05/09/2014 The Papers

Plus how Rosberg and Hamilton got on in today's practice sessions for the

Italian Grand Prix, all in Sportsday in 15 minutes, after The Papers.

Wellcome to our look at what the newspapers will bring us tomorrow.

With me is James Miller of the Sunday Post, and joining us from

Glasgow is Jean Freeman from Women for Independence. Thank you for

being with us tonight. Let's look at the front pages of the morning

papers. The Daily Mail leads the story claiming some of our biggest

banks have been intimidating customers. NATO leaders gaze at a

fly past on the cover of the Independent on the day they set up a

rapid reaction force to defy Russia over Ukraine. The FT has the same

picture but talks about a new bid by the no camp to halt the charge of

nationalists in the Scottish referendum. The Daily Telegraph says

Britain could become involved in a three`year battle with Islamist

militants. Five yet `` five old Ashya King dominates the front page

of the Guardian. He is going to Prague. The express says there is

outrage at claims that police are dropping rate prosecutions. The

Times carries a picture of the American president at Stonehenge

following the NATO summit in Newport.

Let's begin with the Telegraph. The headline, three`year battle to

degrade and destroy ISIL, the Islamic State, the militants who

have been cutting a swathe across Syria and Iraq, Britain signs up to

coalition led by the United States, and the Prime Minister of verses a

plan to mothball an aircraft carrier. When you read into this

article, Jean, it feels like we have been here before, very reminiscent

of the Iraq war. It does. I found it quite disturbing an article to read

because we have a number of assertions and statements and no

clear plan, certainly in the article, no clear acknowledgement

that there needs to be some kind of democratic process behind this. So

we have the commitment to 1000 troops, the idea of the rapid

reaction force, but we do not have much of an idea, so far at least,

about exactly what that force would do. The article also tells us that

not every member of NATO is as convinced of this as the UK and the

US are, and again, that does have a close of having been here before.

And indeed Germany and particular is somewhat reticent. They are.

Reticent, and also reticent in terms of whether the principal target, if

you like, is the Islamic State, or whether in the view of Germany, we

shouldn't be more concerned about what is going on in Afghanistan and

Ukraine. Certainly it struck me in the past week that we have not had a

lot of attention to what was going on in Ukraine, and I wondered if

that was the wise course to take, to be so focused on what is happening

outside Europe, knowing what might be happening here. Let me turn to

James. Often there is talk of a mandate, having a mandate to take

action of this type. How is this mandate in comparison with the one

they thought they had against Saddam Hussein? There is an element of

having been here before, certainly, I was particularly struck by the

three`year battle, this sounds like it will be over by Christmas, the

three`year figure is picked out of nowhere, but it is different to

Iraq, because these guys are baddies... You know, we know they

are doing horrific things, beheadings, they have a British

hostage. In Iraq they had to come up with a dossier and the evidence, the

evidence that these guys need to be dealt with is very clear, and in

that sense I think there is a moribund mandate, more of a public

feel that something must be done. `` more of a mandate. In the Telegraph,

Ashya King, the five`year`old boy who needs brain tumour treatment

being given permission to fly to Prague. It has been an extraordinary

week for the family, pursued across Europe, then having the arrest

warrant dropped. A lot of people still don't really know what this

story is all about, what happened, why they were chased across Europe,

what they were doing in Spain when they were trying to get to Prague.

It sounds like we were going to have a happy ending in the sense that

hopefully now they will be left to do what they were going to do in the

first place and get on with it and maybe be left alone by the media to

deal with at their own way. Briefly, Jean, do police have much choice

over whether to pursue the family in this way, given that doctors in

Britain were concerned for his health? It depends a little on what

information the police were given, and that is still not clear. If the

police were told that the medical profession in the hospital believed

the child was at risk in terms of how the parents might be able to

look after him or not, I don't know if that was the case, but if they

had been told something like that and hadn't done anything, we would

be criticising them as well. The whole thing is a bit of a sad mess,

I think. I suspect that in a sense, at the end of the day, everyone has

acted in what they believe were the best interests of the child, but the

consequences of that have been a tragic set of circumstances, and

hugely distressing for the family, but also for the kids of that

family, including the little boy himself. The Daily Mail, shaming of

bodily banks, intimidating customers with fake debt collection letters,

bosses confess. This is a campaign they have been mounting after they

claimed thousands of letters had been sent, which were apparently

rather intimidating, to customers. Now it seems the bosses admitted

using these tactics. They have, yes. There has been so much news going on

with Ukraine, Iraq and Scotland, it has been lost today. This has not

been missed by the Daily Mail, which is good, because it is outrageous.

If your front`page story is supposed to be dropped your toast stuff at

breakfast, this would mind me `` want to make me smash up the

kitchen. These banks, their customers, they are looking after

people 's money, and they were making up names of solicitors to

send them scary letters. It is the will drink how they thought they

could get away with it. Is your crockery safe when you read a

headline like that, Jean? Just about, but the interesting thing

was, if I pretended to be debt collecting firm or a law firm and I

sent you that kind of letter, I would expect the police at my door,

and what I find extraordinary in all of this is that after everything we

have been through with the banks, they still think they are perfectly

legitimate in behaving in this way, and the article points out, they

have not really apologise. The thing I was surprised that was that the

Student Loan Company is part and parcel of this. I don't know what we

need to do for people to understand that behaving in this way is immoral

and totally unacceptable. Let's move on to the Independent, coalition

rocked by bedroom tax revolt, a quandary here with this one because

we have to call it the spare room subsidy as well to not cause

partiality, but this was the vote not by a backbench Lib Dem MP,

Andrew George, to try to CBN is of this tax, which has proved to be

very damaging `` see the end of this tax `` damaging for people deemed to

have an extra bedroom they don't need. It has indeed, very damaging

in terms of the impact it can have in moving families away from the

rest of their family and their community and so on. For example, in

some parts of Scotland, there simply are not houses with only one

bedroom. Here in Scotland, The Scottish Government has acted to

mitigate the effects of the bedroom tax, but the thing that struck me

about this story was that you can spot a 2015 general election coming,

I think. I don't mean to be dismissive of the backbencher who

brought it forward, I am sure he is genuine, but we have that coalition

emerging between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, and the Liberal

Democrats suddenly very much opposed to the bedroom tax, but they were

part of the government that introduced it. You pulled a bit of a

face, James. There is a Scottish angle to this because the SNP MPs,

most of them, didn't turn up for the vote, despite all this talk about

vote for independence to get rid of the bedroom tax. That is a decision

they took. They obviously thought time would be better is spent

campaigning for a yes vote and they might rewrite, but from a PR point

of view it has given Labour big win because they are to say, our MPs

turned up and voted. The FT has come up trumps with a story about the

Scottish referendum, which is fantastic, as Jean is with us from

Glasgow. Union camp in push to halt yester, David Cameron warning Scots

they will be more vulnerable in a dangerous and insecure world of they

vote for independence, as No campaigners try to stop the swell of

support for Yes. Gordon Brown also saying there might be an option of

greater devolution of powers to Scotland, James, if the No voters

successful. I'm not much or how we can offer a guarantee now. The FT

have been on the independence referendum from the start. Like a

lot of papers who are just waking up to it as it gets tight and closer,

I'm not sure there is a huge amount exciting in this story per se. But,

it is the big issue now. Despite the other stuff in the papers this is

the big issue affecting the country. It seems the momentum is with yes at

the moment. We'll know that for sure when we see some pulse at the

weekend. They say there is panic in the no camp. `` polls. What will

work best at this point? Stand in the other people 's shoes for a

moment. More carrot or more stick, to get people to vote no? Certainly

not more stick or more scary stories about possible stick. People here

don't believe it. Even in the early days when it was said a few months

ago there wouldn't be a currency union. Even before there was paper

coverage of a government insider who said of course there would be. Even

before then the polls showed people in Scotland didn't believe it. What

is happening here, and it is interesting, there is not a lot in

this story, but it is interesting inasmuch as not particularly the

Financial Times because we've also covered the referendum consistently

throughout, but there is certainly a mood of, oh my goodness, it is

coming very soon. From the no camp, it looks like we might lose. It does

look like we might lose. I'm not sure what they can do. They've left

it a bit late. They are trying to scare people into voting no. They've

tried to tell us how much they love us so please don't vote no. Now we

have guarantees that frankly can never be honoured. And the offer of

additional powers that contrast sharply with the fact that it was

not allowed on the ballot paper because of the stance of the

Unionist parties. Just because people don't believe it doesn't mean

it is not true. I think that it's worth pointing out on all of these

charges. But there has certainly been a lot of scaremongering. But it

doesn't mean it is not true. Lots of shoe warning tonight. We will try to

do it even more slickly later. `` shoehorning. Stay with us will stop

there will be more on the truce in Ukraine which came into effect

today. Coming up next, sports stay. `` sports

Hello and welcome to Sportsday ` I'm Nina Warhurst.