27/11/2016 The Papers

fights. That is all the sport. In the cricket, India are 174-5 and on

BBC News Gavin Esler has The Papers. Welcome to our view of the Sunday

papers. With me I Josie Delap, home affairs correspondent for The

Economist, and Dave Wooding, political editor for The Sun on

Sunday. The Dell Castro is on front page of the Sunday Times, saying he

was the scourge of the west. Fidel Castro is also on the front

page of The Observer saying The Sunday Mirror has an interview

with another alleged abuse victim of the former football

coach Barry Bennell. The Mail On Sunday claims police

were warned by their own expert that allegations of child abuse

against the former Prime Minister Ted Heath shouldn't

be taken seriously. Theresa May will announce

a crackdown on executive pay this week, an approach previously

advocated by Ed Miliband. And The Sun On Sunday says

Princess Beatrice cut Ed Sheeran's face with a sword while

attempting to knight And The Sun On Sunday says

Princess Beatrice cut Ed Sheeran's That is a cracking headline. I'm

sorry. I must take that more seriously! We will get to that in

the end. Let's begin with Castro, or Fidel, depending on how you view

him. There are a different takes on all of the newspapers. Grief and

some celebration in the Observer, but they have pieces talking about

the revolutionary leader. And the Sunday Times says he is the scourge

of the west and has pieces saying he is a monster, which pretty much sums

it up. Absolutely. The coverage reflects the contrast in statements

we have had from different leaders. Jeremy Corbyn, Donald Trump, Barack

Obama, responding to this figure, depending however you judge him, he

was a giant of the 20th century. You can't deny the fact that he was a

leader that everyone will remember. Whether you see him as a scourge,

revolutionary, a monster as some people describe him, that will vary

enormously. Some of the left have come out today saying he did a lot

to improve health care and education, but don't forget he took

the world to the brink of World War when he invited Khruschev, the then

Soviet leader, to make a pre-emptive strike on the USA. When he took over

in 1959, there were about 500 to 600 executions. Thousands of people fled

Cuba. In the 1980s, around 1984 or 1985, there were all these Cubans

who had fled to Florida, and it was something like we have seen

recently, the migration crisis from North Africa to Europe. I was really

struck by the coverage and the tone yesterday. I spoke to a lot of

people about him as well and broadly on the left, there is the

idealisation of this romantic hero, very good-looking guy, all very sexy

and so on. Very much downplaying the very serious abuses that took place

in Cuba. And on the right, you have the idea that he is a complete

monster, from people and organisations who tended to support

Bina J in Chile, and in Nicaragua, and Bautista in Cuba himself. --

Pinochet will. I think most people will see it less black and white.

Absolutely. He bought Cuba its liberation but at the cost of its

liberty. He did provide health care and education in a way that we

hadn't seen. Much better than other places in Latin America and the

United States, you might say. But poverty. Yes, a controlled economy

that didn't work for the people of Cuba, and phenomenal human rights

abuses. To paint him as a hero or a villain, that doesn't really capture

the kind of person and leader that he was. We can agree that he was a

massive figure. This is a tiny island, quite unobscured place in

the past. He put it on the map. Maybe not for the best reasons. I

think what you say about the tribal politics element of this, people on

the right hero worship, turning a blind eye to the bad things they do,

and the same happens with people on the left. What I found interesting

here with the assassination attempts. 638! And the CIA came up

with some fantastic ruses, exploding cigars. Poisoned milkshakes! They

were going to poison his diving gear, hoping his beard would fall

out. They made an oyster shell for the bottom of the sea when he went

scuba-diving with some toxins in to kill him and failed every time.

There is a great quote in the Observer, looking at the

disproportionate effect he had. A US diplomat a few years ago. Cuba seems

to have the same effect on American administrations that a full moon has

on a werewolf. That extraordinary level of frustration and I think

anger and embarrassment for America, of having so close this resolutely

Communist, Revolutionary regime, which did not respond to the

sanctions that America imposed on it for decades, and he just held in

there. That is a good point. When Obama changed things, and he clearly

did, he pointed out that we have been doing the same thing for 50

years and it hasn't worked, which is a statement of the blindingly

obvious. And the question now is what Donald Trump will do when he

takes office in January. He was very critical of President Obama

'soverjoyed to Cuba and his relaxing of the restrictions on Cuba. --

overtures. But without the figure of Castro, he will feel a bit more open

to that relationship. And he won Florida. A remarkable coincidence

given the Cuban-Americans who hate Castro. Let's move on because there

are some interesting domestic stories. The Telegraph. Theresa May

carries on Labour's business pay crackdown. This goes to the heart of

another big theme in politics. Theresa May in business and how well

she is getting on with other business leaders. This reminds me of

something Ed Miliband was talking about in the last election only a

year ago, putting curbs on fat cat pay, as we like to call it in the

red top media. This has been reawakened by the scandal involving

Sir Philip Green and the closure of BHS and the pensions crisis there.

What Theresa May is saying actually is that she wants to put workers

almost in control, giving them a say in the pay packages of senior

executives. And much more transparency about what goes on. I

wonder whether some die-hard Conservatives in the party will see

this as stifling aspiration that is anti-business, which is what the

Conservative Party wants it to be, and on the other hand it is really

addressing a problem which Mrs May wants to do, building a Britain that

works for everyone. We keep hearing that phrase. Is she using socialism?

I think this probably is socialism. The Germans do something very

similar and that is across the board, including very right wing

parties like Angela Merkel. It brings a degree of harmony, people

say, to boardrooms, if you have that. Ride. I think the real problem

with this kind of policy is that one of the questions will be the extent

to which it has an impact on working people and their salaries and the

extent to which this is more about her showing himself to be on the

side of the JAMs, the people she was talking about in the run up to the

Autumn Statement. Her relationship with big business is convicted at

the moment because they have different positions on Brexit and

what kind Brexit Britain should pursue, and big businesses are not

keen on the hard Brexit they are leaning towards. But at the heart of

this, I forget the most recent figures, but basically if you look

at average pay and what the CEO earned in the 60s it was a multiple

of 30 or 40 and now it is several hundred times, and people are asking

whether TV executives are any better now than 30 years ago. Better paid!

-- chief executives. Absolutely and this is a poisonous idea that has

started to emerge after the financial crisis, when people

started to focus on pay. Forcing companies to publish the gap between

executive pay and the average pay of ordinary workers, with more

transparency. I think a lot of it is awareness. They get to the top, like

politicians are out of touch, they earn huge salaries and they forget,

they are unaware of what ordinary people think like and how it is seen

by ordinary people. Work is having a little moment to intervene might

make them think twice. -- workers having a moment. I liked this story

in The Times, which isn't surprising, also about Mrs May. The

Brexit challenge keeps her awake at night. Really! You would hope that

it would! The extraordinary complexities of Britain leaving the

EU, I am not surprised. I am surprised that she sleeps at all.

Maybe she doesn't? Indeed. It would be one thing if the Conservatives in

the government had unified approach about what they wanted from Brexit

and how they want Britain to leave the EU. You idealist! Even then it

would be an extraordinary conduct a difficult thing that would take

years. But to be trying to do this when even she has not quite worked

out exactly in what manner Britain should be leaving the EU is frankly

an impossible task. This also plays into something that many people

would think of as one of her strengths. She is known to be a hard

worker. He is known to do the work, and you know better than I, not

every politician actually does the work necessary. She spends a lot of

time... She is a serious player. She doesn't spend much time briefing the

media, giving interviews. She is probably a serious politician for

serious times. What I quite like in this is the fluffy stuff. The

leather trousers! That immediately got your attention. What is

fascinating about Theresa May, and I have known her for 18 years and I

have had many conversations with her, and you never feel like you

have got to know her very well. She is a deeply private person. I did an

interview with her in October, and this interview in the Sunday Times

Magazine seems to scratch the surface a bit more, a bit more about

her. Philip chooses all her clothes. He goes out and help her pick her

clothes. There was a lovely vignette in there. Her first wedding selfie.

She was near a wedding and somebody saw her and said, Prime Minister,

will you join the wedding party for a few minutes? And she went and

posed for video with the bride and groom and made a mini speech. Little

bits of her personality are coming out and that will do her good

because we don't really know her. That's true. Another thing this

points to is another trait of hers which people talk about, which she

is not terribly good at delegating. She likes to keep an eye on

everything that is going on, and there is a sense of her being in

control of everything. And when you are dealing with a task as mammoth

as Brexit, that isn't possible. When you are dealing with a Cabinet when

there are many opinions, delegating may not be best!

I also like this story in The Times. Bosses told to bring back Christmas.

In a week when we have been told that living standards have not gone

up for a decade, we could do with some Christmas cheer. We are being

told not to be killjoys about Christmas and don't worry about

offending other faiths. Most people I know who are Muslim or Jewish,

they are very happy to celebrate Christmas and they do it in a

different way but that is fine. This story comes back every year. There

is always somebody trying to stop you saying happy Christmas and to

say seasons greetings, or something like that. We are told that

Christmas is slipping away from its original meaning. And I think

probably, as you say, most people are happy to go along with it. It

has to be people who are not Christians who do this, make a big

fuss about it. It seems to be very sensitive people of a Christian

background who are worried about offending people. I think diversity

is probably affecting some politically correct people too much

and they think they should bend over backwards and not offend people. The

truth is that people of other faiths are not offended. If I go to India,

I will celebrate a Farley with everybody else and have a jolly good

time. -- Diwali. I think people are secure enough in their own faiths

and opinions. It is the first Sunday in advert, so we are off to a good

start. Three cheers for Christmas! Now The Sun on Sunday. Great

headline. Royal Ed banger. Beatrice cuts Ed Sheeran's face with a sword

as she tries tonight James Blunt. Which one is the gaffe? It is a

great story. Ed Sheeran has been on social media with this little gash,

and they said he fell over drunk, but it was basically a mock

knighthood ceremony verging on execution! Princess Beatrice, Prince

Andrew's daughter, she was in the world large with Ed Sheeran and

James Blunt, the other celebrity. -- in the royal lodge. And James Blunt

said he would like to be so James Blunt, Ana Beatriz said she could

sort out, grabbed the ceremonial sword, and tapped him on the

shoulder, but it was so heavy and when she waved it behind her, she

nicked Ed on the face and he needed six stitches. I bet the economist

wishes it had that story! Whether it will still have legs on Friday, we

will see! Ed Sheeran seems to be fairly content. Frankly, I think it

will be a great story for him to dine out on for 30 years, scarred by

a Princess. The royal mark of Zorro. And we have got to pay tribute to

you for the headline on page 11. Can you catch it on camera? It is about

Castro and you came up with our man in heavena. I convinced he has gone

to heaven? We were talking about it. There are plumes of smoke but that

could be from his cigar! Thank you to Dave Wooding and Josie Delap. You

can see The Papers at 10:30pm and 11:30pm tonight on the BBC News

Channel. Hello. An improving story through

the day today. It started quite grey but good spells of sunshine

developing for many areas. Sunny spells developing but we have