:00:00. > :00:00.game against PSV. And Manchester City goes to Juventus. That's all in
:00:00. > :00:13.Sportsday in 15 minutes, after the papers.
:00:14. > :00:16.Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the papers
:00:17. > :00:20.With me are Isabel Hardman, assistant editor at the Spectator
:00:21. > :00:23.magazine, and Ben Chu, the Independent's economics editor.
:00:24. > :00:25.Tomorrow's front pages, starting with: The Mail has a
:00:26. > :00:27.question for the Chancellor, asking whatever happened to austerity?
:00:28. > :00:30.Millions are saved from a life of misery, claims the Daily Mirror,
:00:31. > :00:32.thanks to the Chancellor's U-turn on tax credits.
:00:33. > :00:34.The Independent highlights criticisms of
:00:35. > :00:38.The paper says it is based on forecasts that might not come to
:00:39. > :00:46.The Chancellor got lucky, says the Sun, with a windfall that allowed
:00:47. > :00:50.The Tories are for turning, says the Metro, with
:00:51. > :00:54.The Spending Review indicates a change of course for the UK,
:00:55. > :00:57.Councils are to bear the brunt of Spending Review changes,
:00:58. > :01:01.Tax rises will pay for foreign aid, says the Daily Express.
:01:02. > :01:26.We start with the Daily Mail, whatever happened with austerity,
:01:27. > :01:32.George Osborne ducks welfare casts and increases spending -- cuts. It
:01:33. > :01:35.is interesting because if you look at the black headings above the
:01:36. > :01:40.headline that says your Council tax is set to soar, and to the buy to
:01:41. > :01:44.let dream. Those are measures which will hit people in the pocket, some
:01:45. > :01:49.might say they look like austerity measures. There is your austerity. I
:01:50. > :01:53.was thinking about this on the break and what they mean is whatever
:01:54. > :02:00.happened to austerity? Their vision of austerity is something that
:02:01. > :02:03.happens to other people, not Daily Mail readers. What they are
:02:04. > :02:06.essentially saying is that the Chancellor should have cut spending
:02:07. > :02:11.for all those undeserving causes and all those things we don't like, and
:02:12. > :02:15.he should have cut welfare for people we don't like, but he should
:02:16. > :02:20.have left Middle England alone, which is... That is where the Daily
:02:21. > :02:24.Mail has always come from, so perhaps not that surprising. Is it
:02:25. > :02:29.true that he has all of a sudden turned into Mr nice guy? He is no
:02:30. > :02:34.longer the big bad guy who is chopping this and that? Is that
:02:35. > :02:37.actually the case when we do see tax increases taking place? I think he
:02:38. > :02:42.has covered some of his political problems by not cutting police
:02:43. > :02:46.spending, for instance, by reversing the tax credit cuts. He has overcome
:02:47. > :02:51.some of the lines of attack that Labour were going to use. His
:02:52. > :02:55.opponents within his own party were using them as well. I don't think
:02:56. > :03:00.this means he is giving away all sorts of things and it is a free
:03:01. > :03:04.rein for everyone but he has been very clever in that in the weeks
:03:05. > :03:08.leading up to the Spending Review he has been very severe in his rhetoric
:03:09. > :03:13.and therefore today it has appeared a much kinder Spending Review but I
:03:14. > :03:17.suspect that the those who read the Daily Mail they will be quite
:03:18. > :03:20.worried about the effects of the local government cuts, actually.
:03:21. > :03:23.Conservative council leaders have been warning about the impact on
:03:24. > :03:27.council budgets of what has happened today, and while they may not be the
:03:28. > :03:31.most dramatic headlines from today, you may see stories appearing over
:03:32. > :03:36.the next few months about services disappearing that Middle England
:03:37. > :03:42.notices. OK, so that is the Daily Mail appeared appealing to its
:03:43. > :03:49.readers with its front page. -- Daily Mail appealing to its readers.
:03:50. > :03:54.On the Mirror, the Chancellor being forced into U-turn. It is a puzzling
:03:55. > :03:58.front page of a couple of grounds, first of all because they are saying
:03:59. > :04:03.it was their campaign, whereas I think anyone... I think Isabel will
:04:04. > :04:09.back me up on this, anyone in Westminster will say it was the
:04:10. > :04:15.campaign by the Sun which forced a lot of the pace on this. So they are
:04:16. > :04:20.claiming credit for a campaign which wasn't associated with them all that
:04:21. > :04:24.much. It also says, despite the great victory, Europe, our Mirror
:04:25. > :04:28.readers are going to be hit anyway by the fearful Osborne Budget and
:04:29. > :04:33.working families will lose an average of ?3000 a week which is
:04:34. > :04:36.suspiciously similar to the amount that they said working families
:04:37. > :04:39.would lose because of the tax credit cuts in summer. I'm not sure it
:04:40. > :04:43.entirely adds up as a piece of journalism. We know that the Daily
:04:44. > :04:49.Mirror is left of centre, and all that, is that because those on the
:04:50. > :04:53.left are having trouble dealing with not just the Autumn Statement today,
:04:54. > :04:58.and the Spending Review, but also the fact that there is no direction
:04:59. > :05:03.on the left in terms of the Labour Party? And where it is managing to
:05:04. > :05:08.position itself in dealing with a majority Conservative government?
:05:09. > :05:11.Absolutely, and I think every publication wants to claim credit
:05:12. > :05:15.for its campaign winning in a Budget or economic statement but the Labour
:05:16. > :05:19.Party trying to claim credit for the tax credits U-turn is actually more
:05:20. > :05:23.audacious than any publication doing so. Because even though Chris Leslie
:05:24. > :05:26.when he was interim Shadow Chancellor gave us those figures
:05:27. > :05:31.about families being affected by the tax credit cuts on day of the
:05:32. > :05:34.emergency Budget, the party disappeared into its own leadership
:05:35. > :05:37.contest and what made the running in terms of the tax credits row were
:05:38. > :05:43.upset Tory backbenchers talking to the Times, the Sun coming out
:05:44. > :05:46.against the changes, and that is what catalyse the rebellion in the
:05:47. > :05:50.House of Lords. Peers would not have voted against those changes had it
:05:51. > :05:55.not been for those two elements. They had nothing to do with Labour.
:05:56. > :05:58.In a sense of the real opposition at the moment are Tory opposition
:05:59. > :06:02.backbenchers because the party is such a small majority in government
:06:03. > :06:07.and I suspect after the Spending Review it will be Tory council
:06:08. > :06:10.leaders as well. The worst time to judge a Budget is on the day of the
:06:11. > :06:14.Budget. The effects of these things takes a few days to dribble out, it
:06:15. > :06:18.is only then when people will start to realise how it affects them and
:06:19. > :06:22.how the fact that distribution around the country. So we have a
:06:23. > :06:26.great write up in the summer Budget, all those tax credits, fantastic
:06:27. > :06:31.front pages as far as George Osborne and the Treasury were concerned, and
:06:32. > :06:35.it soon evaporated. Let's not get too carried away. We will talk about
:06:36. > :06:38.Labour and their potential problems with all this towards the end of the
:06:39. > :06:47.show. But regardless of who takes credit for this, he did perform a
:06:48. > :06:53.U-turn. The Metro and the I. The Tories are for turning, and U-turn
:06:54. > :06:56.if you want to. What does this say about his political nous and
:06:57. > :07:01.character? The fact that he is willing, we all remember his face of
:07:02. > :07:06.thunder the Lords throughout the changes to working tax credits. What
:07:07. > :07:10.does it say about him, the person, a politician, that he is willing to do
:07:11. > :07:15.this now? I think it shows us that he is a politician. He is not
:07:16. > :07:19.someone who will pursue a policy right to the bitter end through
:07:20. > :07:24.furious opposition. In that case he is very different to Thatcher, then,
:07:25. > :07:29.if you think about it. He is, she U-turn on some things, but less
:07:30. > :07:34.towards the end of her career. When he was interviewing Charles Moore,
:07:35. > :07:45.Thatcher's via Ghfar, he asked Charles Moore how politicians can
:07:46. > :07:49.get out of policy messes. -- biographer. He is not someone who
:07:50. > :07:53.will stick to something if it is politically difficult and he has
:07:54. > :07:55.realised over the last few months that even though Labour I read a
:07:56. > :07:59.tremendous mess at the moment, that doesn't mean you can get away with
:08:00. > :08:02.anything, partly because of the small majority has party has, partly
:08:03. > :08:08.because the press is also going to cause troubles. Even though Labour
:08:09. > :08:12.might complain about a rightleaning press, it was then he went after him
:08:13. > :08:15.on tax credits. You can't get away with anything even in this
:08:16. > :08:18.situation, and he wants the Tories to be the workers' party and the tax
:08:19. > :08:25.credit cuts quite obviously contradicted that, though they had
:08:26. > :08:28.to go. Going on to the Independent, Osborne's balancing act. We talked
:08:29. > :08:36.about his character, but is there a sense that he has read the rooms and
:08:37. > :08:47.the British public have made it clear that they are fed up with
:08:48. > :08:56.austerity? -- read the runes. If it is not too much of a contradiction
:08:57. > :09:00.here is a pragmatic idealism in -- idealist, in the sense that he is
:09:01. > :09:05.not so set in his ideological vision that he can't change. He does have a
:09:06. > :09:09.view of where he wants to go, and it is a smaller state, and it is pretty
:09:10. > :09:12.Thatcherite and the sense of the private sector doing more, the State
:09:13. > :09:15.doing less for people, lower welfare, all these things. He
:09:16. > :09:19.doesn't come out and sell that vision directly to the British
:09:20. > :09:23.public was very pragmatically he judges that is not going to be
:09:24. > :09:26.particularly popular. But you can see it through a lot of the
:09:27. > :09:31.underlying policies which emerged very early on that that is where he
:09:32. > :09:37.wants to go. Running a surplus, his latest wheeze, if you like, many
:09:38. > :09:40.economists say it is not necessarily a good thing, because it excludes
:09:41. > :09:44.capital spending which helped the economy grow. He has said that he
:09:45. > :09:49.understands that as a good benchmark if you want to drive down the GDP.
:09:50. > :09:55.So he will do things like today which look like a huge U-turn but
:09:56. > :10:01.actually, if you look at it, in 2019/2020, he still has that surplus
:10:02. > :10:03.banked. Maybe it is not about his political genius and being pragmatic
:10:04. > :10:15.or ideological or whatever, he is just lucky? The front page of the
:10:16. > :10:21.Sun, born lucky. We -- with an e on the end. It is not just that he has
:10:22. > :10:25.found extra money, it is also that the office of Budget responsibility
:10:26. > :10:29.foundered for him. It is an independent organisation and if the
:10:30. > :10:32.OBR didn't exist, and this is something that those around Osborne
:10:33. > :10:36.are pretty aware of, I don't think people would have believed him when
:10:37. > :10:39.he said he found it down the back of the sofa. It is handy that someone
:10:40. > :10:47.else has found that for him and written about it an independent
:10:48. > :10:51.booklet. I cover the public finances month in, month out. It looked like
:10:52. > :10:55.we were overshooting for this fiscal year so this 27 billion windfall
:10:56. > :11:00.came as a huge surprise the city of London analyst and anyone who has
:11:01. > :11:04.been watching it. It is basically methodological changes that the OBR
:11:05. > :11:07.has decided on. It has obviously been in train for some time but no
:11:08. > :11:13.one had wind of it and they decided this was the moment to throw them
:11:14. > :11:15.all on the back. I think the independence of the OBR is
:11:16. > :11:20.impeccable and I have huge respect for the guys who run it so I don't
:11:21. > :11:23.think this is a political ploy. It is just tremendously lucky for
:11:24. > :11:37.Osborne that they have done it at this point. Very good headline,
:11:38. > :11:45.Borne Lucky. There has been slashed funding to local councils. I want to
:11:46. > :11:50.go back to Labour. Mao and the great leap backwards. He produced a copy
:11:51. > :11:53.of the Little Red Look in the Commons and tried to suggest they
:11:54. > :11:57.were getting too close to the Chinese, and all that kind of stuff
:11:58. > :12:03.but it has backfired massively against the Labour Party, and they
:12:04. > :12:07.look stranded -- Book. It has backfired, because nobody got the
:12:08. > :12:12.joke about Osborne, they thought he was talking about his own political
:12:13. > :12:15.beliefs. And the fact it was his personal, well thumbed copy. And
:12:16. > :12:19.George Osborne now has that book and the Treasury, along with the famous
:12:20. > :12:23.note about there being no money. You can see him deciding which one to
:12:24. > :12:29.brandish on which day. It was a poor response to the Spending Review
:12:30. > :12:32.already, but those responses are very difficult for Shadow
:12:33. > :12:37.chancellors to do. At that stunt was so bad that not even his front bench
:12:38. > :12:47.have defended it. -- but that stunt. And when McDonald -- McDonnell
:12:48. > :12:50.tweeted a response, funnily enough the Mao stunt was not in that. He
:12:51. > :12:57.was selected highlights, so he hadn't removed that bit alone, to be
:12:58. > :13:02.fair, but the one big joke wasn't in it. What should McDonnell had said
:13:03. > :13:06.today? I think it was set up for him to knock it down. There is a
:13:07. > :13:10.Chancellor who in July had come up with this great plan to cut working
:13:11. > :13:14.welfare, one of the centrepieces of it was cutting tax credits, only a
:13:15. > :13:19.matter of months later he is forced into a full on retreat, not a fudged
:13:20. > :13:22.retreat but in absolute back to the enemy had to the Hills retreat. You
:13:23. > :13:31.just have to simply point out what has happened, and take credit in a
:13:32. > :13:36.way it the Mirror does, and the Sun do. What better way to squander that
:13:37. > :13:40.political capital than make a prize idiot out of yourself by waving a
:13:41. > :13:43.copy of the book by a man who is responsible for the death of 20
:13:44. > :13:47.million Chinese people. There is that, I had forgotten about that.
:13:48. > :13:52.Are we seeing Thomas Vanek, through the failure of the stunt, just a
:13:53. > :13:57.lack of direction -- are we seeing, then, through this stunt, a lack of
:13:58. > :14:01.direction to hit the Conservatives with any punches in terms of dealing
:14:02. > :14:05.with the economy? Not just the economy, everything. At the moment
:14:06. > :14:09.the Labour leadership, John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, have a
:14:10. > :14:12.different stance given to the Labour front bench, let alone the Labour
:14:13. > :14:18.backbenchers. The party is in a very sad mess at the moment and it is bad
:14:19. > :14:22.politics because it means that there is no official opposition that is
:14:23. > :14:25.functioning. That is something that Labour MPs who are quite keen on the
:14:26. > :14:28.whole scrutiny role of the opposition are saying mournfully
:14:29. > :14:32.over the last few days. We are not acting like an opposition, they say,
:14:33. > :14:35.That's it for The say, because they are not. Papers this
:14:36. > :14:49.Coming up next, it is time for Sportsday.
:14:50. > :14:54.Hello and welcome to Sportsday, with me, Will Perry.