26/12/2015 The Papers

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

With me are Robert Fox, who's the defence correspondent

for the London Evening Standard, and the broadcaster Anna Raeburn.

The Observer has a picture of a flooded street

in West Yorkshire and it reports that many have fled their homes.

The Sunday Express leads with that story, calling it

"The Day Britain went under" is the Mail on Sunday's headline.

We mention The Mail on Sunday there but we did not see the picture,

although if we're lucky we can it now. It says it all, doesn't it? The

UK has been hit by the worst floods in decades. Devastating images of

ruin. You can't help thinking please can we have a better plan than the

one that we put in place that we thought we would get away with and

we didn't. It looked very wet in that picture. The Observer has a

similar picture on the front page. We always think that we should have

done more, but in this case we hoped... We had the floods and we

had a plan and we hope that it would be enough, but sadly it was not. Now

we are faced with something we have not seen before in there we are

seeing flooding in big cities. Leeds, York, Rochdale. We have an

arrangement that doesn't work. It has worked the second time around

slightly better but that is no consolation to people who have been

flooded for the third time. But the weather has changed and it is

raining harder. Whatever it is, the climate change deniers may as well

pack up and go away now. Something is happening. This is weird weather,

when extraordinary phenomenon are coming along. They are now part of a

regular pattern. Governments have taken a minimalist views as was

clear last year when we saw the floods on the Somerset levels. The

resources required are going to be enormous and we have half a

battalion of trips out at the moment. If this goes on, we will

have two new parts of our public service and reserves and have to be

paid for by the government. All our European allies have this. As a

farmer 's son I can say that another thing that is happening which is

which is dangerous is that the soil is now saturated. In medieval times

this was brilliantly described in the time of the great poet Monty,

whose anniversary we have this year, it rained so hard that the grass

turned yellow and the earth was poisoned for years. -- Dante. It is

a phenomenon that farmers will recognise and that is where we are.

If it is your home or your business, in it time it time and time again is

miserable. I have not experienced this myself. My earliest memory is

from the 1950s with my mother saying that there were a turtle floods and

that even if they got everything dry it would still think. -- there were

terrible floods. We're at people's businesses and the fact that the

insurance companies will not pay for everything and money will need to be

found. We have just spent ?2.5 million buying things that we do not

need. That is a reference to buying things in the shops. -- ?3.5

million. Another story about Michael Fallon

sounding off here. What is he is talking about? The Defence Secretary

is reading from behind because there has been a lot about this saying

that he wants the European Convention on Human Rights

cancelled, particularly where the armed services are concerned,

because there is a huge backlog of compensation claims, some trivial

and some very serious, including things related to unlawful killings,

lifetime damage to health, and so on, and these are going to go on and

on. I am very divided and sceptical about this because you are going to

need some sort of legislation. I know this has been mismanaged for

two decades and I know that the commanders and senior civil servants

and judges are as much did they as the politicians because they were

told that this was going to happen. He is complaining about ambulances

chasing lawyers. He is complaining about ambulance chasing lawyers

quite rightly in one sense, because it is a lucrative industry.

Unfortunately, the timing of this and the mouth from which it comes...

The timing is because they are questioning our position with

regards to Europe and this does sound like a loyal Cabinet member

backing up his leader because that is the position that Michael Fallon

will take, this is something that people feel strongly about and

everything is fair in love and war, but it isn't. There are ways to

conduct these things. It is distasteful to find him trying to

cut the soft now when there are cases in the pipeline. It looks as

if he has counted up the cases and decided we cannot afford it so let's

get out of Europe and cancelled the legislation. A lot of this is

related to the Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe, which is

not the same thing. People will say that it is taxpayers' money and with

compensation cases pending on over the case that very trivial... But we

have to go back to the phrase that was just used saying that it could

be managed better, this is a wasteful way to manage it. This

allows a lot of people to make money from it. The French don't have it

because when Lord Guthrie was chief of the defence staff he was told not

to, but he should have insisted that we have ED regularisation. The

conditions of the battlefield are not the same as those domestic UK.

It will be an endless point of argument and it is a very big

industry now so it will be fought tooth and nail. The Sunday Express

has a story on its inside page that is headlined, Christian genocide

warning. We spoke about this before we came on air and your view that it

is something people do not speak about. We do not speak about it

because we like to think we are nice people and we don't have to see

genocide in the same breath as Christian but it was very

interesting. MPs and peers were for the government to declare the

persecution of Kristiansen Syria is genocide. They say that this will

help prosecute for war crimes. Genocide is not random killing but

the systematic killing or serious farming of people because they are

part of the recognisable group. There is no doubt in our minds that

the targeting of Christian and other minorities by Islamic State falls

within that definition. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury,

mention this when he said that they were only interested in themselves

and that anyone could be killed. He talked about girls being sold into

sexual slavery and men getting killed. Do you think this will

appeal, the warning that goes out from the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Do you think it will make a difference? Is there any sort of

sense in which this could be held back? It is part of a terrible

situation. I am very worried because I have visited these kinds of

Christian communities over many years and they are in a minority,

but they have been an important minority. The Armenian community are

essential to the business there. In Damascus there were Jews and all

kinds of minorities. But they are now being persecuted and it is very

interesting because controversy still continues about the Armenian

genocide. At least 1 million died this year in 2015 100 years ago and

they are getting it again, like the Jews they had been a very successful

diaster and it is part of civilisation that grew out of the

religions of the book. This is the most frightening thing about Isis

and Al-Qaeda. The Prophet did not speak of arms but of hospitality and

kindness. We are getting into a situation where there will be no

questions. In the place where they hung on for two millennia vendor

will not be. The cream is looking forward to 2016 when she will be 90

and therefore she will not have to work so hard. -- Queen. The firm is

readjusting itself, the Royal firm as George II called it. It is

becoming more like a headquarters. They are doing marvellous things

like the exhibitions at the gallery... I wonder whether the

Queen would recognise the phrase whether she's going to spend more

time unless some of her family. The story says she's going to spend less

time at Buckingham Palace. But she doesn't like very much. She is

happier at Windsor or Sandringham or Balmoral. She is elderly and she was

to spend more time quietly. She was to spend more time in space. Most of

the horses will be at Windsor and that is good for her. This is a

gentle story suggesting that Her Majesty is getting older and the

younger generation are coming up and she's going to spend less time in

Buckingham Palace X. Thank you to you both.

Thank you to both my guests, you'll both be back at 11.30pm

for another look at the stories making the news tomorrow.

At 11pm, w'll got more on the heavy rains and flooding that has forced

hundreds of homes to be evacuated as rivers burst their banks

after torrential rain in Northern England.

Coming up next, Nick Hope looks ahead to Rio 2016 and assesses