15/03/2017 The Papers

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

With me are France 24 journalist Benedicte Paviot.

And Steve Hawkes, Political Correspondent at the Sun.

Tomorrow's front pages, starting with...

The FT unsurprisingly leads with Philip Hammond's U-turn over

national insurance rises - which it says it brings

into question the government's ability to manage Brexit.

That's also the top story in the Telegraph, which claims

The Metro reports that Mr Hammond admitted the national insurance

increase broke a Conservative manifesto pledge on tax rises.

The Times claims it was the Prime Minister who ordered the U-turn.

It also features the failure of the far right to top the poll

The Guardian goes with the news that a dozen police forces have handed

files to the CPS on the claims that some MPs may have overstepped

spending limits during the last general election campaign.

The same story in the mirror, 12 Conservative MPs are being

investigated. The male features a story about Marine Alexander

Blackman his murder conviction has been overturned. Only one place to

start and it is what a couple of the papers called the humiliation of

Philip Hammond. That is the headline in the Telegraph and the

Independent. Is that how you see it, humiliation? Certainly embarrassing

climb-down. Sadly climb-down within a week, whether he was ordered by

the Prime Minister or not, here, we are, we have a government with the

biggest challenge the Second World War. That is the handle -- to handle

Brexit, and a Chancellor is seen as a safe pair of hands and he has the

go back to the house and back down. And this is really highly damaging.

Interesting to see the Telegraph -- Daily Telegraph talking about MPs

talking about the fact that Philip Hammond is on probation and this

rebellion means it raises the chances of future rebellions and

leaves a ?2 billion hole in the balance sheet. And it ends this

article by saying Mr Hammond tonight is increasingly isolated within the

Government. So this is very embarrassing. Not just for him, also

for the Prime Minister. Steve, the splits, is that how you see it's

between Downing Street and the Chancellor on this and ten Downing

Street forcing him into this U-turn? What worried and upset Tory MPs

today was the incredible briefing in the Sunday papers. It was sheer

hatred formers between Number 10 and 11, blaming each other for what is a

chaotic week. Just such a bad day for the Government. We need a new

definition for safe pair of hands. He was supposed to be stable,

calming, spreadsheet cell, the detail man, and it is the biggest

U-turn on any Budget. The Telegraph highlights that he did not, he was

asked when did he realise it was a breach of the manifesto? He says, I

think it was when Laura Kuenssberg of the BBC mentioned it. Laura said

that was just a joke. That shows how out of touch the Chancellor is. One

of the memories last week of the Budget was he was making a lot of

jokes, amusing delivery. It has backfired now. Even today after this

project U-turn, he is back making this sort of mistake and making it

seem as though Laura was the first to spot this. Unbelievable. Look at

the election spending, David Davis commenting that the Select Committee

today, the effects of a hard Brexit, it is difficult. The saving grace is

Jeremy Corbyn -- Jeremy Corbyn, he was dire. That is why this

government continues to make these mistakes, there is not a credible

opposition. Can we look at the cartoon, it is the last time this

U-turn will happen in a spring Budget. Because there is not going

to be any. Yvette Cooper made the joke, is this why you want to get

rid of them because you are making such a mess of them? The Metro

continue the same theme. Mr Hammond with egg on his face and possibly a

slightly more brutal headline than the one we were looking at. They

highlight the fact that Mr Hammond should have done his homework

instead of writing stale jokes, that is the quote from Labour and John

McDonnell, who also says Theresa May during the initial Budget statement

had been guffawing like a seal. It is very core.! A lot of anger from

the Labour benches despite what you are saying about Jeremy Corbyn about

how the Government have handled this. Yes, because that was not

translated and did not come across in their leader's way. You used the

word "This evening, that is an open goal. Like a boxer, if he cannot get

through a punch on something like this, referring to the guffawing,

when the Prime Minister, usually very sure-footed and measured in her

responses, when she was, her upper torso was shaking, I thought in

these days of social media that somebody would put a fish on except

chat and that would be used over and over again and it is unfortunate.

You can laugh at one particular thing and it becomes you are

laughing at everything, the opposition. There was the

communication aspect of the Budget last week, the Chancellor and Prime

Minister were laughing their way through it, slapping a tax on the

white van man. So that is part of it, the communication was

disastrous. Labour did not foresee U-turn on this, I would argue the

mediated, and the Tory backbenches, this only happened after MPs saw

Theresa May on Monday night and said, we cannot do this. And because

her majority is not large, she could not have got it through the Lords.

That is another reason. They put this out today, the Government

decided to put this out before Yahoo, which is prime time for the

opposition, that they thought so little of the opposition that they

gave it 20 minutes before rather than putting it out at 6pm. Without

notice, Jeremy Corbyn would have had time to launch a proper attack? They

did not leak it at 6pm on a Friday, they put it out in front of PMQs.

Let's talk about the headline in the financial Times, to take it forward

and is to raise doubts, they say, about the government's competence on

all that is to come on Brexit and the negotiations over the next

years, are we looking at a government, in your view, not the

job? I can see how easy it is for critics of the Government, within

the Conservative Party, within the Labour Party or what seems to be at

the moment the most efficient opposition party, the SNP, might be

tempted to think so. And the last paragraph in this front-page article

is interesting because the FT is quoting I believe the Spectator and

they say, this fiasco will be watched with amazement in European

capitals if Theresa May caves under pressure, then her opponents in

Brexit talks will apply pressure. This will be watched on the

continent and is being watched, a report on this as do other European

and world correspondence daily. This does not give an impression of a

government that is in control. The last thing you can afford to do is

to look like you are not in control when you have something like a

Brexit challenge. This will give ammunition to those in the Tory

party who have said to Theresa May that she needs a bigger majority,

she needs to go to the country to win a bigger majority in Parliament.

Talking to a Labour MP today, they said this is why she should have an

election because she will face this problem all the time with a majority

of 12. Go to an election. A Labour MP, grown-up politicians saying, go

to an election and get a majority of 100 and this problem goes away. That

is a Labour MP, but she did not going to do that. On Brexit, there

is a point, this is history, Brexit is the toughest challenge since the

Second World War for a government and I think a lot of people are

happy Theresa May is there and David Davis, despite a bad day for him

today, they will be worried if Philip Hammond is in the

negotiation. When we get into Article 50, this will almost fade

into the distance. Speaking of Article 50 and the Queen will give

her a centre tomorrow. That trigger of Article 50 could happen at any

moment even if we think it will not happen or we seem to have been told

by Downing Street that it will not be until the end of March. You

mentioned your own paper the Sun, an interview with Philip Hammond, what

does he say? He wrote a piece and we campaigned for this U-turn, they did

not think it would be this quick in a million years. Was it the sermon

that when it? Of course! -- the Sun. Remember the 2015 election, it seems

like a lifetime ago, the Conservatives said they were the

Workers' Party, the party of aspiration, that keyword. We are the

party of the workers, said David Cameron. And last week, the tax raid

on a self-employed, the white van man. And Philip Hammond is saying in

a grovelling apology, it is important, trust matters in

politics, trust me now, there will not be another National Insurance

rise this Parliament, we are sticking by this tax look. The key

is, trust matters. Trust has been shattered today, the prime is the's

trust in her Chancellor, MPs and the Government machine, and Rory Stewart

was today defending this policy. As Andrew Neil got the message saying

it was gone. That has to be rebuilt. A tricky time. Moving on to matters

in the Netherlands. We have got those election results coming

through the night from the Dutch election. There are quite

interesting because the far right party of Geert Wilders not doing

nearly as well as some people had predicted, Benedicte. That is right,

what is interesting apart from what you said is the turnout was very

high. And the time -- the time so as to thwart the will of a populist

upsets that delivered Brexit and President Trump. That is interesting

although one should note Mark Rutte has lost a quarter of his MPs. But

we know that the Dutch election today, the French election, on April

23 the first round and the second round the 7th of May and the German

election are being watched carefully themselves and the knock-on effect

they will have on Brexit. And for the future of the EU. Do you think

the French will take note from this and it will affect France? I would

not raise it in that way. I think the French are looking at what is

happening and the campaign being dominated unfortunately by the man

who was going to be the President, the frontrunner, charged yesterday,

Francois Fillon. They are taking it all went, I do not think it will

change somebody's vote. No. And we have got Yahoo, that huge hacking

from 2014 and extraordinary story that the Americans have now indicted

four people, two Russian spies, and they are saying allegedly, from the

FSB, they are accused of working with criminals. So the Russian

state, allegedly, working with criminals to hack an awful lot of

people's Yahoo accounts. This story has been going on in the background.

If you think about the Kremlin blamed for hacking the Pentagon and

Theresa May and Boris Johnson have more or less accused them of being

behind this coup in Montenegro. Boris this week said the Russians

were behind this attempted assassination in Montenegro,

incredible stuff, and where does it go? Boris Johnson goes to Moscow in

a couple of weeks, which will be fascinating. It would be an

incredible meeting with this as the backdrop. I have a French take. As a

French voter, a couple of days ago, I got an e-mail confirming I am on

the list of voters, telling French people abroad that exceptionally,

they will not be voting electronically. Because of the very

real risk of being hacked by Russia. That is extraordinary. Incredible,

if someone like the Pentagon can be hacked and you think they might have

a firewall, Yahoo as their business might have a firewall and we expect

our own systems, how do they tackle this? It is a big thing post-Brexit

we have to think about. Is it a threat in elections, in all

countries potentially? Yes, I think this is now raising a lot of doubts

and it is about elections, which is the biggest democratic exercise we

can have in our democracies. But I think it is also about other things.

Look at the reliance we accept about everything that is on the internet.

People, criminals ganging up with possibly the FSB or someone else.

Hacking. Russia and other state allegedly are interested in cyber

attacks, the Chinese, the North Koreans. Computers and automation is

now part of life. They talk about smart meters in every home and

Artificial Intelligence. The Towcester can tell on you! Exactly,

heaven forbid. Smart meters, they could be on the Kremlin. This lack

of trust in politicians, the media, people's words and with social media

this fuels mistrust. Thank you so much, as ever. That is it from the

papers tonight. Don't forget, you can see the front

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