10/01/2014 The Papers

sailors compete in the sea around Rio for the next Olympics, we have a

report on the next -- on the state of the water. That is all coming up

after The Papers. Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be bringing us tomorrow. With me are

Neil Midgley, media writer at the Daily Telegraph, and the

entrepreneur Scott Fletcher. Thank you very much for coming on a Friday

night. Friday night in London! The Mail's headline "Champagne Perks

of NHS Drugs Watchdog NICE". It says the body has spent around ?115,000

on expenses which have come out of the NHS budget. The paper says these

splurges are coming at a time when NICE is banning new drugs on the

grounds that they're too expensive. The Express has a positive headline,

with the good news that we're all going to live longer. According to

the Office for National Statistics we're going to live an extra eight

years. The Independent continues its theme

of the corruption of Britain with a secret report into how they say the

criminal justice system has been infiltrated by organised crime

gangs. The Independent's sister paper the i

has "The battle begins for the soul of the NHS", pitting Labour and the

Conservatives against each other as the two parties start to set out

their stalls ahead of the general election.

The Telegraph has a picture of the French President's alleged mistress,

the actress Julie Gayet, in a backless red dress.

The Times also has a picture of the same French actress with the

headline "Oui, Mr President" as well as Labour's plan to improve the

teaching profession. And finally the Guardian leads with

"Benefits chaos will lead to a new housing crisis".

Showing no favouritism, we start with the Daily Telegraph. Because

they have so many good stories on the front, nothing to do with Neal

being here. First, two new cities in secret Tory plan. The accusation

that David Cameron suppressed a report calling for thousands of new

homes. Do we need thousands of new homes? I think we do. We have 10

million new people in the country over the last few years and rising,

70 million within the next five years. It is about time we put

something in place and looked strategically at these things. Also,

the nature of family units as well. Often people are living single

leaf. Housing needs have changed. Some proper planning. In business,

we plan years ahead and government needs to do that and this is an

opportunity for them to do so. There is something going on between the

two sides of the coalition. This has been pushed by the Lib Dems in

government and the Tories are trying to push it to one side. The Lib Dems

are saying, we are in favour of garden cities, big, sprawling

suburbs in any other language, and the Tories, already facing electoral

difficulties in the Home Counties, where these places would be supposed

to be, where these places would be supposed

pressure is. Obviously in the Home Counties, in Buckinghamshire in

particular, on the route, the proposed route of HS2, through the

Chilterns, the Tories are already facing electoral wobbles up there.

The idea that they might concrete over another swathe of the

countryside to build suburbs will probably not go down well with Tory

voters. But if we have that many people needing homes, we need to

address it. Immigration is out of control and we have to do something

about it. You cannot just plonk houses in a place. We have to have

all of the amenities with it. Absolutely. That is one of the

issues, which is why you need a plan, and not just to build

willy-nilly. Schools are under pressure. And hospitals. Airport

capacity. Another decision the government should take is where we

will have more airport capacity in the south-east of England. The

trouble is there are no votes in making these decisions, sensible,

long-term decisions which cost money. There are no votes in that so

governments shy away from taking them. The other story, UKIP will

target Labour seats in the North, says Nigel Farage. The paper quotes

him as saying the Conservative Party is dying in the North as it has

failed to connect with ordinary people. You are both from the North

of England, different sides of the Pennines. Our UKIP going to be the

party that appeals to the people who do not like the Conservatives? It is

a stretch to imagine there will be a swathe of whatever colour UKIP has,

pink or whatever, purple, in the electoral map come 2015. It is

shocking to me to see how far the Tory party has fallen in the North.

Being from Manchester, brought up a Labour boy with socialist roots,

that is definitely how Manchester still feels. But the conversation in

the pubs now, UKIP are being talked about. Nobody would vote Tory. And

they appeal to you. Absolutely. My political views are about liberty

and socialism and try to do the two together but not with massive

government. I want to control what we are doing for Britain so I am

against the EU. We talked earlier about the two cities. One of the

reasons we have to do that is the mass immigration we have got. These

things have to be talked about sensibly and not the litter size. --

politicised. Where I was brought up, it was a safe Tory seat and it has

been a safe Labour seat now ever since the 1997 election. And the

Tories, what Nigel Farage is right about, is that there does need to be

a viable alternative for voters in northern cities, other than Labour.

But when you have a party like UKIP, because they are divisive for

a lot of people, sometimes there will be strategic voting even

encouraged by the main parties. When you have the status quo, that

2-party system, I am 40 years old and the vote on the EU was in 1973.

When you look at change, it will be divisive in some way, and people

want change at the moment, is what I am feeling, something different.

That is what UKIP is bringing. If the mainstream parties take on some

of their policies, things might change, but until they do, I think

there is a big cohort of people, particularly in the north, saying,

who is representing me. The Daily Mail talks about the champagne perks

of the NHS trucks body. This is nice macro, which decides which drugs we

get to be treated with, accused of spending thousands of pounds on

hotels, a John Lewis shopping spree and champagne, racking up credit

card bills of ?115,000. Not a lot of money in the greater scheme of

things, but it is the message that it sends. It is the principle. There

is a ?106 billion budget and we are talking about ?115,000 over two

years. It is nothing. ?5,000 on luxury hotels over two years is ?200

a month. One hotel each month. I do not really by the story. We have to

focus more on what the drugs are costing and why we are not giving

them to people. Obviously, these are expenses be part -- people are

incurring, hopefully in the course of their work. Statistic that did

stand out further down the story is that 137,000 credit cards are issued

to government employees by the government. I have no idea how they

manage -- how they manage that. Can you imagine? Who checks the bills?

As an employee, it is better to have the money on the employer's credit

card and for them to get it back from you, rather than the other way

round. In the private sector, you would put it on your own and claim

it back. That is maybe where the story years. Let's look at the

Independent. Corruption of Britain. Looking back over ten years to stuff

that was happening, apparently the infiltration of some of our bigger

is to Jewish and is by criminals. -- our big institutions. This report is

ten years old and is only just coming out. This is operation

Tiberius at Scotland Yard, suspected in 2003 that juries were being

nobbled by infiltration by organised criminals, that Revenue and

Customs, here and abroad, the gangs were getting their own people to be

employed by HMRC, and therefore, obviously, turning a blind eye or

whatever to the criminal scams that were going on. The question that it

raises, which is why it is on the front page, is how much of this is

still going on today, and is there another report on a desk at Scotland

Yard now? A difficult week for some of the organisations implicated in

this. In plebgate we've got going on today, yes. As a man in the street

looking at this sort of story, the institutions that you grow up

trusting, certainly in the past ten years, we don't trust them any more.

This is just another story that undermines that trust. It's about

time that people in public office took it seriously. It smacked to me

of the storylines of our friends in the north, the BBC drama that was

set in the 60s. We are going back to the Telegraph and also the time is

now. They are both looking at the story to do with Francois Hollande,

the French president, and his alleged affair, spelt very nicely in

French on the autocue for me in French! With this actress, Julie

Gayet. The Times shows her giving a very Gallic shrug. Whereas the

Telegraph, well, she is barely covered up, with a very glamorous

picture of her, showing a little tattoo on her Derry air. We love the

stories here, but in France they keep them under wraps until social

media got hold of it. They've got stronger privacy laws. You look at

this story and you ask yourself, where is the proof? There's a video

with a guy with a helmet on. But he hasn't denied it. It's great PR. Is

it, when you are so low in the polls? Can you imagine if David

Cameron was photographed on a scooter, mopeds, turning up at his

mistress's house, alleged mistress, who was as glamorous as this, and

that his security guard was... Popping out for croissants. It would

be Greg is, though, wouldn't it? Gregs pasties! Can you really ask

for the sea when you are the president of France in 2014? We just

have a very different attitude towards it here. It is fascinating

because if David Cameron were having an affair, this is all fiction in my

mind, I think there would be a period interest, certainly from the

red top papers and the quality papers. I don't think you can expect

privacy. Even though clearly, this is a private matter. If there is

going to be a right to privacy, unless he is being a hypocrite by

preaching family values... He was supposed to be Mr clean, Mr normal.

He's just doing a terrible job, that's the bottom line. Let's look

at the Daily Express. Britons are going to live for eight years

longer. What if you don't want to? And how are we going to afford it?

Some other headlines are talking about the cost of the NHS, how they

are going to privatise it and everything else, yet we are going to

Live 8 years longer and we have no plan to afford the pensions. I will

have to work until I'm 70 here, doing the papers. I'm looking

forward to being there with you, Martine! We may be underwater then

anyway. It says Paul Daniels, you are going to like this, but not a

lot. I don't think he does! That's his home. It looks like a caravan

stuck on a lake. It's a beautiful home that Paul Daniels and Debbie

McGee live in. I love the idea of living by the river, but not so much

these days. I'm lucky that I'm 500 metres up from the nearest river.

There is another story behind this, is this down to climate change, is

it not? There's a big debate about that at the moment. And flood

defences. The cost of those with austerity, we have two address these

things. We haven't got any more time to look at the papers for 2014.

Scott and Neil will be back for a look at some other front pages in

just over half an hour's time, at 11:30pm. Stay with us here, because

at 11pm, calls for Andrew Mitchell to return to the Cabinet after a

police officer admits lying about the plebgate affair. Now it's time

for Sportsday. Hello and welcome to Sportsday. I'm

Lizzie Greenwood-Hughes, the headlines this evening. Jessica

Ennis-Hill says she'll be ready for Brazil, after announcing today she's

pregnant. Aberdeen beat Hibs in the Scottish Premiership as they bid for

Europe next season. And sailing