:00:00. > :00:00.easy beepers and managing director spoke about him yesterday, that is
:00:00. > :00:16.all in Sportsday in 15 minutes after The Papers.
:00:17. > :00:22.Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the papers will bring us
:00:23. > :00:27.tomorrow. With us, to Hugh Muir, diary editor of the Guardian and Sue
:00:28. > :00:31.Matthias, editor of the FT Weekend Magazine. Thank you for joining us.
:00:32. > :00:34.Tomorrow's front pages: The Independent shows a cheerful
:00:35. > :00:38.Nigel Farage, celebrating the local election results.
:00:39. > :00:41.It's much the same on the front of the Daily Mail, the paper reporting
:00:42. > :00:46.that the Shadow Cabinet's turned on Ed Miliband following the polls.
:00:47. > :00:51.Nigel Farage is on the front of the Express. The main story though is
:00:52. > :00:54.the discovery of a protein that could protect against dementia. The
:00:55. > :00:57.FT's lead is the paper's investigation into the French
:00:58. > :01:01.economist who got his sums wrong in his bestselling book on the economy.
:01:02. > :01:04.Nigel Farage is a hurricane, says the i, reporting that the era of
:01:05. > :01:07.four`party politics has begun in Britain.
:01:08. > :01:11.The discovery of the Cheeki Rafiki's hull in the Atlantic leads the Daily
:01:12. > :01:13.Mirror. Labour's been thrown into poll
:01:14. > :01:21.crisis by the local election results, says the Telegraph. And,
:01:22. > :01:24.little mention of the elecitions in the Times ` the paper leads with its
:01:25. > :01:29.report on the supermarket chiefs who ignore expiry dates on the foods
:01:30. > :01:35.they eat at home. There is only one place to begin,
:01:36. > :01:38.isn't there, after the huge changes to the landscape, politically,
:01:39. > :01:46.thanks to UKIP's showing in the English local elections. If we start
:01:47. > :01:51.with the Independent, phage crashes the party. Savouring the moment with
:01:52. > :01:57.his typical pint. `` Nigel Farage crushes the party. He is holding his
:01:58. > :02:03.pint and it looks like he is involved in an act of worship! If
:02:04. > :02:07.you want to escape from him, don't look at any of the papers tomorrow
:02:08. > :02:12.because that would be a vain hope. They have used strange pictures. On
:02:13. > :02:15.the Daily Mail, they have him looking a bit like a gargoyle. I am
:02:16. > :02:22.not sure why they chose that picture. He will be a happy man
:02:23. > :02:26.today. 17% of the vote, they took, although strangely he will want to
:02:27. > :02:30.know what happened in London. London seems to have been very different.
:02:31. > :02:38.17% everywhere else, just 7% in London. One of his spokespeople sort
:02:39. > :02:41.of suggested it is because people are younger and better educated. I
:02:42. > :02:47.think London will be a lost cause for him, but he won't be sad about
:02:48. > :02:53.that. He can just go east to Essex, which seems to be becoming more of a
:02:54. > :02:56.stronghold for him. We have gone through successive elections where
:02:57. > :02:59.Essex has been the weather vane for what is going to happen in the rest
:03:00. > :03:04.of the country. If he is doing well there, he will be quite happy. It
:03:05. > :03:08.gives the main parties a lot to think about. We hear this every time
:03:09. > :03:15.there is an upset, but it is how they turn things around before the
:03:16. > :03:19.general election. That is true. If Nigel Farage is looking happy, well,
:03:20. > :03:23.he would be. He can drink his pint in the knowledge that he has
:03:24. > :03:30.completely wrong`footed the main parties. Tonight, they will be
:03:31. > :03:36.trying to work out what on earth they are going to do. What they are
:03:37. > :03:40.going to do to meet this challenge. What is interesting is that Nigel
:03:41. > :03:46.Farage does not have to do much at all. All that he has to do is stand
:03:47. > :03:50.back. He has a very simple message, which has been very well delivered
:03:51. > :03:55.by him. One is Europe, one is immigration. He does not have to go
:03:56. > :04:02.any further than that. Many discontented voters see in him a
:04:03. > :04:06.voice of common sense and somebody who is at least appearing to give a
:04:07. > :04:11.direct message. You can't say that about the other parties. They will
:04:12. > :04:17.simply have too just what they are doing to victory. I agree with a lot
:04:18. > :04:20.of that. I don't think there is too much that he has to do, but the
:04:21. > :04:26.other parties are going to have to work out how to cope with him. There
:04:27. > :04:30.is an analysis in the Daily Mail by Professor Anthony King and he says,
:04:31. > :04:34.now the other parties know they have to take UKIP seriously, but how they
:04:35. > :04:37.cope with it is another matter. They cannot keep dismissing them as
:04:38. > :04:44.fruitcakes and loonies, if those are the votes they need to claw back
:04:45. > :04:47.from UKIP. My theory is that having established is two simple messages
:04:48. > :04:50.over immigration and Europe, it is very difficult for the other parties
:04:51. > :04:54.to take him on with more sophisticated messages. I don't
:04:55. > :04:59.think they have found a formula for that, and it is going to be very
:05:00. > :05:02.difficult. We are told by many politicians that immigration is good
:05:03. > :05:07.for the country, that there are many benefits to staying in the European
:05:08. > :05:11.Union, even if we renegotiate our relationship with it. And yet for
:05:12. > :05:16.many people it is the appeal of UKIP against those messages which is why
:05:17. > :05:21.they have done so well. Let's move on to the Daily Mail. The savaging
:05:22. > :05:25.of Ed Miliband, talking about how none of the main parties are happy
:05:26. > :05:29.with these results, even though, as we were saying, Labour gained 290
:05:30. > :05:35.seats. On a normal day, they would be pleased with that. How much extra
:05:36. > :05:41.thinking, of all of the leaders, has Ed Miliband got to do? Because some
:05:42. > :05:45.of his own party have been critical of how he has approached this
:05:46. > :05:50.campaign. Absolutely. They seem to be queueing up to have a bit of a go
:05:51. > :05:54.at him tonight. It is just part of the bigger picture for him, really,
:05:55. > :05:57.which is that he doesn't seem to be able to cut through with a message
:05:58. > :06:04.for the voters that the voters can receive and understand. I think what
:06:05. > :06:09.is interesting is that it ties into what we were saying before which is
:06:10. > :06:14.that because of the Nigel Farage factor, the UKIP factor, it is
:06:15. > :06:17.asking questions of all the other parties, how they are going to
:06:18. > :06:25.respond. And Ed Miliband has the problem that he is not communicating
:06:26. > :06:28.anyway. I think that those around him are beginning to get seriously
:06:29. > :06:33.worried about how he is going to get it together in time for the next
:06:34. > :06:39.election. One of his MPs was saying it was an unprofessional campaign.
:06:40. > :06:42.There are a few quotes and some of the stories about the bacon butty
:06:43. > :06:48.incident, when he was photographed trying to eat a bacon butty and it
:06:49. > :06:51.was not rather elegant. Some people say that was part of the
:06:52. > :06:55.unprofessional campaign that he ran. I think he has a problem. I think
:06:56. > :06:59.they are being a bit skittish, because there is a basic philosophy
:07:00. > :07:07.here that, if things stay as they are, then the boundary situation,
:07:08. > :07:15.the seats means that the Tories have got a real mountain to climb to
:07:16. > :07:19.catch him anyway. So I think he has almost a steady as you go policy,
:07:20. > :07:22.and that is what is worrying them. Even if they agree with the
:07:23. > :07:25.strategy, what is worrying them is that they want to see more
:07:26. > :07:31.connection, and I think they want to see more energy. Because connection
:07:32. > :07:35.is all that you get from Nigel Farage. He is pure connection.
:07:36. > :07:38.Trying to compare their man with what Nigel Farage give the
:07:39. > :07:41.electorate has got them worried. Let's look at the pressure on the
:07:42. > :07:45.prime minister on the inside of the Daily Mail, pressure in the form of
:07:46. > :07:51.should the Conservatives do a deal with UKIP? The noises we are hearing
:07:52. > :07:54.from the Conservatives is that there is no need for that and they are
:07:55. > :08:01.going for an all`out win in a year's time. But how tempting would
:08:02. > :08:05.it be to do that, just to make sure? Yes, yes. It was quite interesting
:08:06. > :08:10.in the run`up to the election that the Tories seemed to have this
:08:11. > :08:15.uprising outbreak of unity, which is very unfamiliar for them at the
:08:16. > :08:19.moment. But in the face of this result, you noticed tonight the
:08:20. > :08:23.first thing David Cameron is doing is talking about, we must look at
:08:24. > :08:34.this, look at that, we must consider immigration. Again, the same theme,
:08:35. > :08:38.he is trying to appease the idea that they have been upstaged by
:08:39. > :08:42.UKIP. He is saying that he is not going to tack to the right, and most
:08:43. > :08:49.of the commentators seem to think that he will not not yet. In the
:08:50. > :08:52.immediate aftermath of an election, everyone gets skittish. We see
:08:53. > :08:56.Labour getting skittish and criticising their leader. Already,
:08:57. > :09:00.there are some Tories talking about doing a deal with UKIP. I don't
:09:01. > :09:05.think they can. There are already some Lib Dem activists asking if
:09:06. > :09:08.they are sure about Nick Clegg. There is an inevitability about it.
:09:09. > :09:10.What will happen with the Conservative Party is that those
:09:11. > :09:15.people who are thinking about the immediate future and those who are
:09:16. > :09:18.thinking about the long`term future. In the immediate future he could do
:09:19. > :09:22.a deal with UKIP and that might help in the next election. In the
:09:23. > :09:25.long`term future, for the sort of voters that the Tories have to pick
:09:26. > :09:31.up, and they have talked about needing minorities, more women, is
:09:32. > :09:37.that going to be helped by a close association with UKIP? Probably not.
:09:38. > :09:41.And there are dangers in extrapolating to national elections.
:09:42. > :09:44.Absolutely. David Cameron and Ed Miliband are thinking tonight, it is
:09:45. > :09:51.all going to go away, it won't make a difference when we are playing for
:09:52. > :09:55.real. Damning report on universal credit
:09:56. > :10:00.hushed up. The Government published its annual review into the progress
:10:01. > :10:05.of 200 projects, representing ?400 billion of public spending, not
:10:06. > :10:10.amongst them the damning internal assess am of universal credit. It
:10:11. > :10:13.will not be ready on time. It's all very unrealistic, by the sounds of
:10:14. > :10:20.it? Do you remember those happy days, not so long ago, when
:10:21. > :10:23."transparency" would be the watchword of the Government. They
:10:24. > :10:26.have the evaluation, they tell us everything, apart from the bit we
:10:27. > :10:31.need to know, which is what is happening with this universal credit
:10:32. > :10:35.scheme. It's another ` there seem to be a succession of problems coming
:10:36. > :10:38.out of DWP. Iain Duncan Smith keeps going to select committees or to the
:10:39. > :10:42.House saying it's all going fine. Then something else leaks to give
:10:43. > :10:49.you the impression that it's not going fine. Then you put alongside
:10:50. > :10:54.the universal credit debacle, the universal job search website, that
:10:55. > :10:58.has had problems too. You just wonder whether or not they've taken
:10:59. > :11:04.off more than they chew, in terms of bringing these reforms through. They
:11:05. > :11:09.don't seem to be able to drive them through efficiently. Are enormous
:11:10. > :11:14.changes, is that all it is? Who knows. This story is extraordinary.
:11:15. > :11:21.Who realised there was something called The Major Projects Authority.
:11:22. > :11:25.You learn something new every night. The fact that Iain Duncan Smith is
:11:26. > :11:28.kind of refusing to acknowledge the truth and sort of trying to deny the
:11:29. > :11:37.inevitable and standing up and saying ` it's Allardyce right `` all
:11:38. > :11:55.all right, I'm in charge. Now the FT. He did his sums wrong. They have
:11:56. > :11:59.been looking at Piketty's sums. Has been flavour of the month for about
:12:00. > :12:05.a month, I think. It might have been a bit longer. He's a, sort of,
:12:06. > :12:14.described as the "rock star" French economist. He has ` he is the author
:12:15. > :12:21.of a best seller book called Capital in the 21st Century. One of his main
:12:22. > :12:25.arguments in the book is a calculation about the rise of
:12:26. > :12:30.inequality. And, I believe that one of his main contentions is that
:12:31. > :12:36.we're seeing levels of inequality now which have not been observed
:12:37. > :12:42.since the First World War. And, this has been taken as, lorded as, you
:12:43. > :12:48.know, revealing the central contradiction of capitalism. He has
:12:49. > :12:53.been garlanded by Nobel Laureates all over the place. The FT did a
:12:54. > :12:58.study, crunched the number against, and discovered that he actually has
:12:59. > :13:07.it wrong. The numbers don't stack up ` No, they don't. The actual date
:13:08. > :13:11.for the rise inequality hasn't been rising since 1970. George Osborne
:13:12. > :13:15.will be pleased? It will be a problem. There will be people who
:13:16. > :13:20.had a vested interest in undermining his case. It was probably the most
:13:21. > :13:25.fullfronted assault on capitalist theory as we know it there has been
:13:26. > :13:33.for some time. The FT have above the picture in large letters "Piketty
:13:34. > :13:36.did his sum wrongs" in the text it says, "he appears to have his sums
:13:37. > :13:42.wrong" that is very wise. Everybody will be checking his calculations
:13:43. > :13:49.but the FT calculations. Their punches a little bit. That is it for
:13:50. > :13:56.The Papers this hour. Sue and Hugh will be back with us at 11.30pm.
:13:57. > :14:02.Stay with us on BBC News. At 11.00pm more on the local elections. More, I
:14:03. > :14:07.hear you say! Yes, more. Coming up next, it's time for Sportsday.