30/10/2016 The Papers

cricket, another wicket gone for England, Gary Ballance for five,

England are 124-3. Now on BBC Sport, it is Gavin with the Papers.

Hello and welcome to our look ahead to the papers.

With me are Josie Cox from the Wall Street Journal

and the Independent's economics editor, Ben Chu.

The Observer leads with reaction to the FBI reviewing its investigation

into Hillary Clinton's emails, with senior Democrats accusing

the bureau's head of compromising its political neutrality.

That story's also featured on the front of the Sunday Times,

which also claims that Hillary Clinton's lead

The Mail on Sunday criticises the BBC for a show

which it says is available on the CBBC website.

A novel solution for the country's housing crisis

is unveiled on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph -

it says the Government is to offer help to build

While the People carries an interview with the mother

of murdered toddler Jamie Bulger, who says she's living in fear

Let's begin with what is clearly one of the biggest stories anywhere in

the world, Hillary at war with FBI as a lead slumps, that is the Sunday

Times' take on that, and the Observer has angry Democrats cry

fowl with new probe into Clinton, what you make of this and the timing

of it? The timing is very interesting, only ten or 11 days to

go until the election, and this is very much in line with what we have

seen so far in this campaign, very messy. I cannot run any campaign

similar to this one being quite as messy and quite as full of lewd

comments and insults being thrown around. This underscores what I have

been saying for a while, this will not be about people voting for who

they want to be the next president but people voting for who they do

not want to be the next president, voting for someone to avoid the

other person coming into power. And some people possibly do not want

either of them, it has not been, what shall we say, given the

standard of American politics over the last 200 years, some of the

greatest thinkers, Jefferson and Roosevelt, this has not been a great

election. Absolutely, and it hones in on the prospect of this being a

lame-duck presidency, because, you know, the polls still predict that

Hillary will take the lead on the day. The league is slimming down,

but if she does get in, she will no doubt have to battle those trust

problems. She has been criticised for being very closed, not very

emotional, not being very trustworthy, not being able to be

read by the public. That is a very good point, because actually whoever

wins is going to face continuing investigations and scandals. We know

Donald Trump faces a lawsuit about Trump University, which has

allegedly defrauded people, we have heard about allegations of sexual

misconduct and other things. And now these e-mails, and we do not even

know what is in them. There will be huge damage done by this election,

not only the way it has been fought, but the way the whole democratic

system has been seen to be much messier and much dirtier than we

would like. I think it is really interesting, this latest episode, in

the sense that what we have had, the smears based on no evidence at all,

the FBI director has not come out with anything that proves

anything... Eat hasn't even looked at them. And yet Trump is saying she

is corrupt, this is worse than Watergate, and yet somehow it is

Hillary who seems to be on the ropes over this episode, when actually the

disgrace is that he is trying and finding her guilty based on no

evidence whatsoever, which is really in keeping with a lot of the

campaign so far. The flavour of both the Observer and the Sunday Times,

Hillary at war with the FBI, it does suggest that if she does become

president, well, let's put it this way, the head of the FBI might not

have a long career in that position, who knows? Because he has done

something which is against the advice of the Attorney General, as

far as one can establish. Absolutely, and the other thing

about this story is that it once again highlights Hillary Clinton's

highlights with her close political aide, the separated wife of Anthony

Weiner, the disgraced congressman, who was involved in all those

horrible sexting scandals. No doubt this is more ambition for Donald

Trump's rhetoric. The thing about that, it is not necessarily the fact

that matter in politics, it is the fact that, emotionally, there is

something funny going on with the Hillary Clinton campaign, that is

what many people take out of its - why has she not put all of these

allegations to bed? Whether there is any equivalence between what she is

accused of and what Donald Trump is accused of is another matter. I

think this false equivalence is a very legitimate point, legitimate

for the Hillary Clinton campaign and her supporters to bring it up,

because as you rightly say, what is the evidence here? It is an FBI

director, a former member of the Republican Party, saying, we are

investigating, going against all precedent, against the advice of the

Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, and then on the Trump side, with the

sexual abuse claims, women coming forward to testify, actual evidence

for people to base their judgment on. I think Josie is right, a lot of

people are weighing it up on emotion, but if they looked at the

facts, it is pretty clear which way the balance would come out. A former

director, Rudi Giuliani, a very prominent Trump supporter. Now this

is interesting, Putin's trueblue Tory friends, it talks of various

people, Russia's state funded apparatus of soft power is targeting

British politics, it names the director of the Bruges Group group,

whose first president was Margaret Thatcher. It talks quite a bit about

the Bruges Group, what do you make of that? If you were an MP, or if

you were in politics, you would be expected to engage with Putin,

wouldn't you? Absolutely, but I cannot think we can denied that it

makes for a good story, the way that it is presented, Putin has all these

political connotations, he is a very controversial figure, so the

headline is how Putin pulls the strings. So that is once again

portraying him as this kind of puppet character, which makes for a

good image. I think it is hard to make... It is hard to understand how

influential this story is actually going to be, how much it really

matters. I am not particularly familiar with these figures who are

being discussed. Not exactly household names. Exactly, and it is

not really clear how these groups would be in general relations

between the UK and Russia going forward. I think what is

interesting, the background to all this is we have got Nato reinforcing

in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, extremely worried about the

rumblings in Russia, the big aircraft carrier going through the

Straits of Dover, we know what is going on in Syria, Ukraine remains a

running sore that will not go away, Russia very sensitive about it. So

that seems to be the big picture, that somehow we have got to engage

with Russia, but at what level and how? I think that is right, the

context is quite interesting, because the Bruges Group, one of

these think tanks which is accused of getting too close to the Kremlin,

was founded on the back of Margaret Thatcher's very anti-European Bruges

speech, and the indication is that this has led them into the arms of

the Kremlin, their Euro scepticism. They are so anti-Europe that they

Russian allegation that Ukraine started the Rodeo by getting too

close to Europe, that forced Russia to get involved, they want to see

Europe in the worst possible light. Although Thatcher was this great

anti-Communist Prime Minister, they were founded on the back of her

hard-line views, they have been led into this... It is difficult to

imagine that Margaret Thatcher would approve of going into occupied

eastern Ukraine, that would be rather controversial, one would have

thought, with anybody, which is the other part of the story. Absolutely,

and the nature of the trips that are being funded by Russian officials is

also very questionable. There is an extra added dimensions of political

controversy in terms of Russian anti-gay policies. I think we're

reading that Putin plays a weak hand extremely well! The Sunday

Telegraph, hard Brexit will pave the way to trading riches, this is,

again, we're about to go into the sunlit uplands of a great trade

deal, or alternatively it is all going to be a disaster. What do you

think of these stories? They are in every paper all the time. I think it

is an interesting time, because clearly there are lots of factors

which have provided momentum to the Brexit campaign recently. We had GDP

figures out, stronger than expected, and we have had other reports coming

out saying that the City of London, the UK is going to thrive under

Brexit. And of course we had the Nissan story earlier this week,

which was that Nissan had committed to build these two models in its

Sunderland plant, securing 7000 jobs, so an endorsement of

post-Brexit Britain, I suppose. So this, I think, is playing off that

momentum and just creating a sort of prospect of what could be to come.

That could be right, or it could be wrong. What basically this is is

saying we need to get out of the customs union, this is a pressure

group of the hardline Brexit crew, and they want to ginger the

Government up to get out of the customs union. They say, if we

don't, we can't make these free-trade deals with the rest of

the world, like China, South America et cetera, because in the customs

union you have to leave that to the EU. They have to get out to do those

deals, they have to get out if they want Liam Fox, the international

Trade Secretary, to have a meaningful role. This is saying,

look at what we can get, but a question over whether they could do

those amazing deals. I talked to Vince Cable this week, the former

Business Secretary, now he said his assessment of the deal to do with

Nissan, the reason they are there is that it implies we will stay within

the customs union, because if no money has changed hands, what could

be offered to a company like that? Yeah. We don't know, but it is clear

that is the way he is thinking. The logic is impeccable, apart from the

fact that he me has made it very clear that are red line is

preventing free movement, and you will not get that if you leave the

customs union, if you leave the single market. So I think his logic

is right, but the politics may it unlikely that will happen. The

question is, we have various key part of this economy we don't want

to lose - car manufacturing, financial services, all things we

want to boost, paving the way for trading riches, as the Telegraph

puts it. But you cannot keep making deals with individual sectors of the

economy, there comes a point WEC advance cannot keep doing that. And

you cannot set precedents and have double standards. That is what is so

interesting about the Nissan story, because other companies will want a

reassurance that their future will be secured. Another interesting

story in the Sunday Telegraph, prefabs to solve the housing crisis

- I do not know how many post-war prefab still exist, there must be a

few, but there were meant to be a temporary solution, and we are

talking about building 100,000. I think this is really interesting,

prefabs to solve housing crisis. The number they are talking about is

100,000, and we were talking about this before we came on. Is 100,000

going to solve a crisis? It might make a bit of a difference, but

surely the crisis is so much more widespread and so much more bigger

in magnitude. That is a very fair point, the numbers do not stand up,

if you talk about solving - it might help. 100,000 over the parliament

they are talking about, and we have a 100,000 shortfall every single

year, supply relative to demand, so Josie is right, this is not going to

solve the housing crisis. The other point is that this is an old policy,

it has been announced by Vince Cable and other ministers. They talked

about this elution quite a lot. It is not in the gift of the gunmen off

to provide this. They are not going to them themselves. -- they talked

about this solution quite a lot. It is not in the gift of the government

to provide this. It is a more intensive solution to the crisis, it

is about ginger ring up the industry to provide these. Of the Government

can grease the wheels. As you say, it may be a drop in the bucket. At

the end of the story, it says these houses are designed to last for ten

years! As we well no, that is usually beyond the length of the

government! The Sunday Times, this is a very interesting political Zou

Shiming story, ministers row back on disabled benefits curbs. I think it

is in keeping with the tenet of Theresa May's approach since she

became Prime Minister, trying to take some of the hard edges of what

the coalition did on welfare, working families, those were just

managing, as she calls them. The reforms were introduced by Labour,

hardened up by the Conservatives, getting people on employment support

allowance, getting them into the workplace, and Iain Duncan Smith had

a reform where he would try to beef up the incentives by getting into

work, but also cutting benefits for those who were deemed able to join

the workforce. And essentially what they are going to do is keep

encouraging people, remove the sanction of cutting benefits, or

cutting them back to jobseeker's allowance levels. So it is not

completely rowing back, but it is making them less harsh. Sort of

kindly, gentler initiative, I assume that is the theme. I think this is

about getting rid of the pigeonholing, it was assumed, if you

are not in work, you are on benefits. If you are in work, your

benefits will be cut, but we all know it is not like that. Different

differs abilities require different support levels, and it sounds to me

like this is more about a sliding spectrum than a pigeonhole. --

different disabilities. Many of the papers can be summed up by the Mail

on Sunday, UK boss of Typhoo warns of the disaster of leaving,

humanising what we have talked about, the opposite of the upside of

Brexit, the wholesale cost of tea might go up 50%, he is worried about

it. We have had Marmitegate, now it is a storm in a teacup - the

economics are simple, if prices go up, the prices in the shops will go

up. There will be an effect, so people who import products like tea,

they do not grow it on the slopes of North Yorkshire or Wigan! But it is

an interesting point, Apple have raised the prices of their

computers, saying the same things, so this may be the story of the next

year. Economic is indeed very simple, it was Marmite last week,

tea this week, it could be chocolate, meet or god knows what

next week. Tea is attacking us where it hurts! I am afraid I am a bit of

an addict, I suspect much of Britain is the same thing. But the other

point is that there will be other economic advantages, things will

settle down, who knows what will happen to the euro? It is true, and

if the pound does not keep falling forever, this will be a one-off

shock, may be very big, but it will not be going on for ever. This will

hurt people, and it may make people think about the economic costs and

benefits of Brexit, like you say, it brings it down to a household level.

Petrol is the other one that is very sensitive, obviously it is to not

naked in dollars, and the oil price has gone up as well, so we may be

getting sensitive about billing of the car. -- the -- denominated. I

believe Opec is still really the big driver there, that will be for the

longer term, that will be more relevant than FX.

That's it for The Papers, thanks to Josie Cox and Ben Chu.

Just a reminder we take a look at tomorrow's front pages every

Good morning. Fog has been the main hazards of this morning, and it will

be tomorrow morning as well, this was sent in