16/10/2016

Download Subtitles

Transcript

:00:16. > :00:18.Hello, and welcome to our Sunday morning edition of The Papers.

:00:19. > :00:20.With me are the journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

:00:21. > :00:22.and Dave Wooding, political editor of The Sun On Sunday.

:00:23. > :00:29.The Sunday Telegraph leads on disquiet among military chiefs

:00:30. > :00:33.at a secret criminal investigation into British troops accused

:00:34. > :00:35.of mistreating two Iraqis, themselves believed to be

:00:36. > :00:37.responsible for murdering two British soldiers 13 years ago.

:00:38. > :00:46.The Sunday Times publishes a hitherto unseen article written

:00:47. > :00:49.by Boris Johnson on why the UK should remain in the EU.

:00:50. > :00:52.The paper says it was written two days before the now

:00:53. > :00:57.Foreign Secretary came out in favour of Brexit.

:00:58. > :01:02.The Observer splashes on criticism of the Prime Minister's so-called

:01:03. > :01:04.obsession with grammars by the head Ofsted.

:01:05. > :01:06.The Express warns that thousands of chemists will close if spending

:01:07. > :01:09.cuts due to be announced this week go ahead.

:01:10. > :01:12.The Mail On Sunday gives its front page over to the SAS soldier who's

:01:13. > :01:14.facing murder charges after admitting shooting dead two

:01:15. > :01:17.or three fatally wounded Iraqis during combat.

:01:18. > :01:23.Let's begin with the Sunday Times. We thought we knew that Boris

:01:24. > :01:26.Johnson had written an article saying Britain should stay in Europe

:01:27. > :01:31.for coming out for exactly the opposite. Now that we have seen a

:01:32. > :01:38.bit, what do you make of it? We knew that he had written two, 14, one

:01:39. > :01:46.against. In no way, he is not like Donald Trump, but there is a kind of

:01:47. > :01:52.escaped man's fate that he has, so whatever he does he will always be

:01:53. > :01:57.adored. Because this is ridiculous, that two days after penning a very

:01:58. > :02:01.strong, his columns are always very strong, robust, enthusiastic, you

:02:02. > :02:06.can see his hair, and two days later he is going the opposite way. How do

:02:07. > :02:10.you trust this man to be a Secretary of State? It is an interesting

:02:11. > :02:17.question, here he is talking about Syria today, as the Foreign

:02:18. > :02:20.Minister, and he was in two minds about the biggest decision of our

:02:21. > :02:23.lifetime. It rekindles the thought of back to the day when this all

:02:24. > :02:27.happened, I was covering this story and it all happened over that

:02:28. > :02:31.weekend. On the Friday we were led to believe you would be supporting

:02:32. > :02:35.David Cameron and his people were telling us on the Saturday morning,

:02:36. > :02:39.he still hasn't made up his mind, he is going to decide on Monday

:02:40. > :02:46.morning. I called it and said he would back Brexit on the Sunday

:02:47. > :02:48.morning and he came out on Sunday afternoon and said he was. What is

:02:49. > :02:54.interesting about this piece as well, he argues it saying the

:02:55. > :02:58.economic shock, the new calls for Scottish independence, and Russians

:02:59. > :03:01.getting aggressive... Not the Marmite on the shelves! But

:03:02. > :03:08.everything else he got right. I love the phrase he talks about David

:03:09. > :03:12.Cameron coming back with a deal would be like Hercules, typical

:03:13. > :03:20.Boris! But it was of course entirely, entirely about Boris. That

:03:21. > :03:25.is the thing. He changes mind for reasons of ambition? I think he

:03:26. > :03:30.continues to have ambitions to be Prime Minister of this country.

:03:31. > :03:35.Sorry, but I laughed. It is totally unprincipled, actually. It is to do

:03:36. > :03:38.with Boris. He says that he wrote both articles as an intellectual

:03:39. > :03:43.exercise in putting down his thoughts and helping him to decide

:03:44. > :03:48.what he would like. I have to say that this piece doesn't really show

:03:49. > :03:52.a lot of enthusiasm for Remain, it concludes, yes, folks, the deal is a

:03:53. > :04:14.bit of a good but it contains the germ of something really

:04:15. > :04:17.good. I will muffle my disappointment and

:04:18. > :04:19.back the Prime Minister. So it is not a ringing endorsement. But the

:04:20. > :04:22.EU referendum was not a surprise and he has been in front line politics

:04:23. > :04:25.for years as well as front line journalism, so it is not as if he

:04:26. > :04:28.suddenly had to make up his mind about it, he could have made up his

:04:29. > :04:31.mind any time in the previous ten years because we knew we were moving

:04:32. > :04:34.in this direction. Also, how does Cameron feel? However you think of

:04:35. > :04:36.him, and a bit of me misses him at the moment, I really do, Mrs

:04:37. > :04:42.liberalism, but he was Boris Witten, seemingly doing this term. It also

:04:43. > :04:47.says in an article that he wanted to punch Michael Gove! Nobody could

:04:48. > :04:51.blame him for that! Moving on! The front page of the Observer, a story

:04:52. > :04:55.which will run and run for a long time, Ofsted's cheap saying Theresa

:04:56. > :05:07.May is obsessed with grammars, the school plan will hit standards for

:05:08. > :05:12.most, and is... There is a lot by Michael Wilshaw, it is quite a

:05:13. > :05:17.thoughtful analysis, quite a few weeks after the announcement at

:05:18. > :05:21.party conference, and he is right, he is right. Theresa May's two

:05:22. > :05:30.announcement on education were nothing other than giving legitimacy

:05:31. > :05:36.to totally are totally divided country. Grammars are divisive and

:05:37. > :05:40.she wants to expand the faith school sector as well. Has she never been

:05:41. > :05:46.to Northern Ireland? Has she never seen what this does to young people?

:05:47. > :05:50.Generation after generation? I think this is a really important response,

:05:51. > :05:56.and it is not political, it is actually very thoughtful. But it has

:05:57. > :06:00.huge political ramifications, and you could say when Theresa May made

:06:01. > :06:06.that speech, some people said, this is moving onto Ukip's territory, she

:06:07. > :06:10.is trying to see them off, you could have been arguing this for a long

:06:11. > :06:13.time, whatever the merits of grammars or otherwise. They are

:06:14. > :06:17.popular among parents in areas where they want them, and I think where

:06:18. > :06:21.they went wrong in the presentation of this, she is not returning to a

:06:22. > :06:26.grammar school system, she is moving the law which bans new grammar

:06:27. > :06:31.schools from being set up in areas, there are about 160 at the moment,

:06:32. > :06:37.so there will not abolish them, nor will they bring them all back. What

:06:38. > :06:41.I think is more interesting in this, Sir Michael Wilshaw addresses what

:06:42. > :06:46.she isn't doing, talks about the skills gap. A very interesting

:06:47. > :06:51.point. Vocational training is really poor in this country and there are a

:06:52. > :06:56.large number of pupils who need that training. And I also think that

:06:57. > :07:01.turning polytechnics, some of which were brilliant, into universities

:07:02. > :07:05.was just a really silly idea. But we are in a country, unlike Germany,

:07:06. > :07:13.where the class system looks down on the vocational education, and until

:07:14. > :07:25.we can change that, until we admire our plumbers in the same way that we

:07:26. > :07:29.admired journalists, said... Do we?! Hundreds of thousands of young kids

:07:30. > :07:33.will tell you do want to be journalists, because they know. This

:07:34. > :07:36.is linked in a way to immigration, why do we need Polish plumbers,

:07:37. > :07:40.because we don't have enough British plumbers. One of the reasons people

:07:41. > :07:43.come here is because they have skills, we have a skills gap. There

:07:44. > :07:50.is a big gap in the education system. If we had grammar schools

:07:51. > :07:53.for purely top academic kids, technical schools and a selection of

:07:54. > :07:56.four or five different types of schools that catered for the needs,

:07:57. > :08:03.more or less tailor-made to the kids' needs, that might be a better

:08:04. > :08:07.system than a two tear... We have to get rid of some of the snobbishness.

:08:08. > :08:12.But I don't know whether, at the age of 11 or 12, a child's potential has

:08:13. > :08:19.been reached and he or she can be defined. Some are late developers.

:08:20. > :08:23.We have to change the whole of our society before this can work but it

:08:24. > :08:27.is a really important piece. Let's move on to the Labour Party, which

:08:28. > :08:30.we haven't talked about for at least 15 minutes. Corbyn accused of

:08:31. > :08:35.creating a safe space for anti-Semites. This is very damning

:08:36. > :08:40.because the report suggests that actually the Labour Leader has been

:08:41. > :08:43.at best ineffective and incompetent in dealing with anti-Semitism within

:08:44. > :08:53.the party among a small number of people with very vile views. Yes,

:08:54. > :08:57.there were two Labour MPs in this committee, Chuka Umunna and David

:08:58. > :09:08.Winick were there, and I'm sure it does need to be taken seriously.

:09:09. > :09:12.Where I do disagree with the kind of going for Shami Chakrabarti, who

:09:13. > :09:16.wrote the report, and in a sense going for Corbyn, I feel a bit

:09:17. > :09:21.uneasy about it because increasingly I have to say whenever I write on

:09:22. > :09:24.Israel I am accused of anti-Semitism. It has become much

:09:25. > :09:31.worse in the last two or three years than ever before, ever, ever, and

:09:32. > :09:34.you can't mix those two. So I think, I do totally believe that the

:09:35. > :09:48.committee was being fair, but at the same time the way certainly the

:09:49. > :09:50.press has covered it, which is kind of billing for Shami Chakrabarti,

:09:51. > :09:52.who is criticised... But it does look a bit odd to produce an

:09:53. > :09:55.independent report and then suddenly go to the House of Lords, that looks

:09:56. > :10:00.very odd? And the other thing the report mentions, they ask Shami

:10:01. > :10:03.Chakrabarti to explain when she was first offered the peerage, and she

:10:04. > :10:06.refused to answer those questions to the committee, which leaves a cloud

:10:07. > :10:10.hanging over the whole question of why she was offered a peerage, why

:10:11. > :10:15.she produced a report which cleared Labour of any blame for the

:10:16. > :10:18.pernicious anti-Semitism. I have known Shami Chakrabarti for a very

:10:19. > :10:24.long time, I just don't believe she is capable of that kind of very

:10:25. > :10:29.British kind of corruption. But if you won't talk about taking the

:10:30. > :10:32.peerage, it looks bad. It looks bad, but I don't believe some of the

:10:33. > :10:37.accusations are fair. But the big story here, that is part, but the

:10:38. > :10:46.big stories Jeremy Corbyn's alleged weakness in getting to grips with

:10:47. > :10:50.something. Which is true. The phrase they use is failing to tackle the

:10:51. > :10:55.Bishop forms of anti-Semitism in the party, allowing a six space within

:10:56. > :11:00.Labour for anti-Semites too strong. We have seen on the Internet, they

:11:01. > :11:05.now use this phrase, as the report points out, Zionists, which has

:11:06. > :11:08.become a euphemism for Jew hating, effectively. The lines have been

:11:09. > :11:12.blurred between criticising the state of Israel and criticising

:11:13. > :11:19.Jews. It is blurred and we need to become more clear.

:11:20. > :11:25.The Sun On Sunday, page 14, not good enough, Theresa. Why did you do this

:11:26. > :11:31.to the nice lady with that nice shoes?! At least this article is not

:11:32. > :11:37.about the shoes, because it is Lord Bell, a close adviser as we know to

:11:38. > :11:43.Margaret Thatcher, and plans for Brexit, fail, grammar school row,

:11:44. > :11:48.fail, U-turn over Hinkley Point, fail, too timid to doctors, fail.

:11:49. > :11:51.This is somebody who has served the Conservative Party but does not

:11:52. > :11:56.think much of the new leadership after 100 days. Pretty much saying

:11:57. > :12:00.her 100 days in the job on Friday is not Margaret Thatcher, some will say

:12:01. > :12:04.that is a good thing! One of the things he says is that she is trying

:12:05. > :12:08.with this Britain that works for everybody, her mantle, trying to

:12:09. > :12:20.please everybody but may end up please nobody. She is trying to

:12:21. > :12:22.seize the middle ground, he thinks she looks more middle-of-the-road.

:12:23. > :12:25.The two main criticisms is that she is not outspoken enough. If she came

:12:26. > :12:27.out and explained her policies, like grammar schools and Brexit, people

:12:28. > :12:30.may go along with her, but she is keeping a lid on everything which is

:12:31. > :12:33.creating a vacuum in which people like Yasmin and I fill it with

:12:34. > :12:37.comments and pundits and opponents get involved. Mind you, Lord Bell,

:12:38. > :12:42.Margaret Thatcher is dead and gone, she is not coming back and we should

:12:43. > :12:46.stop this hankering after a period... Margaret Thatcher was not

:12:47. > :12:51.for Brexit,. Does, she never wanted to leave Europe, so why would you

:12:52. > :12:58.even think we would want to listen to Lord Bell? I was surprised that

:12:59. > :13:02.he effectively said she could communicate better, because he is a

:13:03. > :13:07.communications expert! Finally, to show we are not alone in

:13:08. > :13:10.having rather odd politics, the Independent front page, Trump's

:13:11. > :13:15.women, we meet the female Republican standing by their man. Yasmin has

:13:16. > :13:20.just come back from the United States, I don't see you in the

:13:21. > :13:27.picture! I was hugging him at the time! I suspect you weren't! But I

:13:28. > :13:30.am not blonde! Ruled out on medical grounds, not blonde enough! What do

:13:31. > :13:35.you make of the women who stand by Donald Trump after what we have

:13:36. > :13:40.heard? I know, it does make me wonder, what does he have to do?

:13:41. > :13:50.What does he have to do... Don't suggest something, please! This man

:13:51. > :13:54.cannot beat the leader of, I don't think it is the greatest nation in

:13:55. > :13:57.the world any more, but certainly the most economically powerful,

:13:58. > :14:10.militarily powerful nation in the world. I cannot explain it. But then

:14:11. > :14:15.I think, for example during Brexit, the low nations became very

:14:16. > :14:19.anti-immigration, and I can't explain that either. I don't

:14:20. > :14:23.understand, but it is happening. Maybe it is women who like the rough

:14:24. > :14:27.guy, I don't know. An American friend pointed out to me that under

:14:28. > :14:32.general employment laws in the United States, if he were to apply

:14:33. > :14:35.for the job as, I don't know, a janitor or somebody working in a

:14:36. > :14:38.supermarket, he possibly wouldn't get the job if some of these

:14:39. > :14:44.allegations were known about somebody looking for a very low paid

:14:45. > :14:49.job. Yes, I think a lot of people will go in there holding their

:14:50. > :14:53.noses. He is doing so well partly because of the dislike of Hillary

:14:54. > :14:59.Clinton. She doesn't appeal to people either. That is the key,

:15:00. > :15:02.isn't it? I think November D8, most people who vote, many millions of

:15:03. > :15:06.people will be holding their noses when they put the cross in the box.

:15:07. > :15:09.I met a lot of young people because I was doing a lecture tour at

:15:10. > :15:12.universities, and they are utterly depressed about this because they

:15:13. > :15:16.are very civilised about these values, they have grown up thinking

:15:17. > :15:26.this is wrong. They don't like either candidate? They are just very

:15:27. > :15:29.ashamed of what Trump represents. It was interesting, someone from

:15:30. > :15:33.Republican families but they feel a sense of shame. It is surprisingly

:15:34. > :15:37.you seem to be right that many people will vote holding their noses

:15:38. > :15:40.but the nation which produced John F Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, whatever you

:15:41. > :15:45.think of their politics on either side they were great figures, and

:15:46. > :15:49.they have two people that nobody is particularly keen on except those

:15:50. > :15:55.close to them. There are some areas, I think Florida was one, where they

:15:56. > :16:02.are neck and neck. But his popularity has fallen in the last

:16:03. > :16:06.two or three weeks. I believe if you can't fall out of love, if you were

:16:07. > :16:10.ever in love with Donald Trump, after the stuff we have heard, then

:16:11. > :16:14.nothing is going to convince you, so I think his vote will be quite hard,

:16:15. > :16:18.with the people who still support him now. We will see. Thank you both

:16:19. > :16:22.very much. Our thanks to Yasmin and date.

:16:23. > :16:26.Just a reminder, we take a look at tomorrows front pages every