Browse content similar to 25/11/2015. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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game against PSV. And Manchester City goes to Juventus. That's all in | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
Sportsday in 15 minutes, after the papers. | :00:00. | :00:13. | |
Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the papers | :00:14. | :00:16. | |
With me are Isabel Hardman, assistant editor at the Spectator | :00:17. | :00:20. | |
magazine, and Ben Chu, the Independent's economics editor. | :00:21. | :00:23. | |
Tomorrow's front pages, starting with: The Mail has a | :00:24. | :00:25. | |
question for the Chancellor, asking whatever happened to austerity? | :00:26. | :00:27. | |
Millions are saved from a life of misery, claims the Daily Mirror, | :00:28. | :00:30. | |
thanks to the Chancellor's U-turn on tax credits. | :00:31. | :00:32. | |
The Independent highlights criticisms of | :00:33. | :00:34. | |
The paper says it is based on forecasts that might not come to | :00:35. | :00:38. | |
The Chancellor got lucky, says the Sun, with a windfall that allowed | :00:39. | :00:46. | |
The Tories are for turning, says the Metro, with | :00:47. | :00:50. | |
The Spending Review indicates a change of course for the UK, | :00:51. | :00:54. | |
Councils are to bear the brunt of Spending Review changes, | :00:55. | :00:57. | |
Tax rises will pay for foreign aid, says the Daily Express. | :00:58. | :01:01. | |
We start with the Daily Mail, whatever happened with austerity, | :01:02. | :01:26. | |
George Osborne ducks welfare casts and increases spending -- cuts. It | :01:27. | :01:32. | |
is interesting because if you look at the black headings above the | :01:33. | :01:35. | |
headline that says your Council tax is set to soar, and to the buy to | :01:36. | :01:40. | |
let dream. Those are measures which will hit people in the pocket, some | :01:41. | :01:44. | |
might say they look like austerity measures. There is your austerity. I | :01:45. | :01:49. | |
was thinking about this on the break and what they mean is whatever | :01:50. | :01:53. | |
happened to austerity? Their vision of austerity is something that | :01:54. | :02:00. | |
happens to other people, not Daily Mail readers. What they are | :02:01. | :02:03. | |
essentially saying is that the Chancellor should have cut spending | :02:04. | :02:06. | |
for all those undeserving causes and all those things we don't like, and | :02:07. | :02:11. | |
he should have cut welfare for people we don't like, but he should | :02:12. | :02:15. | |
have left Middle England alone, which is... That is where the Daily | :02:16. | :02:20. | |
Mail has always come from, so perhaps not that surprising. Is it | :02:21. | :02:24. | |
true that he has all of a sudden turned into Mr nice guy? He is no | :02:25. | :02:29. | |
longer the big bad guy who is chopping this and that? Is that | :02:30. | :02:34. | |
actually the case when we do see tax increases taking place? I think he | :02:35. | :02:37. | |
has covered some of his political problems by not cutting police | :02:38. | :02:42. | |
spending, for instance, by reversing the tax credit cuts. He has overcome | :02:43. | :02:46. | |
some of the lines of attack that Labour were going to use. His | :02:47. | :02:51. | |
opponents within his own party were using them as well. I don't think | :02:52. | :02:55. | |
this means he is giving away all sorts of things and it is a free | :02:56. | :03:00. | |
rein for everyone but he has been very clever in that in the weeks | :03:01. | :03:04. | |
leading up to the Spending Review he has been very severe in his rhetoric | :03:05. | :03:08. | |
and therefore today it has appeared a much kinder Spending Review but I | :03:09. | :03:13. | |
suspect that the those who read the Daily Mail they will be quite | :03:14. | :03:17. | |
worried about the effects of the local government cuts, actually. | :03:18. | :03:20. | |
Conservative council leaders have been warning about the impact on | :03:21. | :03:23. | |
council budgets of what has happened today, and while they may not be the | :03:24. | :03:27. | |
most dramatic headlines from today, you may see stories appearing over | :03:28. | :03:31. | |
the next few months about services disappearing that Middle England | :03:32. | :03:36. | |
notices. OK, so that is the Daily Mail appeared appealing to its | :03:37. | :03:42. | |
readers with its front page. -- Daily Mail appealing to its readers. | :03:43. | :03:49. | |
On the Mirror, the Chancellor being forced into U-turn. It is a puzzling | :03:50. | :03:54. | |
front page of a couple of grounds, first of all because they are saying | :03:55. | :03:58. | |
it was their campaign, whereas I think anyone... I think Isabel will | :03:59. | :04:03. | |
back me up on this, anyone in Westminster will say it was the | :04:04. | :04:09. | |
campaign by the Sun which forced a lot of the pace on this. So they are | :04:10. | :04:15. | |
claiming credit for a campaign which wasn't associated with them all that | :04:16. | :04:20. | |
much. It also says, despite the great victory, Europe, our Mirror | :04:21. | :04:24. | |
readers are going to be hit anyway by the fearful Osborne Budget and | :04:25. | :04:28. | |
working families will lose an average of ?3000 a week which is | :04:29. | :04:33. | |
suspiciously similar to the amount that they said working families | :04:34. | :04:36. | |
would lose because of the tax credit cuts in summer. I'm not sure it | :04:37. | :04:39. | |
entirely adds up as a piece of journalism. We know that the Daily | :04:40. | :04:43. | |
Mirror is left of centre, and all that, is that because those on the | :04:44. | :04:49. | |
left are having trouble dealing with not just the Autumn Statement today, | :04:50. | :04:53. | |
and the Spending Review, but also the fact that there is no direction | :04:54. | :04:58. | |
on the left in terms of the Labour Party? And where it is managing to | :04:59. | :05:03. | |
position itself in dealing with a majority Conservative government? | :05:04. | :05:08. | |
Absolutely, and I think every publication wants to claim credit | :05:09. | :05:11. | |
for its campaign winning in a Budget or economic statement but the Labour | :05:12. | :05:15. | |
Party trying to claim credit for the tax credits U-turn is actually more | :05:16. | :05:19. | |
audacious than any publication doing so. Because even though Chris Leslie | :05:20. | :05:23. | |
when he was interim Shadow Chancellor gave us those figures | :05:24. | :05:26. | |
about families being affected by the tax credit cuts on day of the | :05:27. | :05:31. | |
emergency Budget, the party disappeared into its own leadership | :05:32. | :05:34. | |
contest and what made the running in terms of the tax credits row were | :05:35. | :05:37. | |
upset Tory backbenchers talking to the Times, the Sun coming out | :05:38. | :05:43. | |
against the changes, and that is what catalyse the rebellion in the | :05:44. | :05:46. | |
House of Lords. Peers would not have voted against those changes had it | :05:47. | :05:50. | |
not been for those two elements. They had nothing to do with Labour. | :05:51. | :05:55. | |
In a sense of the real opposition at the moment are Tory opposition | :05:56. | :05:58. | |
backbenchers because the party is such a small majority in government | :05:59. | :06:02. | |
and I suspect after the Spending Review it will be Tory council | :06:03. | :06:07. | |
leaders as well. The worst time to judge a Budget is on the day of the | :06:08. | :06:10. | |
Budget. The effects of these things takes a few days to dribble out, it | :06:11. | :06:14. | |
is only then when people will start to realise how it affects them and | :06:15. | :06:18. | |
how the fact that distribution around the country. So we have a | :06:19. | :06:22. | |
great write up in the summer Budget, all those tax credits, fantastic | :06:23. | :06:26. | |
front pages as far as George Osborne and the Treasury were concerned, and | :06:27. | :06:31. | |
it soon evaporated. Let's not get too carried away. We will talk about | :06:32. | :06:35. | |
Labour and their potential problems with all this towards the end of the | :06:36. | :06:38. | |
show. But regardless of who takes credit for this, he did perform a | :06:39. | :06:47. | |
U-turn. The Metro and the I. The Tories are for turning, and U-turn | :06:48. | :06:53. | |
if you want to. What does this say about his political nous and | :06:54. | :06:56. | |
character? The fact that he is willing, we all remember his face of | :06:57. | :07:01. | |
thunder the Lords throughout the changes to working tax credits. What | :07:02. | :07:06. | |
does it say about him, the person, a politician, that he is willing to do | :07:07. | :07:10. | |
this now? I think it shows us that he is a politician. He is not | :07:11. | :07:15. | |
someone who will pursue a policy right to the bitter end through | :07:16. | :07:19. | |
furious opposition. In that case he is very different to Thatcher, then, | :07:20. | :07:24. | |
if you think about it. He is, she U-turn on some things, but less | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
towards the end of her career. When he was interviewing Charles Moore, | :07:30. | :07:34. | |
Thatcher's via Ghfar, he asked Charles Moore how politicians can | :07:35. | :07:45. | |
get out of policy messes. -- biographer. He is not someone who | :07:46. | :07:49. | |
will stick to something if it is politically difficult and he has | :07:50. | :07:53. | |
realised over the last few months that even though Labour I read a | :07:54. | :07:55. | |
tremendous mess at the moment, that doesn't mean you can get away with | :07:56. | :07:59. | |
anything, partly because of the small majority has party has, partly | :08:00. | :08:02. | |
because the press is also going to cause troubles. Even though Labour | :08:03. | :08:08. | |
might complain about a rightleaning press, it was then he went after him | :08:09. | :08:12. | |
on tax credits. You can't get away with anything even in this | :08:13. | :08:15. | |
situation, and he wants the Tories to be the workers' party and the tax | :08:16. | :08:18. | |
credit cuts quite obviously contradicted that, though they had | :08:19. | :08:25. | |
to go. Going on to the Independent, Osborne's balancing act. We talked | :08:26. | :08:28. | |
about his character, but is there a sense that he has read the rooms and | :08:29. | :08:36. | |
the British public have made it clear that they are fed up with | :08:37. | :08:47. | |
austerity? -- read the runes. If it is not too much of a contradiction | :08:48. | :08:56. | |
here is a pragmatic idealism in -- idealist, in the sense that he is | :08:57. | :09:00. | |
not so set in his ideological vision that he can't change. He does have a | :09:01. | :09:05. | |
view of where he wants to go, and it is a smaller state, and it is pretty | :09:06. | :09:09. | |
Thatcherite and the sense of the private sector doing more, the State | :09:10. | :09:12. | |
doing less for people, lower welfare, all these things. He | :09:13. | :09:15. | |
doesn't come out and sell that vision directly to the British | :09:16. | :09:19. | |
public was very pragmatically he judges that is not going to be | :09:20. | :09:23. | |
particularly popular. But you can see it through a lot of the | :09:24. | :09:26. | |
underlying policies which emerged very early on that that is where he | :09:27. | :09:31. | |
wants to go. Running a surplus, his latest wheeze, if you like, many | :09:32. | :09:37. | |
economists say it is not necessarily a good thing, because it excludes | :09:38. | :09:40. | |
capital spending which helped the economy grow. He has said that he | :09:41. | :09:44. | |
understands that as a good benchmark if you want to drive down the GDP. | :09:45. | :09:49. | |
So he will do things like today which look like a huge U-turn but | :09:50. | :09:55. | |
actually, if you look at it, in 2019/2020, he still has that surplus | :09:56. | :10:01. | |
banked. Maybe it is not about his political genius and being pragmatic | :10:02. | :10:03. | |
or ideological or whatever, he is just lucky? The front page of the | :10:04. | :10:15. | |
Sun, born lucky. We -- with an e on the end. It is not just that he has | :10:16. | :10:21. | |
found extra money, it is also that the office of Budget responsibility | :10:22. | :10:25. | |
foundered for him. It is an independent organisation and if the | :10:26. | :10:29. | |
OBR didn't exist, and this is something that those around Osborne | :10:30. | :10:32. | |
are pretty aware of, I don't think people would have believed him when | :10:33. | :10:36. | |
he said he found it down the back of the sofa. It is handy that someone | :10:37. | :10:39. | |
else has found that for him and written about it an independent | :10:40. | :10:47. | |
booklet. I cover the public finances month in, month out. It looked like | :10:48. | :10:51. | |
we were overshooting for this fiscal year so this 27 billion windfall | :10:52. | :10:55. | |
came as a huge surprise the city of London analyst and anyone who has | :10:56. | :11:00. | |
been watching it. It is basically methodological changes that the OBR | :11:01. | :11:04. | |
has decided on. It has obviously been in train for some time but no | :11:05. | :11:07. | |
one had wind of it and they decided this was the moment to throw them | :11:08. | :11:13. | |
all on the back. I think the independence of the OBR is | :11:14. | :11:15. | |
impeccable and I have huge respect for the guys who run it so I don't | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
think this is a political ploy. It is just tremendously lucky for | :11:21. | :11:23. | |
Osborne that they have done it at this point. Very good headline, | :11:24. | :11:37. | |
Borne Lucky. There has been slashed funding to local councils. I want to | :11:38. | :11:45. | |
go back to Labour. Mao and the great leap backwards. He produced a copy | :11:46. | :11:50. | |
of the Little Red Look in the Commons and tried to suggest they | :11:51. | :11:53. | |
were getting too close to the Chinese, and all that kind of stuff | :11:54. | :11:57. | |
but it has backfired massively against the Labour Party, and they | :11:58. | :12:03. | |
look stranded -- Book. It has backfired, because nobody got the | :12:04. | :12:07. | |
joke about Osborne, they thought he was talking about his own political | :12:08. | :12:12. | |
beliefs. And the fact it was his personal, well thumbed copy. And | :12:13. | :12:15. | |
George Osborne now has that book and the Treasury, along with the famous | :12:16. | :12:19. | |
note about there being no money. You can see him deciding which one to | :12:20. | :12:23. | |
brandish on which day. It was a poor response to the Spending Review | :12:24. | :12:29. | |
already, but those responses are very difficult for Shadow | :12:30. | :12:32. | |
chancellors to do. At that stunt was so bad that not even his front bench | :12:33. | :12:37. | |
have defended it. -- but that stunt. And when McDonald -- McDonnell | :12:38. | :12:47. | |
tweeted a response, funnily enough the Mao stunt was not in that. He | :12:48. | :12:50. | |
was selected highlights, so he hadn't removed that bit alone, to be | :12:51. | :12:57. | |
fair, but the one big joke wasn't in it. What should McDonnell had said | :12:58. | :13:02. | |
today? I think it was set up for him to knock it down. There is a | :13:03. | :13:06. | |
Chancellor who in July had come up with this great plan to cut working | :13:07. | :13:10. | |
welfare, one of the centrepieces of it was cutting tax credits, only a | :13:11. | :13:14. | |
matter of months later he is forced into a full on retreat, not a fudged | :13:15. | :13:19. | |
retreat but in absolute back to the enemy had to the Hills retreat. You | :13:20. | :13:22. | |
just have to simply point out what has happened, and take credit in a | :13:23. | :13:31. | |
way it the Mirror does, and the Sun do. What better way to squander that | :13:32. | :13:36. | |
political capital than make a prize idiot out of yourself by waving a | :13:37. | :13:40. | |
copy of the book by a man who is responsible for the death of 20 | :13:41. | :13:43. | |
million Chinese people. There is that, I had forgotten about that. | :13:44. | :13:47. | |
Are we seeing Thomas Vanek, through the failure of the stunt, just a | :13:48. | :13:52. | |
lack of direction -- are we seeing, then, through this stunt, a lack of | :13:53. | :13:57. | |
direction to hit the Conservatives with any punches in terms of dealing | :13:58. | :14:01. | |
with the economy? Not just the economy, everything. At the moment | :14:02. | :14:05. | |
the Labour leadership, John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, have a | :14:06. | :14:09. | |
different stance given to the Labour front bench, let alone the Labour | :14:10. | :14:12. | |
backbenchers. The party is in a very sad mess at the moment and it is bad | :14:13. | :14:18. | |
politics because it means that there is no official opposition that is | :14:19. | :14:22. | |
functioning. That is something that Labour MPs who are quite keen on the | :14:23. | :14:25. | |
whole scrutiny role of the opposition are saying mournfully | :14:26. | :14:28. | |
over the last few days. We are not acting like an opposition, they say, | :14:29. | :14:32. | |
That's it for The say, because they are not. Papers this | :14:33. | :14:35. | |
Coming up next, it is time for Sportsday. | :14:36. | :14:49. | |
Hello and welcome to Sportsday, with me, Will Perry. | :14:50. | :14:54. |