03/04/2016

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:00:00. > :00:00.That is all the sport for now, and now on BBC News, here is Govan with

:00:00. > :00:14.the Papers. -- Gavin. Hello and welcome to our Sunday

:00:15. > :00:17.morning edition of the Papers. former editor of the

:00:18. > :00:20.Independent on Sunday, and Ian Birrell, associate editor

:00:21. > :00:25.of the Mail on Sunday. The Observer's main story is a poll

:00:26. > :00:32.it carried out on the EU referendum, which suggests

:00:33. > :00:34.the Out camp is leading. The Sunday Express claims police

:00:35. > :00:37.have been given six more months to find out what happened

:00:38. > :00:39.to Madeleine McCann, who went missing from a holiday

:00:40. > :00:41.apartment in Portugal The Mail on Sunday alleges

:00:42. > :00:44.the Government overspent its foreign aid budget

:00:45. > :00:46.by some ?200 million last year. The Sunday Times

:00:47. > :00:48.carries an investigation and claims one doctor

:00:49. > :00:53.has prescribed banned performance enhancing drugs to 150

:00:54. > :00:57.well-known sporting figures. British aid to Tanzania is the

:00:58. > :01:03.headline on the Sunday Telegraph, which suggests the Foreign

:01:04. > :01:06.Office should suspend aid to the country, following

:01:07. > :01:08.disputed elections in Zanzibar. And the Simpsons characters

:01:09. > :01:10.Smithers and Mr Burns are pictured on the front page

:01:11. > :01:12.of the Independent. Smithers is due to declare his love

:01:13. > :01:26.for his boss, Mr Burns, Let's begin with what we have been

:01:27. > :01:29.leading on, picking up from the Sunday I'm story, British doctor

:01:30. > :01:36.claiming he doped sports stars, are you so prized by this? I am not

:01:37. > :01:39.surprised by it. This particular doctor, it is quite interesting,

:01:40. > :01:44.because the UK Anti-Doping agency had identified him a couple of years

:01:45. > :01:49.ago, I think, but any investigation was quickly dismissed, and the

:01:50. > :01:58.Sunday Times team have gone back to him. He has named names, and they

:01:59. > :02:02.are not giving those names here, unsurprisingly, he has given 150

:02:03. > :02:06.high end the sports stars. One wonders if a little bit of that,

:02:07. > :02:10.because it was all undercover filming, was some that the sales

:02:11. > :02:15.pitch for someone trying to attract new clients, I don't know. But given

:02:16. > :02:21.that we have already heard about athletics, cycling, tennis quite

:02:22. > :02:25.recently, there was a BBC investigation with Buzzfeed into

:02:26. > :02:31.that, so it is not surprising that it was all focused on this one

:02:32. > :02:35.doctor. I would like to see now a deeper and wider investigation. As

:02:36. > :02:40.an editor, if you have got the names and know the names of these people,

:02:41. > :02:43.which have not been published in the paper, and I noticed on Twitter some

:02:44. > :02:47.people are saying, typical mainstream media, what do you have

:02:48. > :02:50.to think about before you publish these names of presumably very

:02:51. > :02:54.famous people? First of all, you have to think about what the lawyers

:02:55. > :03:00.are going to say! They would say, do not publish those names, because

:03:01. > :03:04.this is one person's word. It could be a complete fabrication, so first

:03:05. > :03:08.of all you would go to each and every one of those stars before you

:03:09. > :03:13.named them. They do seem to have gone to some of them. You say, this

:03:14. > :03:17.is the allegation, what do you have to say? I don't suppose any of them

:03:18. > :03:22.would be likely to say, well, yes, caught bang to rights. There is an

:03:23. > :03:26.ethical issue, this is just one person's word, and these careers

:03:27. > :03:31.could be ruined, the public would think they were true, so you have to

:03:32. > :03:34.think through that as well. I am just surprised it has taken force

:03:35. > :03:38.along for people to suggest that some people in the Premier League

:03:39. > :03:41.are involved, because given the rewards, particularly in football in

:03:42. > :03:46.this country, perhaps it is up rising it has taken so long. It is

:03:47. > :03:50.not at all surprised in, but it is a great story, credit to the Sunday

:03:51. > :03:54.Times for getting it, because I think the real scandal is that we

:03:55. > :03:57.are seeing sport at the sport at the sport whereby the authorities who

:03:58. > :04:01.are meant to be in charge of anti-doping, meant to be in charge

:04:02. > :04:04.of regulating the game, have been basically allowing shady practices

:04:05. > :04:10.to be going on, presumably because of the tide of money, but we have

:04:11. > :04:15.seen it in athletics, cycling, tennis, football allegedly. I think

:04:16. > :04:20.the authorities have behaved atrociously, because I assume of the

:04:21. > :04:33.sums of money involved. And apart from the fans, if you were an honest

:04:34. > :04:36.sports or woman,... That is the argument, and the UK anti-doping

:04:37. > :04:43.authority, they are the people who have been called to look into the

:04:44. > :04:48.big Russian scandal of doping, and so, if they were given information

:04:49. > :04:55.about this doctor and did nothing about it, there are already calls

:04:56. > :04:59.for the person who runs UK Anti-Doping to stand down or for

:05:00. > :05:02.there to be an investigation, because it is not surprising, but it

:05:03. > :05:08.needs to be rooted out, because there are honest sportsmen and women

:05:09. > :05:11.who need this to be dealt with. If they knew about it for two years,

:05:12. > :05:16.they should all be cleared out, none of them should be allowed to carry

:05:17. > :05:21.on. Let's move on to the Mail on Sunday, a lot on foreign aid, quite

:05:22. > :05:26.an extraordinary story, I will read a front page. ?172 million is what

:05:27. > :05:31.we overspend on foreign aid last year by mistake as sneaked out by

:05:32. > :05:36.the Government on Friday, another to keep Port Talbot plant alive for six

:05:37. > :05:42.months. There are pages and pages of very detailed investigation into

:05:43. > :05:46.foreign aid, a good story on page seven, despair for steelworkers, so

:05:47. > :05:51.why are we giving ?9 million to Nigeria to help its leather tanning

:05:52. > :05:55.industry? That is the context, hard times at home, giving money abroad.

:05:56. > :06:01.Tel us why the paper has devoted so much space to this. What is

:06:02. > :06:05.interesting is that the paper is focusing on the idea not just that

:06:06. > :06:11.aid is a flawed concept, which is my personal view, but the fixed target

:06:12. > :06:15.is a nonsense. This beset by Professor Angus Deighton, a Nobel

:06:16. > :06:19.Prize winning economist, the man who devised the metrics for measuring

:06:20. > :06:24.global poverty, pointing out the stupidity of having a fixed target,

:06:25. > :06:29.how it is about us, not them, about making politicians here look good,

:06:30. > :06:32.but not about helping. Otherwise, why would you have a figure that

:06:33. > :06:36.goes up and down depending on British growth. The paper has tapped

:06:37. > :06:42.into something with readers who saw the speed at which they signed this

:06:43. > :06:46.e-petition that the paper has launched, to get a debate in

:06:47. > :06:50.Parliament on this. There is clearly very strong public anger, and it is

:06:51. > :06:55.right, I think, when you see things going on. You picked out the leather

:06:56. > :07:00.industry, but if you read the detail, you have someone working on

:07:01. > :07:04.a scheme that had ?91 million across various industries to boost

:07:05. > :07:08.industries in Nigeria, and one person is quoted saying that Chi

:07:09. > :07:12.went in, and the only Nigerians were the drivers and the people making

:07:13. > :07:16.copy, and it was full of white Europeans who had flown in at great

:07:17. > :07:22.expense to give workshops. -- making coffee. That is the sort of thing

:07:23. > :07:27.that gets people annoyed, money going to the Palestinian Authority,

:07:28. > :07:30.who is then funding prisoners who are convicted of terrorism. There is

:07:31. > :07:35.an interview with a British woman who was appallingly attacked and

:07:36. > :07:40.stabbed, I think it was 13 times, she had to play dead while they

:07:41. > :07:44.tried to stab her through the heart. She is not surprisingly furious that

:07:45. > :07:48.her own country is funding the authorities which are giving these

:07:49. > :07:54.people who did this to her, these terrorists, ?9,000 a year. This will

:07:55. > :07:59.strike a chord with a lot of people. It does, and all of the examples

:08:00. > :08:01.that Ian has given, they are heart-rending, they do inside anger,

:08:02. > :08:08.because they sound completely unjustifiable. But I would say, I am

:08:09. > :08:13.not a complete scorched earth on foreign aid, and for instance in

:08:14. > :08:16.Pakistan, if the money is being used corruptly, that is a bad thing and

:08:17. > :08:20.needs to be investigated. But that money is earmarked for schools in

:08:21. > :08:25.Pakistan, which particularly for girls is an important issue. The

:08:26. > :08:30.foreign aid we do give it something like 0.08% of our gross national

:08:31. > :08:35.income, so even though the numbers are huge, proportionately it is not

:08:36. > :08:41.the most enormous thing that we do. To be fair, it is 0.7, ?16 billion

:08:42. > :08:46.by the end of the parliament. I am seeing damage being done in the

:08:47. > :08:50.world of disability, because the Government was cutting disability

:08:51. > :08:55.benefits, saving ?12 billion. Yet we are giving away ?16 billion abroad.

:08:56. > :09:00.People say it is a small sum, but it is not a small sum of other people's

:09:01. > :09:04.money. Let's look at Pakistan, that shows the whole problem, which is

:09:05. > :09:08.you pour money into a place which is badly run, when no-one in Parliament

:09:09. > :09:12.is even paying taxes, and you give them free money of the scale that

:09:13. > :09:16.Britain and America is giving to Pakistan, and it takes away the

:09:17. > :09:19.incentive for them to actually set up a proper taxation system and

:09:20. > :09:22.deliver decent public services themselves. That is the whole

:09:23. > :09:27.problem, it gets to the core of it, you can look at a nice school funded

:09:28. > :09:31.by British aid and say it is wonderful, but you are undermining

:09:32. > :09:35.the democratic development and fuelling the very corruption which

:09:36. > :09:39.creates the state. The counterargument to that, it is not,

:09:40. > :09:42.let's be nice to people, it is sometimes that this is hard

:09:43. > :09:47.politics, this is about buying influence in places like Pakistan,

:09:48. > :09:51.Nigeria and elsewhere, and that may be unpalatable, because people think

:09:52. > :09:56.they are doing good, but the idea is very realpolitik. And Justine

:09:57. > :10:02.Greening, the minister responsible, her defence is, and I think you made

:10:03. > :10:07.some good points which I agree with, but Justine Greening says, and this

:10:08. > :10:11.is a real hard politics thing, a real project pier type thing, we are

:10:12. > :10:15.trying to deal with problems where they exist, rather than waiting for

:10:16. > :10:20.problems to come to us, which is a very veiled message. I wonder what

:10:21. > :10:27.she has in mind as I cause a macro frankly, it is not helpful, they

:10:28. > :10:36.should look at these examples and deal with them. -- I wonder what she

:10:37. > :10:41.has in mind(!) The final word on this. They have got this fixed

:10:42. > :10:45.target to throw money at the door, they have to find ways to spend the

:10:46. > :10:49.money, and all they are doing is exacerbating the problems they seek

:10:50. > :10:54.to... I have seen this all over the world, in Africa, Asia, the

:10:55. > :10:58.Caribbean. The problems we are feeling and contributing to, rather

:10:59. > :11:02.than solving. It is interesting, and my piece, I have done a comment

:11:03. > :11:07.piece in here, and I understand that George Osborne was asked at a

:11:08. > :11:13.private dinner, why are you doing this, and he said, simply, to keep

:11:14. > :11:17.the charities off our backs. That is a pretty pointless exercise. The

:11:18. > :11:21.headline says it is the fear of Bob Geldof, that is one of the things in

:11:22. > :11:26.the Mail. Page one of the Telegraph has the other big story, by British

:11:27. > :11:31.to save our steel, ministers tell local authorities. This is very odd,

:11:32. > :11:34.because is our industrial policy for a major strategic industry to tell

:11:35. > :11:37.local councils they have to spend more money on steel than they

:11:38. > :11:44.otherwise would do? They already have a strategy for doing that,

:11:45. > :11:50.councils and the NHS. Councils and the NHS are two of the most cash

:11:51. > :11:52.strapped, needy areas in our society, so it is completely

:11:53. > :11:56.outrageous for the Government to say to them, can you sort out this

:11:57. > :12:01.rather embarrassing perception problem we have at the moment? ?300

:12:02. > :12:04.billion worth of infrastructure projects which will take place in

:12:05. > :12:07.Britain over the next five years, and that sounds like a big amount of

:12:08. > :12:11.money, that sounds like enough to keep Port Talbot going, all the

:12:12. > :12:16.steel to build new classrooms and operating theatres and everything

:12:17. > :12:22.else. Well, if the steel that is coming from China is a tiny fraction

:12:23. > :12:26.of the price, it would be very difficult for a local authority to

:12:27. > :12:33.spend the money on British steel and then go into the red, not be able to

:12:34. > :12:37.complete. And close the library! Or cut back on services for local

:12:38. > :12:41.disabled people. To save the British steel industry? It is completely

:12:42. > :12:46.wrong-headed. Is this a bit of thrashing around? It is difficult

:12:47. > :12:49.for any government to sort out. It is a difficult situation where they

:12:50. > :12:53.are struggling to control the agenda. They have looked a bit off

:12:54. > :12:58.the pace on this issue, and it is the last refuge of the scoundrel,

:12:59. > :13:02.almost, to say, by British, please, please! People should buy the best

:13:03. > :13:06.steel available at the best price, and the guv Mata should be more

:13:07. > :13:16.honest and point out that the fact that British steel is not

:13:17. > :13:21.competitive. -- the Government. They should help the steelworkers, but

:13:22. > :13:28.there is a perception problem, Sajid Javid was not around, they did not

:13:29. > :13:32.have any meetings with Tata Steel, and they want to get a headline out

:13:33. > :13:49.of it, they want to deal with it. Young whole Ski-Doo Brexit, usual

:13:50. > :13:56.health warnings here! -- hold key to Brexit. I am sceptical about the

:13:57. > :13:59.polls, because the most detailed shows that happen next remain is

:14:00. > :14:05.probably ahead. The interesting thing they packed the Leave picked

:14:06. > :14:13.up on is the difference between young and old. -- shows that Remain

:14:14. > :14:16.is probably ahead. They know the generation coming through is

:14:17. > :14:20.comfortable with the European ideal, comfortable with travelling to

:14:21. > :14:23.Europe, and despite the obvious problems of Europe, whether

:14:24. > :14:27.financial or the immigration issue, you have this generational change,

:14:28. > :14:32.and it is like the last gasp... Where it is now or never. If they do

:14:33. > :14:38.not get it now, it is less likely, and the other dynamic is that old

:14:39. > :14:42.people are more likely to vote, and this is a problem. And as we know

:14:43. > :14:48.from polls in other countries, referenda in other countries, people

:14:49. > :14:53.are more conservative if they are undecided, stick with what they

:14:54. > :14:56.know. David Cameron gave an interview to the Independent on

:14:57. > :15:00.Sunday pointing out that voter apathy will be the biggest problem

:15:01. > :15:05.for the Remain campaign, because if people do not vote, as we saw with

:15:06. > :15:09.the Scottish referendum, it was very close because of voter apathy,

:15:10. > :15:14.because people thought, we are all right as we are, I don't need to do

:15:15. > :15:18.anything about it. This is a super generalisation, but young people are

:15:19. > :15:23.less likely to go out and vote, so even though it is a last hurrah for

:15:24. > :15:28.the Leave campaign, they do need to engage the young people who perhaps

:15:29. > :15:33.are aware of this but do not feel that their voice needs to be heard.

:15:34. > :15:39.I wonder if people who are Remain voters will stay at home because

:15:40. > :15:43.they are more relaxed about it. That is a problem. The other interesting

:15:44. > :15:46.thing in this story is the stuff about Jeremy Corbyn, where it shows

:15:47. > :15:50.that the public do not know where he stands on it, which is pretty

:15:51. > :15:56.amazing for the leader of the main opposition party in a referendum on

:15:57. > :16:01.such a big subject for the country. The public do not know where he

:16:02. > :16:04.stands, and that is very telling, an indictment of his stewardship. Do

:16:05. > :16:11.they know that Alan Johnson is the main voice for Labour? Is very

:16:12. > :16:16.popular within the party. Is the greatest leader they never had. The

:16:17. > :16:19.strife in Labour has taken a back-seat with all the other news

:16:20. > :16:23.going on at the moment, but there is still a problem that Jeremy Corbyn

:16:24. > :16:28.is not comfortable with this, no-one knows where he stands, so he has

:16:29. > :16:33.got... We have got a minute and a half left for the Sunday Times, they

:16:34. > :16:38.welled in saying the rise of women drive is meant to change sex. She is

:16:39. > :16:44.a great star of things, is she having a laugh? This comes after the

:16:45. > :16:49.Ian McEwan story, and we are seeing elderly authors having problems with

:16:50. > :16:51.the emerging world of identity politics and social politics,

:16:52. > :16:56.struggling to understand what is happening. But equally, it is

:16:57. > :17:01.obviously a silly thing she said, the headline about men changing sex

:17:02. > :17:04.because women have won the Battle of the sexes. Underneath it, she is

:17:05. > :17:08.saying some quite interesting things about why we need role models

:17:09. > :17:11.anyway. It is not entirely frivolous, although she has got the

:17:12. > :17:15.headline she wanted by saying something silly. Also, we do see a

:17:16. > :17:25.lot of elderly authors struggling with issues coming through now.

:17:26. > :17:28.Transgender politics is a huge subject, on EastEnders, we have at

:17:29. > :17:34.Caitlyn Jenner, it has informed the debate about sexual politics. This

:17:35. > :17:40.lack of understanding leads to this sort of headline, with, the greatest

:17:41. > :17:46.respect for Fay Weldon as an author, but as a commentator and sexual

:17:47. > :17:52.politics, she should be quiet. On that note, thank you! We will take a

:17:53. > :17:54.look at tomorrow's front pages every evening at 10:30 and right here on

:17:55. > :17:58.BBC News.