20/11/2015 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the the papers

With us, James Martin from Huffington Post and Melanie Eusebe

be from Hult Business School. Apologies for being over

co-ordinated, like BBC News cabin crew.

The Independent leads with the Mali hotel siege, with the headline

"Another Bloody Friday", a week on from the Paris attacks.

The same story on the FT, showing an injured man being carried away from

The Times focuses on a draft resolution presented

at the UN Security Council, calling for countries to take

"all necessary measures" to fight the Islamic State group.

The Telegraph says Britain is poised to join air strikes against IS

in Syria, after senior Labour MPs publicly

Security chiefs are warning Islamic State could be plotting

an attack on British ferries, according to the Mirror.

The splash on the Express is Chancellor George Osborne announcing

And the Mail reports police are to probe a Tory scandal.

We will of course begin tonight with the story that has unfolded today in

Mali, in the capital, Bamako. Here it is on the Independent, another

bloody Friday, with a body being removed from the Radisson Blu hotel,

their main picture on the front page, saying that dozens are killed

as jihadis attack a hotel and the group is linked to Al-Qaeda. They

have said they are behind this. Whether or not it is connected to

what happened in Paris we are not sure, but the French certainly feel

it is an attack on their interests, as well as those of Mali.

Absolutely, and this group, loosely affiliated with Al-Qaeda, is the

same group responsible for the Algerian gas plant attack in 2013 in

which eight Britons died. It almost seems, to put in perspective the

amount of terror and carnage recently, that if there are less

than 30 people pulled dead from this hotel, and let's hope the casualties

are as low as possible, it almost feels like a victory, especially

when you had up to 170 people held hostage. It is a horrible sign of

how desperate things have become. 130 dead in Paris, 220 in a Russian

plane crash. This is, unfortunately, a sign of The Times that there are

now less and less people who have not been directly affected by

terrorism in some way. It is extraordinary to think that, but the

fact that there were French and US forces already in Mali who could

help to bring the siege to an end so quickly is a reflection of the fact

that there has been a lot of militant violence to deal with. They

have had a lot of militant violence. With the Radisson Blu, there was a

UN conference there a few years ago, it is a big site for Westerners,

businessmen, businesswomen, aid workers. The Radisson Blu is such a

Western Front in Mali, in Bamako. It is a victory, however it is still

very much still a target. It just continues the trend, civilian

targets, defenceless civilian targets, trains, planes, shopping

centres. And how do you protect them all? Absolutely, you can't, and that

is the unfortunate, frustrating and terrifying thing about terrorism, it

is unpredictable. Moving the Times, looking at how we deal with of eight

front group. A UN resolution calls leading nations to action. We had

that from the UN Security Council in the last half hour or so, asking for

all able states to join the fight against Islamic State. This is not a

legally binding resolution, but it does allow governments to consider

how they can contribute. Certainly it allows governments to consider,

and I think it also lends government some aid. Cameron had to abandon his

push a few weeks ago, and so undoubtedly this will help internal

governments come together under the same resolution. Essentially, you

have have the United Nations being a bystander until now with Isis,

possibly the greatest terror threat the world has ever seen. It has had

the constant veto of Russia and China hanging over it. Now you have

this gruesome statistic this week that every permanent member of the

Security Council has lost a national to Isis. Two Chinese citizens

murdered this week, the Russian aeroplane incident as well. You

almost feel that if they were ever going to act it had to be now if

they were going to get the support of Russia and China. Bringing it to

Britain, the Telegraph is looking at ramifications for a vote in the

British Parliament. Set to strike Isil as Labour MPs defied Jeremy

Corbyn. He has always said he is opposed to air strikes, because his

concern is that our intervention in the Middle East has actually created

more radicalisation, created more problems. Difficult for him to

backtrack from that, I would imagine. He is being exactly what he

should be, which is the voice of opposition, saying, let's look at

the results of air strikes before. Does this work for us? He has

received quite a lot of slack from Chuka Umunna, other MPs who have

said he is unqualified if he can't protect the safety of Britain, not

qualify for office. However, he is doing exactly what he should be

doing. You are seeing a huge ground shift. This morning we had talk of

upwards of 20 Labour MPs prepared to rebel. Now the Telegraph is saying

up to 60 are prepared to vote against Jeremy Corbyn. If you think

around 20 Tory MPs might be prepared to vote against Cameron, there is no

doubt the momentum is definitely with David Cameron. Moving on to

other stories, which have a connection. Boris clashes with

Osborne over cuts to police funding. We have the spending review this

week, lots of departments braced for pain. Boris Johnson is saying in the

light of what has happened in Paris and in Mali, we can't afford to cut

police numbers in London. Absolutely. You get the feeling that

Boris and Theresa May are not going to play nice with the spending

review next week. With every other department signed up to these cuts

of up to 30%, the Home Office is the standout. The question posed by Andy

Burnham from Labour and others is, how deep will these cuts be with the

police force. He sets anything more than 10% would be dangerous, he

wants less than 5%. Here you have Boris, defying his Chancellor,

saying he is prepared to back the police on this. Let's move on to the

Financial Times. Osborne set to meet deficit target. Ahead of the

spending review, the prediction is that he will miss the target. At the

same time, under pressure as well not to be so tough in his

implementation of the cuts to the welfare reforms, to tax credits.

Exactly, is a big tax decreasing terms of classic income tax,

National Insurance VAT, corporation tax. He is going to have to figure

out how to make it up. With working tax credits under attack, he will

have to try to replenish them. Now they are suggesting that perhaps

they are looking at your contractors and self-employed and raising tax

there, so it will be interesting to see what the resolution will be.

Economists are saying he will need a miracle to hit the target, and he is

not going to get that. He is good, politically, and it will be a bit

embarrassing for him, but politically he could probably blow

the deficit by 100 billion and Labour cannot hurt him on the

economy at the moment. Where it will hurt is front-line services like

policing and libraries. The final story, still on the Financial

Times, Cameron DeLay 's Cabinet reshuffle to deter waverers from

backing British exit. People will have to wait to see which Cabinet he

might get, according to this article. In light of what is going

on, frankly, I would say it is a wise move. Over you could also make

the point that if it is David Cameron saying it, he will be out

before the next election, who cares? Maybe Boris or Theresa May

will run wild. His main issue heading up to the next election

before stepping down as leader is instilling discipline. Maybe Boris

will just defy him, even with this politically savvy move from Cameron.

I suppose he wants to keep people guessing, maybe people keep all in

the Cabinet who are more on the side, if David Cameron decides to

campaign for staying in the EU. I'm not sure if that will be a very

successful tactic, really. We've seen that before with regards to

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and I don't think that worked, in terms

of, let's keep everyone on tenterhooks until the very last

moment. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, so I will

reserve my judgment. That is what I'm going to say, I do not have an

opinion yet. I never have an opinion! I am tipping Boris

defiance. I have plenty of opinions outside, just ask them at home.

That's it for now, but stay with us because at 11pm, Islamist attack a

hotel in the capital of Mali. Coming up next, Sportsday.