06/12/2015 The Papers

Now on BBC News here's Maxine with The Papers.

Hello and welcome to our Sunday morning edition of The Papers.

With me are former Treasury minister and corporate advisor,

Angela Knight, and James Rampton, features editor at the Independent.

The Sunday Express leads with Storm Desmond and reports it has claimed

its first victim in London - a 90-year-old pensioner who reportedly

died after the gale force winds blew him into the side of a moving bus.

The Observer says the Shadow Cabinet is bracing itself

for what MPs are calling a "revenge reshuffle", following Labour's

The Independent on Sunday also carries the claims, adding plans

And the Sunday Telegraph reports on a 'terrorist incident'

at Leytonstone Tube station after police tackle a knifeman who injured

three people while allegedly screaming 'This is for Syria'.

What would you like to start with? The Sunday Express and the killer

storm? Firstly, I am so sorry, I feel for that pensioner and his

family. Yesterday the winds were strong enough down here, let alone

in the North of England. Your conscience being buffeted around, to

keep your feet on the ground, if you are a bit frail, so a real tragedy

there. Some of the pictures in the newspapers today are pretty

impressive. You have water that has risen very quickly opt to the first

floor, waves, you know. This Israel Dagg the station staff. For a lot of

people it is not the first time as well. Absolutely. And it may come

quickly with a lot of wind and rain but it takes a long time for the

water to go down, the houses to dry and there is more rain forecast,

following on saturated ground so, yes, it is the same people and same

part of the country that had it, what, two, four years ago? These

awesome pictures again, quite frightening. I was speaking to some

people there, residents and shop owners and they said it was bad

enough last time but it has risen so fast this time. Since 2000 nine, the

last major time in this area -- 2009. But the floods have

overwhelmed those defences, so for the residents, they thought they

were safe, and now their homes have been destroyed again. Cumbria has

put out a call for extra doctors. 32 people have been marooned in a pub.

Worst places to be marooned! But not to sound too facetious, because it

is serious. And still, a man came on like a modern Bear growls, rescuing

people with his landowner, so extraordinary stories of heroism and

very frightening incidents in this flawed and it makes you think, with

the Paris conference coming on, is this another incident of global

warming, and the way that we deal with the world, because this will

change this town for ever -- a modern-day Bear Grylls. These

pictures here. Look at the size of that wave, it looks like it is

somewhere out at sea, rather than... This is Wales, of course. We

have been focusing on Cumbria but it has come down the Welsh course as

well. Pretty terrible in Ireland, too. Yes, and it was the severity.

This was a very severe storm, and certainly the amount of rain that

has fallen in such a short out of time. One report said they had had

in months's of rain in 24 hours, so this is the extreme conditions you

were speaking about, James. And we are in December, we have not even

got to spring, and spring tides, thinking of previous years. The

other aspect is which way the wind is blowing. It is coming from the

far south-west, and double figures there in terms of temperatures, so

we certainly have a climate change taking place. I think human spirit

is coming through as well? I love the story about this chap, calling

himself the modern-day Bear Grylls, rescuing many people from a flooded

car park in Carlisle. But you're right about the figures, eight

inches in the Cumbria and the monthly average is normally 3.4 so

it is no wonder the defences where overtopped with that incredible rush

of water coming so quickly, it is bound to overwhelm them. You cannot

do anything about it. It looks like we will be breaking the records on

this one. We did that three or four years before and it is quite

worrying because we do not know where we are going. No more records.

Now The Telegraph, this horrible incident at Leytonstone Tube with a

man attacking passengers on the platform? Not too far away from

where I live and like 6 million people go on the Tube everyday and

this is what terrorism is about, it terrorises you. Old people walking

past, people going to Christmas parties, people with children, 7pm

in the evening on Saturday before Christmas and this man allegedly

shouting, this is for Syria, running round slashing at slashing at people

at random with a machete, apparently. Very terrifying and the

good news is he was extremely quickly silenced by a Taser and he

was unable to inflict any more damage. It could have been much

worse. And the police who attended where Borough police who were not

armed and only had the Taser, so just showing you... The bravery is

extraordinary. They did a very good job. Many extraordinary things about

this as well. It was filmed, by a passenger, passer-by or whatever. I

am amazed someone would stand there filming it but in some respects at

least it gives a picture, because you know her so often after the

event, the police did this, the police did that, at least we have a

record taken at the time. The second thing is the phrase that some man,

shouted at the individual doing the shouted at the individual doing the

attacks, you ain't no Muslim, Bruv. And I think that tells us exactly

what is to be done, and that is that the Muslim community have to show

those in their community taking these extreme actions that this is

not what their religion, their faith, is all about. Let's look at

the Mail because it is also the headline there come on the front

page, and some pictures there. And you are right. It is extraordinary

when these happen and we see these pictures being taken. It was on

Twitter within minutes, and some of it was very shocking so I would not

recommend people look at it with all the blood and things but the police

have also been asking people to send in their footage, so probably there

were more people filming it who have not made their footage public, so it

is extraordinary, you are right, Angela. It is usually all down to

what happened, various incidents, and I think Rodney King was the game

changer, filmed by someone from an upstairs window 20 odd years ago and

that is when people fought, actually, you know, you cannot get

away with things. People will be phoning things -- people thought.

With all the brutality in America, and if this man, you know,

apparently from this footage, the court him in the act. We even have

the picture of the person taking the pictures. A telling story for today.

Let's turn to politics. The Independent. Furious, hitting back

at Corbyn's smears. Angela? Absolutely. This is quite

extraordinary. Isn't it extraordinary all this retribution

and infighting is taking place. It does show many of the MPs and others

did not accept his leadership in the first instance but, even so, this is

pretty strong stuff. Inside the paper it tells us that there is an

intention for a 3 pronged purge, as it were. One of the whip's office

because they see that as being instrumental in not having been

prepared to whip for that vote we had earlier this week on bombing

Syria. And the very fact that the Labour whip's office pressed for a

free vote. They are also speaking about the organisation, and this is

actually pretty interesting stuff, because of course we are heading for

that boundary review of constituencies where a number of

constituencies, something like 60, I think, will go. Who has the small

constituencies ends a predominately the cities is actually Labour so

there is a real Lord Bath in there. The third part is about this action

plan -- a real bloodbath. The reshuffling of the Shadow Cabinet

and I suspect that will come first, frankly. James, what you think tells

us? Without sounding too pretentious I think it is disastrous for

democracy. What is swirling around inside the Labour Party, the various

wings of the party. Rumours are circulating, furiously denied, that

Corbyn was unwell, that he passed out stress in his office last month.

That is absolutely denied by Corbyn's office but it describes the

vitriol swirling around. I speak not as a Conservative supporter but I

think it is extremely fortuitous -- fortunate for David Cameron he is

confronted with an opposition fighting itself and not the Tories.

That is bad for democracy because the opposition should be fighting

the Government, not itself. Looking at the Observer, the Corbyn critics

fearing what you mentioned, there eventually shuffle. Slightly more

damage, then? I think it is inevitable. Some would say Jeremy

Corbyn has actually had quite a good week because they had that free vote

and then also at the Oldham West while action, that was won. I am not

sure I exactly take that view, I have to say, but I would pick up

what James said. Every political party will always have its

reshuffles, it's different views on issues and it will have a bit of

factional eyes Asian. This is extraordinary, though. This is

faction fighting -- factional eyes. What you require for a good

democracy is proper decent challenge otherwise legislation goes through

where the principle may be fine but there are checks and balances in

this world and we rely on them coming out through our democratic

process. Let's move to the other end of the story, and the bombing raids

as a result, hitting the oil fields. James, what do you make of the

result of the vote and then leading into the raids taking place, almost,

people fought, within minutes? Angela used to be a very highly

regarded MP and it was an extremely difficult position for all those

memos of Parliament, we spoke about this earlier. The most difficult

decision in your political career, to send British people to go and

fight and potentially lose their lives for their country so I do not

envy those making the decision and nor do I told condone the attacks

made on mainly Labour MPs, female Labour MPs, actually. However I

think, and I had a big argued with my daughter yesterday about this, I

think it is right to go into Syria. IS does not see any distinction. It

views its territory as a caliphate to go into Syria. IS does not see

any distinction. It views its territory as a caliphate saw in

their eyes thought very powerful. If we had been bombed, as Paris was, or

attacked, as Paris was, and we had asked for their help and they had

said no, that would have been terrible. I think standing shoulder

to shoulder with France is the right thing to do however it is very grave

and I think it is right Parliament took it so seriously. It was the

right thing to do. Two other points to add. The first is that this is

about going for the oilfields as well. If you take out the oil, you

take out a source of finance. Only one source. Yes, only one source.

The other thing to look at in this argument is Libya. We are not

dealing with an organisation that is just in one place, in Isis or Daesh

or whatever we should call it. It has different parts, different

communities and groups associated with it and it can reform and

regroup and of course Libya is another place which is not under

control and where we can see what we may deal with in Syria reforming in

a different way. It is particularly scary because there is this

suggestion that possibly two or more of the French terrorists came

through Libya, and snuck in the back door, if you like, through Greece,

and that is very worrying. If they are seeing a way in to attack Europe

that is incredibly scary, terrorism in its true form, terrorising us. It

says Tunisia has closed its border to Libya and then the US is warning

that the town, and I may pronounce this wrong, Ajdabiya, is under

threat... Let's end on a lighter note. Greenhouse gases will fall.

Not a lot lighter. There has not been the greatest of continuation of

economic recovery. OK in the UK but not in other countries. This article

speaks about, this time, greenhouse gases not rising at the same time as

economic activity, so that is a critical point. I think it also

brings to the fore part of the whole greenhouse gases debate and how we

deal with them that we have not properly focused on. Most people, I

am sure, do sit very much in the camp saying we do need to do

something about our carbon footprint, our emissions and all

that stuff. Let's keep our countries, our world, as clean as

possible. Secondly, people do not then talk enough, in my view, about

all the practicalities and costs of dealing with it. Because we all can

have a really good policy, and idea, and emotional belief in something,

but unless we have the practicalities we will never get to

the right solution and hopefully that is where they are going now.

Absolutely, I agree with that. It is also tied in with this fall of coal

consumption in China. China produces 30% of these harmful emissions and

as their economy is relatively faltering that is the issue. But if

we do not press on with other renewable sources of energy we will

never solve this problem. I think most people saw the pictures from

China over the past week or two with the smog. The error is just

terrible. If you have been there, people wearing the masks. That's

right and that is why China has no bot into this because their own

population is suffering but you cannot put in a renewable without a

back-up, usually, because a renewable by its very nature can be

infinite soul it is about getting to the practicalities of the

engineering issues. That fantastic idea of putting a wind power turbine

in the air, in a sort of giant zeppelin thing, but if they could,

you know, find that to make it work, to catch the very strong wind at a

higher level, a fantastic idea. You have to transmit the power, of

course. And then... My chemistry or level is not standing up, perhaps.

Physics! I'm sure it would be done through Wi-Fi are something like

that. Physics, yes, you're right. I probably should not be in charge of

that policy. I will let you go off-mac and work that one out but

thank you both of you for coming in to join as on The Papers -- Go Off

And Work That One Out. Time for a look at the weather with

Phil Avery. A bit of jollity, we will soon put a

stop to