02/10/2016 The Papers

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

With me are the political commentator James Millar

Tomorrow's front pages: Theresa May's speech dominates

The Financial Times says Mrs May has given the clearest indication yet

that Britain will break away from the EU single market.

The i says the speech was a hard Brexit plan,

representing an end to the UK's single market membership.

The Metro also leads on Brexit, and Mrs May's promise to push

for continuing free trade with the bloc.

The Telegraph focuses on Mrs May's pledge to look beyond Europe

to China and India, as well as a policy announcement

tomorrow to invest ?5 billion to build new homes.

And the Guardian notes the pointed response to Mrs May

from the European Council, which said it would prepare

to safeguard the EU's interests in the negotiations next year.

The Daily Mail says Mrs May's speech was a message to remainers that

The Mirror says Sam Allardyce could move to a new job in America.

And the Times says EU leaders have rejected the Prime Minister's appeal

for immediate talks about Britain's new deal, heightening fears

OK, so let's begin. Welcome to you both. And that 10:30pm we focused a

lot on Brexit and Theresa May's speech and we will turn to the Sun,

and it is their march to freedom, as they call it. Obviously different

papers are going to receive Theresa May's talk about Brexit differently,

and the Sun is seeing it as Theresa May setting March 21 2019 as the

date of our independence from the EU, perhaps becoming a national

holiday if the Sun has anything to do with it. For a paper that wanted

to leave they seem quite happy with the terms of a Brexit which she

clearly set out today, which is for a hard Brexit. It seems that she is

saying that Britain should exit the single market, and that the freedom

that we would gain from that would outweigh the financial difficulties

of doing so. Welcoming this hard Brexit, there are different opinions

on hard and soft Brexit but they are very keen. I like it because there

is a skill in summing up the story in four paragraphs, which is what

they have done. One of the quotes says Mrs May says let's show the

country we mean business, which alongside Brexit means Brexit, what

does that actually mean? Did we not mean business before? She has done a

fine line in soundbites so far. This is the first time we have heard her

speak on this, and she warned she wasn't going to be pushed into

making further comment until she was ready, until she got closer to the

day and things firmed up as well. But the EU also responded. What do

you think they were saying when they will safeguard their interests is?

That is the most telling part of the four paragraphs, the one in which

the EU Council chief, Donald Tusk, says they will safeguard their

interests. Inevitably they will do what is best for them. That is what

happens in negotiating situation. There is no reason to be nice to us,

and no reason to expect that they will. They are taking the shine off

that idea that the UK will have some sort of special status or magic

capacity to get a deal that it wants. For some time now the EU has

been saying, well, no, you won't. You can't, we are not going to do

that. It seems like today they are really just reiterating. It is not

everyone in the Conservative Party who are saying, it is the people who

wanted to stay in saying maybe we need to pedal back of it. No, a lot

of people who... I think even for the people who want to leave, there

are different ways of leaving. What Mrs May has done today is outline a

version of leave that is going to upset a lot of people, and not just

the people who wanted to remain. It has upset a lot of business

sections, it is going to upset people within her own government and

what worries me about this style of Brexit is that, actually, a

Conservative MP wrote today in the Guardian that it was Brexit

fundamentalism. He talked about it being a romanticised vision of

Britain, a country of imperialist chauvinism. What worries me about

this is that it is almost as though the leavers have become a little bit

drunk on free-market fundamentalism which they always wanted. Because

actually what they could do is make business even more deregulated that

is at the moment, and that is kind of what we always wanted. That is

what I am worried about with this kind of hard Brexit, that that is

the vision that they want, a much more deregulated version which is

going to be worse for small businesses, for... And others have

been speaking on this as well. It is a fundamental problem with

referendums, there was nothing about immigration or staying in the single

market or all these major issues. As you say it is an opportunity for

people to start projecting what they think people are voting for on to

whatever will happen next spring in the negotiations. The Times's

headline is the rejection by EU leaders of the hard Brexit talks.

Who exactly are they referring to hear? The Sun has given the positive

take, this is a more negative approach. They claimed that Angela

Merkel and other EU leaders have offered instant opposition to this

hard Brexit idea. Again, it comes back to what Donald Tusk said, which

is we will look after our interests, and Angela Merkel is the bigger

player there. One of the fascinating things in this is that Mrs May says

she wants to give British companies the maximum freedom to trade and

operate in the single market. That would involve staying in the EU,

that would be the maximum freedom, isn't it? There are not really any

clear answers, it is fair to say. The Telegraph also leading with

Europe, we must look beyond Europe and looking to China and India. At

that is the thing. You know, they are going to have to find some way

to reassure British businesses, how far trade is in the European single

market -- half our trade is in the European single market and for

companies based here they will be worried about how that will be

replaced and how it can be replaced quickly enough for them to actually

make up the loss that they would presumably in curb by being taken

out of the single market. And so far we haven't seen any signs from any

other country that we would be given any kind of preferential treatment,

or that there would be any sort of fast track negotiation with them.

Well, no, hang on. We have already agreed to start scoping discussions

with Australia and New Zealand, the mighty power houses that and New

Zealand. That is 2% our trade. And the scoping out is really... That is

a done deal, isn't it? Makes it so much better. The key headline is we

must look beyond Europe, she is talking about trade and also talking

to the party, saying we must shut up about Europe. That is why she had to

make the speech at the first-ever conference, telling the party to

stop speaking about Europe but that is never going to happen because

stories like nothing more than assessing about Europe. Another

announced that we heard was the ?5 billion, it looks like we are going

to get more building, new houses, a possible solution to the housing

crisis. I don't think it is a solution to the housing crisis.

25,000 homes by 2020. I am no expert in building houses but that is 8000

houses a year. I don't know how long it takes to build a house. I like to

-- the line that there will be 200,000 houses in the longer term.

It is a daft promise. What's interesting about this is it seems

very clearly to be following the Labour Party lead on this because

Jeremy Corbyn's main platform was housing. They have pledged to build

1 million homes in five years and make half of them council houses. I

think when it comes to evidence talk about building houses, the first

thing you think is are they going to be affordable? The ones we are

seeing built at the moment clearly are not, for one, and your

definition of affordable is completely out of range for most of

the population. Getting on the housing ladder is impossible,

whether it is a new house or current stock. Which is why the Labour Party

are saying half of our homes will be social housing, which makes more

sense in terms of solving the crisis pulls up the communities Secretary,

Sajid Javvid, says it is a community concern. He clearly wants to tackle

this. -- Sajid Javid. And Donald Trump is looming yet again, the gift

that keeps giving. He is apparently a genius, according to his

republican backers. Having not paid any tax for a long time, they are

not denying this leads to the New York Times that he hasn't paid any

tax but he is a genius for avoiding tax. Rudy Giuliani has gone on TV to

say he is a genius for not paying his taxes. It is incredible how this

plays out. You would think people would be incredibly annoyed with

millionaires evading tax or avoiding tax, sorry, not evading. But to be

able to spin it as a great thing, you know, our potential future

president... He doesn't pay tax, what a genius! They have decided

that they will vote for him and nothing is going to change their

opinion, supporters of Trump. But we have until November so let's see

what transpires between now and then.

Thank you, James Millar and Rachel Shabi.

Coming up next, it is The Film Review.