17/08/2016 The Papers

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

With me are Jack Blanchard, Deputy Political Editor

of the Mirror and Martin Bentham, Home Affairs Editor

Welcome to you both. Let's just run you through the front pages as we

have them. The Financial Times says the number

of people claiming unemployment benefit in the UK fell in July -

confounding post-Brexit predictions, While The Metro's front page

is dominated by the jail sentence for Sarah Williams -

the woman who killed the partner The Mirror also leads on that story,

with a picture that shows Williams in the background behind her victim

and her former lover, Universities that aren't up

to scratch could face having their tuition fees lowered

by the government, The Express says there's been a big

rise in the number of EU migrants While the Guardian leads

with reaction to a Conservative Party report

into allegations of bullying. And the Times says Theresa May has

axed some plans to cut down on junk food promotion because they may hurt

the economy. So let's start, let's talk about the universities, in the

Telegraph. For universities face losing fees and the perception and

what a lot of students say is that teaching at some British

universities is not good enough. I will believe this when I see it, the

universities minister saying the government has passed legislation

which allows universities to raise fees in line with inflation from the

high 9000 figure they are at already, and he says they will only

be able to rise if they excel and some universities might have their

fees lowered if they perform badly. It's true some people do not think

universities are delivering what they are paying for. Whether it ever

ends up a university is told they have to reduce their fees, most

people may hope they did but I will believe it when I see it. It might

be some are not allowed to raise their fees further, which is

different. It smacks of trying to sugar the poll. This is their

headline the Tories want, badly performing universities could lose

fees, but the real story is that almost every university will be

allowed to raise its fees further from the sky-high level already. The

thing about teaching at universities is, festers and tutors are not

really vocational teachers, they are more interested in research and

writing books than teaching. Although some of the measurement is

spurious, I did a history degree where we had virtually no tuition

because most of it is meant to be something you do yourself, you have

a bit of guidance. But then what are you being four? You are paying for

that expert guidance, you don't need to be spoon-fed, some subjects are

more laboratory -based where you need to have that tuition, so horses

for courses in the sense of the difference. The other thing with all

this is that the theory that students are consumers and can

choose, but you do to with university, you choose before you

get there, you do your research that if it turns out not to be good it is

too late, you cannot up sticks having paid your money. Do you think

people are going to think twice about whether it's worth going to

university if the price is so high and that teaching is not good? That

has been the worry with this policy since it was first introduced by

Tony Blair and since then fees have gone up. Since the Coalition

Government did shoot the increase fees, we haven't seen that reduction

in people wanting to go to university that you feel we will

start to see that. Does it give the return it is supposed to? The size

of the debt students have is astronomical. I thought we had seen

the first signs that the numbers were starting to drop because

previously that wasn't the case. Some people will be thinking is it

worth it and some employers are now offering schemes for A-level

students to go updating. It feels like every time they increased the

fees they say this is the absolute limit until next time. Another story

in the Telegraph about a blackout of our TV screens, the nation's TV

screens will go blank next week to encourage people to get out and play

sport as part of the official celebrations of Team GB. I hasten to

add that this not include the BBC News Channel. This sounds like

another story hard to believe but I presume it is accurate as they going

to do it. This is ITV. It is an hour on Saturday, August 27. Were not

quite sure what time. I assume it's in the afternoon but the idea of ITV

's switching off its repeat of Colombo for an hour is going to see

millions of people flocking into the streets to play hockey seems a

little far-fetched. Maybe if they cancelled all the Premier League

football matches that might get people off the sofa. It would be

good if it did, it's a great thing if people go out and play more

sport. We will talk about obesity later and clearly it is a good thing

to encourage people to play sport, whether this will have an impact is

a question. Hidden further down there is something less tangible,

that instead of spending money on Team GB having a big open top bus

tour, they will get lots of people into athletic centres and sports

clubs to offer free sessions and try and get people don't and do sport.

The Olympics have been fantastic, we have done well but do you think that

makes a difference? Does that translate into getting people out

and playing sport? Research after the London Olympics suggested it had

not had that legacy, there wasn't a great take-up personally you feel

inspired. But do you go and play anything? Not more than normal, I

watched some of the hockey, the women have won, I have not returned

to the hockey field. You should get back out there. I suppose people

enjoyed this elite sport but it doesn't necessarily mean they can do

it. It can open people's eyes to sports that otherwise would never be

on the radar. Most people watch a bit of cricket or rugby and that is

it, then you are giving this wealth of different sports that you can be

inspired by. People get into sports that are relatively obscure and the

rules are quite hard to follow but people just watch it in their

millions. Like anything, once you know about it it becomes more

interesting and you understand the rules and the skill involved. And if

there is a Brit involved, so much the better. Let's move on to the

Financial Times, and they have a small story towards the bottom but

this is about a tickets camp at the Olympics. An extraordinary story

today that the head of Ireland's Olympic Committee, Pat Hickey,

president of the Olympic Committee of Ireland, has been arrested in Rio

wearing a bathrobe in his hotel room by police investigating illegal

ticket sales, and a large scam. He has not been found guilty of

anything yet but it is extraordinary and another worrying signs of the

way the sport is being governed. We have had so many different problems

with the Olympics. Also strange, the idea of ticket touts when we have

seen a lot of empty seats. Who is paying sky-high prices? Somebody

foolish, but there has been in the past various scandals where people

have been given, this is an allegation, not proved, but there

have been cases where people who had access to these free tickets had

been handing them out to people for money and it's disgraceful if this

is proved to be correct because we do want ordinary sports fans to get

there. He was a member of the IOC until last week and it comes on the

back of ridiculous boxing results and the empty stadiums, the diving

pool going green, it has not been smooth running. But it has been a

great games and we have enjoyed it. The Financial Times' Main Street is

about, something confounding predictions, the fall in jobless

claims and they say that confirms the forecast of jobs calls after the

Brexit vote. Are you surprised about that? It says the unemployment rate

is at an 11 year low. I'm not surprised that a lot of the doom

mongering has so far not been proved correct. Clearly there's a long way

to go and these are early figures, but some of the hyperbole coming out

of that remain camp was nonsensical, we would end up in economic

Armageddon, so it doesn't surprise me it is not as bad, but it would

also be wrong to get too excited about early data when the real

impact might take some time to be felt. I think that's right, there

were two arguments before the referendum vote, that there would be

a bad short-term impact and then a significant longer term impact, but

so far we have seen some of the worst fears about the immediate

impact have not been borne out at this stage, with the big caveat that

this is one month's figures, for July, and better than expected, but

there were plenty of bad signs if you look at what has happened to the

pound. Not necessarily bad. If you have just come back from holiday. It

is showing confidence dropping in various sectors and there is a gap

between confidence, like people who say they are not confident in the

education system but their child goes to a good school, and there is

a gap between surveys and how people behave. Donald Trump has taken a

knock, never a man short on confidence, but not doing so well in

the polls so he has a new campaign team. It's been received in the US

as a panic measure, the chap he has hired to lead his new team, Stephen

Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News, which has been

Trump's main media cheerleaders, and very right-wing media organisation,

it's been greeted with horror I a lot of conservative commentators. It

is clearly not a good sign this close to the elections. Do you think

it is slipping away from him? Recent events don't seem to have gone well

for him but he has done all sorts of things that people would have

thought using normal judgment they were catastrophic and he has ridden

through those, so I wouldn't write him off but there was this attempt

to make him more scripted, more responsible candidate and this

appears to be a lurch back in the other direction, back to the

original Trump. Just time to talk about what is coming out tomorrow,

the government's long-awaited strategy on child obesity and our

concern in The Express that it's all been watered down. That does seem to

be the case, we were expecting tougher measures in this strategy,

which has been hugely delayed, we were waiting months, it has been

slipped out in August when no one in Westminster is around, which

indicates how seriously the government is treating it. You were

expecting tough measures and junk food, adverts, banning cartoon

characters from selling junk food, none of that is in their and they

have taken it out. Why do you think that is? A suggestion to May is

worried about the economic impact. I don't know what is behind it, there

has been a long-standing argument for the voluntary approach in

respect of this and alcohol is the way to go, it does not seem to have

delivered results and the test will be whether the firms can be

persuaded to cut it in a voluntary weight otherwise we will have to

make it more compulsory. One last story, also in The Express, Owen

Smith during a BBC debate with Jeremy Corbyn, he talked about how

Islamic State should be allowed to take part in peace talks. I agree

with Jeremy Corbyn on this. Do you think it is crazy? It is interesting

that Jeremy Corbyn did not answer the question that way, he has

learned to be more savvy than that. Owen was involved in the Northern

Irish peace process and seems to have been drawing on that when he

made this suggestion but it has not gone down well and he was forced to

clarify the comments, saying it would only ever happen if prices

were to this associate themselves from violence... Which doesn't seem

to be imminent! They also have the objective of siphoning off other

states, it is inconceivable that could be a realistic consensus.

Great to talk to you both, and good to hear you enjoyed watching the

women's hockey. Jack Blanchard and Martin, many thanks to both of you.

We will be back at 11:15pm for another look at the papers but now

let's get a look at the weather.