19/05/2014 The Papers

retirement. We look back on Jonny Wilkinson's fabulous career. That's

all in Sportsday, in 15 minutes after the papers.

Welcome to our look ahead to what the papers will be bringing us

tomorrow. With me are the former State Department official, Colleen

Graffy, and Jason Beattie, the political editor of the Mirror.

Let's look at some of the front pages now. We start with the

Independent, it warns that millions of householders could become what it

calls mortgage prisoners, if interest rates start going up. The

Metro carries the story of a man who discovered his critically ill wife

was still alive three days after he'd agreed to have her life support

switched off. The mistake was only revealed when he phoned the hospital

to arrange her funeral. The Express ` scientists say that

short high`intensity workouts can help prevent diabetes.

The Guardian ` it claims that Pfizer is giving up on the planned takeover

of AstraZeneca after the latest bid was rejected.

The telegraph ` Abu Hamza found guilty in an American court of

terrorism charges. The Daily Mail ` a test that could

help prevent thousands of heart attacks a year will be rolled out

across the NHS in the next few months.

We start with the Independent. Millions face become mortgage

prisoners. We're all mortgage slaves, now we're going to be

prisoners. Yes. It's quite dangerous. This is a report by a

think`tank called the Iran resolution Foundation. It was set up

specifically `` called the Resolution Foundation. There are

alarming figures. A small interest rate rise could hurt 700,000 people.

They could be in severe financial trouble. Interest from 0. 5% to 3%

could affect one in four of all mortgage holders, about 2. 2 million

people. Why is this important? It's the pain and worry it will cause

anybody who has a mortgage. A lot of them got it on low equity. And

there's a political headache as well. We're coming up to an

election. If this happens before an election, that's awkward for George

Osborne. Now the pressure is on Bank of England governor, Mark Carney. He

has to make that decision. Now it's a highly charged political decision.

Mark Carney has made it clear, at some point, when the economy

normalises interest rates will go up. He can't say when. He made the

point that when they do go up, they will go up slowly, and reach nowhere

near the levels they were before the crash. That's right. We're getting

mixed messages about this. One day we'll be told that interest rates

will not be rising, then the have a headline like this. A word to the

wise is sufficient. To be looking at how you can be paying down your

mortgage, more from interest only mortgage into one that's fixed. Even

though it will be more expensive, now might be the time to do. It I'm

talking to myself as well here. I thought so. I'm grateful for

financial advice. Give us more. We all know it's coming. It's comfort

being to know it's not going to be as high as once `` as it once was.

When it will happen and being prepared is important. It's like

quantitative easing in the United States, they just got so used to it

happening, all this cheap, free money, but at some point, the music

has to stop when you have to find a seat to sit down on. It's the same

here. Interest rates have been low for a long time. Have. The other

thing here, why were people allowed to get mortgages with such low

levels of equity? We have much lower rates in London than in Scotland or

Northern Ireland. It's something like 35% equity in Northern Ireland

compared with as low or 5% or 2% here. We were creating a subprime

market when we said we would not let it happen again. But how do people

get into the housing market, so they can afford the payments, even at a

fixed rate, but they can't afford, if they can't get four times their

salary they're not going to get anything. It's a double bind for

everyone. Going to the business section of the Telegraph, US accuses

China of spying on metal groups and the US Attorney`General has laid

charges against some Chinese military officials for stealing US

business secrets. This is a big story. We've known it for some time

in the United States that the Chinese have been stealing secrets.

China has been put on notice behind closed doors, subtly, out of public

view, saying this has to stop. The Chinese have insisted on saying that

it's not happening, that they want evidence that this is happening. So

now, a firm has gotten specific evidence that these five individuals

in particular, who were named, with the military, out of a union nit

Shanghai have been responsible `` unit in Shanghai have been

responsible for hacking US steel, nuclear, aluminium, and so this,

well, this has repercussions for the UK. One of the companies was westing

house. They were involved with the nuclear reactors, I think three of

them are in Cumbria, the project by New Generation. What information do

the kienees have about this nuclear reactor ` Chinese. This could be a

security issue. The Attorney`General's office that has

laid out the charges. You used to work in the State Department. This

is a headache for you guys. You are the international arm of American

foreign policy. You guys have got to deal with the Chinese on a

day`to`day basis. Oh, yes. How will this affect that relationship?

Chiepees foreign `` Chinese Foreign Minister says it's a pack of lies,

there's no evidence of this and that it's going to hurt some of our

projects we're working on, cyber security, for example, and one of

the things you have to do is just take the heat. It's so important for

American and global business that you don't have these secrets stolen

by governments and therefore, pulling the rug out from competition

and the market that you just have to take the heat on the diplomacy side.

I suspect the Chinese would say one, we didn't do this any way, so these

are all allegations. They would say that, wouldn't they? Secondly, they

probably will say that everyone's doing it. Yes, interestingly,

although what's interesting is that the Americans have named and shamed,

British Secret Service have been sound is the alarm bell on this

issue for a long time. There are known cases of the Chinese trying to

hack in or successfully hacking into British firms to steal intellectual

property rights. When David Cameron was in China in December, it was

raised there. There were kerbs about `` concerns about tie`ups with

Chinese firms and whether this telecoms company would then, by

using Chinese technology, would gain British companies and British

institutions. There is a wider issue. This is platant what they're

doing. They may `` blatant, they may deny it. They're very etents. It's

the military, so it's efficient. They're doing this with businesses.

Are they doing it with military hardware. Is this going to lay the

ground for cyber technology? We have become more open. The risks are

higher. The big industry in the United States were trying to move

into non`fossil fuels, one of the companies was a solar company. They

were constantly getting under cut with the pricing from Chinese

companies. Now they've learned it's because they had all the information

about what their pricing strategy was. So it's really caused some

difficulty for that industry in the United States. The Chinese would

also say famously, the Obama White House has decided in foreign policy

terms to pivot towards Asia. As a result, try to hem in the Chinese.

Obama went to Asia, not to Beijing, he went to all the other countries

and we know that there are territorial disputes reason Asia.

This is all part of trying to keep the Chinese down. I think that might

be what they say. What it's really about is that they have a huge

population that is trying to have a rising standard of living. They have

got to have an increase in their GDP. The only way of doing that is

stealing secrets, keeping ahead of industry of all the other countries

so that they can accommodate all of this rising demand. That's what it's

really about. They don't do that, they have civil unrest, they have

issues, sectarian, religious, environmental. Need growth rates of

8% just to stand still. Exactly. Let's go on to the Guardian. Pfizer

pulls out of Astra battle. US drugs giant walks away from bid rejected

and billions wiped off AstraZeneca's share price today. One way of

looking at this, this was like two dinosaurs trying to mate. It was

going to be unsuccessful whatever happened. I don't like the optics on

that one. They're both firms which are wholly reliant on the patent

business with the drugs they produce. The patents are expiring.

Therefore this merger was predicated on two things that Britain had a low

tax base. Pfizer wanted to save some money and it could then move in on

the Astra's research and development, was left of it, snap up

the atents. Actually the real `` patents. The work in pharmaceuticals

is done on a smaller level. That's where the big development is taking

place. It would be better if they'd spent this money on actually

encouraging more research or micro esearch rather than these huge

aggressive takeovers. Some Americans are always welcome over here! UK

Government has specifically put in this incentive of lower tax so that

this kind of thing would happen. Pfizer made a very lucrative offer

and there is a patent box that the Government put in place, meaning a

10% tax value means they have to have all the management of the

patents and the work done within the United Kingdom for exactly that

reason, to protect research and development, that it is managed and

done here. So it is a little bit inappropriate to say that we want to

bring new business into the United Kingdom with tax incentives and then

start going, oh, we like science. This is a slap in the face of the

George Osborne's ideal of the economy. He is trying to turn us

into a tax haven and an extraordinary free market economy.

This whole proposed merger throughout all those issues. A low

tax regime is not necessarily the best regime? Why is it bad?

AstraZeneca are going to be in deep trouble if they don't increase their

earnings and their board members and shareholders will be pretty upset.

Why didn't we do this merger? New blood and money. Some of them are.

So could we get a hostile take`over? Unless AstraZeneca turnaround before

the 28th, then Pfizer needs to wait six months before making another

offer. They went up from 53 to 55 and they are not that far away from

58p. But 65 billion off the stock market? That is the requirement of

the Government, that research and development has to be managed. That

is an interesting point because there was talk about research and

development jobs going but the bottom line today was a did not

offer enough cash. If they had, AstraZeneca did not really care. I

am putting words into their mouths now, but the suggestion was it was

all about money fundamentally. Getting a higher share. We will

continue this later. I did not even get to do my work`out! OK, you guys

will be back in an hour for another look at the stories behind the

headlines. Many thanks for that. Stay with us on BBC News because at

the top of the hour we will be live in New York, where the radical

Islamist cleric Abu Hamza faces a possible life sentence after being

convicted of terrorism charges. Now it is time the Sportsday.