28/01/2016 The Papers

in the final. Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal hits back at

reports he is to leave the club. Hello and welcome to our look

ahead to what the the papers With me are the Social Affairs

Editor of the Guardian, Randeep Ramesh, and the Evening

Standard columnist, Rosamund Urwin. The Prime Minister could be

about to strike a deal with fellow EU leaders over curbing benefits

for migrants, that's according to Zika explodes, and

the world wakes up to the threat, says tomorrow's i, featuring pest

controllers spraying poison to kill The Telegraph leads

on the story that Oxford University can't afford to pull

down its statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes after donors threaten

to withdraw funding in protest. The Express warns of a Brussels

plan to slap tax on food - they say it could add more than ?200 a year

to the average family's bill. Meanwhile,

the Guardian says the EU is poised to investigate Google's tax deal

with the British authorities, after Labour and the SNP complained

about the tech giant's settlement. The Times despairs over the latest

global league tables for literacy and maths, teenagers in England

are bottom of the class compared And the Daily Mail says it's not

just Google who could get Corporations are in line

for what it calls "cosy Let's begin with the education story

in The Times. Teenagers bottom of international league table. I feel

like we used to see this a lot more, and it seems to have gone away

or improve. This rather suggests unfortunately that you are wrong.

What they are saying is that teenagers, in their late teens, are

the worst of 23 developed nations and are ranked 22nd out of 23 NU

Morrissey. It strikes me that when you look down the list, people that

you would hope in countries that are significantly below us in other

matters, would really hope to be above in this. Why are we getting it

so wrong? It must be very unpleasant for students to read things like

this. I think a few things are being conflated. We have a lump of people

who don't perform as well at the bottom of our education system, we

have known that for some time. When you talk about graduates, maybe some

should have gone to further education colleges rather than

university, so there is a bit of that as well. I tend to worry that

these things become a stick to beat young children with, telling them

they should be like South Korea or China, where rote learning and

things don't really suit the kind of culture that we bring our children

up with. I think people believe the British education system teaches

children to think creatively. The South Korean system is built up for

a different client base. And they don't have particularly happy

children. They work very hard and around mental health around that. I

think it would be interesting to see exactly what these tests in tail,

and see if they are the skills that people need. I think that literacy

skills tend to be quite poor, but people can be quite bright. I think

if you don't practice maths, the skills to fade. I tested that

recently with the Times tables test, and startled my guests five asking

them some questions. The Google tax does not tax Google, why not? George

Osborne made great play, with a new thing be diverted profit tax. It

stops corporations from pushing profits into low tax regimes and

avoiding tax over here. Google is one of the company that has been

caught in this, but the diverted profit tax doesn't seem to apply to

them. Therefore, the headline Google tax doesn't really work. Sorry, I

have a tickly throat. Where is this money being paid from then? They

have just done a deal in a room, rather than actually being HMRC

recovering that, they say officials have concluded that Google's

offshore arrangements are legitimate. It is sort of a goodwill

gesture, which is quite appalling for most of us. They think, that

sounds a reasonable amount for us to pay, we can do that. But there is no

guarantee that they will be paying that in the future, this would have

meant that you would expect a certain amount coming in every year.

There is a possibility that this point just apply to Google, but it

will be made with other corporations as well. Yes, this is looking more

broadly at a Treasury minister who has been flying around the world to

woo global corporations. It has essentially said, come here and they

will give you VIP treatment, HMRC well. I'm sure we would all love VIP

treatment from HMRC, and they feel that if countries are large enough

they will be provided with relationship managers to avoid

expensive litigation. So will we be getting no money out of them at

all? It is plain to the idea that we're ending over backwards to get

these people to turn up and not tax them like we would anyone else. I

think this favouring of big American corporations, like hammers on,

Starbucks, Google, it doesn't play well. -- Amazon. What about this

deal, what does this entail? This is David Cameron in a hurry to get

something out of the EU, such as putting a brake on paying EU

migrants in work benefits if there were exceptional conditions. I think

there will be a problem for the Tory Right who will think this isn't good

enough. Who will it be good enough for? I think that is a fair

question. I also think the Eurosceptics will remain

Eurosceptics whatever he came back with. It seems that even before the

debate had begun, if you are in the yes or no camp it didn't really

matter what was brought back. A lot of people seem to think they are

pro- or anti-. Yes, I think it is partly about getting someone in his

own cabinet to support him. He says he doesn't want people close to him

arguing that a Grexit is the way forward. The idea that there were

wavering voters in the cabinet, I don't know about that. He has to

come back with something, he can't come back with nothing. Let's look

at the Telegraph. Activists who wanted a plaque commemorating the

colonialists Cecil Rhodes, which some regard to be racist, to be

taken down. There has been some debate about whether he should

rightfully be there, even though he is a major benefactor to the

college. What appears to have won this is money. All of these donors

and presumably there are a lot of them leaving money in their wills,

some have threatened to withdraw their donations over this, and

because of it being a threat of the statue being removed. Apparently the

college fears that a proposed ?100 million gift would be in jeopardy

over this. It is money that has won this. I'm afraid I am on the side of

Mary Beard who thinks it was barking to raise history, because I don't

think it is the way to solve this. Far better to lampoon him, put silly

hats on, whatever, but I don't think by removing something you are

achieving anything. I have been having a look at the College

website, and it says it has been decided that the statue will remain

in place in the college will seek to provide a clear context as to why

the statue and plaque are there. There needs to be continuing

presence of these historical artefacts, but also to accept and

explain colonialism today. That is one way out of it. I am sympathetic

to the idea that we can't rub out history we disagree with, but I

think organisations that face the future in a certain way can decide

what the public space has in it. You could retire Cecil on the grounds

that he doesn't fit your ideas at the moment. There is an interesting

park outside of Budapest, and if you hop on a train you can go and see

all the Communist statues that were taken down. They explain what they

signify, and fortunately they have not thrown them all away. This is a

picture story, cloud over a continent. Zika virus has exploded.

This first came to people's attention not that long ago, but now

it is huge. I think it is an issue because of the correlation between

infection and the birth of children who suffer from abnormalities. Just

because you are in the tropics, the spread of mosquitoes is unstoppable.

You can't do anything about them, the conditions provide for them, so

it is very hard. This picture is from Nicaragua, so the threat is

spreading, and we are seeing them going around fumigating. It seems

kind of pointless echoes the mosquitoes will be back as soon as

the water is there. You are right, this is a problem that will affect

all countries in the Americas, they think that Chile and Canada might be

spared. It is rather frightening, particularly for pregnant women, it

must be terrifying if you are pregnant in Brazil at the moment.

What are you supposed to do? A lot of women were reporting Zika virus,

and doctors won't taking any notice and didn't recognise it as a

potential problem. Let us finish with the express. Barbie gets a PC

makeover. There she is in various forms. You can buy them now in three

different barytes. You can have a taller Barbie, a curvier Barbie, or

a petite one. I dread to think how small the petite one is, because the

regular one was very skinny. I think she's just shorter. They have the

great line that she has had 180 careers in her time. Her body has

never changed, and I did have a little Google earlier, and Barbies

in their current form, her waist is significantly smaller than her

head. Isn't yours? No, it really isn't. Did you have a Barbie? Didn't

make any difference to how felt about body image? I had an older

brother who had chopped up my sister's Barbies. So I never had any

goals. I think my mother gave up. I had still been in families instead,

which other rather unrealistic thing of animal heads on human -esque

bodies. They have a different kind of body dysmorphia. Yes, but in that

world all the animals are human in physique, except for the horses, who

are some kind of weird slaves because they are still fully horse.

They just use them to work, and it seems very unfair. It doesn't seem

fair on the horses. I think all children's toys don't bear very much

scrutiny. Action Man with his eyes...

Sportsday is next.