion

The Sunday Express headlines a new study which suggests people

taking heart statins almost double their risk of developing diabetes.

The Mail on Sunday claims David Cameron is considering sending his

son to one of Britain's top private schools, Colet Court, in London.

The Independent on Sunday leads with reports the Prime Minister is very

close to securing a four-year curb on migrants benefits with the EU.

The Sunday Telegraph focuses on the continuing migrant crisis,

headlining violence at a demo in Dover and the deaths

of 39 people, some of them children, who drowned in the Aegean Sea

And the Sunday Times reports criticism

from David Cameron towards Britain's top universities for failing to

Let's begin with the Independent. A relatively familiar refrain across

the Sunday papers is about European union and whatever deal Mr Cameron

may or may not have achieved. I would like to talk about the UN

Security Council that had the discussion recently about a peace

were roadmap for Syria. They didn't mention ISIS, or what happens to

President Assad, and all of this feeds into the migrant crisis. The

PM will be meeting Donald Tusk, the president of the EU, tomorrow to

talk about the migrant plan and benefits cap for EU migrants.

Eurosceptics are saying that this isn't a deal that they believe will

happen, and they question the pre-election pledge and say that is

dead in the water, because the pledge did say that the EU would be

discussing it particularly as it pertains to benefits. I think this

is an argument that will be impossible to thrash out, really.

This will frame a great deal of the debate. It feels like a massive rush

going on at the moment. Jean-Claude Juncker was involved with

discussions with the PM on Friday, and Donald Tusk and the PM will be

meeting at Number Ten tomorrow. Number Ten is briefing that any deal

with the EU will involve Britain, that the day after any deal they

will be able to block benefits payments to EU migrants. So much of

this is linked with the migration crisis. We are coming up to a summer

period, which will potentially mean more crossings. We already have

record amounts of people coming to the EU at the moment. We are seeing

a 35 fold increase year-on-year in January of European arrivals. That

is a huge number. 35 fold increase! Talking about all these people

trying to come to the EU this year, which can only understand why this

is going to come to a head. It is fascinating that a couple of years

ago, if we had been talking about and in our European referendum --

in/out. Migration wouldn't have been the top of the list, but now it is

what everyone is talking about. Look at what happened this summer when we

saw the boats coming to Greece and the sad story of the little boy

drowning, and his body being on the beach. We are seeing the pictures

now, there is no escape from seeing the reality of these people fleeing

Syria. And indeed the ramifications. If you take a look at

the next paper, the Sunday Telegraph, the migration crisis

deepens. You just mentioned that memorable photograph of the dead

baby on the beach. Images are so important, aren't they? Another

striking image, another element of this migration story. The image of

Aylan Kurdi washed up on the beach was a picture that seemed to change

the issue, it changed the way wreckage people were thinking about

this crisis. It seemed to change the way politicians approach the issue.

This image on the front of the Sunday Telegraph today, it feels

like a Banksy painting. You look at this, and there policeman with that

Johns, guys holding placards. This is a picture of this five-hour riot

that occurred in Dover today. You have buses with swastikas daubed on

the sides of them. Antifascist protesters, far right protesters,

though becomes out of this looking very good. It is a shameful episode.

There were nights, knuckledusters, polls, bits of wood being taken from

some of the protesters -- knives. I am using the word protest loosely,

because this was never going to be a protest, it was a brawl and that is

what it turned out to be. The media coverage of all of this, how

difficult is it to portray all sides of this complex story? It is very

difficult indeed, but I don't think the media are actually addressing

the subject of what these people are facing. It looks very much like a

scapegoat matter that these refugees are coming in and being blamed for

everything, and is not looking at the real story of why they are

fleeing in the first place. I think that needs to be addressed, because

at the moment people are blaming them for coming into the country,

they are going to take all these benefits, but behind the story they

are people and we need to see that more. Where they have come from and

why. Why they are coming here, because you need to be very

desperate to make the journey in a rickety boat. Of course, as we have

been hearing today, 39 people feared dead. Let's have a look at another

big issue, Google and its tax havens. The Observer has a lot about

Google, they have gone from ?130 million, which was a big number.

This is ?30 billion! It is a story that when the government were hoping

to open up the Sunday papers tomorrow morning, they were hoping

that they would not have to search and find the Google story. Both the

Daily Mirror and the Observer lead on this. Bermuda sounds nice in

terms of the weather, and in terms of tax evasion. Essentially, this

story is about how Treasury ministers have told the European

Commission that they are strongly opposed to sanctions against the

move. The reason Bermuda is interesting is because approximately

3 billion worth of business sales in the UK go through there. Let's have

a look at the front of the Mirror. This is a new angle, isn't it? It is

alleged that Google has landed a lucrative deal to collect taxes,

which sounds quite ironic, and at the same time thousands of jobs have

been lost by the Revenue, whose job it is to collect tax. It seems

bizarre to me that you would get Google, lose so many staff, it just

doesn't make any sense. Aya more than happy get Google to collect my

taxes if I can pay 3% as well. We should say, by the way, there is any

number of columns that have said it is a disgrace. There are quite a few

journalists who have written columns saying that they paid 3.3 billion

dollars worth of taxes in various places, and... They have abided by

the law. There is a moral component to this, but if the government

wanted Google to pay tax, they could legislate to make that happen,

albeit it might not be very effective. Maybe the only solution

is a global deal, because otherwise you get this arms race of every

country trying to lower its corporation tax, to try to attract

big business. At the moment, it is Google, LinkedIn and Facebook are

very happy in Ireland, paying tax on assets there. People like Lord

Lawson saying maybe it is time to pay tax on sales rather than

profits. Maybe that is part of the solution. I don't get the feeling

that George Osborne is very fussed about changing the corporation tax

rates. If anything, I think he would like the lower. I think you would

like a change in the front pages. Let's have a look at the Sunday

Times. A different angle with its front-page, and this is quite a

striking image and a striking quote. A young black man is more likely to

be in prison than at a university. Racism is a matter of

life, I have experienced it myself, and recently in Yorkshire was on a

train when I heard someone say to someone who was an immigrant, you

have taken over our country, and so on. In their defence, the people on

that train, the Yorkshire people, stood up this particular person.

They said, not in our name. You might be speaking to yourself but we

are not racist and we won't deal with it. I think it is good that

David Cameron has raised this issue, and I think it will play well to

minorities, who largely support Labour. He has brought this issue to

the forefront, and is leading a review on the treatment of nonwhite

defendants in the criminal justice system. I'm glad that he has done

that and open to that debate going forward. You feel that David Cameron

needed this. In PMQs, a bunch of migrants, didn't go very well. The

Tories might have become a bit more of the nasty party of late. This is

where an element of the PM's humanhuman side. 1% of Oxford

admissions were minorities. That is 27 out of 2500 students. Here we

have Jamie Murray winning the doubles yesterday, Andy Murray kicks

off in a few hours time. I am feeling confident for him, go Andy,

I think he can do it. Five of his Australian Open finals he has lost,

three of them to Novak Djokovic. He has lost ten out of his last 11

against Novak Djokovic, so... That is enough! Thank you both for your

company tonight. Coming up next, The Film Review.