:00:00. > :00:00.Rennick sisters triumph. And the rest of the action on an eventful
:00:00. > :00:13.evening in the pool. Hello and welcome to
:00:14. > :00:16.our look ahead to what the papers With me are the broadcaster
:00:17. > :00:31.David Davies and the political Two super heavyweights. Are you
:00:32. > :00:37.happy with me referring to you in that way? I think David has more
:00:38. > :00:40.weight than me on him. We will argue over classifications later.
:00:41. > :00:42.The Telegraph's main headline is the news that Britain has
:00:43. > :00:44.the fastest`growing economy of the main developed countries,
:00:45. > :00:48.The Express has the Queen at the Commonwealth Games on their front
:00:49. > :01:03.If you can see in the corner of that box, the Queen has snuck into a
:01:04. > :01:06.selfie being taken by the Australian hockey team.
:01:07. > :01:08.The Independent splits it's front page between a picture
:01:09. > :01:10.of injured children in Gaza and claims that new Government
:01:11. > :01:13.figures show that council tax rises are hitting Britain's poor hardest.
:01:14. > :01:16.Gaza features on the front page of the Metro too, with an arresting
:01:17. > :01:19.picture of a grief`stricken father who's son has died in the shelling.
:01:20. > :01:21.And the Guardian continues their story about hygiene
:01:22. > :01:25.The paper says the health secretary is demanding an investigation
:01:26. > :01:40.Let's begin with news that will be very pleasing to the Chancellor. The
:01:41. > :01:45.UK has the fastest`growing economy, growing faster than those of other
:01:46. > :01:48.major developed nations according to the International Monetary Fund.
:01:49. > :01:52.This will be interesting reading, because it was only last year that
:01:53. > :01:56.the IMF was saying that his policies were not a sensible idea? No, they
:01:57. > :02:03.will be delighted in the Treasury over the story. Nobody seems to be
:02:04. > :02:07.denying it is true. It is good news. Even Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, for
:02:08. > :02:11.once, seems to be accepting that growth is racing ahead. You can look
:02:12. > :02:17.it into microwaves. As you say, a year ago, the IMF were warning that
:02:18. > :02:22.Mr Osborne, the Chancellor, was playing with fire and there should
:02:23. > :02:27.be a and B. Now they are saying they are moving through faster. If they
:02:28. > :02:32.got it wrong a year ago, they could be getting it wrong today! Why do we
:02:33. > :02:36.take them so seriously? Well, we took them seriously when they were
:02:37. > :02:44.not particularly complimentary? Well, I share Lance's cynicism about
:02:45. > :02:52.some of the figures. Even though the IMF, I see, I love the language, and
:02:53. > :02:59.upside surprise, it calls the news. The figures are new, but the fact
:03:00. > :03:02.this has been happening and we have been outperforming countries like
:03:03. > :03:08.America, like Brazil, like South Africa, that is not new. The
:03:09. > :03:14.interesting thing for me is if the government is going to get the
:03:15. > :03:18.credit for this next May. Now, Lance is better qualified than I am to say
:03:19. > :03:26.that. My view is that they may well do. But events, dear boy, between
:03:27. > :03:32.now and May, who knows what? The chief economist at PwC has said this
:03:33. > :03:37.upgrade is a symbolic upgrade. But he says the recovery is not yet
:03:38. > :03:41.sustainable. It's still a shaky recovery, the economy is still
:03:42. > :03:45.fragile. It is not surging ahead. The question is how deep the growth
:03:46. > :03:49.goes and how many sectors of the economy at effects. It does not
:03:50. > :03:54.automatically translate into political support. In 1997, when my
:03:55. > :03:58.old boss Tony Blair swept to power, any fair observer would say that the
:03:59. > :04:02.economy had been growing strongly under the Conservatives in the year
:04:03. > :04:06.or so, more than a year before the election. But it wasn't enough?
:04:07. > :04:10.Interesting, I would be interested to hear how you play this in
:04:11. > :04:14.opposition. If there is some good economic data, which everybody says
:04:15. > :04:17.they want because they want everybody to benefit from it, how do
:04:18. > :04:26.you judge the reaction to it? You don't want to be too effusive. There
:04:27. > :04:29.is a real debate, and you can tell it has been going on in the Labour
:04:30. > :04:38.leadership. Most of the time, Ed Balls is pretty curmudgeonly. He is
:04:39. > :04:42.curmudgeonly about a lot of things. Of course, it is his job to oppose
:04:43. > :04:46.the Chancellor and shoulder problems there are. He seems to be changing
:04:47. > :04:50.tack. If anybody would listen to me, which they don't, I would advise,
:04:51. > :04:53.you do say that things are getting better, they could have got better a
:04:54. > :05:00.lot quicker and Britain could still be in a much stronger position. The
:05:01. > :05:02.question is, do people out in the country, particularly outside London
:05:03. > :05:06.and the south`east, do they feel this? Do they feel, hey, it matters
:05:07. > :05:13.that we are doing better than the United States, than Brazil, than
:05:14. > :05:22.South Africa? Or is this still a south`east, London and London thing?
:05:23. > :05:27.Let's stay with The Telegraph. Gold Rush rescues the summer of sport. A
:05:28. > :05:31.clutch of gold medals, of course, they have been won by Scotland and
:05:32. > :05:37.England. There are pictures of some of those lucky winners. Alistair
:05:38. > :05:41.Brownlee, at the top, he beat his brother in the triathlon. Jodie
:05:42. > :05:45.Stimpson, lower left, the first gold of the games in the women's event.
:05:46. > :05:50.Sophie Thornhill and her guide, Helen Scott, winning the women's
:05:51. > :05:58.sprint tandem finals. Allow me to help. Here we are. We are doing this
:05:59. > :06:03.more and more often, I rather like it. Who was this? Ashley Mckenzie
:06:04. > :06:09.took gold in the judo. We also saw Ross Murdoch beat Michael Jamieson
:06:10. > :06:17.in the men's 200 metres. So, the Scots have had some success. Perhaps
:06:18. > :06:21.in Scotland they may notice that it is a lot of English success on the
:06:22. > :06:27.front page of the Daily Telegraph. But, hey, before Lance says it, it
:06:28. > :06:33.is not a vintage year for British sport. But things are on the up.
:06:34. > :06:38.Rory McIlroy, supporters of his in golf, they will confirm that. There
:06:39. > :06:44.is the Ryder Cup to come. Perhaps the BBC Sports Personality Of The
:06:45. > :06:49.Year will be a serious short list, as opposed to an effective short
:06:50. > :06:55.list of one. But this is a fantastic event. You know, it will be
:06:56. > :06:59.interesting. One or two of the papers, and we might talk about it
:07:00. > :07:05.later on, they are starting the undertones of what impact it will
:07:06. > :07:10.have on the referendum debate. At the moment, there are some fantastic
:07:11. > :07:13.sporting performances going on. Yes, they are coming from home nations at
:07:14. > :07:21.the moment. The cartoonist on the Telegraph has already interwoven
:07:22. > :07:30.sport and politics. It looks like the judo, is it judo? Anyway, in the
:07:31. > :07:35.judo arena. Is this judo or a discussion about keeping the pound?
:07:36. > :07:38.Inevitably, it will have an impact on the way that we see the games,
:07:39. > :07:43.because of this referendum not very far away. Because we are only weeks
:07:44. > :07:47.away from the referendum and the games are taking place in Glasgow.
:07:48. > :07:49.That is the link, that is all you need to say. We were talking about
:07:50. > :07:56.the impact of the economy, the impact of sport on how people vote
:07:57. > :08:00.is much harder to read. Is it a great occasion for Scotland, so it
:08:01. > :08:04.shows how well Scotland could do culturally, sporting, by themselves?
:08:05. > :08:08.Or does it show what Scotland is able to do while in the United
:08:09. > :08:13.Kingdom anyway, so why bother with independence? Let's move on to the
:08:14. > :08:17.independent, council tax rises hit Britain's poor hardest. More than 2
:08:18. > :08:21.million of the poorest people in England are facing rising tax
:08:22. > :08:24.demands because the government is cutting further into the benefit
:08:25. > :08:31.system. Some of these people would have been protected from having to
:08:32. > :08:36.pay the whole council tax bill. The full consequences of this
:08:37. > :08:39.government's welfare reforms, Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms, they
:08:40. > :08:45.are still emerging several years after they were introduced. You
:08:46. > :08:48.know, this story, in its own way, millions of families on blowing
:08:49. > :08:57.firms have received council tax demands for the first time. The
:08:58. > :09:01.impact that remains to be seen. Are they people... Again, we get back to
:09:02. > :09:08.the earlier subject, are they people that are going to vote come next
:09:09. > :09:15.May? Are they people who are not going to support the government
:09:16. > :09:18.anyway? All of those questions come into it. It's interesting that the
:09:19. > :09:24.impact of the welfare reforms, some of which people across the board
:09:25. > :09:27.have supported, some of which, certainly, the bedroom tax being the
:09:28. > :09:37.best example, they most certainly haven't. What the impact will be
:09:38. > :09:42.will be interesting. If they can't pay they will be taken to court? In
:09:43. > :09:45.London, 16,000 people had been referred to bailiffs for nonpayment.
:09:46. > :09:53.If you aren't the impact of the changes to council tax on housing
:09:54. > :09:57.benefit, the number of people affected is enormous. Some of those
:09:58. > :10:01.people, if they are in work, will have benefited from the raising tax
:10:02. > :10:04.allowances. But people never voted to say thank you for something that
:10:05. > :10:08.they have been given. They certainly remember what has been taken away
:10:09. > :10:14.from them. Let's stay with the independent and we will look at this
:10:15. > :10:18.and The Metro together. Understandably, what is happening in
:10:19. > :10:24.Gaza is on the front page of many papers. Not even a UN school is
:10:25. > :10:33.safe, and human appalled by the attack, that is how the Independent
:10:34. > :10:37.is reporting it. A picture of a grief stricken father of a boy
:10:38. > :10:44.killed in the shelling. An investigation was being carried out
:10:45. > :10:52.by Israel into how this. `` how this happened. It does now appear that
:10:53. > :10:56.Israel is preparing to admit it probably was one of its missiles?
:10:57. > :11:02.Yes, they seem to be changing their story as the day went on. One of the
:11:03. > :11:06.other papers, the Guardian, they have been detailing the tweets that
:11:07. > :11:10.the IDF was putting out. Latterly, they did seem to be accepting it was
:11:11. > :11:13.their responsibility. We have been here before. The last time there was
:11:14. > :11:20.a major assault on Gaza, almost copycat, there was a missile strike
:11:21. > :11:26.on a school. It was where the United Nations had a school and they were
:11:27. > :11:28.trying to get the civilians out. I think the Israelis factor in
:11:29. > :11:32.international outrage into their decisions on this. They know what
:11:33. > :11:35.the response is going to be. They know that the front pages of
:11:36. > :11:38.newspapers all over the world are going to be screaming out what they
:11:39. > :11:43.are screaming now. But they still think they have to do what they have
:11:44. > :11:49.to do. I don't know what you think about this, but there are very
:11:50. > :11:56.impressive spokespeople on their behalf who come across a very often,
:11:57. > :12:03.as very reasonable and, on the one hand, on the other, and yet,
:12:04. > :12:08.tonight, it was a very difficult case for their spokesperson to make.
:12:09. > :12:17.He was, right, as you say, edging towards, well, perhaps it was us.
:12:18. > :12:20.The warning had gone out, there was supposed to be an opportunity to get
:12:21. > :12:27.people out, and then that was never actually given? I never know how
:12:28. > :12:33.that works. How do you know how long it is going to take for people to
:12:34. > :12:37.get out? And where do they shelter anyway, if half of the Gaza Strip is
:12:38. > :12:42.a no`go area by Israel's own admission? It was the United Nations
:12:43. > :12:46.themselves trying to negotiate with the Israelis about when a strike
:12:47. > :12:50.might start. The Israelis issued a warning that civilians should be
:12:51. > :12:56.moved away from the area. The UN also have very good spokespeople and
:12:57. > :13:01.make a very good case for trying to defend civilians in war zones. You
:13:02. > :13:08.know, clearly, they are outraged by the way that the Israelis had been
:13:09. > :13:13.behaving. There will come a point when they think that they have taken
:13:14. > :13:18.it far enough and international outrage is too great, we have to
:13:19. > :13:21.stop? I haven't planned a campaign like this and I hope I never have to
:13:22. > :13:28.get involved in that sort of thing. They will calculate how far they
:13:29. > :13:30.need to go to achieve their military objectives, they will calculate the
:13:31. > :13:33.response of the international media, because they have been there before,
:13:34. > :13:37.they have seen it before and they know this sort of tragic incident is
:13:38. > :13:41.going to happen. They will have in the back of their minds, even if it
:13:42. > :13:44.is not on paper, what the tolerance level, at which point they have to
:13:45. > :13:50.say, we have achieved all we have been able to achieve.
:13:51. > :13:56.Your interview with the Hamas leader. He is edging towards at
:13:57. > :14:01.least a temporary ceasefire. These events, however awful they are, tend
:14:02. > :14:06.not... They tend not to last endlessly. You know, you sense
:14:07. > :14:09.they're moving in a direction towards some sort of a temporary
:14:10. > :14:16.ceasefire. Let's hope you are right. That is it for The Papers this hour.
:14:17. > :14:20.David and Lance will be with us again at 11.30pm for a look at the
:14:21. > :14:23.stories making the front pages. Coming up next. It's time for
:14:24. > :14:36.Sportsday. Hello, and welcome to Commonwealth
:14:37. > :14:38.Games Sportsday, I'm Katie Gornall. Scotland rule the pool as
:14:39. > :14:50.Ross Murdoch snatches Gold from the It's a sister act in the Judo
:14:51. > :14:53.as Kimberly and Louise Renicks