05/06/2016 The Papers

individual apparatus finals later today, you could see it from 4pm on

BBC Two. Now, the papers. Hello and welcome to our Sunday

morning edition of The Papers. With me Ian Birrell,

Contributing Editor of the Mail on Sunday and author

and Foreign Correspondent, Today's front pages? The digital

Independent carries an image of the man who's on the front

of virtually every paper - The Express on Sunday shows

a picture of Muhammad Ali in his later years, with the quote

"Don't count the days, The Sun on Sunday shows a picture

of a young Muhammad Ali back when he was still

known as Cassius Clay. The Observer also shows a picture

of Ali and in the corner has a poignant quote

from President Obama and his wife. The Sunday Times also has a picture

of Ali but leads on reports that the Royal Navy have been asked

to patrol the English Channel to look for migrants

trying to get to the UK. The Mail on Sunday leads with claims

that the campaign for Britain to leave the EU has been infiltrated

by dozens of far-right extremists. A look at the pictures first. We

have spoken a lot about Muhammad Ali of the West 24 hours. -- over the

last 24 hours. Clinton said he did not know if he was a boxer on a

ballerina, and you get a sense of the Grace from the pictures. All the

papers have a stunning array of pictures, including some of the

greatest sports shots I have ever seen. Also, his dignity, political

power and importance comes across. The writing reflects it. There are

wonderful pieces about why he was the greatest sports person, what he

was like to see, his extraordinary stop- start career, winning the

title three times. And the incredible political legacy. A man

at the peak of his ambitions and career, a world title holder,

stepped back and said, I will not accept the draft, and took on the

forces of the United States Establishment, successfully. And for

such noble reasons. It is incredible, when you sit back and

consider that, today, could somebody really do that? They would be a

product for corporations. They would be savaged in the media. And it is

important to reflect how important he was in the history of the

century. This is a guy from the age of 25-29, the peak of a sportsman is

career, everybody knows that, was out. And he did not have too. He

could have gone to the Army and got a soft option. But he just refused.

Exactly, it was Muhammad Ali being himself. He showed you can just be

your own person. That was what gave him such an iconic status. His

refusal to do what he was told. And it was not just at that time, he was

obviously a polarising figure and then, but in later life he was a

hero of the Grace who brought to confronting Parkinson's disease. An

extremely difficult and debilitating illness. He lit the Olympic torch in

Atlanta in very moving scenes. It was that grace he brought to that

struggle as well which rounded out his legacy. Extraordinary man. All

of the papers have done well in that. Some of the other content. The

Sun, and this is part of our Brexit section which will go on for weeks,

Boris Johnson, you cannot trust the Prime Minister. You have got people

who sit down in Cabinet, the very top of the government. And they do

not trust each other. And they say it publicly. We go from a story of a

man of incredible ability and integrity... To talk about Boris

Johnson. Behaving in the Ashley opposite way with shameless, self

serving attempts. Attacking the Prime Minister first on immigration,

now on the economy. And this is a man who wrote two versions of his

column, reportedly, because he could not decide whether he wanted to go

in or out. He was once pro-immigration and now sounds like

Nigel Farage. Saying that the government which she is a part of

cannot be trusted on newcomer. Bottomley shameless. -- cannot be

trusted on the economy, utterly shameless. He is saying that we

cannot avoid further bailouts down-the-line particularly if the EU

brings in new members. But you are right, it is hard to take him

seriously on any of these issues now. Your own paper has much on

Brexit, or otherwise, including David Cameron suggesting that those

who wish to leave have got it all wrong and are living in cloud cuckoo

land. Looking at the splash, far right in plot to hijack Brexit. And

on the inside pages... If I can get a bit, where are we? Here we are. A

double page spread. The neo-Nazi Brexit supporter, and a number of

stories about various individuals with far right connections who are

part of the Brexit campaign. This is an important story. We had Michael

Gove talking about a campaign of hope and optimism. And today he is

talking about a one nation campaign, a progressive cause. Yet the reality

is he has sided with, unfortunately, people like Ian Boris Johnson, they

have sided with some of the most malevolent forces in populist

politics today -- he and Boris Johnson. That is why it is supported

on board by the head of the National front in France. Far right leaders

in Holland. And now we see here that it is also supported by a host of

very unpleasant people. Not just ultra conservatives. People jailed

for thuggery. Out and out Nazis. This is not just about smearing

people. You need to sit back and ask, why do people like this support

the idea of Brexit? Cause, as Michael Gove says, they want a fair

immigration system? That is unlikely. This is a divisive group

of people pushing an isolationist, Little England cause, and that is

the reality, people who I respect, who are moderate, pushing for noble

reasons for a Brexit, still need to consider why these sorts of people

also backed the same cause. Unfortunately they are divisive,

attempting to stop immigration, and to withdraw Britain, not about

sovereignty, but to pull back from and become isolationist in the

world. When you see a woman with a swastika on her breast supporting

this, yes, it is only a small part of it and there are plenty of good

reasons not to want to be in Europe... Yes, and the campaign can

say, we can help it if some people on the fringes give out leaflets and

set up stalls. Yet this rogues gallery assembled by the newspaper

is pretty shocking, isn't it? This chap sitting with his we want our

country back sign between the graves of the Kray twins, that is pretty

disturbing. This guy went to jail for several months for violence.

Yes, and several others are associated with the BNP, the English

Defence League, this woman has a Nazi swastika tattooed on her

breast, and is out there handing out leaflets. At the very least the

campaign should do something to distance themselves from these

people in a more strident way. There is an old phrase, you are judged by

your friends. Let's move on to the Observer. It has some interesting

analysis on North versus South, young versus old, the new fault

lines of the UK political map. A bar chart, even I can understand that,

where you can see that Labour supporters mostly support Remain,

Ukip supporters support Brexit, if you are university educated you are

more likely to support Remain, and so on. This is a very divided

country. Across the West we are seeing it. We see it in Austria, we

see it with Donald Trump, and we see it in Britain, a division in

attitudes. Although I would love to find the 3% of Ukip supporters who

will vote to stay! That could be a statistical error, I am not sure!

Over 60s are most likely to vote, which is alarming for those who want

to Remain, but also, those with a higher level of education are also

more likely to vote Remain, so we must be careful not to judge too

much from this, but it does show a division, and why the future of the

country, the young people, 18-39, are so strongly in favour of

staying. It is interesting, I was told by a key campaigner wishing to

stay that the most powerful message delivered to those who want to go,

and who tend to be older, is, think about your grandchildren. And we can

see why. Because there is an age divide. And the future of the

country is with people who wish to stay in Europe. That is such a

problem if we go out from Europe, when the next generation so clearly

want to stay. The interesting thing is the correlation between the Leave

voters and areas of economic decline. There is a growing gulf

between London and the rest of the country. Whichever way the vote goes

that is a real priority for the government to address. London should

Brexit from the UK? In many ways it already has! I did argue that in the

FT! Many places have just been abandoned to their fate and no

government has come up with an effective solution. It is

understandable, why people feel so angry, when they have been

abandoned. Exactly, yes. Royal Marines may be called into the

English Channel. I must declare an interest. I live in Kent and see

frigates going up and down the channel quite often. Maybe they are

just fishing, I don't know. They have not actually found anybody

landing, one or two boats as you know have been rescued over the past

year but the MoD say there is currently no request for a presence,

so if you have that as your splash, and get that response by 10am the

next morning, you cannot be pleased. That is not what you want, on a

Sunday morning, only getting one go a week, to have your splash

demolished in that way. The truth is there had been a few attempts to

cross the Channel by some people but this story is very overinflated. The

idea there is an invasion of people waiting to come across by boats, I

speak to people and places like Jordan and Turkey, if you have the

money you just fly over. You don't need to risk your life in the

world's is used maritime area. -- busiest. It is very busy and

dangerous. There is an interesting story about a former French

paratrooper who took across 12 Albanians on his yacht, simply

cruised up a river in heaven and dropped them off at the key and then

went to a point after. This was a few years ago and he could court and

fined of course. -- Devon. Whether the Royal Marines would catch him I

am not so sure. The headline is perhaps the problem with this story.

Royal Navy called in to hold migrants makes it sound like there

will be destroyers and battleships. Where would we them actually? The

new aircraft carriers! There are a few boats the Royal Navy users to

control fishing grounds... As we know, it is not about physical

action, it is about intelligence and... Much bigger forces are at

work than can be held back by a few boats. The easiest way to stop

immigration is to crash the economy! The Chilcott report. It says

Alistair Campbell is in the clear but Tony Blair will, Cropper, that

is basically what they say. I am wary of these stories, there are a

lot of leaks from people attempting to protect themselves. We are

getting a semblance but we will not know until the report comes out in

July so we need to be wary. I'm in the excitement before Hutton, all

these stories breaking out, then it was the biggest whitewashing

history. So we need to be cautious. But many people will be very happy

if that does have his reputation trashed. -- if Tony Blair has his

reputation trashed. I am not so sure Alistair Campbell should escape

scot-free given his own activities. From the story it does sound like

the Tony Blair camp is in crisis mode, thinking about how they will

respond. But not the Campbell camp! Exactly. Walking away, Whistling!

For me one of the stories of the week is this awful story in the

Observer, the billion-dollar trade behind the scandal of the Asian

Tiger Temple. We were wondering, what on earth are similar tigers,

these dead tiger cubs, doing in the fridge in this... An extraordinary

story. I recommend reading this. It shows the way that conservation and

tourism and what seems to be a trade in wildlife parks, have all been

blurred. 250,000 people a year visit to see these beautiful animals, they

thought they were seeing a conservation project, actually it

seems to be some kind of factory to exploit tiger parts and sell them.

And they are saying it is not even that rare, it happens elsewhere. The

statistics are horrific. Not just the legality, but also these

creatures are endangered... The many things we cannot do anything about,

but we should be able to do something about this, shouldn't we?

We would think so, and that is why so many law-enforcement officials

raided this temple and found these awful scenes of tiger carcasses in

freezers. Yet the story points out that happens in many places. And

there are only 3000 tigers left in the wild. Which is why the price

they command in China is so high. ?40,000 for tiger skin. It is that

the demand which is driving the trade. The only way to stop it is to

try to persuade Chinese and other countries, in Asia, to stop seeking

out that these products. Again, interestingly, it is environmental

groups, environmental investigation issues, they actually stopped this,

not the authorities. We hear that time and again, actually the

authorities do not do much until forced. Now we are seeing the same

trade with lines, also endangered, and all sorts of other animals. --

lions. The authorities need to take a tougher line on this. Thank you,

Ian and Matthew. We take a look at the front pages every evening at

10:30pm and 11:30pm here on BBC News.