31/07/2016 The Papers

Now it is time for The Papers With Gavin Esler.

Hello and welcome to our Sunday morning edition of The Papers.

With me are Melanie Eusebe who is the founder of

Black British Business Awards and Political Editor of the Sun

The Observer reports that a former pensions minister believes

the triple-lock protection for state pensions should be dropped

The Sunday Express leads on the same story, claiming millions of people

face a cut to their retirement income if the Government

The Sunday Telegraph says Theresa May will pledge to fight

modern slavery, which she'll call a 'barbaric evil'.

It also reports on the risks to holidaymakers in Florida

The Sunday Times says prominent campaigners to remain in the EU

and former cabinet ministers are in line for knighthoods

in David Cameron's resignation honours list.

The paper also reveals that at least four active terror plots

inside the UK are being investigated by the police.

The Mail on Sunday says women who have sex changes on the NHS

are being given free fertility treatment so they can have babies

after they become men. And the Sunday Mirror reports

that the BBC will still face legal action from Sir Cliff Richard,

despite a promise to play his new records.

Let's begin with the pension story. The Observer, too costly says

Baroness Altman. A secret plan to cut your pension. There is no more

sensitive issue for many people in this country than whether they can

retire into old age with a bit of cash. There are 30 million

pensioners in this country all of whom vote. Older people tend to

vote, as we saw in the referendum. It is an important political issue.

The question is whether the government keeps the triple lock.

For viewers who do not remember it, it rises in line with either

inflation, wages or 2.5%, whichever is the highest. At the moment we

have zero inflation, wages are stagnating and pensioners are

getting a 2.5% pay rise every year effectively. A pensioner now will be

?10 a week better off than they would have been in 2010. Do we

continue to keep this lucrative system in place or drop it to a

double lock, keeping it in line only with wages and inflation? Baroness

Altman is saying we cannot afford it, as a country, that is her view.

I agree with her. There is only so much money in the pot and we can

only give money in the pot. Having a triple lock pension feature, the

2.5% is what we are looking at, when we know there is zero inflation and

when we know what is happening with all the economies in the world and

comparatively across the planet, very few western democracies have a

triple lock feature in their pensions. I understand why they

would revisit it because it is costing the economy money where

there is none. I think they are prepping us. They say there are no

plans. David Cameron in the run to the 2015 elections said they would

not scrap the triple lock. That effectively ties in Theresa May to

stick to that. If she has another election then of course... You must

come across this in your business life, a lot of young people feel

that the odds are stacked against them, they do not have the

opportunities that the older generation has. But it is not as if

we can divide people up like that. If there is only so much money the

government can spend, they think they should spend it on people under

the age of five to give them a good start in life. Some people think

that, but I do not think we should go into that territory because of

the double lock or the triple lock. The 2.5% is this random figure

almost that we may be held accountable to. We are saying moved

down to the double lock, which is in line with some of the most

progressive democracies on our planet. The Sunday Times has got the

scoop, reveal, Cameron's honours for cronies. We can debate the honours

system, but resignation honours is a chance for the Prime Minister to

reward people he thinks have done a good job for him and his government.

It is a bog-standard move when a Prime Minister resigns. They give an

honours list. But this is a good story because we get to know who he

has nominated and there are 48 people on there. What strikes me is

a lot of them is it seems to be a reward for failure. The people who

are getting them are those who lead the remain campaign and the

referendum and they will get away with peerages. Four Cabinet

ministers were on the remain campaign who will be honoured. Jack

Straw, the former Labour Home Secretary, who led the remain

campaign, will be honoured as well. People who donated money to the

remain campaign as well, a great reward for failure. Every child will

get a prize. It is two knighthoods, a few dames, nine CBEs, and some of

the figures they are jiggling around, ?1.6 contribution.

Unfortunately when you get a story like this it throws the whole

honours system into question. The last time there was a scoop like

this it was 13 years ago and it was for the people who declined their

peerages. I understand why they would do that. When you see

something like this and there is no validation and explanation, it

throws the whole system into question. That is a fair point. It

gives other newspapers the chance to reopen this big issue. Who are these

people and why do we elevate them to the House of Lords? This has always

been a burning issue. As Peter Hennessy said in the times, even

though it is in the Prime Minister's if, it has to go through the

scrutiny process. But what is interesting is this lady here,

Isabel Spiderman, David Cameron's wide's stylist, she is in the list.

George Osborne, the former Chancellor, who was brutally sacked

and gave all those scare stories about revenge budgets and cuts, he

is to be given a companion are. I take it you are not saying the

stylist has been rewarded for failure? No, she always looks good.

The Sunday Telegraph, mission to end the evil of slavery. This is an

interesting story, a three pronged strategy to reveal the key human

rights issue of our time. When you hear prosecutions of these stories,

it is the abysmal treatment of some people in our country, many brought

here on documented and treated as modern-day slaves. It is a personal

crusade for Theresa May. It is a year ago today that she launched the

modern slavery crackdown and now she is backing it up with the task

force, ?33 million of extra funding. The number of reports in the last

year has gone up, 289 prosecutions, 40% up on the previous year. She

thinks this is one of the biggest scandals of modern society. Between

10000 and 30,000 people living as slaves in this country, which is

astonishing for the 21st century. People in male buyers... I thought

that was a shocking thing, things like this have been going on under

our noses and we are not aware of it. Many people go to nail buyers

and car washes, many of which are properly run, but some of them are

not. -- nail buyers. She is increasing the pressure on our

police force and task force, said even though there has been an

increase in reported cases, there are a few areas that did not report

cases. They said she was saying this is one of the greatest injustices of

our time, so it is not only looking at the 13,000 in Britain, but

looking at the origin countries and saying, how did they get here and

what is happening? Let's move on to American politics which gives us a

chance to talk about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The Telegraph has

got five ways and 100 days that could put Donald Trump into the

White House. Now. You are North American from a Canadian background.

For a lot of people I have adopted, they are not entirely happy with

their choice in this election. Some people really dislike Hillary

Clinton and some people really dislike Donald Trump and some people

really dislike both of them. Yes, I don't... Hillary Clinton is

experienced, she knows the job, she is the safe choice and as we have

seen in our recent history, people might not be ready for that safe

choice any more and this is one of the few opportunities they get to

engage with the political system and that is why we see the rise of

Donald Trump which no one could have anticipated. These next 100 days,

quite frankly I have learned the hard way to look at my own politics,

by being here in this country, so let's see what happens. It will be a

roller-coaster, but I cannot predict what will happen. There are so many

people who do not like either camp, so many groups as well, the youth

who have not been engaged. The African-American community have not

been engaged by either as well. We have no idea where this vote will

swing, so I will be interested to see what the result is. If you set a

couple of weeks ago that one presidential candidate would

encourage publicly the rations to hack the other presidential

candidate, everybody would have thought you were mad, but that is

what has happened and it seems to go on like this Day after day. The

piece in the Telegraph is interesting, it raises the spectre

of Donald Trump winning. He is targeting the Democrats who favoured

Bernie Sanders and those who do not like Hillary Clinton and he is

sending text messages which are popping up on their telephones with

a 15 second video. He is going to these areas where people back Bernie

Sanders. He is going to go to the gun lobby areas, one in three

Americans has a gun and there are lots of Democrats among them and he

is going to appeal to them and try to cash in on the dislike of Hillary

Clinton among Democrats. The other thing I noticed this week. You are

right, Hillary Clinton has got great experience, but that has been used

as a stick to beat her with. She is part of the problem, she has been in

the system for 25 years. What ever you think of the content he says,

Donald Trump engages with the emotions of people, make the country

being great again, although you might ask when it ceased to great.

You are right about that. It is only because of my own turmoil, not

looking at party politics, I would lean towards him as well. It is my

own time I'll, through the last two weeks and my own politics. It is

quite strategic as well and everyone has assumed that Hillary Clinton

will win. She was against Barack Obama a few years ago. Donald Trump

is targeting some of the communities that the Democrats have not even

attempted to touch, whether through social media or indirect campaigns.

There is a lot of echo in this country again, through the Brexit

campaign and Bernie Sanders fired up many Democrats who were not touch

before by politics. It is an anti-politics move which fed into

the rise of and Nigel Farage. People like somebody who is not like the

rest of them and the problem Hillary Clinton has, which is what David

Cameron and Tony Blair had, is baked out all the same. They are good

politicians generally. Somebody like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and

Donald Trump appealed to those who are fed up with politicians.

Disenfranchisement is so great in whole swathes of the country that I

am scared how they are going to vote. We do not know how they will

boat. It is the same as here, it will hit as in the chin. Only 100

days. September the 26th is the first presidential debate, that will

be a right ding-dong. How do you prepare Hillary Clinton for that?

I thought this was a joke rape story, JK Rowling casts a new spell.

This is the Harry Potter play, the next instalment, people say it has

been brilliantly written. I am a JK Rowling super fan. I have been in

different parts of the world when her books have come out and coming

off an aeroplane I would go straight to the book store and by hobo. I am

so happy. Changing a story from a book to a screen or a play is very

different and difficult and for it to be well received, I am so proud

of her and her shoes are fantastic! There is something in the plotline

about shoes with a wing on. And she is wearing a ring with a snake on it

which is the slogan for a slithering house. You must be a fan. It is five

and half hours which is the length of a Wagner opera. I could sit

through a five and half hour Wagner opera, but I do not know if the kid

is good. I do not know if the parents are ready to sit through

that, it is an incredibly long time. Some kids were queueing up and some

sleep overnight for the JK Rowling books and you could see them in

King's Cross station as well. Have you see Die Zeit Procom envelope?

They will be OK, if it is well written, she will have them. The

appeal is it is a great story, the idea of magic and wizards and it is

about good and evil and all those great things about good and evil.

She immerses you in a world, we are immersed in a world that we could

not even possibly imagine. That is the attraction of Game Of Thrones,

new words and you concepts and that is fantastic. On that note we

believe it there. There is a look at the papers at 10:30pm and 11:30pm

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