20/11/2016 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the the papers will be

Jeff With me are journalist James Rampton and Sian Griffiths,

education editor of The Sunday Times.

The Sunday Telegraph warns that the Autumn Statement may

include a tax raid on middle-class job perks -

The Observer claims Europe's leaders are to force the UK into a hard

Brexit in a bid to see off any future populist insurgencies that

might lead to the break-up of the European Union.

The Sunday Times says the Queen is to invite

Donald Trump to Windsor - with Ministers hoping

she'll help cement ties with the new American President.

The Sunday Mail claims that the Duchess of York has

launched a legal case against the owners of the now

defunct News of the World for 25 million pounds after the fake

Sheikh sting that she says destroyed her reputation.

The Sunday Mirror's top story is an interview with TV chef

Jean-Christophe Novelli, whose new-born son is very ill.

the Autumn Statement will give us some people better health checks.

What do you make both parts of that? It is clever and as you say, this

idea that is going to be a raid on job perks and classes, gym

memberships, phone contracts, a lot of companies offer those now and of

course they do cost quite a lot in lost income tax out of national

insurance contributions so I think it will be a palatable way of

getting money back for the state. Even the middle classes can afford

it. The Government have made it very clear it is very interested in

helping these managing families. Nobody will say working class any

more because you can't say that. There has also been squeezed middle.

By reading these salary sacrifice middle-class perks that a lot of

people who are insecure jobs do enjoy -- by raiding, I think that

will be quite popular and I think spending ?1.3 billion to fight

congestion on the roads and improve our real services, that's going to

be a winner. -- rail. It is very easy to say you're going to spend

all this money but as we have seen with Heathrow for example, it might

not ever happen. I live near Holloway Road in North London which

has been dug up 40 or 50 times in the past two years which creates

immense traffic chaos in itself. There's an interesting stat here

that says 100 million working days will be lost between now and 2040,

which cost 13 billion to the economy due to traffic congestion so if

there is some way of solving that alleviating it, that's got to be a

good idea because it will help everyone and help business

particularly to get from a to B. Is the Chancellor suggesting it is not

all about Brexit but it is interesting to find out the tone, a

cautious is he going to be? People will be looking at his demeanour.

They will and I think they will be other things on the odd statement.

We have a story in the Sunday Times -- Autumn Statement. We think he

might be spending millions on the expansion of grammar schools so they

are other projects I think we will be seen as the week unfolds. As

everything is about PR these days, it is very important to give an

impression of business as usual. Nigel Lawson was used to say, steady

as she goes. That's the impression Philip Hammond was to create for the

markets. They hate uncertainty. We seen the plunge of the level of the

pound after Brexit. Philip Hammond was to emphasise his own long career

in business and quell fears that things are going to become chaotic.

Let's move on to the Sunday Times. Queen to invite Trump to Windsor.

This is a well worn path but it does them to work with foreign readers.

-- tend to work. Donald Trump invited to meet the Queen as the

Government employs its secret weapon to cement ties with the American

president. One of the sources is saying that Donald Trump is a

massive Anglophile because his mum was Scottish of course and he is

really keen to meet the Queen. His late mother loved the Queen. He

says, I can't wait to meet her. My mother would be chuffed. He's now

the American president but he's also a person and meeting the Queen is a

huge thing for anybody. I don't think he has necessarily endeared

himself with the Scottish people because of the shenanigans with golf

courses. But also, to be a fly on the wall, he has made a career out

of saying the unsayable and what is he going to say to the Queen? Even

what had immense diplomatic skills, she might be taken aback. Her

Majesty will acquit herself fairly well. I did see one of the American

papers, he was asked at some point about Trump Towers and its

garishness but he said it is based on British architecture. It is more

like Louis XIV, over the top garishness. Apparently the elevator

door costs more than my house! It is incredible what he has done in terms

of extravagance. He has the opulence of the French king which led to the

French Revolution! Back to the serious world that we have to cover,

the Observer says your's leaders are to force Britain into a hard Brexit

-- Europe's leaders. It is hardly surprising that those left in the

European Union don't want to give Britain an easy ride. It is

something the EU is terrified, that if they see the British getting an

easy ride, they are in favour of cake and eating it, if they get it

both ways with free movement and immigration, then a right-wing

parties are making great strides in Europe, in Holland, in France with

Marine Le Pen. Italy is very unstable at the moment. The Prime

Minister is likely to lose a vote on the constitution in Italy next week.

All of these people might say, why do we need the EU? It would be an

almost existential threat to it if they make it easy for the Brits and

in that respect, I agree with the EU, give them a hard time and show

them it is not easy and you will have a very difficult time as the

tumbleweed blows across your economic wilderness. Nigel Farage,

he is a divisive figure in her country, surely it is right that if

Marine Le Pen wins, it would be game over for the EU, without fans and

without her policies the EU would be finished. 60 years of EU integration

would be at an end. The way things are going, it is not inconceivable.

I'm told by a great number of French experts it is impossible for her to

win. Her father was down to the last two and everybody who wasn't in the

French National front, which was 60% of the country, ganged up and

stopped her father getting in, but it does worry me that it will only

be Germany left in the EU, like a Monty Python, when the black natives

having his limbs sliced off and he says, I'm fine, I'm fine -- Black

night. -- knight. We are much more interested in Renzi's future in

Italy and the Chancellor of Germany's future and the next French

president. Those are the three largest remaining economies in the

EU once we exit, so if one of those pillars was chipped away, it would

be cataclysmic for the EU. Let's move on to the Sunday Times. Here's

a story we can all enjoy. Tony Blair. Who? He was Prime Minister,

elected three times. Oh, that one! I thought he was just a rich man who

toured around giving lectures about how brilliant he is. Tony Blair is

saying Theresa May is a lightweight and Jeremy Corbyn is a nutter, so

I'm back. It's a good headline! Sources are saying that he is

positioning himself to play a pivotal role in shaping Britain's

Brexit steel and he is scouting out a power base in Westminster and

apparently he is setting up an institute close to Whitehall and he

has already been holding talks with senior ministers and officials as he

tried to re-enter British politics -- tries. He's not impressed with

Theresa May, he says she is a lightweight and things Jeremy Corbyn

is a nutter and the Tories are screwing up Brexit, so enter Tony

Blair to sort it all out. I like the squad, he thinks there is a massive

hole in British politics he can fill. I think it is a whole lot of

people would want to put him in! A lot of us voted for him in 1987

that he was going to change everything and he did for a few

years but then the catastrophe that was Iraq destroyed his reputation

and since Chilcott, he's been trying to rehabilitate himself, but the

damage has been done, it's too late. He says he has an office he is going

to fill with 130 staff. That's as big as most medium-sized countries.

More people than we have negotiating trade deals. Exactly, because we

can't find any negotiators! His point is there's a vacuum of

leadership in British politics, that's effectively what he's saying.

And he's right, and I never thought I would say this in a million years,

but I agree with George Osborne, who is saying that all the predictions

which levers said was project fear, could come true. We don't now what

is going to happen after Brexit, to the economy or who we are going to

do trade deals with, so apparently Tony Blair has been meeting George

Osborne. It might seem like an unholy alliance, but it also might

feel like saviours who are talking sense.

Tony Blair thinks it will end in tears and bitterness, that Brexit is

a car crash that will end in a pile-up. A lot of people think that

is a reality. Leaving aside reservations about Tony Blair,

Theresa May has said if you don't want to reveal your hand, but there

are those who think she doesn't actually have a hand. I think there

is a great fear about this pending appeal in the Supreme Court. If the

campaigners win that appeal, which seems likely because it would be

very unusual for the Supreme Court to overrule a judgment about the

sovereignty of Parliament, then the Government is good to be forced to

reveal its plans, if it has any. -- going to be forced. The other part

of Tony Blair's supposed comeback is his reference to Jeremy Corbyn. It

was interesting that Prime Minister's questions this week,

given the profound changes in the world and the discontent about how

to handle Brexit, the questions about the Supreme Court and so on.

Jeremy Corbyn's first question was about the islanders, a worthy cause

but hardly top of the agenda for most people who wanted to know what

about where their country is is true. All the stories we have been

talking about this morning, Brexit is an underlying theme of all of

them and I think the uncertainty about where we are heading, it is

the major thing that is facing us and for the Leader of the Opposition

not to be addressing it at Prime Minister 's questions is wrong.

Although I am left of centre, I think Jeremy Corbyn is a potential

disaster for democracy because we need a very serious opposition to

bogus Government to account, particularly in these extremely

uncertain times when no one knows how it is going to pan out. We need

a leader who will say Theresa May, what I never you doing? -- what on

earth are you doing? Jeremy Corbyn did eventually mention Brexit and so

on, but the implication of what Tony Blair is doing, or hoping to do, is

that there is a centre ground in Britain which is not being

represented by a strong voice in Parliament or elsewhere. I can see

him as a kingmaker for a comeback by Osborne. I don't think he is totally

discredited and I wouldn't wish this at all but if the economy does crash

and burn, Osborne might be able to come back to centre stage and say,

this is what I predicted, here I am, usage. I loved your story in the

Sunday Times. Oxford students pick classism officer because

working-class students have been told, did you get that from Primark?

Michael insults, micro aggressions. -- micro insults. This is an issue

with students, the rights of the working classes. We have heard

officers to support... Do you mean the working class or the squeezed

middle? The top universities are very small proportions of

working-class students -- Oxford and Cambridge have tiny proportions, but

this is funny and serious at the same time because student unions

have defended the rights of transgender students, lesbian and

guy mag students, and now the rate of working-class students -- gay

students. It sounds silly and ridiculous and bizarre, and lots of

student unions have chav evenings where they dress up as Vicky Pollard

and get drunk and that is offensive to working-class students on campus.

The thing about Oxford is you have this huge divide between privately

educated students are incredibly wealthy and a small minority of

working-class students on bursaries and there is a real tension, a

social division. Students who come from working-class backgrounds do

have difficulties getting into universities. That is the principal

difficulty. Somebody saying, did you get your calls from Primark, on a

scale of zero to ten, that is lower for people from working-class

backgrounds. That is indicative of a whole attitude. I agree with you

that if you hope these events were you looking down your nose at

so-called chavs, it does bespeak a white attitude that somehow people

from public schools are superior and no better -- know better. The Linden

club highlights it will. -- Bullingdon. There is a massive

disparity with working-class students and universities. The

question is, why are they not going there? It is not about classism, a

classism officer is not going to solve anything. My daughter has just

left Lady Margaret hall in Oxford where they have started a scheme

which will give 12 students from disadvantaged backgrounds a year's

free tuition at Oxford at the college to see if they like it and

they are suitable for it. It not dependent on A-levels. It is done

through interview and an assessment of their potential. I think that is

a brilliant scheme and is the sort of thing that Oxford should be

doing. The final story of the day. Our future Prime Minister Ed Balls,

the most popular politician in the country? I always try to get back to

watch Ed Balls on Strictly anti-surpassed himself yesterday, he

descended from the ceiling playing a flaming piano, playing Great Balls

Of Fire and he had me in stitches. We love the Eddie the Eagle figure,

we love the person who tries. Same with John Sergeant and Ann

Widdecombe, we love the idea of someone fighting against the odds.

We love an underdog in this country. Having said that, if Tony Blair is

looking for a figurehead to take over the middle ground, who better

than this guy who is winning more votes than the Labour Party every

week? Maybe Tony Blair should go on Strictly!

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

It was a stormy wake up thanks to Angus, it is