16/01/2016 The Papers

to what the papers will be bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Tim Shipman, political editor of the Sunday Times,

and Oliver Wright, political editor of the Independent.

We can have a look at the front pages.

The Observer leads with figures from the World Health Organisation

The health body declares it a global public-health emergency,

will overwhelm health services across the globe.

The Sunday Express writes that millions of families can expect

higher council-tax bills and bigger cuts to public services

because of Conservatives' plans to reduce county council budgets.

The Mail on Sunday headlines a poll which suggests

the campaign for Britain to leave the EU is now six points ahead.

It blames the Paris massacre, Cologne sex attacks

and the Syrian crisis for the shift in opinion.

The Telegraph unveils a new alliance of Conservative MPs

that plans to push for Britain to stay within the EU.

They warn against Britain leaping into the void.

The Independent on Sunday has an exclusive interview

with the head of Interpol who says criminal gangs

made ?4 billion last year by smuggling refugees into Europe.

And rhe Sunday Times leads with the terrorist attack

in Burkina Faso in which 29 people were killed.

Lots of other bits and pieces within those pages, let's kick off with the

Sunday Telegraph, I think, lots of stuff about the European Union

across the Sunday papers. Europe is everywhere we look! I have spent all

week on the phone to Conservative MPs desperately trying to get them

to talk about anything else, but no, it is Europe everywhere. This story

that Nick Herbert, the former Police Minister, is leading a new group of

Tories who wants to stay in the European Union. This makes a change,

about eight groups want to leave, but David Cameron has a bit of a

coup, Nick Herbert was an arch Eurosceptic who led a group that was

the campaign group which kept Britain outside the euro. He worked

alongside Dominic Cummings, the guy who was trying to get us out of the

EU now, and he is taking the opposite view, setting up this

group. A bit of good news for a change on Europe for the Prime

Minister. New Tory alliance fights to stay in European Union, which

emphasised we do not even know when the referendum is going to be. The

funny thing about this if there is a difficulty with negotiating with 27

other European countries is rather easier than negotiating with all the

factions within his own Cabinet! I mean, Herbert is interesting, he was

a minister at the start of the coalition government, he then rather

fell out of favour, he was policing minister, he has been on the

backbenches, and you wonder if this is a deal, after a successful

renegotiation, he would come back as a minister. I am only speculating.

No, it is really tricky for Cameron, how do units together bits of the

party so that the splits do not appear too bitter, too personal, and

come out of the referendum, whichever way it goes, without an

utterly divided party? Lots of papers talking about this, do you

think the nation as a whole is as interested in this as journalists

and politicians? Journalists are not even that interested, we just have

to find something to talk about! The short answer is no, I had a long

lunch, as it were, with a member of the in campaign, and they have been

doing a lot of focus groups, and he says nobody is paying any attention.

A lot of people are vaguely aware that David Cameron promised a

referendum, but not that he is undergoing the renegotiation, that

it is due to come to a head in four weeks' time, and the idea that we

might be deciding in June or July is passing by the vast majority of

people in this country. People know it is terribly important but they do

not care. Scotland utterly electrified everyone, and I do not

think it is going to change, I may be completely wrong, but even when

we get closer, I think there will be a fair amount of apathy. As oppose

we need a date. We should know Brother Tedd Lee Seung Hoon,

Jean-Claude Juncker was saying he's pretty confident about the deal in

February. -- we should know a date pretty soon. So that is the

shadow-boxing going on in the Cabinet, but the Mail on Sunday

leads with a really interesting poll, EU shock, out of vote storms,

and they have put this in a box, 6% air two, to emphasise just how

important they think that is. -- 6% ahead. Two things, remember the

election and the polls. It is a long way out and people are not thinking

about it. There is probably some truth that things like the Cologne

sex attacks, the more that comes into the migration crisis, the

morbid plays into it. The history of all this is quite interesting. If

you go back to 1973, look at the polls then, they showed the people

who were anti-European were leading in the polls but the result went the

other way. I think there will be quite a big change as time goes on,

when people think, what would really happen if we leave? The figure that

is missing is how many people do not know, are not of polls are showing a

large number of them, and both people think it is the underside and

are the key to this. There is about a third who are resolute to stay, a

third that our resolute to leave, and the game is about winning the

moderate people who do not much like the EU but are a bit frightened

about leaving. One of the interesting things, both campaigns,

the in campaign wants to play up Nigel Farage, because they think he

is good for the underside ands, that they are more likely to be

pro-European the more they see of him. The league campaign also think

that, so they are trying to show this positive future outside the

European Union union and not mention Farage too much, he is somehow the

toxic element, even though he has significant support, it is the

people who do not like which need to be persuaded. Let's have a look at

the Sunday Times, eight Tim Shipman story, PM's secret EU master plan,

you can tell us about it. It links the two, this says that if Boris

Johnson were involved in the out campaign, the gap would be 8%, not

six. He is seen as a pivotal figure, and part of what we are appealing

today is the plan to get Boris to stick with Cameron and vote in. One

of the rabbits from the hat that the Prime Minister plans to pull is to

bring in some kind of change in domestic law, outside the

renegotiation with the other countries, he wants to bring in some

kind of domestic law that will say that Britain and Parliament has

supremacy over European law, an idea that Boris floated a few months ago.

It was widely dismissed at the time, but it is back on the table, and the

cunning wheeze that the PM has come up with, Michael Gove is the other

guy that he wants on site, and he has got Michael Gove, the Justice

Secretary, to find out the best way of implementing what Boris wants. By

doing that, you bring the two of them in, they will vote with

Cameron, and the members of the Cabinet to vote to leave will be

more marginal figures, like Chris Grayling and Iain Duncan Smith.

Everybody knows they have taken that Eurosceptic position, but the

waverers are being brought in with this plan. Two other elements just

to bore you completely! Do not bore anyone, it is Saturday night! We are

trying to enthrall people! The emergency brake that they were

talking about on migrants is back in, Downing Street have been

pretending it is not happening, but I am told by ministers that it is.

They want to get everybody to sign up and say membership will be called

something slightly different, associate membership or something

like that. It looks like windowdressing, but they think it

might persuade people. That is another Europe for one thing! Let's

go to the front of the Sunday Times, Oliver, this is grim, Westerners

targeted in hotel carnage, Burkina Faso, another horrible week. A

really grim attack, there is possibly a danger in linking to many

of these attacks and suggesting there is one over Raajih control to

all of this. -- overarching. These are local groups often with local

grievances beyond Islamic fundamentalism, but it shows the

vulnerability of places, not just places one might think of as being

insecure, but Paris, now across West Africa. Anyone who says we are safe

in London, well, think about 7/7, it just shows the global vulnerability

we have got when people are prepared to lose their own lives in an

attack. One of the interesting things is that this attack is being

seen as Al-Qaeda inspired, that group of Islamists. In recent times,

we have been concentrating on what Isis have been doing, but there is

this tension, the international bogeyman for years and years have

been eclipsed by this other group in Syria and Iraq, and it is part of

the internal tension. Even the war between Islamist groups for

attention, to kill the most Western tourists, that sort of thing. And

the other thing, this is a terrorist attack in central Africa where no

British people have been hurt, and it is on the front page of a

national newspaper. When I was growing up, Ouagadougou was a good

quiz answer, what is the capital of the Lord, as it was then? This is

something happening a long way away, but we feel it impacts on our world.

-- Upper Volta. The other interesting thing is the French

special forces coming in so quickly, that is not a spur of the moment

thing, the fact that they got involved is very interesting. I want

to talk about the Independent, Jeremy Corbyn is on the front,

record profits for people smugglers, and then a very long and in-depth

interview about Jeremy Corbyn in the Independent. There is a lot of very

serious stuff in here, but I want to mention the fact that he has a cat

which he has never named. It pains me to say it as someone who is

interviewed Jeremy Corbyn, but this is the best interview with him that

I have ever seen by some distance. There is one good Newsline, the

Labour Party is tearing itself apart on Trident, he is integrating there

will be a free vote in the Labour Party. That is good news. He is

ruling out giving political Honours, that is a pretty good line. For

serving politicians. But what everybody is going to focus on, and

one can imagine the tabloids having fun with this tomorrow, he admits he

has a black and white cat that he has never named, and he addresses it

as El Gato, Spanish for cat. One can only imagine what his political

opponents will do. I think that is fine! Being slightly suggestively

foreign, including the mild racism of its critics, this is a bloke who

addresses the cat he has never named in Spanish. El Gato, it sounds grand

and majestic, it is fine, it is a name. It is a magnificent piece of

journalism. We don't want to trivialise this, he talks about

Trident, but when he calls the cat in, he does not call its name, but

he whistles Tie A Yellow Ribbon Around The Old Oak Tree. And he

whistles it because he cannot sing, he tells us! It makes the point that

cuts recognise voices, not names. Lest we be accused of trivialising

the Labour leader, it is a serious interview. Yes, Tim makes the point

about honours, that is interesting, and he says that he will allow a

free vote on Trident when it comes up in the Commons in the next few

months ahead of the party having an official position. Particularly

interesting, he suggests they may not go down a fully unilateral

approach, ie we will get rid of existing submarines, we will not

replace any of them. He suggests there might be a compromise of a

small fleet or maybe just having the possibility of developing nuclear

weapons in a shorter space of time if we needed to in the future. In

most of his public statements, he has sounded quite reasonable, has

wanted to be conciliatory, and the problem that Labour is having is

that a lot of the people around him are the one with the hard-line views

who are trying to force him into these positions. Again, an

interesting retreat, we will see what Ken Livingstone says tomorrow,

what John McDonnell says. Will they back a non-unilateralist policy on

nuclear weapons? We will see. John McDonnell has been a force of

moderation. The good news is that you can discuss that later, that is

it for the moment, we will get you copies and you continue in another

room. -- coffees. Tim and Oliver will be back at 11:34 another look

through the papers. Coming up next, it is Reporters.