18/12/2016 The Papers

We'll be taking a look at tomorrow morning's papers in a moment.

With me is Martin, the deputy head of sport at The Sun. And the editor

at the London Evening Standard. We will go through the papers in a

moment. First off, a look at the papers. The Daily Telegraph.

The Daily Telegraph claims that Royal Mail staff,

as well as rail and airport workers, may strike over Christmas,

leaving Theresa May facing pressure over "industrial chaos."

The paper also notes Andy Murray's third Sports Personality victory.

The Guardian also celebrates Murray's win, but focuses on claims

that the justice secretary had prior warning ahead of the riot at HMP

The Metro leads with former Chancellor George Osborne's verdict

that his warnings about the UK being poorer after Brexit

Brexit also dominates the Financial Times,

but the paper focuses on fears about exit talks being delayed

will mean banks leaving the UK for abroad.

The Times claims that Britain is dumping overseas aid money

into trust funds to try meet the country's annual target.

And the Daily Mail leads with the claim that millions

of pounds of UK aid money has been used to fund a talk show

OK. We will begin. Lovely to see you. We will start with the

Guardian. Liz Truss and Birmingham Prison. The disturbance of the major

rioting, the prison has been out of control. It has been subdued. It is

talking about how Liz Truss was warned two months ago about the

dangers of such an incident at Birmingham. There were not enough

staff. Quite a large prison, 1500 inmates, one of the largest in the

country. It goes on to talk about the problem of drugs in the prison.

One of those watchdogs has talked about this. The thing about this is,

and the story quotes Nick, the Chief Inspector of the prison until the

end of the year, he warned explicitly, as did his replacement,

about the risk of legal highs, psychoactive drugs. They were

creating a tremendously violent atmosphere imprisoned. This has been

well-documented. This story shows that the secretary warned of the

dangers of Birmingham, and predecessors had been warned about

this risk actually buy the chief inspectors of prisons. For many

years it has been growing, the concern about the levels of violent

incidents in prison. Drugs being thrown over the wall and all sorts

of things. And then cutting staff members by 30% since 2010. You have

a situation where in essence there are increasingly unstable inmates in

there. And at the same time, fewer and fewer staff to deal with them.

It is a toxic problem unfortunately. The danger that has been spread.

There is a suggestion from a prison in Hull. It is a bit of a tinderbox

situation. It seems some have been involved in the instigation of the

Birmingham issues. And it is clearly a growing concern. I also wonder

sometimes how it can be avoided. It is all well and fine to talk about

when these things happen. But whether the Justice Secretary or any

civil servant can actually prevent random out sparks of violent. The

two things are, the current Justice Secretary has not been in her post

very long, and has inherited a problem that has been in the making

since they cut the offices in prisons why such a large number

since 2010 onwards. -- by. She has landed with this problem and now has

to deal with it. The problem with her side is that it is actually not

a problem, according to her, it is simple to deal with here and now.

More numbers in fewer prisons, a better ratio between staff and

prisoners, and we also need a better way of stopping drugs coming in.

They talk about nets, don't they? Providing more nets and body scan

is. You cannot throw them like that. If these things are coming in by

drone it does not matter how big the nets are, these are co-ordinated.

There are many instances where they could stop it. There was a killing

of an inmate earlier this year. There were problems previous to

this. But there was a report there were broken windows and drones were

flying out of window ledges and going out through the window.

Interestingly, the Times also has this story on its front page. I

don't know if either of you picked up on the point that, I think the UK

has the largest number of prisoners or people being sent to prison

compared to the rest of Europe. I mean, you were saying... Are we

going back to 20 years ago? Often there is the belief, and

understandably, that I think you need to have two show you have a

more Draconian sentencing policy. But the argument is all you do is

institutionalise people more and make them more likely to offend when

they come out. And you are putting them in small spaces designed for a

particular number and having them share cells, et cetera. There is an

argument we have been at that level for quite some time and the violence

is now happening because there is in essence not enough staff. So they

have said they are not prepared to pay for enough staff to cope with

the numbers they have got. There are warnings by the chairman of the OA

in Hull. It has been happening for years. Let us stay with the Times.

But stay with the aid story. Dumping these incredible figures into trust

funds. This is a toxic issue for many Tory MPs in particular, that

David Cameron set this to get of 0.7% of GDP spent on aid. That is a

very worthy objective and lots of it does achieve some good things. But

there is the feeling, and this story reflects that, what has been

happening, to make sure we meet that target, but the department for

international development is putting money into these trust funds, and

that money is sitting there in those funds. If you have a budget and need

to spend it in a certain period of time, you get to the end and say you

have not spent enough and you put it in a fund. What happens to these

accounts? Literally just sitting there. Just sitting there? A large

amount of it. ?4 billion apparently. And also the sheer scale, 0.7% of

national income equating to ?12 billion this year alone which is a

vast sum of money when we know there is other... Social care. Yeah. We

understand international aid can be good to event legal migration,

people fleeing their state of advance. If that is sitting on a

bank account, that is clearly not satisfactory. The World Bank

charging 240 million to UK taxpayers just defined what hasn't been spent.

Andy Murray. -- just to fund. Yet another strike for Theresa May. The

only thing keeping this country running over the last few days is

elves, sleighs and reindeer. Everything is stopping. Trains are

stopping. Flying as well. And now they will be a mail stoppage. A

threat of a strike to prevent presence -- presents being

delivered. I am a massive satsuma fan. The front of the Sun. Picking

up the traffic story. This is a story suggesting... This is

something already happening in London, the council has powers to

police bus lanes and all those things. It is saying these powers

are going to go from the police outside London to the local

authorities. And of course, as you say, that will be more rigourously

enforced. The police don't really like to do traffic enforcement any

more. So many people will be hit by them now. Anyone in London would say

they are pretty good at spotting any minor offence and you will get a

fine in a number of days. With all those cameras. This will get

people's blood boiling. Why don't people just not stop in bus lanes?

They need to be aware of signals and all indications. Have you gone down

a one-way street without knowing it or taken a wrong turn? People

followed the Sat Nav. It says turn left. I blame my Sat Nav. I found

myself in a spot where it is only for a bath. I thought, why am I in

this spot? -- bus. Suddenly, click, click, I had a fine. Andy Murray,

the front of the Guardian. He is great and popular and a deserved

winner. He has been in a marvellous, magnificent... He is only popular

now. Once he shared those tears after winning the Wimbledon final,

people realised... Is that all it took? Loves a Gavin Lewis and human

interest. We talk about England losing at the ball and we got so

used to it that it doesn't even seem to matter any more but that has gone

into the background. -- football. This is so significant. We need

positive news in tennis. It has been a long time coming. We have had

success in athletics, but tennis! He has been brilliant. But Edmund and

others want to follow him. I know about Murray is that he is

happy to be a role model, wants to be and wants to encourage kids to

play. He'll do everything that he can to get kids on the court and

that's great. Well played Andy Murray. All happened at the right

time for him. Fantastic news. And on that note, we're going to have to

say thank you and goodbye to both of you. It's been great fun. And that

was the Papers tonight. Don't forget, all of the front pages are

online on the BBC News website where you can read a detailed review of

the papers. All there for you seven days a week. And you can see us

there too with each night's edition of the Papers which is posted on the

page shortly after we finished. So thank you to Martin Lipton and

Martin Bantham. Coming up next is the Film Review. But from me, from

the three of us actually, it's goodnight.