:00:00. > :00:00.England, beaten by the Netherlands in their last match of the World
:00:00. > :00:15.Twenty20 in Sportsday after the Papers.
:00:16. > :00:24.Hello, and welcome to our look ahead to what the the papers will be
:00:25. > :00:27.bringing us tomorrow. With me are Tim Collins, political chairman at
:00:28. > :00:37.Bell Pottinger and Paul Johnson, deputy editor of the Guardian. The
:00:38. > :00:40.Independent looks at the sale of Royal Mail. It says the Government
:00:41. > :00:42.and taxpayers appear to have been fleeced by sophisticated City
:00:43. > :00:45.investors who made a quick profit on the flotation. The FT says
:00:46. > :00:46.regulators are intensifying their investigation into alleged
:00:47. > :00:49.foreign`exchange manipulation by banks. The Metro says the advice to
:00:50. > :00:53.eat five portions of fruit and vegetables every day should be
:00:54. > :00:56.doubled. It's the same story on the Telegraph, it says ten portions a
:00:57. > :01:02.day could significantly reduce the chance of premature death. Lucky
:01:03. > :01:08.Express readers only need to eat seven portions, the paper says. The
:01:09. > :01:11.Guardian says doctors are concerned a major disease outbreak could kill
:01:12. > :01:19.thousands because hospitals can't test life`saving drugs quickly
:01:20. > :01:24.enough. The Daily Mail says the Police Federation paid a PR company
:01:25. > :01:28.for advice on using guerilla tactics in a campaign against government
:01:29. > :01:32.banisters. The daily miller is reporting complaints from doctors
:01:33. > :01:41.that changes to the NHS has risked the health of cancer patients. ``
:01:42. > :01:47.the Daily Mirror. We will start with your paper, Britain and prepared for
:01:48. > :01:53.an outbreak of infectious disease. `` unprepared. I am glad you picked
:01:54. > :01:56.this one out first! This is a protracted procedure, medical
:01:57. > :02:00.research, you have to get grants, ethical approval, you have to find
:02:01. > :02:06.hospitals and staff, patients, equipment, you have got to sign
:02:07. > :02:10.legal agreements to protect everybody in that sense. That can
:02:11. > :02:15.take more than a year. With things like bird flu, pandemic influenza,
:02:16. > :02:19.that can have come and gone within eight weeks. The doctors wanting to
:02:20. > :02:24.test patients micro, the patients will have survived all be dead. So
:02:25. > :02:37.this is a story from the new man who has come in as director of the
:02:38. > :02:41.welcome `` Wellcome Trust. You have got to test these drugs properly,
:02:42. > :02:48.surely, you don't want something going wrong, surely that is the
:02:49. > :02:52.response of many people. It is a hallelujah moment for the Guardian
:02:53. > :02:57.to lead with a story saying there is too much form filling and red tape.
:02:58. > :03:00.How marvellous, a paper which has never previously criticised a
:03:01. > :03:06.bureaucratic procedure! But I think this is genuinely a very good story,
:03:07. > :03:11.because it is inviting people to realise that there is a cost for
:03:12. > :03:14.bureaucracy and form filling, sometimes it is just slowing down
:03:15. > :03:19.business, but in the NHS it is costing lives. Lord Saatchi tried to
:03:20. > :03:23.introduce a private members bill in the House of Lords a while ago the
:03:24. > :03:26.back of the terrible experience his wife had when she was dying of
:03:27. > :03:30.cancer, which would have made it much easier for people to test
:03:31. > :03:35.experimental procedures, because the problem there as in this case in the
:03:36. > :03:39.Guardian is there is such a risk averse culture, such a fear of being
:03:40. > :03:43.sued, such a requirement to fill out forms, that they will go for the
:03:44. > :03:46.traditional procedure even if it doesn't work, and they will have to
:03:47. > :03:51.go with a new treatment through so many hoops that even though it may
:03:52. > :03:54.save a life, you would not administer it because of the fear of
:03:55. > :04:01.the consequences if it does not work 100% of the time. We have to learn
:04:02. > :04:05.that in hospitals now were tested. They did not all work the first
:04:06. > :04:11.time, but if they had not been tried out, a lot more people would have
:04:12. > :04:15.died. Do you see this as the beginning of a concerted effort to
:04:16. > :04:20.cut red tape involved, not just in this but other areas? Whether it is
:04:21. > :04:24.red tape or not, I have not found that phrase in there! Doctors face
:04:25. > :04:30.months of form filling and administrative checks! It is
:04:31. > :04:34.compacting the process, so it is all set up to deal with something in
:04:35. > :04:40.real time. That is the only way doctors can really combat some of
:04:41. > :04:45.these pandemics that are predicted, some of the worst threats we face.
:04:46. > :04:50.Sure, let's move on to the Financial Times, Tim, what is going on with
:04:51. > :04:55.the Better Together campaign? Another problem for them, Number Ten
:04:56. > :05:02.scotches Link on pound vote. This is extraordinary, the no campaign that
:05:03. > :05:07.wants people to vote to stay in the UK was apparently doing very well
:05:08. > :05:11.until a month or so ago, and yet now it as hit real problems. The person
:05:12. > :05:16.who has created those problems is Alistair Darling, who was picked to
:05:17. > :05:20.chair the no campaign on the basis that he was the safest of safe
:05:21. > :05:26.hands. But in an interview on the Today programme, he really, I think,
:05:27. > :05:30.got in a terrible mess. He basically said that, of course, it would be
:05:31. > :05:36.necessary to have a further referendum if the English and Welsh
:05:37. > :05:41.had to decide whether they wanted currency union with the Scots. The
:05:42. > :05:47.line from Downing Street, emphatic from all the parties, that is not an
:05:48. > :05:50.option, you cannot have a referendum on something that is not an option.
:05:51. > :05:55.Alex Salmond thinks all this Christmas is up, once, their
:05:56. > :06:00.campaign is falling apart, and this is on the back of an anonymous story
:06:01. > :06:06.from an anonymous minister, quoted as having said, well, of course, we
:06:07. > :06:09.would talk about it differently if they opted for independence. The no
:06:10. > :06:14.campaign is still in the lead but the lead is shrinking, and Alex
:06:15. > :06:19.Salmond came from behind to win Scottish Parliamentary elections. I
:06:20. > :06:24.would not put money against him doing it again. Is their panic in
:06:25. > :06:28.the Better Together campaign? I do not know if there is panic in this
:06:29. > :06:32.sense, but it goes back to the choreography of Danny Alexander,
:06:33. > :06:38.George Osborne and Ed Balls saying, vote yes to keep the pound, slightly
:06:39. > :06:41.endorsed by Mark Carney. We did a story on Saturday, our chief
:06:42. > :06:45.political correspondent spoke to a source, a minister closely involved
:06:46. > :06:53.in this or said, look, whatever the posturing is now, this will have to
:06:54. > :07:00.be dealt with later. The FT has caught up on this story... Following
:07:01. > :07:04.your lead! In the sense that one person, closely involved, said the
:07:05. > :07:08.hunt to identify the source was under way. One senior minister said
:07:09. > :07:12.efforts are being made to identify who they are, and when we find
:07:13. > :07:18.them, they'll be nailed to the nearest lamp post. That sounds like
:07:19. > :07:21.Scottish justice. Those people who want the United Kingdom to stay
:07:22. > :07:25.together, they have got to realise it could split apart very soon.
:07:26. > :07:31.April tomorrow, it is not far off, and it could be very serious. Perry
:07:32. > :07:41.series in France as well, the French Prime Minister. `` very serious. He
:07:42. > :07:45.has carried the camp for suffering particularly bad local election
:07:46. > :07:50.results. `` carried to the canon. The whole Cabinet has resigned. He
:07:51. > :07:55.has got a great deal of difficulty year, his population plunged to an
:07:56. > :08:02.all`time low, 150 towns lost by the Socialists. The Front National joke
:08:03. > :08:09.a lot of towns, catastrophic polling. We now read that this is a
:08:10. > :08:15.bold move, what do you do? It is finding a scapegoat, and low and
:08:16. > :08:20.behold, the scapegoat has been found in the new interior minister who,
:08:21. > :08:25.curiously enough, as opposed to fit a Blairite mould. I don't quite know
:08:26. > :08:29.what they mean by that. More centrist than the previous guy.
:08:30. > :08:33.Hollande is facing pressure from left and right, because the left
:08:34. > :08:38.wrote to him saying, you must ease up, they must raise the minimum
:08:39. > :08:43.wage, increase pensions and salaries of state employees. He is caught in
:08:44. > :08:47.a very difficult bind. The French don't seem to give their leaders
:08:48. > :08:51.much of a honeymoon when they get into power, and you have got to
:08:52. > :08:58.produce results pretty damn quickly. As you were saying, if you are
:08:59. > :09:02.having problems and you are the best scapegoat is the Prime Minister.
:09:03. > :09:06.That has been a tradition in France for a long time to sack the Prime
:09:07. > :09:10.Minister at the mid`term elections. When Hollande came to power, there
:09:11. > :09:13.was a sense that this was a new dawn for the left, not just in France but
:09:14. > :09:17.across the whole of Europe, that there would be a shift of the left
:09:18. > :09:24.to the left, people talking bout Ed Miliband, Francois Hollande, moving
:09:25. > :09:29.away from the Blairite model, away from free markets, being much more
:09:30. > :09:34.traditional left, traditionally socialist. This guy has become a
:09:35. > :09:39.French primers that, a classic Blairite, who wanted to take the
:09:40. > :09:44.word socialist out of the party. `` French Prime Minister. He wants to
:09:45. > :09:47.go for radical economic reforms. It seems as if the moment when the left
:09:48. > :09:55.was going left in France has ended within two years. He's taken a duff
:09:56. > :09:58.line on crime. People will remember Tony Blair came to prominence as
:09:59. > :10:02.Shadow Home Secretary with the phrase ` tough on crime, tough on
:10:03. > :10:06.the causes of crime. It seems that this guy is following the Blairite
:10:07. > :10:10.PlayBook of taking a left of centre party much more towards the middle
:10:11. > :10:16.ground. That has potentially implications for the UK too. Ed
:10:17. > :10:24.Miliband has, up till now, been staking out left`wing territory. Now
:10:25. > :10:29.will he once again follow the lead of Francois Hollande and move back
:10:30. > :10:33.to the centre. Tony Blair wasn't centrist, he was to the right, if
:10:34. > :10:41.you have a re`alignment, you're moving back to the centre? Yes, on
:10:42. > :10:45.the swingometer that's slightly confusing! Those who fought Tony
:10:46. > :10:48.Blair in the trenches and lost time and again, I promise you he was not
:10:49. > :10:54.in the right. He demolished the right. Some on the left would argue
:10:55. > :10:58.he's on the right. Maybe so. What is interesting, if Europe is not, if
:10:59. > :11:03.France a massive power and significant element in European
:11:04. > :11:07.destiny, if France does decide that having dalied with quite left`wing
:11:08. > :11:13.politics, it's moving back to the centre, that's an important point in
:11:14. > :11:18.European policy. When Mitterand came into power, he was in coalition with
:11:19. > :11:22.the communists, he got rid of the communists and shifted to the right.
:11:23. > :11:29.It happened before, that was patch the Thatcher raying an era. ``
:11:30. > :11:33.Reagan era. It will be very interesting. Let's
:11:34. > :11:38.go onto the Independent. Royal Mail float. How banks broke promises and
:11:39. > :11:43.raked in a fortune. Someone suggested at the time it was under
:11:44. > :11:48.valued. They're saying that those chickens have come host to roost.
:11:49. > :11:51.Different views, one, that is an utter disaster. That it was
:11:52. > :11:59.completely under valued. ?750 million was basically lost in paper
:12:00. > :12:06.terms on day one. It was floated at 330 p. It reached 600 p eight weeks
:12:07. > :12:10.later, can you see the book loss in terms of what the Government did.
:12:11. > :12:16.Other people might say well, hang on, at least about 2. 4 billion was
:12:17. > :12:21.raised from this. You could never be certain shares can go up as well as
:12:22. > :12:27.dun onned `` down and all the usual caveats. But it reads gnatily now.
:12:28. > :12:33.`` nasty now. If you put your house up for sale for 330,000 and sell it
:12:34. > :12:37.at that and then about six weeks later, somebody sell it's on for
:12:38. > :12:44.600,000, you're going to be pretty peeved. I would be MiF fed. You've
:12:45. > :12:47.be more than that. For the first and only time in my life I'm going to
:12:48. > :12:51.stick up for a Liberal Democrat here. I think it is worth bearing in
:12:52. > :12:55.mind, Royal Mail privatisation was not easy. It was not something that
:12:56. > :13:00.anybody could just come along and do it. Michael Heseltine tried to do
:13:01. > :13:04.it. Peter Mandelson tried to do it, failed. Vince Cable was able to take
:13:05. > :13:07.it through. And one of the factors that was very significant in the
:13:08. > :13:12.pricing that he had to fix was that at the time, there was a threat of a
:13:13. > :13:16.National Post strike which could easily have demolished the value of
:13:17. > :13:20.the thing. They took independent advice. The independent advice was
:13:21. > :13:26.that they should price it between 260 and 330 p. Vince Cable went for
:13:27. > :13:30.the absolute highest number, 330 p. As it turned out the markets, as
:13:31. > :13:34.Paul says, they can do strange things on individual days, they
:13:35. > :13:39.chose to go up quite a lot. If they'd gone in the other direction,
:13:40. > :13:42.if the sale had failed, if people had been scared off by the threat of
:13:43. > :13:46.strike action or the fact that successive governments had failed to
:13:47. > :13:51.carry this through, people wouldn't have been saying, you hadn't lost
:13:52. > :13:55.several hundred million pounds, you'd lost billions. But the
:13:56. > :14:01.loss`making bit of Royal Mail, that was take an way. It always looked
:14:02. > :14:06.like a good bet for anyone. That was the earlier plans too, but they
:14:07. > :14:12.still failed. What Vince has managed to do, belatedly, we should have
:14:13. > :14:16.done it 20 years ago. Your old boss should have done it. All the offices
:14:17. > :14:21.were privatised years before the Royal Mail and are stronger as a
:14:22. > :14:24.result, and competing across Europe. The Royal Mail now is run by private
:14:25. > :14:29.sector management who is doing a fantastic job. Going to go on and
:14:30. > :14:33.ovenlt I see next month, they have to appear again before the Select
:14:34. > :14:36.Committee that Margaret Hodge shares. They're not going to be
:14:37. > :14:40.looking forward to that. She's a tough one. Paul, Tim, you're back in
:14:41. > :14:44.an hour for another look at some of the stories behind the headlines.
:14:45. > :14:48.Thanks for that. Stay with us here. At the top of the hour, more on all
:14:49. > :15:04.the stories from the day. Now it's time for Sportsday.
:15:05. > :15:11.Welcome to Sportsday. Here's what's on the way: Sunderland stutter at
:15:12. > :15:14.home again, as relegation looms for Gus Poyet's side.
:15:15. > :15:15.David Moyes