06/05/2016 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the papers will be

With me are Joe Watts, Political Correspondent

for the Evening Standard and Lucy Fisher, who's

a Senior Political Correspondent at The Times.

Welcome to you both. Thank you for being here tonight. Whilst we wait

for the London mayoral result... The Scottish Daily Mail says

voters have told the SNP to abandon its independence drive,

as the Tories are returned Ruth Davidson,

the Scottish Conservative leader, is pictured on the front

of the Telegraph - it says she's tipped to play

a bigger role in British politics. Sadiq Khan is on the

front of the Times. It calls him Labour's most

powerful politician. The FT says the election

of the son of a Pakistani bus driver signals a broad acceptance by voters

of London's racial and religious diversity, months after terrorist

attacks in Brussels and Paris. The Guardian reports concerns

from Conservatives that Zac Goldsmith's mayoral campaign has

left a 'negative legacy' in London. And the Express says

the Government's benefits cap will be reduced to ?20,000

per family this autumn. So, let's begin with the front pages

of the stories we picked out. The i says there has been a seismic shift

in Scotland. The SNP loses a majority but wins a historic third

term. The Tories become the second biggest party after spirited defence

of the union. Lucy, it could have gone very differently in Scotland,

couldn't it? Absolutely, I think it has come as a surprise to most

people that the Conservatives have jumped into second place, causing

Labour to slump to third in their historic former heartlands. A really

serious story for Labour. But as you say, I think it is interesting the

SNP are still on top, third time in, although not managing a majority

this time. Labour's experience in Scotland tempered by what happened

in other parts of the country somewhat. But there is not going to

be a majority SNP, they are going to have to try and go through without

that. A sting in the tail for the SNP. They have won and is an

historic victory but it basically means they will have to do some

deals if they want to get what they want. That is not unusual for the

SNP, they are used to handling and doing a bit of wheeling and dealing.

They had to do that kind of thing before they had a majority in

Scotland. They will have to revert back to their old ways. They did it

quite successfully last time. The problem is this time, they want

something big. We all know the SNP wombat second Scottish independence

referendum. They are not far off of mint majority in Holyrood and a few

MPs might be willing to give them a couple more votes to get that

majority for a vote on independence, but the question is at what cost

will that come? The Scottish Daily Mail makes that point, a defiant

Ruth Davidson pours scorn on the idea of this new independence with

the roar of Middle Scotland. She had her work cut out, when you think

where the Conservatives were come the general election. Absolutely. In

one of the papers she likens it to resuscitate in a dead corpse, which

is a really lovely image. The problem is with resuscitating a dead

corpse, we'll note, any horror film knows, when it comes back to life it

does horrible things. There is a danger for the Conservative Party,

as Ruth Davidson goes forward, that she feels the need to define herself

as a Scottish Conservative different to the English Conservatives. That

could be a problem for David Cameron in London. Nonetheless, she has done

a very good job in some ways already by defining herself in that way for

stop we know apparently blocked George Osborne going to Scotland in

the campaign. She has done a big job, not afraid of getting in front

of the cameras. How well will she now lead the opposition against the

SNP? There is talk because of how well she has done that there might

be a bigger role for her within the Conservative Party. I think that is

eminently possible. The great thing about Ruth Davidson is she looks and

feels very different to many Westminster politicians, typically

in the Conservatives. She's female, Gary, quite wary and has a very

fresh image. She talks as a human rather than political speak. I think

that is... To put a different take on it, I think what you say is

fascinating. She could cause Cameron some problems because she is a

little more modern, a bit more progressive, but equally when there

is a threat from them more right wing of the party, the degree of

Europe, in actual fact she really shows the modernisers, the they win

votes in elections. She could end up bolstering him. The Daily Telegraph,

we have two versions of it. The Scottish version first. SNP has no

mandate for another referendum. Davidson throws down gauntlet to

First Minister after Tory surge cost her majority. How much will Nicola

Sturgeon feel put in her place by what has happened in the vote last

night? Well, she is certainly still going to talk a good talk on the

subject. I think Nicola Sturgeon is quite canny woman. I don't think she

necessarily believes in her heart of hearts that if there were a wind

referendum that the SNP would necessarily win it. Based on the

fact it is unclear if public opinion has changed now. Many Westminster

politicians say we have to win the second one, so let's wait and hold

it when we can win it. It is not clear they could necessarily win a

second referendum. I think if we look back to the last government

when we had the coalition, it sort of helped the Conservatives to have

to compromise with the Lib Dems. It could end up being helpful to Nicola

Sturgeon and the SNP to not have a majority, to kind of hold off from

holding that referendum. It was not that helpful to the Lib Dems. We

will see which other parties are willing to get into bed with the SNP

and how that might affect their votes. We're pretty sure the Tories

won't do that. Labour I don't think we'll be willing to do that, given

what has happened to them. There will be a lot of bitterness around.

Perhaps the greens. They have a handful of seats. They might be the

answer to the SNP's problems. The Greens tend to be pro-... Could be

pro the union rather than pro-independence? It will not really

help the SNP Test they will have to go step-by-step, vote by vote, that

is how they did it last time. They managed to carve out quite a

successful assembly session out of that. I think that if the weight

Nicola Sturgeon will play it again. People will be looking to see

exactly what they are prepared to give up. I have heard many analyses

of what has happened in Scotland, that if you are pro-independence you

still carried on voting for the SNP and if you are not, you voted this

time for the Conservatives because they seem to have made their case

more powerfully. That certainly seems to be a lot -- what a lot of

the pundits are saying that moment. I think a lot of people voted for

the SNP at first you are not necessarily going to back

independence. It is quite difficult to know at the moment, given we

haven't had any polls on independence. Comparing with the

votes from this particular election, to see exactly how that breaks down

on whether there are still people voting SNP might not necessarily

vote for independence. But dependent has been the driving force of this

election. The anti-independence voters really coalesced around the

Tories. We have a couple of pictures of Ruth Davidson in Scotland. At one

point she was quoting Carolann Duffy's poem Rapture. She tried to

make the point her heart was almost stumped. That is the picture they

have chosen for the Scottish version of the paper, grinning. There she is

looking very sassy. This is the version of the Telegraph that goes

out in the rest of the country. A woman who put Tories back on the map

of Scotland. She certainly looks different, doesn't she? That seems

to have appealed to the people I have been speaking to an Twitter is,

because she doesn't look like the archetypal Conservative MP. Yes, and

she is willing to dress up, here she is wearing a funny Stetson style

hat. She has a sense of humour. I think that is why people like her.

She has detoxified the brand. She has that slight thing Boris Johnson

has. She is not as much of a clown as Boris can be, but she's not of

putting herself in interesting photo shoots. There was one floating

around the news today of her riding on a cow. She doesn't mind setting

herself up there and people like that, they warm to it. Let's look at

another party. Turning our attention to Labour. Corbin not a credible

leader of the worst losses in 30 years. -- Jeremy Corbyn. But he

said, we survived. It was not exactly a ringing endorsement of

what they'd done but the feeling was that could have been worse. It is

interesting what happened with Labour today. I think it plays into

the idea that expectation management is all-important. Some of Labour's

worst internal critics were warning they were going to lose at least

100, maybe 150 200 council seats. In fact only losing a few councillors

here and that is, holding in South, some -- some councils, proving

Jeremy Corbyn can hold outpost in the south, gives a very mixed and

messy picture. He has not done well enough to tell his critics look, I

can do this, I can lead us to victory in 2020, but he hasn't done

badly enough for those critics to really wield the knife and enact the

coup they have been talking about. It takes a leap of imagination of

you are going to argue either side. For the Labour spinners who are

coming out and saying this is better than expected, you have to remember

this is from the baseline that Ed Miliband had that was quite high,

but then proceeded one of the worst election losses Labour has had at a

general election. So to come out and say, it is not as bad as it could be

is going to great on a lot of Labour supporters who want the party to be

winning. At the same time, those people who want to have their

fingers curled round the knife handle and ready to plunge it into

Jeremy Corbyn, they don't quite have the reason to do that yet. But he

surely, in the light of what has been happening in the last couple of

weeks of this campaign thinking they did manage to get through it

relatively unscathed. You think what was going on with the anti-Semitism

row, it only ended last week I think, when they launch the

independent inquiry that Shami Chakrabarti will be looking at. All

that will kick back in again. But I imagine it could have been, could

have had a worse impact on those results? Certainly I think so. When

we looked last night John McDonnell warning Ken Livingstone's

controversial comments linking Hitler and Zionism, he said this

will set us back as a party. There was a lot of nervousness last night

at the BBC and other broadcast studios before the results started

coming out. I think there is a sense today, a sigh of relief from the top

leadership team that it hasn't been wiped out some had predicted. We

thought we might be talking about the result of the London mayoral

election, but we were told a couple of hours ago it is more likely going

to be midnight when we get that result. There was some kind of

inaccuracies or discrepancies in a small number of votes, we were told.

The Times have stuck their neck out and have a picture of Sadiq Khan

with his wife, who it says has become Labour's most powerful

politician after winning the London mayoral election. It certainly looks

like he is heading that way. And again, despite aspersions that were

cast on people he'd associated with, which left a nasty taste some people

in the way the Conservatives campaigned. That is right. I think

there is a of reasons, if it turns out Sadiq Khan has won, that he did

win. He made a strategic decision quite early on to distance himself

from Jeremy Corbyn. Pretty much at every opportunity he could take he

distanced himself, and that paid off, particularly in the

anti-Semitism row that came late in the campaign. He also managed to

brush off those claims from Zac Goldsmith about the platform to with

people. That seemed to have a backlash effect the Zac. Most

importantly he came forward with a policy platform that really seemed

to match what voters wanted in London. People basically wanted a

break from the high cost of living. He had his first dibs for Londoners

for housing and that seemed to resonate with a lot of people. It

might was a clue as to the people he will have around him in his team.

That idea of breaking away from your party Central office, Steven Norris

talks about the need to do that. He said he pretty much took no notice

of Conservative Central office when he was running for the post of

mayor. But he has a big mandate, because of the way this election is

run for London mayor, if you win, you really do win. Absolutely. I

think it is a really big first that London has their first Muslim mayor

in Sadiq, if he has won tonight. The most powerful Muslim politician in

the whole of Europe, which I think it something to be celebrated. That

Britain is the first country, it is a great message for Muslims

throughout the world to see that. But you are right. Him being

distanced from Jeremy Corbyn and the Central Labour machine, it will be

an interesting dynamic. Some interesting criticism of Zac

Goldsmith by his sister. She said on Twitter that she didn't feel that

his campaign reflected the type of person that she knew him to be. She

said he is an eco-friendly, independent minded politician with

integrity. She also tweeted she was sending her congratulations to Sadiq

Khan, saying he was a great example to young Muslims. I wonder who

Jemima Khan was actually criticising, was her brother or the

conservative machine? Lucy and I were talking about this one. We were

just wondering what kind of relationship they have. If she

called him first to say that is what she would be tweeting, if he was

aware and sanctioned and what the dynamics behind that well. If Zac

didn't know was coming it was a kick in the teeth, and if he you have to

think he okayed it beforehand. Something interesting going on. Zac

Goldsmith's brother came in and tweeted some supportive things as

well. It still remains to be seen exactly what is going on beer and

the scenes in the Goldsmith family. It might have been the comment on

the way she felt her brother was forced to campaign? I wouldn't say

forced. I think he will have had a steering role and he can't renege

responsible at your map. But I think a lot of people are looking at the

firm that has been running this campaign, it is quite a bulldog -ish

firm. It will be interesting which Conservatives will be there, if that

Goldsmith is there tonight. I think you are right, this tweet by the

angling to suggest it was this Rottweiler like firm that likes to

go in for these strong messages that has perhaps looks at Zac and thought

he is the ecologist, nice guy Tory, not some sort of brash individual.

Lets look at a moment at Ukip, Nigel Farage and Ukip, The true election

winners it in the express. I just marked that with a big question,

Mark. After the general election when they were supposed to do

extremely well and then only took Clacton with Douglas Carswell, how

successful has it been for Ukip? It doesn't look like they have done

that well in London. I suppose the Welsh seats are a big game for them.

They have a decent showing there on the Welsh Assembly. I think they won

quite a few seats around the country as well. I think of the top of my

head around 20 council seats around the place. They have made some

games, but whether they can actually turn that into anything more

useful... And they had a really high watermark of their vote share for

the general election. The question is, what vote showed they have

across the country and has risen or fallen? For a small party, the fact

they have made those games, they will be pleased? Absolutely. I think

the fact they have been geographically focused in Wales, it

is useful to have a stronghold summer, a place from which to grow.

They will be hoping if they do win an the 23rd they will have a SNP

like effect. It is worth it just to see Neil Hamilton back in politics.

Is it? Him and Christine, we have missed them. Yes, up in the North in

Cheshire they had acetyl stop the Daily Telegraph finally. No sooner

are these elections over there and we are back on the referendum trail.

Michael Gove will make Britain safe after Brexit. Michael Gove talking

about the need to strengthen our borders and national security laws.

A lot of people saying, Lucy, we can already have a great deal of control

over this inside the EU. Yes, people do. It is one of those issues,

security, where there are a lot of claims and counterclaims and it is

not clear if the UK safer in the EU, where we have agreements on

intelligence and data sharing the outside and have a tougher border

policy, if that were even possible to negotiate. I think it is an

interesting topic for Michael Gove to go on, but it certainly points to

immigration, the idea that we make our borders tougher, deport foreign

criminals without interference from Brussels courts. He knows his

constituency when he brings up this subject. That is right. It does seem

to be pushing towards the immigration issue. If anything, I

think the smartest strategist will see that as an area where they can

make some hay. They know they are not really going to convince people

or invigorate people with abstract arguments about sovereignty. They

need to talk about something that people on the street are thinking

about as well. The NHS is possibly another thing they could talk about,

but immigration certainly. Don't forget, all the front pages

are online on the BBC News website where you can read a detailed review

of the papers. It's all there for you -

7 days a week at bbc.co.uk/papers, and you can see us there too -

with each night's edition of The Papers being posted

on the page shortly after we've Thank you to both of you. I hope you

will come back again and see us on. More on the elections at 11 o'clock.

We will hopefully speak to Ben Brown at City Hall as we wait for the

London mayoral election. But first, the weather.

Hello. The weather pattern at the moment is favouring England and

Wales with the highest temperatures.