15/12/2013 The Papers

Cabinet. From prison officer to pop star, mother of two Sam Bayley wins

the X Factor after scooping more than a million viewers votes.

Hello and welcome to the look ahead at what is in the papers tomorrow.

We will start with the times. It says BBC executives where paid

millions of pounds in Sweden is because of a culture of cronyism.

The Daily Mail has a picture of Peter O'Toole who has died at the

age of 81. The main story on the front page is that the UK is still

giving China millions of pounds in aid. In the Independent, reports

that young people are keen on remaining members of the EU. In the

daily Telegraph, claims that pensioners could spend ?150,000 in

care before the Government foots the bill. In the Guardian, Eric Miliband

will try to solve the UK housing crisis. -- Ed Miliband. You would

think that there is an election on! A few policy pieces. We will start

with the BBC and the report by the committee of MPs, looking into the

culture of pay-outs by the BBC. What are they telling us? It is another

day and another BBC story. Viewers will remember the hearings of the

Public Accounts Committee at the House of Commons over the summer

were a series of BBC executives were in the hot seat as they were grilled

by MPs over huge payoffs in some cases that have been made to

departing executives. The report that is the culmination of those

hearings is out tomorrow. The Times is really going for it. What I think

will be interesting is how the BBC response. I would expect, having

watched the BBC face a series of criticisms from the committee and

others there will be self-flagellation in public. What

will be interesting is what happens behind-the-scenes and whether that

gets ignored or if the director-general and the chairman of

the BBC trust decide that now is the time to really draw a line under it

and stop the bad headlines and move on. There is more reading for the

BBC to do. In a a few ways, they have already reacted. The new

director-general has been very critical of the payments and has put

a cap on severance pay. That has already taken place. I expect that

would be exactly the approach is BBC will take tomorrow. It would be a

very difficult day for them. They will be able to say, we have taken

some action and we have taken some action and we're not where we were.

A lot of pressure on Lord Paul, I think. And also on points out, he

was responsible for agreeing a knot of the severance payments. He is in

New York at the new York times. There have been many questions

following him there about his time at the BBC. That will all raise its

head to morrow. None of this is new. It is relaunched by the Public

Accounts Committee with their report. -- its head tomorrow. The

Times has gone for it in a very full-blooded way. The Daily Mail has

got it as well but not quite as big. In a way, we have to interpret the

way the Times has done it. They do have a dog in this race and they are

not very keen on the BBC. Just before we move on, do you think the

one good thing that comes out of times in this territory is the focus

of how public money is spent? We have had banks that we have also had

the NHS, the BBC and politicians themselves. I think that is true. I

also think that Margaret Hodge, the chairwoman of the committee has to

take particular credit or blame, depending which side of the fence

you sit on, her style is very assertive and she does not shy away

from taking coal industry is in fact, but also individuals, and

almost turning them into public enemy number one. -- taking whole

industries. Why are we giving China ?27 million in aid? They say we are

giving China millions of pounds even though they are so wealthy they have

just sent a rocket to the moon. Official figures revealed that

Britain gave Beijing 27.4 million last year. I think you can go

through the aid budget and pick out cases like this. It is pretty

difficult to justify that. I think one must be careful about generally

criticising the budget in its entirety. In a lot of cases, you

need to ask yourself, what is aid for? In some cases, it is just to

help the poor and to help countries develop. In this age as well, a lot

of the budget is about influence and making sure that Britain has some

influence in the world. The other leaders were used to pull just do

not work any more. Aid is one of them. It is a difficult argument to

make in a time of austerity. I do think it is one that should be made

in a sensible debate. We have a history of supporting financially

fairly wealthy countries. We have given aid to Russia, China and

India. The current International Development Secretary, I think her

first key policy announcement, is that our foreign aid to India. In

2015. She has also said it. To South Africa. She was criticised at the

time to making policy on the basis of pressure from Conservative MPs,

like Peter Bone, who was quoted in this article. He was sceptical about

why we were spending so much British money, especially in times of

austerity, on wealthy countries. She nevertheless pressed ahead. I

suspect we might see more countries on the list. David Cameron was in

China recently asking for them to invest in Britain. That is one of

the things that aid is going on in China, for economic development. I

was in China with George Osborne recently. I really noticed that it

is the second wealthiest economy in the world but that wealth is hugely

concentrated on urban areas. The divide is not much between rich and

poor in the cities, it is the urban wealthy and the rural poor. It is a

massive gap. There are definitely very worthy individual committees in

the Chinese countryside. The argument is, why doesn't the wealthy

elite channel some of that money to other parts of the country? You will

find those countries in which we feel we can exercise some influence

will keep their aid. I do not think we will continue to throw good money

after bad. I think we may be more thoughtful about it but we will

still use it as that lever. In the Independent, young people want the

UK to stay in Europe. We did not think would be reading that headline

- ever. Do you think this is a generation gap we are looking at?

Young people have grown up with Britain being in the EU. Is it a

surprise? Are you surprised by it? I remember in my days of newsround, we

did lots of surveys on EU membership. That generation is

probably the generation we're at now. They got it. We did a whole

tour of EU countries. They knew why we were doing it. Young people

travel and they will feel a lot of the archaic views they hear... That

is what I mean. Is it a generation gap? Now you can leave school at 16

and hopefully go and work anywhere within the European Union, not

anywhere within Britain. It is the generation that will have welcomed

the arrival of huge numbers of Eastern European, in particular, but

EU migrants in general in the midnight in 90 's. We have grown up

in schools with Polish kids and parents working with Italians and so

on. We are much more Europhile in our attitudes. At school you have

lessons about how the EU works. Is this a generation which will vote as

to whether we're in or out? X Factor got votes. I was astonished to hear

that. I think we are quantifying the situation we knew existed. It

probably is not a huge surprise. There will be a problem for David

Cameron. He needs to play this very carefully. The Tories want a younger

vote. That is part of what they have been trying to achieve. Can he

continue to sound as shrill as he does in Europe? I am not sure he

can. Also, it is also said in this survey that the young people are

quite worried about the aggressive language of politicians towards

Eastern European migrants. That is another area that David Cameron

needs to tackle but he needs to be very careful. He will repel this

young vote that he will need. Let's move on to the daily Telegraph. We

are looking at the elderly generation. Pensioners face a bill

of ?150,000. If that is the case, that will be pretty shocking. It was

a bout -- about half that. The Government promised to cap it at

?72,000. They have not included the cost of hotel and accommodation and

cost of living, which are obviously key elements of any care package.

That would suggest the overall bill will be a lot higher and Labour is

claiming the average bill would be ?150,000 over five years. The

promise brought in by the gun was to prevent people having to raise funds

by selling their homes. -- by the Government. It appeals to those who

are much more likely to vote. Labour has produced these figures, possibly

with an attempt to undermine the sort of conservative domination of

the older section of the population, suggesting that not all

government proposals for that age group are necessarily workable.

Charities like Age Concern suggest it was a myth that pensioners were

more protected against the costs they face. The Government will have

questions to answer tomorrow when the care bill comes before

Parliament. It can be anything up to ?600 a week to stay in a care home.

This is a good bit of business for Labour. This is a scary headline. On

the daily Telegraph front page, right in the Tory heartland, what

will now happen is that Tory ministers will need to respond to

this. If you look at it politically, it is another case of

labour feeling that they are pulling the Government onto their territory

and forcing the Government to try and stop them from setting the

agenda. It is a very political day in terms of some of the stories on

the front pages today. Labour will be very pleased with this. I hear

everything you are saying. I hear the political agenda. A lot of

people will be watching. This is a big issue - a big problem. Any

politician I can find an answer to it will win a lot of votes. The

reality is that the state cannot afford, the councils in particular,

local authorities cannot afford care bills for everyone. People have come

around to accepting that they have to contribute to their own care

costs if they can afford it. It is about what seems the fairest way in

terms of individual incomes and support from the state. If you are

in a big house that has increased in value over the years, should it be

up to you to sell it? Children, who sometimes have to pick up... I say

children, middle-aged people who have to pick up parents care bills,

they will think it is about inheritance. It is very emotive.

Thank you for taking us through the papers. A really wide selection of

stories are all connected. Many thanks to my guests. Do stay with us

here on BBC News. At midnight, we have more on the funeral of Nelson

Mandela in his home village earlier today. Coming up next, it is movie

Time and time for the cup to film Review. -- Film Review.

Hello and welcome. To take us through this week's