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Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the the papers will be | :00:15. | :00:17. | |
With me are Jack Blanchard, deputy political editor | :00:18. | :00:20. | |
of The Mirror and Hugh Muir, columnist for The Guardian. | :00:21. | :00:23. | |
Let's have a look at tomorrow's front pages. | :00:24. | :00:27. | |
The Telegraph reports that British troops who served in Afghanistan | :00:28. | :00:29. | |
could face criminal investigation over alleged abuse in the war | :00:30. | :00:32. | |
after an inquiry was set up by the Ministry of Defence. | :00:33. | :00:36. | |
The Mirror splashes on allegations that thousands of breast cancer | :00:37. | :00:40. | |
patients are being denied a crucial pill which costs 34p | :00:41. | :00:43. | |
The Times says MI6 is on a recruitment drive, | :00:44. | :00:49. | |
hiring hundreds more spies to fight global terrorism and exploit | :00:50. | :00:53. | |
The Guardian leads on the economy, saying that gloomy pre-referendum | :00:54. | :00:59. | |
predictions have been confounded by the initial post | :01:00. | :01:01. | |
The Express also reports on recent economic figures, | :01:02. | :01:07. | |
saying "Britain is thriving" after the vote to leave the EU. | :01:08. | :01:12. | |
The FT highlights divisions within the US Federal Reserve over | :01:13. | :01:15. | |
The Metro carries the the headline "King Con" on a story | :01:16. | :01:21. | |
about a fraudster who is believed to have taken | :01:22. | :01:23. | |
more than ?100 million from 750 firms. | :01:24. | :01:27. | |
And The Sun continues its coverage of the break-up of Angelina Jolie | :01:28. | :01:30. | |
Continues its coverage! That is going to go on for some time. The | :01:31. | :01:45. | |
Telegraph, Jack, Afghanistan veterans facing investigation into | :01:46. | :01:50. | |
Taliban claims and a lot of controversy over potential | :01:51. | :01:55. | |
prosecutions and the suggestion that former Iraq soldiers are being | :01:56. | :02:00. | |
treated unfairly as regards lawsuits and so forth. Afghanistan, too? | :02:01. | :02:05. | |
Apparently so. We have known for some time that the soldiers involved | :02:06. | :02:08. | |
in Iraq have faced investigation, the Iraq historic litigation steam | :02:09. | :02:11. | |
has been subject of a lot of controversy the quite the years. -- | :02:12. | :02:16. | |
historic allegations team. The Telegraph says the Ministry of | :02:17. | :02:19. | |
Defence has set up a June in quarry into even older cases, some cases | :02:20. | :02:24. | |
even older, allegations against troops in Afghanistan. It is big | :02:25. | :02:28. | |
numbers, they are saying more than 550 allegations of war crimes in | :02:29. | :02:31. | |
Afghanistan are being investigated by the MOD, taking the total to 2200 | :02:32. | :02:37. | |
cases across the two complex. It is a big deal involving a lot of people | :02:38. | :02:40. | |
with millions of pounds in investigations and people are | :02:41. | :02:44. | |
getting very upset. Some of the right-wing newspapers have been | :02:45. | :02:47. | |
campaigning against this for years. Tory MPs are quoted and former army | :02:48. | :02:51. | |
colonels who are upset that the scale of this is going on. But Hugh, | :02:52. | :02:57. | |
one can't ignore serious allegations, can one, about the | :02:58. | :03:00. | |
Armed Forces if there are allegations that they may have been | :03:01. | :03:05. | |
involved in activity that is less than suitable? Of course not, so it | :03:06. | :03:09. | |
is about striking the balance, isn't it? We woke up to Theresa May saying | :03:10. | :03:14. | |
she won't stand by while spurious claims are made against soldiers and | :03:15. | :03:18. | |
I think everyone agrees that you have to protect the soldiers because | :03:19. | :03:23. | |
we send people into harm's way. But at the same time, there is a | :03:24. | :03:28. | |
balance. You can't absolve them of responsibility if there is | :03:29. | :03:32. | |
behaviour, if they behave in a way they oughtn't. I think what | :03:33. | :03:37. | |
surprises one about this row and the number of cases is that there does | :03:38. | :03:42. | |
not seem to be a filtering system that everyone can be confident | :03:43. | :03:48. | |
about. If these were normal criminal cases then obviously, the police | :03:49. | :03:52. | |
investigate, they go to the CPS and they would decide whether or not | :03:53. | :03:58. | |
there is a valid case or whether it is spurious and that they would not | :03:59. | :04:00. | |
let it go forward. There does not seem, from what they are saying, to | :04:01. | :04:04. | |
be a parallel structure for these cases and so you then get into the | :04:05. | :04:09. | |
situation where cases that reasonable people might say should | :04:10. | :04:12. | |
not go forward seem to be going ahead. OK, the corollary of this is | :04:13. | :04:19. | |
the story on the front of the Daily Mail, 200 soldiers going to war with | :04:20. | :04:23. | |
MOD, hounded heroes plan to take top brass to court, soldiers handed over | :04:24. | :04:29. | |
incidents in the Iraq war threatening to take the MOD to | :04:30. | :04:33. | |
court. This is a very similar story but this is the soldiers fighting | :04:34. | :04:37. | |
back, if you like. They are grouping together and they have got their own | :04:38. | :04:40. | |
law firm and they are threatening to take the MOD to court for what they | :04:41. | :04:45. | |
say is harassment. I guess every individual case is going to be | :04:46. | :04:49. | |
different but if an allegation is made, presumably the MOD feel they | :04:50. | :04:53. | |
have to make some kind of basic investigation, which might be no | :04:54. | :04:55. | |
more than speaking to the soldier involved and it might not go any | :04:56. | :05:00. | |
further. We talk about large numbers of investigations but we don't know | :05:01. | :05:03. | |
how specific each one is and how detailed it is and how much risk | :05:04. | :05:07. | |
there ever was of that person being prosecuted. But the 200 soldiers | :05:08. | :05:11. | |
going to war with the MOD, presumably they believe they have | :05:12. | :05:15. | |
been produced or hounded or whatever, in a way that does not | :05:16. | :05:20. | |
want it? Again, you have to worry if they feel they have no option but | :05:21. | :05:23. | |
for them to go to the law as well. It seems that the way things are | :05:24. | :05:27. | |
panning out, the only people benefiting from this are the lawyers | :05:28. | :05:36. | |
who can take on a lot of cases. You wonder if maybe MPs should not look | :05:37. | :05:39. | |
at the structures involved here as to whether or not there is a way to | :05:40. | :05:44. | |
look at some of these cases, as I say, to sift out the spurious ones | :05:45. | :05:48. | |
but also to have some kind of protections for soldiers to ensure | :05:49. | :05:54. | |
they are not subject to dubious claims. Has the armed services | :05:55. | :05:58. | |
committee heard anything on this? It has been discussed in Parliament | :05:59. | :06:02. | |
endlessly for the last few years. It is a very big issue and some MPs | :06:03. | :06:06. | |
feel incredibly vexed about it. You can understand why. But I think at | :06:07. | :06:09. | |
the same time, we should be proud that we live in a country where we | :06:10. | :06:13. | |
do scrutinise these things. And there is the rule of law. And we | :06:14. | :06:17. | |
take it seriously because it does not happen in plenty of countries | :06:18. | :06:20. | |
and I don't think we should push back so far that we turn a blind eye | :06:21. | :06:25. | |
to things that happen in any conflict. Let's go to your paper | :06:26. | :06:29. | |
comes you, UK economy defies gloom after EU shock, it is just one day | :06:30. | :06:34. | |
of good news after another following the Brexit Road, at least following | :06:35. | :06:38. | |
the decision to leave the Union, Brexit actually has not happened | :06:39. | :06:42. | |
yet. You have hit the nail on the head because they are all looking | :06:43. | :06:45. | |
for signs as to whether the vote in June was a terrible thing or a good | :06:46. | :06:50. | |
thing. Looking at various indicators and the problem is they have been | :06:51. | :06:55. | |
going off in different directions. In an attempt to try to make sense | :06:56. | :07:01. | |
of it, we have this Brexit Watch exercise at the Guardian. We have | :07:02. | :07:04. | |
looked at various indicators and what it says is that there were | :07:05. | :07:09. | |
fears we would plunge into a post-referendum recession and that | :07:10. | :07:12. | |
does not seem to be happening. But there is a very good set of | :07:13. | :07:17. | |
indicators, consumer spending is strong, unemployment is low and the | :07:18. | :07:20. | |
housing market is holding steady. At the same time, the OECD, who were | :07:21. | :07:29. | |
quite worried about the immediate prospects, seem to be a lot calmer | :07:30. | :07:34. | |
about things as well. Government borrowing was slightly higher than | :07:35. | :07:36. | |
economists expected but again, nothing to worry about. So far, so | :07:37. | :07:42. | |
good but I think that is about as far as you can go at the moment. | :07:43. | :07:46. | |
What we are trying to do is say here is a snapshot of where we are at the | :07:47. | :07:49. | |
moment but it does not tell you where we will be in a few months' | :07:50. | :07:53. | |
time goes as you say, we not triggered Article 50 yet. Will the | :07:54. | :08:01. | |
sky fall in as soon as Theresa May prices the Article 50 button? I have | :08:02. | :08:05. | |
long do not making predictions in this game! As you say, so far it | :08:06. | :08:11. | |
hasn't happened but all of those predictions, as we were saying | :08:12. | :08:14. | |
before we came in, all of those predictions that were made about an | :08:15. | :08:17. | |
instant economic crash were made on the basis that David Cameron says he | :08:18. | :08:22. | |
would trigger -- said he would trigger article 50 the day after the | :08:23. | :08:26. | |
vote to leave the EU. That is what he said he was going to do. So all | :08:27. | :08:30. | |
the predictions suggesting everything was going to go wrong was | :08:31. | :08:33. | |
based on the fact we were going to leave, or the suggestion was we | :08:34. | :08:37. | |
would leave as soon as we lost the vote? That is what the Prime | :08:38. | :08:39. | |
Minister said he would do. He also said he was not going to resign. He | :08:40. | :08:43. | |
said a lot of things but obviously that hasn't happened and most people | :08:44. | :08:47. | |
are pretty glad because Britain needed a bit of time to get its | :08:48. | :08:52. | |
house in order. But that is going to happen probably early next year, we | :08:53. | :08:55. | |
are expecting it in January or February and at that point, there | :08:56. | :08:58. | |
will be some fluctuation, I would imagine. But I think the idea of | :08:59. | :09:04. | |
tracking this as it goes is a very good one. As you says, there are | :09:05. | :09:07. | |
many different measures of how the economy is doing. There are certain | :09:08. | :09:13. | |
newspapers who have been very keen to give a good reflection of how it | :09:14. | :09:17. | |
is doing since we voted to leave the EU. Nice to see the Guardian joining | :09:18. | :09:23. | |
them! It is too early to say and it is worth saying that the OECD has | :09:24. | :09:27. | |
still got a pretty grim economic forecast for Britain next year. It | :09:28. | :09:33. | |
reckons the Eurozone is going to have higher growth than we are in | :09:34. | :09:36. | |
Britain. It's not a catastrophe but it is pretty sluggish. But these | :09:37. | :09:41. | |
people are wrong a lot of the time. Indeed, and let's hope the economy | :09:42. | :09:46. | |
continues to motor. The Financial Times, Theresa May is pushed to | :09:47. | :09:51. | |
publish pay ratios. This is an interesting story, particularly | :09:52. | :09:53. | |
comparing Goldman Sachs and Waitrose. Before she took over, she | :09:54. | :10:00. | |
said she would have a Britain that works for everyone. Boardroom pay | :10:01. | :10:06. | |
and company pay was one of the things that she decided to focus on | :10:07. | :10:11. | |
and wanted to make sure that the differentials within a company were | :10:12. | :10:15. | |
not too huge, that the people at the top were not earning massively more | :10:16. | :10:18. | |
or outrageously more than the people at the bottom. And so, she promised | :10:19. | :10:26. | |
the figures would be transparent, that she would publish them. What | :10:27. | :10:29. | |
this story says is that there is a warning to her that if she does | :10:30. | :10:32. | |
that, she might not get the results she likes. The assumption would be | :10:33. | :10:37. | |
that banks, for example, would come out of this very badly, that the | :10:38. | :10:42. | |
ratio between those at the bottom and that would be very high in terms | :10:43. | :10:46. | |
of banks. What this is warning is that if you look at a company like | :10:47. | :10:50. | |
John Lewis, actually, the ratio might not be so good, there. The | :10:51. | :10:53. | |
rationale is that within banks, someone is being pay phenomenal | :10:54. | :10:57. | |
amounts of the top but also, in the middle, you have people being paid | :10:58. | :11:01. | |
very well. So the ratio was not so high whereas somewhere like John | :11:02. | :11:06. | |
Lewis, you have someone being paid a lot of money but people on the shop | :11:07. | :11:10. | |
for not being paid very much. That ratio figure might not tell us what | :11:11. | :11:14. | |
Theresa May hoped it would and might not give her the kind of political | :11:15. | :11:18. | |
leveraged, the ammunition she hoped for. But won't people understand | :11:19. | :11:24. | |
that there would probably be a difference between Goldman Sachs and | :11:25. | :11:29. | |
Waitrose, that you are going to have people who are on a lower salary, | :11:30. | :11:33. | |
much lower because they do a very different job in relation to many of | :11:34. | :11:36. | |
those people who might be above them in the pecking order of the company? | :11:37. | :11:41. | |
To some extent, yes, definitely although I would argue it is quite | :11:42. | :11:44. | |
outrageous that there is such a pay differential at Waitrose but they | :11:45. | :11:49. | |
and others are seen as more of a model company than Goldman Sachs in | :11:50. | :11:52. | |
the way they are set up. I was at the talk that Vince Cable, the | :11:53. | :11:54. | |
former Business Secretary gave the other day when he said some of this | :11:55. | :11:57. | |
stuff and he was quite scathing about this as an idea. He said they | :11:58. | :12:01. | |
looked at it when he was in government... Publishing the | :12:02. | :12:05. | |
figures? Yes, and he said the problem is it makes people like | :12:06. | :12:08. | |
Goldman Sachs lookalike bastions of virtue when no one would think that | :12:09. | :12:11. | |
was the. I suspect this is more about Theresa May trying to signal | :12:12. | :12:14. | |
she's doing something very serious about corporate pay than actually | :12:15. | :12:19. | |
doing it and frankly, the idea you can shame these guys and senior | :12:20. | :12:23. | |
women into reducing their pay rate is unproven, I would say. Symbols | :12:24. | :12:29. | |
are important but one of the consequences of the Brexit vote was | :12:30. | :12:32. | |
that Theresa May have to show all of those people who voted to leave that | :12:33. | :12:37. | |
she is on their side and things like this, clamping down on outrageous | :12:38. | :12:42. | |
pay is one of those symbols. All right. Apparently we are going to | :12:43. | :12:48. | |
get more spies because MI6 is hiring hundreds more in the war against | :12:49. | :12:53. | |
terror. Theresa May Lars Spies. We have learned that after six years of | :12:54. | :12:57. | |
having her in the Home Office! -- loves spies. She's a big fan of | :12:58. | :13:00. | |
spooks and to be fair, they seem to be doing a very good job keeping | :13:01. | :13:06. | |
Britain protected domestic league and better what we have seen in | :13:07. | :13:09. | |
other parts of Europe so I think there will be lots of public support | :13:10. | :13:12. | |
for this. I think it was announced last year in broad brushstrokes by | :13:13. | :13:15. | |
George Osborne but we are starting to see it filtering through, how it | :13:16. | :13:19. | |
will affect different services. It is a huge increase in the number | :13:20. | :13:23. | |
that MI6, 40% increase in the number of spies which is a massive increase | :13:24. | :13:28. | |
in manpower at a time when most of the public sector is being strained. | :13:29. | :13:32. | |
But I think people basically believe in this and think it is a good idea. | :13:33. | :13:37. | |
Very briefly, the Telegraph, Mark Zuckerberg is going to spend ?3 | :13:38. | :13:41. | |
billion apparently getting rid of all of the world's diseases. Is that | :13:42. | :13:48. | |
going to be enough? ?3 million? One thinks not if you bear in mind in | :13:49. | :13:51. | |
January, the government and Bill Gates of Microsoft pledged ?3 | :13:52. | :13:57. | |
billion to fight malaria alone. I can't see all disease being wiped | :13:58. | :14:02. | |
out with ?3 billion from Mark Zuckerberg. But I can see what they | :14:03. | :14:06. | |
want to do it but I'm sure there an altruistic motive as well, without | :14:07. | :14:10. | |
wanting to be cynical, God forbid! You work for the Guardian! Greg blue | :14:11. | :14:15. | |
when you hear about tech firms at the moment, you hear about | :14:16. | :14:18. | |
multinationals who are beyond the control of governments, worries | :14:19. | :14:23. | |
about their tax arrangements and things like that. This is the kind | :14:24. | :14:27. | |
of publicity that they need. Good news story, at least on the of it. | :14:28. | :14:29. | |
Thank you for joining us. Don't forget all the front pages | :14:30. | :14:33. | |
are online on the BBC News website, where you can read a detailed review | :14:34. | :14:36. | |
of the papers. It's all there for you, seven days | :14:37. | :14:38. | |
a week at bbc.co.uk/papers. And you can see us there, | :14:39. | :14:41. | |
too, with each night's edition of The Papers | :14:42. | :14:43. | |
being posted on the page shortly A full weather forecast | :14:44. | :14:46. | |
coming up next. A chilly night across parts of the | :14:47. | :15:12. | |
North West and a warm night across parts of the South | :15:13. | :15:13. |