20/03/2016 The Papers

Hello, and welcome to our look ahead to what the papers

With me are the political commentator Jo

Phillips, and the political editor of the Sunday People, Nigel Nelson.

A different set of papers from the last hour.

They are all still dominated by Ian Duncan smith's resignation.

The FT says it's sparked a wider row in the Conservative party,

over the Prime Minister's and the Chancellor's style of Government.

"IDS twists the knife" is the Independent's take.

Criticisms by Mr Duncan Smith are described as the biggest challenge

to Mr Cameron's authority in his six years in Downing Street.

The i calls it the "explosive exit of a quiet man".

And the Express thinks that Mr Duncan Smith's

resignation is a "massive boost" to the campaign for

The Metro focuses on the former Work and Pensions

secretary's description of the Budget as "deeply unfair" for

The Guardian says the Conservatives "descended into

civil war" as a succession of MPs came out to support Mr Duncan Smith.

We mentioned it a few minutes ago the Times. The headline is Cameron,

I blame Osborne. Chancellor messed up cots. The Prime Minister told a

colleague, but we don't know which colleague. -- cuts. No, and that is

the point of it. This would be very significant because Cameron and

Osborne are together, together, together right the way through. This

would be, Blair and Brown all over again. It widens the gap into

something much more damaging. Damaging for the Prime Minister, but

also damaging for the Chancellor, who is already damaged by the

allegations from Iain Duncan Smith. Unless we know who said it, and

unless we know in what second sciences, it is difficult... --

circumstances. I'm not sure it rings true. How secure do you think George

Osborne is at number 11? I would think at the moment unity is all.

They are under such a cloud that George Cameron and David Cameron

have to tackle this head-on and together. The idea they are falling

out already would be a real problem I would think. I would imagine they

are thinking in terms of the Foreign Office being a good place to him

because it was considered before. Clearly George Osborne's chance of

becoming Tory leader has almost disappeared on the basis of this. A

shift for him might actually rejuvenate party fortunes. The

parties are saying civil war within the Tory party, worst in 20 years.

You have to feel that. Iain Duncan Smith's twists knife after budget

channels. He said it really wasn't to do with the EU, but a lot of

people say of course it was. Everything Iain Duncan Smith said,

if you take it at face value, is true. Of course he was angry about

his budget being raided at the Treasury. Of course he was angry

about disability cuts. But against the background of this, what he is

even more angry about is Britain staying in the EU. Brexit becomes

the most important thing for him, and the whole point of this exercise

was to try to inflict as much damage on George Osborne and David Cameron

because that is most likely to persuade the voters to vote to leave

Europe. Meanwhile in the daily Telegraph, we're told David Cameron

is fighting to save his party. We stand for compassion and one nation,

Cameron will insist, after Iain Duncan Smith sparks a Tory civil war

after accusing him of favouring the rich. He has to pull everyone around

him. Again, that is why I am slightly sceptical about the Times

story. He can't do this on his own. He has to do it, it is his

Chancellor. He might express frustration with George Osborne.

Yes, he could have. I am not saying it is not true, but that would be a

significant thing. But this is about going out and fighting to get back

to the one nation. What is interesting is the Tory party, in

fact James Forsyth wrote about this earlier, the Tory party is

incredibly united when it feels under threat from the possibility of

a Labour win. When they don't feel under threat from the Labour Party

or anybody else, the barbarians at the gate, a fracture. And they are

fracturing into bits. I suppose the thing is those bits have always been

there, but they have melded together. But the referendum is

bringing it out into the open. And in the daily Merit, top Tories at

all. -- Daily Mirror. Iain Duncan Smith reveals Tories target the

poorest because they don't vote for us. That is one of the things he

said today. This is crucially important and the point about David

Cameron's fightback in the House of Commons. Getting compassionate

conservatism back. What happened to big society? It was not a bad idea.

But so many of their policies have been divisive, like the bedroom tax

which breaks opportunities and therefore is opposite to the big

society. If the Tories are to get back on an even keel, that is where

they need to go. A lot of people thought the spare room subsidy was a

good idea. Why should people live in houses that are too big for them?

They know who their electorate is. I don't know how you people actually

supported that in the end. But by moving people out of communities,

that is anti- big society. That is what they have to get back to. You

could argue by moving people into smaller homes that allows other

people to move in, families. But you are breaking up communities of 28

years standing, and the whole point about big society is to get

communities back together. But I think is interesting is the

underlining criticism about the pensioners or older people. They

still get their non- means tested winter fuel allowance, and it is

always been so. Those people, older people, to go out and vote. Whether

they voted Tory or Labour, they do vote, and the real question is

whether they are not Tory voters, so are they likely to go out and vote?

It is quite interesting that we now know Iain Duncan Smith had that

argument with the Treasury and with number 10 about not taking too much

away from working benefits and going for pensioners. Let's move on. OK!

We could carry on with this for the whole review, but we will give you

some thoughts about Havana. The Obamas have arrived for this

symbolic visit. It is on the Huffington Post with the arriving at

force one. 88 years since a sitting American president arrived, at that

time by battleship -- Air Force One. You can't even begin to imagine what

it must look like to the Cuban people. To actually see Air Force

One on their television screens. A lovely photograph because it looks

humid and sultry unsexy and all of that sort of stuff. -- and sexy. It

is a great thing for him to do. Nothing much will come of it,

although one of the leading American hotel chains has already done a deal

to move in there. There is stuff going on with business, telecoms and

airlines. But it is very symbolic. The question is whether they will

dare to mention human rights. Everywhere President Obama goes he

is under pressure to raise them in some way. Let's do this

step-by-step. The first thing is, it is symbolic and there is great

symbolism. Since 1959, America and Cuba have been at odds. The idea

baking come together again is fantastic. -- baking come together.

Even just being a tourist. And gradually build that up. Some of the

streets have been painting and lightbulbs change. They have split

the place up a bit. It has to be good for the economy. -- spruced.

Public hit by 12 million daily nuisance calls by ambulance chasers.

That is a lot. These are solicitors. It is worth pointing out in the

interest of objectivity that this survey has been produced by an

insurance company, and they are basically saying the ambulance

chasing lawyers are pushing up the cost of car insurance, so we have to

put it in the context. I should think every single person watching

this programme has had one of those irritating calls, all those text

messages telling you about an accident you have not yet had. It is

all a bit worrying. But flippancy aside, there are rules. There is the

Telephone preference service. Referral fees were banned, but what

are the insurance companies going to do about it? The Telephone

preference service we have heard many times is overwhelmed with

people who want to sign up and it is not really very effective. That's

right. I do think another book needs to be taken at this. We all get

these things, the unsolicited texts, the phone calls. I don't get very

many of them, but the important thing is you must look at how you

prosecute the phones that do this. These calls have been traced back.

There are hefty fines out there. It is a matter of grabbing those

people. The easiest thing is to leave your phone off the hook. But

it is incrementally pushing up the entrance. -- insurance. These fake

claims were pushing up insurance premiums and causing accidents that

are very distressing and at setting for people. Finally, the daily

Telegraph. Don't bomb terrorists, ask them to come 40. This is the

latest joke from the Labour leader's office. --, for tea. If you

could have tea with terrorists rather than fighting them it would

be better, but of course you can't. This is someone from the ruling

National executive who has been dismissed as naive by Labour

moderates. But she says the answer is have a hub of tea with Islamic

State terrorists and it will all be fine. Would you? Probably not. It is

not terribly helpful. This is what Labour is in the paper for. They

need to get their act together. Maybe they don't need to bother at

the moment because the Conservatives have enough trouble of their own

that is self-made. Thank you,

Jo Phillips and Nigel Nelson. Coming up next,

it's The Film Review.