10/12/2016 The Papers

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

With me are Caroline Wheeler, political editor at the Sunday

Express, and Joe Watts, political editor of the Independent.

Tomorrow's front pages, starting with...

The Mail on Sunday leads with a story about former education

minister Nicky Morgan being banned from meetings in Number 10

for criticising Theresa May's choice of trousers.

The Express warns of a ?100 council tax rise.

AA Gill, very well-known TV critic and restaurant critic. The really

tragic thing about this is he was only 62 when he died. He had not

known for long that he had cancer. It was only a month ago that he let

slip he had cancer in an article he wrote. Very painful reading, reading

about the fact he had been told that the drug that could potentially save

his life was one only available privately and he laments in this

last article, which the Sunday Times published today, that he has come

from a fairly humble upbringing, this was a shock to the system and

the worst thing he has had to face in his life, the fact it was losing

a battle against cancer but also a life-saving drug was unavailable to

him and you cannot imagine that. That must be something many people

do face. He explained that stress and strain on him join the last days

of his life. And you admired his writing? When I was young, a lot of

us a university doing journalism, we would be gripped by his stuff. And

even though it had that element that divided opinion, his style really

gripped you, that is why I'm really looking forward to reading his piece

tomorrow. Quite an acerbic style. He was one of those critics that

transcended the critiques. We read his stuff to read his writing. Let's

stick with the Sunday Times. Their main story is about Brexit and

another court case. We have just had the supreme court case all week so

tell us about the other one. There are a number of court cases going

on, a couple in Ireland, the main one you have had the good fortune to

be covering all week, and this one. This is a new court case. This is

about a challenge to the idea we will either single market. And a new

development in this is that the campaigners who will press for this

court case or write to the government tomorrow to basically say

they are taking their case to the High Court in an effort to keep

Britain in the single market. The interesting thing about this court

case is this is not brought by remainders, this is brought by

Brexiteer 's. In fact, peter Wilding, the chairman of the

pressure group, has been leading the case for a smart Brexit. And another

conservative activist, who also voted to leave, it is the idea that

it is Brexiteers who also bring court cases. Do you think it will

slow the Brexit process down or has that timetable been set now? I don't

think anything is set at the moment. Things change very quickly. Before

the Supreme Court case was going on, Theresa May was going to trigger

Article 50 without consulting Parliament that was change very

quickly. She said she was still stick to the schedule she has set

up. But Article 50 is just the start of that negotiating process. There

is talk of a transitional deal. But there are going to be the court

cases and what this really shows is that every little chink in the

legislation, and it is very chunky legislation, this whole process is

full of holes, nobody knows how it will work or well it will take us,

and it was never really written in the knowledge would be used any time

soon. It is open to interpretation and that means there are lots of

angles that people can bring these cases from. This is my favourite

story tomorrow, The Mail on Sunday. Toxic texts over Theresa May's

trousers! We have these incredible decisions being made about leaving

Europe but the story that has gripped the imagination of The Mail

on Sunday is this row over Theresa May's leather trousers. This is a

pair of trousers that the Prime Minister is fond of wearing. They

cost ?995. The former Education Secretary has been rather mean about

these particular trousers, suggesting they cost too much money,

and the Prime Minister ought not be wearing this. It has precipitated

this incredible rather has ended up on the front page with this feature

link exchange of messages between Fiona hill, who is basically one of

Mrs May's chief of staff who works closely with her Downing Street, and

Mrs Morgan, who has now been unceremoniously uninvited to an

event at Downing Street. We were just looking at the story about the

Brexit court case and that shows how divisive Brexit has been at the very

top technical level and it goes right down to the trousers, at every

level! The government, the Tory party in people's homes talk about

Brexit and that is reflected in this story as well. Readers the texts

though. Let's here a flavour of these extraordinary texts. The hill

first sent this text to Alistair Burt, a former minister. So, after

Nicky Morgan made her comments about the leather trousers, Fiona Hill

said, don't bring that woman to Number 10 again, which is quite a

pointed phrasing there. Nicky Morgan got wind of this and texted back, if

you don't like something I have said or done, please tell me directly. No

man brings me to any meeting. Your team invites me. If you don't want

my views in future meetings, you need to tell them. The reply was, so

they're! It is playground stuff but it shows how he did an acrimonious

it is getting. When Nicky Morgan was in government, she had this

reputation for being nice and soft touch, but she has emerged in this

whole new Brexit world as the sort of polar opposite to Theresa May, a

fiery and hard-headed person. Trouser gate is what The Mail on

Sunday is calling it! Your paper, the express, a story about a council

tax rise. Following the Autumn Statement, there was a big Guha at

the time because what Philip Hammond did not mention was the NHS and in

particular social care, which is this major crisis that seems to be

ballooning every day, which is the councils are saying they do not have

enough money to look after the elderly and the disabled within

their care. We have the local government settlement coming up, one

of those events we all look forward to in the Westminster calendar, and

one of the things I have learnt that the government is considering is

putting up that part of council tax which George Osborne introduced to

ring fence money for social care. It is currently set at 2%. The

suggestion as it could be raised by as much as 5%, which would push

council tax bills up to 7%, which is about a ?107 increase next year. It

is one of those things where the government has got to do something

about it. My thought is that what they will do cleverly is what they

have done with the police precept, which is to put on councils and say

to them, we will give you this flexibility to raise the bills by

this amount, but you've got to make the decision about how much you will

raise it, and they would do that very quickly. This was a great trick

of the Conservative government's great devolution plan. They passed

are not supposed to councils. But they have also thrown upon them the

responsibility of making these huge cuts over the last several years.

That has put a huge burden on councils and has caused a lot of

anger amongst local residents as well. Let's return to the Sunday

Times because another interesting story they have got is about child

refugees vanishing. Some of the children brought to Britain from the

Calle jungle six weeks ago have apparently disappeared, they are

saying. Fears they have been drawn into prostitution or slavery. I

think this is very worrying. This is exactly what we were saying was

happening in the jungle, that these children had gone missing from

within the jungle. Now they are brought over to the UK and it seems

their plight here has been no better than it was over there. The

suggestion here is they may have been drawn into slavery or

prostitution and David Simons, a spokesman for the local council in

Kent, is saying that traffickers have been pursuing these young

vulnerable refugees, often via social media, for the money that

previously they had agreed to pay to the UK. These children have been

through enough. Surely, they don't deserve to come to these shores and

then find they are sucked into the same old racket? Beggar's believe

that the British authorities had not been able to keep track of them all

protect them. There were huge numbers. Join the debate in

Parliament there was an underlying assumption that when they are in

Calais, they were in a terrible state, huge danger, we would bring

them over here and look after them and they would be rehoused. But it

turns out that pretty quickly, we have lost track of the situation

over here as well and they may have been sucked back into these awful

modes of life. If that has happened, there will have to be some kind of

Parliamentary inquiry. Theresa May has led a lot of debate around the

amendment in getting those children over here in the first place. But

there has always been stories about our own children going into care in

this country and there are often statistics which suggest that

children taken from this country are going missing. So it seems to be

part of a wider problem. Care doesn't always mean care. Thank you

so much to both of you for looking through the papers as we have them.

It is still quite early and we will get more front pages in when we see

you again at half past 11 and stop that many thanks to both of you.