07/09/2016 The Papers

-- that is it from us. Coming up next is The Papers. Goodbye.

Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the papers

With me are Martin Lipton, Deputy Head of Sport at The Sun,

and Bronwyn Curtis from the Society of Business Economists.

The Metro features the Sports Direct billionaire boss.

On the front page photo, Mike Ashley empties his pockets

The same story is on the cover of the FT. Sports Direct boss flashes

the cash, says the headline. You can read more on Theresa May's

statements on state education in the Daily Telegraph. In the Times, the

opening of the Rio Paralympics. The Daily Express says that house prices

are to rise and the British economy is to boom post Brexit. So let's

begin. Where shall we start? The Daily Telegraph has a story that is

going to be controversial, and will run and run. Stop school selection

by house price, says Theresa May. This is a comment she made this

evening. Bronwen, did this catch your eye? It did. It would be nice

to stop school selection by house prices. There is no doubt we don't

want a situation where we have an elitist education. I think Mrs May

is trying to democratise education. She is talking about bringing back

grammar schools, which were banned by Tony Blair in 98, and having

tests for all sorts of people, but more based on IQ tests, so that

coaching, which is what most parents will do to get their children into

these good schools, they will not be able to be coached to get in. Is it

possible to democratise state education by having more grammar

schools? There lies the issue. What is interesting here is that this is

going to be the flagship domestic Kolisi for the next four years, it

seems. With the whole Brexit debate, with what happened internally,

grammar schools and their return seems to be a key thing for this

government. Theresa May, in this statement to a committee of MPs,

talked about the financial element of it rather than the education

element. Maybe she was preaching to the converted, but the language to

justify this is clearly going to evolve through the period. It is

about social mobility. Mrs May has made it clear that that is something

she wants to do, to try to change Britain for the better. But the

counterargument is the one being voiced in the Guardian. A former

Labour Cabinet minister speaking there. This isn't education

selection, he says, it is social selection, and there is the

dichotomy at the heart of this debate, and the issue that the

government has. They have to win this argument, to get a more

rounded, overwhelming support for this policy. Somewhat instinctively

backed it, but others will say it is a return to the divide of grammars

and secondary moderns. And secondary education for those who are not part

of the elite. Schools post war were hugely part of a change for the

better, and the way up out of poverty for many people into a

wealthy lifestyle. The problem for many people isn't so much grammar

schools. It is what else you have along with them. People do tend to

think of grammar schools as being engines whereby certain children can

do very well. It is what happens to the others. And one in five adults

struggle to read and write, and there are 6 million illiterate

people in the UK. I can see what she is trying to do. You really want a

broad education for everyone. For those who are not going to make it

in, what happens to them? TU detector reading these two stories

-- do you detect, in these two score is, any attempt to redefine what

grammar schools are? Theresa May seems to be talking about a

different kind of education, inclusive and not exclusive. But the

nature of a selective system is not inclusive. For those who are

beneficiaries, though, this could be hugely positive. They could have a

way out of a social strata that they might not have otherwise had. There

are no right answers. We have had free schools, academies, the

abolition of grammar schools in the 70s, and the introduction of

constant change. What we do need is an education system that works. The

current one does not work for many people. But persuading everyone that

this is the answer is going to be a tough call. And comprehensives have

an element of selection as well, because of streaming. They have too,

because otherwise you are holding people back. Naturally, there will

be some sort of selection. Now the Times front page, with a different

story entirely, but another Theresa May announcement. She is a busy

woman! MPs to leave Parliament in ?4 billion restoration plan. The first

reaction is, they are going to spend ?4 billion on these MPs? Why should

they do that when we need the money for other things. However, if you

look into the story, you can see that the Palace of Westminster is

the UNESCO Heritage site, and it is falling apart. It has water damage

and asbestos - all sorts of things. So it does need to be made better.

That we have to do, I think. Whether it is ?4 billion, or whether it is

going to be ?8 billion, which it might be... If you get an estimate

for building work, you double it! Post Brexit, you cannot even get

people into do it! This will not start until 2022. And it is a

six-year ill think project. Building projects don't seem to run to time.

It is going to be controversial because of the expense, but it needs

to be done. And the shape and look of Parliament will change. If you

are having the Commons and the Department of Health building... It

will not looks like Parliament as we know it. Maybe that isn't a bad

thing, that we are used to the particular Guyot Grossi of

Parliament. That is going to change, -- the particular geography. Why not

just move to Manchester or Birmingham? Yet you could not allow

Westminster to fall down. It is one of the greatest ill things, one of

the jewels in England's crown. Apparently they are going to do as

much of the building work from materials sourced within the UK, and

they said this was something not possible before Brexit. I didn't

quite understand that, but I think it is good if they do that. Now,

possibly, they won't have any choice! Let's move on to the front

page of the Metro, which has a picture that features on several of

the front pages. The headline refers to the boss of Sports Direct. He

happened to have a bit of petty cash in his pocket! Holding and folding

seems to be his think! He likes to have a few bob. If you were to put a

list of unpopular business leaders, Mike Ashley would probably be quite

high up. I don't think he is quite the unacceptable face of capitalism,

that people ask we wish about him. He's at his own warehouse in

Derbyshire and had to go through a security screen, where workers are

paid less than the minimum wage, and he's got all that money in his

pocket. He was emptying his pockets to go through the security

screening, and he pulls out ?50 notes. It looks utterly shameful.

What do you think? Perhaps he doesn't care. Perhaps he just

forgot, because it isn't good publicity. That's when you know...

It would take one of those workers in the warehouse 139 hours, or 3.5

weeks, to an that on the minimum wage, it is the worst sort of

headline you can imagine. But I don't think he cares. He owns a big

proportion of the company, and enough not to worry about what

people think. The share price has plummeted, but he has made his

money. He is a billionaire already. It just shows how little he cares

about what people think. It is only going to affect his reputation. It

seems like every day this week, there has been another story about

Sports Direct, from the behaviour of workers inside the factories, to

ending zero hours contracts, which is possibly quite a positive story,

which people see as more controversy. His stewardship of

Newcastle United hasn't ween a great success, but he has overridden the

popular will. Another shareholder revolt today. I have the idea, I am

a majority shareholder, I will do what I want. He will not listen to

any views diverged into his own, and he courts controversy. In the

Financial Times, a story about employment and employees. Graduates

truly in love with banking are sought by match-making style tests!

Behavioural analysis technique, where they can match up people who

come from murder -- more diverse backgrounds than the Ivy League. So

they use these techniques to match up what would be the best sort of

corporate finance junior banker. This is quite subjective. Very

subjective. They are using some of the tech leaks used on dating

websites, but a number of different banks are doing this now, because

they want to reach past the top schools to other places. Some are

even doing things like what they call at Barclays contextualised

screening. What that means is, when they talk to these people and do

these tests, it gives the less advantaged more credit, so they will

have a chance of actually getting... So the idea is to get to a bigger

number of people and get them into the elite jobs in banking. I think

that is good. Whether the systems work is another thing. You are

trying to use objective criteria to determine a subjective choice, which

is rather bizarre. We are talking about big companies, Deutsche Bank,

Citigroup, Goldman Sachs... If they are all doing it, it is interesting

that so many companies are looking to introduce this screening system.

I'd like to see how long it lasts. In the end, it tends to be the same

people who get these jobs. Very sketch to call! Thank you both very

much. Don't forget that all the front pages are online on the BBC

News website, where you can read a detailed review of the papers. It is

their seven days a week on our website. You can see us there as

well. Thank you once again. Goodbye. More of us saw the sunshine today

than