23/04/2016 The Papers

Hello, and welcome to our look ahead to what the papers

With me are the political editor of the Sunday Express,

and Tim Shipman, the political editor of the Sunday Times.

Two political editors for the price of one. Ben Chifley being with us.

-- thank you for being with us. Let's take a look at what the

papers are saying in the morning. The Observer reports that US

presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton shares Barack Obama's opposition to

the UK leaving the EU. The Mail leads on Boris

Johnson's anger at Mr Obama's intervention

in the referendum campaign. The Sunday

Telegraph says pregnant women are among those whose hospital treatment

has been postponed ahead of the first all-out strike

by junior doctors. The Sunday Times

reports that this year the super-rich have suffered

the worst decline in their fortunes The Independent carries a photo

of one of the many events to mark the 400th

anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Its main story is

about a hospital in Lancashire The Sunday Express says that cold

calling firms could face fines And the Sunday Mirror has

a photograph of what it says are the ashes

of the singer Prince being carried Let's crack on. The Mail on Sunday

with a pretty striking headline, Boris rage at ridiculous weird

Obama. It should make you think he had been desperate rude about the

President and it is a personal attack on him, but it is more about

what you said. He said it was a ridiculous and rude statement he

said about our trade deal and go into the back of the queue. If you

read inside, you get the quote which explains it better. He says no one

in the last 48 hours has come close to answering my point. It is very

weird that the US should tell the UK to do something they would not dream

of doing themselves in a million years. So it is not Obama that is

weird, but what he said. And this is another more angry intervention from

Boris Johnson after a week which has been dominated by the President's

visit and his statement over Brexit. Leaving aside the arguments, who has

come out better, Boris or Obamacares I think Boris is lying on

his back in the gutter shouting in the hope that Oscar Wilde is looking

at the stars. -- or Obama? None of them have really got him out of that

horizontal position. And not in the Brexit campaign think he may have

overreached -- a lot. Good old Boris. He will keep bashing away. I

think both sides of the argument think it is bad, with the Treasury

putting out a document saying it will cost millions of pounds. It was

discredited by a lot of people. Even people in the Brexit camp think that

is cut through to the public in some way, and now the president of the

United States is saying one of your key arguments on trade is nonsense.

That has done a fair bit of damage. Is part of the problem that actually

this is not about money, it is about a sense of identity, sovereignty,

issues that don't necessarily boiled down to shillings and pence. It is

not about facts, and for them at least, that side of the argument is

hard. I think it is difficult, this situation is, because we're offered

interviews all the time, when you get down to the nitty-gritty, they

are passionate about what they are saying and this is going to mean

this... Some of them. Yes, some of them. This is what it will mean if

we stay in or stay out, but the truth gets lost. You can read the

Treasury report about how much it will cost to leave. You can listen

to argument about how much it will cost to stay. But nobody really

knows about the economy, which is why this intervention is so

significant because President Obama saying claims have been made that it

will be fine and dandy and we can have this trade deal with America

fairly quickly, and he has said no, you will go to the back of the

queue. We have heard people say he is a lame duck resident out of

office in January and he can't do anything about the trade deal --

president. It was this? And then he comes galloping over the horizon.

When Obama did his town hall meeting with the students, one of them put

his hand up and said, could you give advice to your successor, because

she may want to do something? Lots of applause. Most people think

Hillary Clinton is probably likely to succeed Obama, and she is

reinforcing the same argument he has made that it is very important

Britain stays in the year. That is a helpful intervention for Downing

Street and David Cameron. And going back to what we were talking about

earlier, if you believe in the sovereignty thing, if that is your

thing, you will vote out. If you are worried about the economy, you will

probably vote in. The people in the middle of thinking, what happens on

trade or immigration? It is a fluid situation. There are a lot of people

in the middle. It is between a quarter and a third of people who

have not made their minds up. We have been writing about this every

week since the general election and are ready to throw ourselves off a

cliff collectively, but a lot of people are not paying that much

attention. Friends are intelligent and engage. A poll in your paper was

saying that it was moving towards leave, and now we have swung back

the other way. I suspect we have another few pendulum is to go.

Another ten weeks of this wonderful debate to go until we go to the

polling stations! Thank goodness we have lots of time. For now let's

move on to a story you have written on the front of the Sunday Times

about the doctor strike which is imminent. It is the contingency

planning being made for the strike. We'll be strike go-ahead? -- will

the strike? We have not seen anything on this scale, it is due on

Tuesday Wednesday, and they will a mass walkout. There will be no

emergency care. Pregnant women to be hit by the strike, hundreds of

thousands of operations and appointments being cancelled. What

is happening this evening is that the Labour Party have tried to

broker a deal between the doctors, and are offering the guilty Jeremy

Hunt. They have a former Tory spokesman, other former ministers

and the BMA all on board. -- offering the deal to Jeremy Hunt.

They are saying roll out the contract, but don't do it

everywhere, do a pilot scheme. And talk about these people dying out

weekends. The BMA have dug themselves into a hole, and the

government are in a sticky position. The BMA are in a sticky position is

if people start dying Outlook support the doctors will drop. The

idea that people will die because of a lack of doctors in emergency is a

scary prospect. We have seen some effects, but this is on a different

level. The thing to remember is that the previous strikes have just been

junior doctors walking out, and still preserving emergency care. My

step father and husband were both taken to hospital during the last

strike and was still seen to, although it took longer. There were

both down with. This is an all out strike, said people in emergency,

those doing the most critical care cover, and will not be there. There

is a great sentiment from Conservatives and Labour that Jeremy

Hunt has not managed this well. Are you getting the impression among

Conservative MPs that notwithstanding they might see the

argument, moving to a seven-day NHS, which is already seven-day, but the

screening and back office services and operations taking place, they

believe in that, but they think the way they have got themselves into

this confrontation has been a mistake. They have been at

loggerheads. To see somebody try to offer a situation that could get

them both off the hook without losing too much face in political

terms is significant. So you can still say I have the new contract.

The other thing that is interesting is you have seen the Labour Party

since Jeremy Corbyn became leader, which is consigned itself to arguing

internally. Jeremy Corbyn pursues his own agenda but doesn't often

seem to engage with the political sphere and trying to affect what is

happening. But this is interesting, Labour bringing people together.

This is the Shadow Health Secretary. She is trying to find a way that

might satisfy Jeremy Hunt and the BMA. That is a difficult thing to

do. In the next couple of days we might find out if this will go

ahead. The first bit of constructive opposition we have seen for a while.

And face-saving on both sides, which is politically important. That is on

the front of the Telegraph as well, but I am struck by this story with

the little photograph of Philip Hammond. This one really has

potential to be incendiary. This is the situation that British ground

forces might be said to be beyond. There has been lots of mood music

that this may or may not be on the agenda, and we think special forces

to some extent Tom at the SAS are already embedded. It depends what

you consider graduates are. We change the law in Britain so we

cannot send in troops will go to war will do anything without the consent

of Parliament. So it is significant here is saying this in his own

terms. He is also making astonishing warnings about British cruise liners

and commercial shipping being warned to avoid the coast of Libya. Even

some of the big cruising companies do go very close to the coast. All

round, a very worrying development. We have troops probably already in

there. Until now, we have had talk about sending people to train and

assist. Hammond has been over to Libya. President Obama asked for

what he learned there. My impression from Downing Street is that the

people running Libya at the moment I trying to do their own thing and

don't necessarily want to be seen to be bringing in Western troops -- are

trying. They want to get something in place that maybe they can assist

with logistical support and training and advice, but it is obviously

significant if he is really out -- ruling out sending ground troops. We

have had this statement from Michael Fallon saying that the promise

William Hague made at the end of last Parliament that the government

would legislate, put in more that Parliament has to give its consent

before troops are deployed, was not going to happen. They want to

maintain flexibility. It is like an irregular verb. You consent to this

device, -- UK and -- you can send troops to advise. It is pretty well

established that the SAS are there in significant numbers. But they

won't talk about it. They has been suggestion of escalation and they

won't talk about that either. Interesting. Let's end on your

paper, Caroline. I would like to talk about cold callers. But we will

leave that. I have to ask you about this top story, why are we losing so

many stars in 2016? It says Siebe pages eight and nine -- see pages

89. It is a stellar lineup. You have David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Victoria

Wood, Paul Daniels and Prints. The reason they are at buying is the

stars. Apparently the planets are all aligned a certain way, which is

not happened for the last 13 years, and apparently the last time, we

lost James Cagney, Kerry Grant and Orson Welles. The sad news is that

they will be more of the same until the end of the year -- Carey Grant.

We could do some more. But then it will not happen again until 2045

when we'll see another year of great tragedy. If you are a celebrity,

hide in the cellar for the rest of the year. Early nights. Don't stay

up for the paper review. Stop joking and you will be fine. Thank you both

for being with us. That is it. Coming up now it is The Film Review.

Without. -- good night.