16/10/2016 The Papers

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

With me are the journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

and Dave Wooding, political editor of The Sun On Sunday.

The Sunday Telegraph leads on disquiet among military chiefs

at a secret criminal investigation into British troops accused

of mistreating two Iraqis, themselves believed to be

responsible for murdering two British soldiers 13 years ago.

The Sunday Times publishes a hitherto unseen article written

by Boris Johnson on why the UK should remain in the EU.

The paper says it was written two days before the now

Foreign Secretary came out in favour of Brexit.

The Observer splashes on criticism of the Prime Minister's so-called

obsession with grammars by the head Ofsted.

The Express warns that thousands of chemists will close if spending

cuts due to be announced this week go ahead.

The Mail On Sunday gives its front page over to the SAS soldier who's

facing murder charges after admitting shooting dead two

or three fatally wounded Iraqis during combat.

Let's begin with the Sunday Times. We thought we knew that Boris

Johnson had written an article saying Britain should stay in Europe

for coming out for exactly the opposite. Now that we have seen a

bit, what do you make of it? We knew that he had written two, 14, one

against. In no way, he is not like Donald Trump, but there is a kind of

escaped man's fate that he has, so whatever he does he will always be

adored. Because this is ridiculous, that two days after penning a very

strong, his columns are always very strong, robust, enthusiastic, you

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

you trust this man to be a Secretary of State? It is an interesting

question, here he is talking about Syria today, as the Foreign

Minister, and he was in two minds about the biggest decision of our

lifetime. It rekindles the thought of back to the day when this all

happened, I was covering this story and it all happened over that

weekend. On the Friday we were led to believe you would be supporting

David Cameron and his people were telling us on the Saturday morning,

he still hasn't made up his mind, he is going to decide on Monday

morning. I called it and said he would back Brexit on the Sunday

morning and he came out on Sunday afternoon and said he was. What is

interesting about this piece as well, he argues it saying the

economic shock, the new calls for Scottish independence, and Russians

getting aggressive... Not the Marmite on the shelves! But

everything else he got right. I love the phrase he talks about David

Cameron coming back with a deal would be like Hercules, typical

Boris! But it was of course entirely, entirely about Boris. That

is the thing. He changes mind for reasons of ambition? I think he

continues to have ambitions to be Prime Minister of this country.

Sorry, but I laughed. It is totally unprincipled, actually. It is to do

with Boris. He says that he wrote both articles as an intellectual

exercise in putting down his thoughts and helping him to decide

what he would like. I have to say that this piece doesn't really show

a lot of enthusiasm for Remain, it concludes, yes, folks, the deal is a

bit of a good but it contains the germ of something really

good. I will muffle my disappointment and

back the Prime Minister. So it is not a ringing endorsement. But the

EU referendum was not a surprise and he has been in front line politics

for years as well as front line journalism, so it is not as if he

suddenly had to make up his mind about it, he could have made up his

mind any time in the previous ten years because we knew we were moving

in this direction. Also, how does Cameron feel? However you think of

him, and a bit of me misses him at the moment, I really do, Mrs

liberalism, but he was Boris Witten, seemingly doing this term. It also

says in an article that he wanted to punch Michael Gove! Nobody could

blame him for that! Moving on! The front page of the Observer, a story

which will run and run for a long time, Ofsted's cheap saying Theresa

May is obsessed with grammars, the school plan will hit standards for

most, and is... There is a lot by Michael Wilshaw, it is quite a

thoughtful analysis, quite a few weeks after the announcement at

party conference, and he is right, he is right. Theresa May's two

announcement on education were nothing other than giving legitimacy

to totally are totally divided country. Grammars are divisive and

she wants to expand the faith school sector as well. Has she never been

to Northern Ireland? Has she never seen what this does to young people?

Generation after generation? I think this is a really important response,

and it is not political, it is actually very thoughtful. But it has

huge political ramifications, and you could say when Theresa May made

that speech, some people said, this is moving onto Ukip's territory, she

is trying to see them off, you could have been arguing this for a long

time, whatever the merits of grammars or otherwise. They are

popular among parents in areas where they want them, and I think where

they went wrong in the presentation of this, she is not returning to a

grammar school system, she is moving the law which bans new grammar

schools from being set up in areas, there are about 160 at the moment,

so there will not abolish them, nor will they bring them all back. What

I think is more interesting in this, Sir Michael Wilshaw addresses what

she isn't doing, talks about the skills gap. A very interesting

point. Vocational training is really poor in this country and there are a

large number of pupils who need that training. And I also think that

turning polytechnics, some of which were brilliant, into universities

was just a really silly idea. But we are in a country, unlike Germany,

where the class system looks down on the vocational education, and until

we can change that, until we admire our plumbers in the same way that we

admired journalists, said... Do we?! Hundreds of thousands of young kids

will tell you do want to be journalists, because they know. This

is linked in a way to immigration, why do we need Polish plumbers,

because we don't have enough British plumbers. One of the reasons people

come here is because they have skills, we have a skills gap. There

is a big gap in the education system. If we had grammar schools

for purely top academic kids, technical schools and a selection of

four or five different types of schools that catered for the needs,

more or less tailor-made to the kids' needs, that might be a better

system than a two tear... We have to get rid of some of the snobbishness.

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

been reached and he or she can be defined. Some are late developers.

We have to change the whole of our society before this can work but it

is a really important piece. Let's move on to the Labour Party, which

we haven't talked about for at least 15 minutes. Corbyn accused of

creating a safe space for anti-Semites. This is very damning

because the report suggests that actually the Labour Leader has been

at best ineffective and incompetent in dealing with anti-Semitism within

the party among a small number of people with very vile views. Yes,

there were two Labour MPs in this committee, Chuka Umunna and David

Winick were there, and I'm sure it does need to be taken seriously.

Where I do disagree with the kind of going for Shami Chakrabarti, who

wrote the report, and in a sense going for Corbyn, I feel a bit

uneasy about it because increasingly I have to say whenever I write on

Israel I am accused of anti-Semitism. It has become much

worse in the last two or three years than ever before, ever, ever, and

you can't mix those two. So I think, I do totally believe that the

committee was being fair, but at the same time the way certainly the

press has covered it, which is kind of billing for Shami Chakrabarti,

who is criticised... But it does look a bit odd to produce an

independent report and then suddenly go to the House of Lords, that looks

very odd? And the other thing the report mentions, they ask Shami

Chakrabarti to explain when she was first offered the peerage, and she

refused to answer those questions to the committee, which leaves a cloud

hanging over the whole question of why she was offered a peerage, why

she produced a report which cleared Labour of any blame for the

pernicious anti-Semitism. I have known Shami Chakrabarti for a very

long time, I just don't believe she is capable of that kind of very

British kind of corruption. But if you won't talk about taking the

peerage, it looks bad. It looks bad, but I don't believe some of the

accusations are fair. But the big story here, that is part, but the

big stories Jeremy Corbyn's alleged weakness in getting to grips with

something. Which is true. The phrase they use is failing to tackle the

Bishop forms of anti-Semitism in the party, allowing a six space within

Labour for anti-Semites too strong. We have seen on the Internet, they

now use this phrase, as the report points out, Zionists, which has

become a euphemism for Jew hating, effectively. The lines have been

blurred between criticising the state of Israel and criticising

Jews. It is blurred and we need to become more clear.

The Sun On Sunday, page 14, not good enough, Theresa. Why did you do this

to the nice lady with that nice shoes?! At least this article is not

about the shoes, because it is Lord Bell, a close adviser as we know to

Margaret Thatcher, and plans for Brexit, fail, grammar school row,

fail, U-turn over Hinkley Point, fail, too timid to doctors, fail.

This is somebody who has served the Conservative Party but does not

think much of the new leadership after 100 days. Pretty much saying

her 100 days in the job on Friday is not Margaret Thatcher, some will say

that is a good thing! One of the things he says is that she is trying

with this Britain that works for everybody, her mantle, trying to

please everybody but may end up please nobody. She is trying to

seize the middle ground, he thinks she looks more middle-of-the-road.

The two main criticisms is that she is not outspoken enough. If she came

out and explained her policies, like grammar schools and Brexit, people

may go along with her, but she is keeping a lid on everything which is

creating a vacuum in which people like Yasmin and I fill it with

comments and pundits and opponents get involved. Mind you, Lord Bell,

Margaret Thatcher is dead and gone, she is not coming back and we should

stop this hankering after a period... Margaret Thatcher was not

for Brexit,. Does, she never wanted to leave Europe, so why would you

even think we would want to listen to Lord Bell? I was surprised that

he effectively said she could communicate better, because he is a

communications expert! Finally, to show we are not alone in

having rather odd politics, the Independent front page, Trump's

women, we meet the female Republican standing by their man. Yasmin has

just come back from the United States, I don't see you in the

picture! I was hugging him at the time! I suspect you weren't! But I

am not blonde! Ruled out on medical grounds, not blonde enough! What do

you make of the women who stand by Donald Trump after what we have

heard? I know, it does make me wonder, what does he have to do?

What does he have to do... Don't suggest something, please! This man

cannot beat the leader of, I don't think it is the greatest nation in

the world any more, but certainly the most economically powerful,

militarily powerful nation in the world. I cannot explain it. But then

I think, for example during Brexit, the low nations became very

anti-immigration, and I can't explain that either. I don't

understand, but it is happening. Maybe it is women who like the rough

guy, I don't know. An American friend pointed out to me that under

general employment laws in the United States, if he were to apply

for the job as, I don't know, a janitor or somebody working in a

supermarket, he possibly wouldn't get the job if some of these

allegations were known about somebody looking for a very low paid

job. Yes, I think a lot of people will go in there holding their

noses. He is doing so well partly because of the dislike of Hillary

Clinton. She doesn't appeal to people either. That is the key,

isn't it? I think November D8, most people who vote, many millions of

people will be holding their noses when they put the cross in the box.

I met a lot of young people because I was doing a lecture tour at

universities, and they are utterly depressed about this because they

are very civilised about these values, they have grown up thinking

this is wrong. They don't like either candidate? They are just very

ashamed of what Trump represents. It was interesting, someone from

Republican families but they feel a sense of shame. It is surprisingly

you seem to be right that many people will vote holding their noses

but the nation which produced John F Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, whatever you

think of their politics on either side they were great figures, and

they have two people that nobody is particularly keen on except those

close to them. There are some areas, I think Florida was one, where they

are neck and neck. But his popularity has fallen in the last

two or three weeks. I believe if you can't fall out of love, if you were

ever in love with Donald Trump, after the stuff we have heard, then

nothing is going to convince you, so I think his vote will be quite hard,

with the people who still support him now. We will see. Thank you both

very much. Our thanks to Yasmin and date.

Just a reminder, we take a look at tomorrows front pages every