03/01/2016 The Papers

in the cricket against South Africa in Cape Town. More on that later.

Welcome to our Sunday morning edition of the papers. With me are

Phillipa Leighton Jones, editor of WSJ City at the Wall Street Journal

and journist KunalDutta. The the observer leads with flooding and

claims the Government budget cuts are almost doubling the number of

homes considered as being at writhe risk of flooding. The Sunday Times

headline an executive pay row. Saying the Environment Agency PR

chief left the organisation with a six figure payoff despite troubling

week for the agency. The Sunday express leads with the same story.

Saying senior managers at the Environment Agency have been awarded

bonuses worth almost ?300,000. The Independent on Sunday's picture

shows a woman in Bahrain protesting against Saudi Arabia's decision to

excuse 47 individuals, including a prominent Shia cleveric. The Sunday

Telegraph reports 11-year-olds will be expected to know all their times

tables when they leave primary school under new Government plans

It's hunt the guilty parties for the flooding rather than acts of God.

The Environment Agency, we'll get to them in a minute. Revealed how Tory

cuts are wrecking UK flood defences is The Observer splash. Ministers

warned of risk twice the number of homes face threat. This is moving on

to the next chapter of who gets the blame for the lack of flood

defences. This one is particularly damning for the Tories. As you'd

expect from the Observer. This is the emergence of a report from the

association of drainage authorities which warned the Government things

were getting worse. We've had five the wettest winters since 2010 or

since 2,000. As things have progressively got worse, the Tories

have cut the budgets for drainage, flood defences and this is why we're

at the situation we are now. Questions have been asked about this

all week. The emergence of this report and the fact the Tories were

told about this ahead of time calls into question their decision to cut

budgets for this. The key figure in here is today homes at risk from

floods, 330,000, it will rise to 570,000 by 2035 which calls into

question a lot of things. Also, last week, the Government, the word

unprecedented appeared in every statement pretty much they said.

This is saying this might have been unprecedented but not unpredictage.

People thought this could happen if this course of policy was followed?

Yeah, we've seen with floods, initially it was climate change the

big issue. The Government said we've got to do something about climate

change which is such a long-term policy procedure. With actual

flooding itself, it's no coincidence we are seeing this much more

frequently. We are seeing storms almost annually. We only started

naming storms in November and, this was Alf bet cal. And we're already

coming to F. We only started with Abigail in November. So, they've got

nowhere to hide. I think what this is about is saying enough about the

big rhetoric about climate change, we need to do something. Things have

to happen on the ground. Money has though flow into the north where

this problem is being hardest hit rather than just in the capital. The

whole northern powerhouse thing, three Great Northern cities under

water is... That's a huge challenge. Cameron's made the northern

powerhouse a key parts of his election pledge. Look what's

happened. He worried about the pair of wellies he'll don so he doesn't

look posh. Some of these homes arend water some not for the first time.

Lhotse Facing the problem of not being able to insure their homes. It

is miserable. Disgusting when you see what flooding does. The other

way to point the finger of blame is the Environment Agency. This the

Sunday express's take. Fury at fat cat bonuses. Awarded bonuses of

almost ?300,000. This is the other side of it. We were sussing earlier,

the viern agency is effectively public funded. It has to be

accountable to the public. When you see the disconnect between massive

flooding problems and failure of flood defences and you look at the

agency and the bonuses that executives are getting for it, there

is likely to be, publicly, a question of is that actually

working? Rewards for failure. If this was banging. What would happen,

these days anyway, executives would say we accept we haven't done the

job expected. They'd hand back the bonuses or implement some long-term

incentive. That is hard to do when you've something as unpredictable as

the weather. Why not say here's your bonus. We'll pay you in ten years

when we see how you've done. Use the scientific evidence of how things

are going to go. At least work with a modus operandi who... One or two

people not around during the Christmas period when storm Frank

hits. Being in sunny places. The message the head of this agency was

at home with family and they failed to mention at first that at home was

in Barbados. I think it's tricky all round for them. They need to take a

good long hard look at their incentive schemes. This story will

run and run, these two stories about what the Government and Environment

Agency is doing. Given the figures, people won't accept this. They're

not. And these moves where the Government responds like David

Cameron has today, a ?40 million emergency fund to go to Yorkshire.

Matching of charity donations to ?2 million, it's seen as on the hoof

when you're responding to things like this. Whereas, I think,

long-term, there needs to be a much more clear strategy in place which

acknowledges this will be the story that does carry on and will happen

next year probably It seeps haphazard up to now, dare I say, not

taken particularly seriously. There needs to be a revisit of how far up

the agenda this goes. I'm sure David Cameron's thinking about that. One

of the things he's also thinking about, the biggest story we can

predict of 2016, what happens when we vote on Europe, if we vote this

year which most of us seem to think will happen. Pinsters, PM must go if

ministers loose EU vote. It would be terrible for David Cameron

personally if he were to lead a campaign to stay in Europe and the

people rejected it? Yes, it would be bad for him. I just warn everyone

not to underestimate what a master tactics he is strategically. The way

he's pitching getting this deal from Europe he's after, it will be very

carefully presented to the country. I think when it comes to it, don't

under estimate the fact he has until February to get the deal he needs

from Brussels. Then has the lag period where he needs to sell that

into the country. He's very good at that. That's the key point. He

doesn't have much time and is distracted by the floods. Six weeks

Bev he has to do this deal with Europe the. He might or might not

get a good deal. Whatever happens, there will be a huge degree of

uncertainty. His key job is to educate the public. There is still

too little information out there about what EU membership means.

There's been spurious data put out there or heavily spun data. The EU

cost us X amount last week and that's why no flood defences. We've

been spending money on EU membership without telling about the upside of

EU membership. Euro scepticism, Britain's relationship, how

eurosceptic Britain is open to debate. People thought Ukip would be

the party to pull Britain out of Europe or gain attraction. They

haven't done that. When it comes to it, the time he has, if the

referendum is later on, he will have time to build a case very carefully.

It is how considered people are. Those people who are very interested

are very interested. A lot of British people are, we're irritated

by various things but not that bothered. That's part of it. The

other key question is whether, even if he wins this referendum, it

becomes a run are sore. If it is overwhelming we want to stay in or

get out. If it's quite close, David Cameron's still got a split party.

He has but the Tory Party has by its nature has always been dealing with

their disgruntled backbench Eurosceptics. That seas been the

challenge since John Major. David Cameron is one of the more

successful Prime Ministers at keeping them quietly in the back

Birch in the days of John Major we saw leadership challenges talking

about frequently. Someone here said if eurosceptic MPs don't agree with

Cameron, Osborne will have them out so watch out. Let's look at the

Sunday Telegraph. Two quick stories. Nick'spm will be an outsider.

Rebuilding the Conservative Party in Scotland says she believes George

Osborne, Boris Johnson and Theresa May may all be beaten in the race to

beat David Cameron. She says the party are not necessarily good good

at picking people you think. And pupils must know all times table by

age 11. Frankly, if they don't already, it's a good thing for

people to be able to count, isn't it? Geoff knitly able to count,

yeah. That's useful. We were talking about it earlier. What kind of times

tables does, is, I guess the argument goes, gives you an

inference and understanding of numbers you don't necessarily get

otherwise through calculators or coding or anything else. It is so

important for everything else. I've no experience of teaching. I have a

12-year-old son. I've seen some of the maths homework. Everything he

does, you need to know times tables. I was quite shocked pupils didn't

know times tables. 74,000 children are still failing to meet the

standard required. I know teachers of stressed. Maybe there's a failure

of the teaching methods. An implication under Labour the

teaching became quite unstructured. Maybe it needs to be pulled back to

old fashioned teaching. Find different ways to teach children

times tables. Maybe all pupils should know how to spell reasonably

by age 11. A start as well. Read? This is a really interesting story

in the Independent. Dam you, it says. The excuse of 47 prisoners by

the beleagueered Saudi Arabian regime yesterday. 1078 of these were

extreme Sunni Isis lambists. Al-Qaeda persuasion. Many focussed

on the killing of a Shia cleric. A protester but a peaceful man. Yes,

it is to do with power in that region on. The fact the Shia's

rightfully in countries like Saudi Arabia feel marginalised, possibly

oppressed. Sheikh al-Nimr wasn't a violent man. He told the BBC in 2011

breve his arrest words were more powerful than weapons. So,

symbolically, this has had huge ramifications across parts of the

Middle East. Particularly in Iran, the rhetoric coming out of Tehran

last night was extremely hostile. There will be worried as we ally

closer to the Saudi rib ya for what David Cameron argues is national

security reasons, this this destabilisation could have grave

consequences for Britain's relationship. This comes at a very

tricky time for Saudi Arabia. Dividing Shia's and Sunnis further

won't help. On December 28th they implemented a round of austerity

measures, including VAT and taxes on water and electricity. The key

reason there is Saudi is reliant on the ol rev enewes. Oil prices

slumped from $100 a barrel to $38 a barrel. They've bout themselves calm

and legitimacy by being able to provide a relatively comfort for

Saudi nationals. Now, there that could lead to a restive population

there as well. Tricky time for them. Phillipa, I wanted toent on what I

thought was an interesting story in the Sunday Times. Beans means grills

eats like Gwyneth. She's been derided for what she eats, Gwyneth

pal Strow. Bear Grylls doesn't eat much meat and eats more like Gwyneth

Paltrow. They are saying, bear Grylls doesn't eat considering dial

eyes but goes eats seeds and yoghurts, things normal people might

eat. He's done this because he's just written a recipe book. One of

my favourite lines. He doesn't eat much meat, he relies more on plant

food such as quinoa, buckwheat for his protein which surely we all do.

Just catching up with the rest of us. The crocodile eyes are not easy

to get in stains breast. Half of it, I don't know what it is. What did

you make of that story? The great macho guy who has been eating and

preying with barrack Obama in the wild turns out to be eating veggie

burgers? It is a contrast between a television personality who Bear

Grylls is out there, explore tiff. Eating deer. Why do that at home? If

that's his work life, it stands to reason he's not doing that. I want

to see Gwyneth eat a crocodile's eye. That would get on page one.

That's it for the papers.s thank you both. A reminder, we take a look

atom's front pages every evening at 10.30pm and 11.30pm every