02/01/2017 The Papers

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

With me are Ben Chu - Economics and Business Editor

of the Independent and Caroline Wheeler,

political editor of the Sunday Express.

that children are eating half their recommended daily

allowance before they even leave for school in the morning.

The Istanbul terror attack is the Independent's top story.

It's interviewed an IS defector who says the militant group

The same lead for the Eye - which carries a striking image

of the funeral of one of the victims.

The Times leads with the rail price hike.

It says fares are now six times higher than those in Europe

and that one study says commuters now pay 27 pence for every minute

A similar page one story for the Metro, which reports claims

that thousands of commuters will now be spending 14% of their incomes

could be facing 20 years in jail over a plot to scam drug smugglers

It says the last remaining survivor of the RAF's 'Dambusters' raid

during World War II should get a gong.

And the Daily Mail focuses on foreign aid.

It claims Pakistanis have been queueing at cashpoints to use cards

loaded with British taxpayers' money.

Well, we will come to that story in a moment that we will begin with the

warning about sugar for parents but really it is about the children. A

new story to strike guilt and fear into the heart of households across

the land about what their children eat for breakfast. A remarkable

statistic. The average child is eating the equivalent of three sugar

cube is a day at breakfast alone which as a parent myself this is a

shocking figure and I start thinking about what my own child is eating.

All those sweet pastries and frosted flakes. They have a lot of sugar in

them and I am certainly going to be looking at the advice and see what I

want to know really what are the healthy breakfast options? There are

so many of these things that have sugar in them and you want to know

what they should be eating and what you should be offering and what is

out there. We were trying to think earlier about what our children eat

for breakfast and what is the healthiest option. We both came up

with porridge has been the one but then we both admitted that our

children like a dollop of honey or a little bit of sugar or something.

One viewer has tweeted to say that we should be doing it with a pinch

of salt. But as the Scottish way. I don't see my children will like

that. Your children don't mind? No, they don't. Then they have a honey

on top, however. Bad parent! It is the traditional way of making it.

The thing that got me is that the minute you think your giving your

child serial so as a parent you're instantly think that's the real is a

healthy start to the day. The other day I made scramble on toast and

they were, they were very happy with that. You don't have to give serial,

do you? But it is to do with time in the morning. We are desperately

trying to get to work on time and drop children off at various places

for the rest of the dates so you think about quick easy convenience

solutions. What upsets me the most is that, you write, we think that's

the real is healthy and we know that certain cereals are loaded with

sugar than we give children them. It is actually the other ones. You

check the back of the box and you see that they have three teaspoons

of sugar in every portion. The other thing that worries me is the fruit

juice. You know, the idea that we are starting off with a glass of

fruit juice which is one of their five a day but actually the guide

lines say they should act to have one portion of fruit juice a day

because it is full of sugar and I would imagine that those three sugar

cubes at breakfast, a couple of those are already in a glass of

orange apple juice or the hot chocolate, or whatever it is we give

them. It is interesting that they say that recent data suggests that a

war on sugar has now led to a slump in purchases of fruit and vegetable.

It is kind of going against the healthy message. Anyway so that is

the Telegraph. Let us turn out to the Times talking about rail fares.

This is the time of year when people go back to work, purchase a new

season ticket and find out that longer hold the price has risen

again. This has been happening year in and year out free long time now.

2.3% is the latest rise which is still more than the rate of

inflation and this is only for regulated fares as well. Many of the

other fares out there, they are not capped by the government, they have

increased by even more. One fare in Swansea has increased by 20%.

Imagine using VAT and not having a season ticket? That is serious

money. The biggest context is that the story is saying that rail fares

are far more expensive than they are on the continent, something like 14%

of the salary of an average UK worker compared to between two and

4% in France and Germany which is a bit of a spurious statistic because

they have a different funding mechanism. The government has made a

clear decision that they want more investment and more use of the

railway to be paid for directly by passengers which is why the fares

increased so much. In the continent comes from the general taxpayer

which is why the average fee will be less for passengers but they will

pay for it in other ways. The real issue is how efficient are our

railways and I think people have a problem with that. It is not coming

at the best time, is it? We have strikes and people are not happy.

Delays, overcrowding and the timing could not be worse. The other thing

we need to put into context is that many people have not had a pay rise

and so pay rises have been totally outflanked by these rail rises which

basically means that people are paying more money to go to work than

they were last year directly came into these companies, and are not

getting to work anyway! We saw over Christmas, you know, plenty of

coverage given to the Southern rail strike and people saying that they

were losing their jobs because they could not get to work because there

were no trains to get them there. It is going to be a doom and misery

started the year, particularly the strike is ongoing. And the strike

start tomorrow on the platforms because we understand that there

will be a range of protests that have been organised by action for

rail. They will be taking place at over 100 stations throughout the day

tomorrow including London and Manchester. Cardiff, Bristol etc.

The main protest will be at Manchester Piccadilly in King's

Cross. A flash mob organised by the campaign for better transport. Do

you really think that will get the message across? I think it will

infuriated commuters. The first day back to work and we roll returning

after a lengthy festive break, and given the weather holidays have

fallen this year. The first day back to work, increased their rises,

rubbish services combined with further disruption caused by these

groups that claim to be, that support to be supporting the

transport system,. Jeremy Corbyn possibly not seen the funny side of

McClusky either. Prepared to stand down. A 24% you think he is

justified in issuing this warning? Here is justified and it is

interesting that he is doing it because McClusky has always been the

supportive union figure, the one who was always gone into battle for

Jeremy Corbyn. Where did the Love go? You could argue that he has seen

the writing on the wall at last. The polls are quite bad and it is time

to put pressure on Corbyn to start thinking about an exit strategy if

things do not improve. McClusky is in the midst of his own battle as

the boss of The Unite union and the interpretation a lot of people have

put on it is that this is a way of sparring with his main rival for

that job and a proxy war over the Labour leadership to try and defeat

his rival. That sounds quite plausible to me. You also need to

think about that at the end of the day, the unions have a certain

degree of cloud. Given their proximity to the leadership and the

fact that they are pouring in vast sums of money into the pockets of

individual MPs their power is only as much as the party is able to

achieve at the general election. You want to be a fair party that is able

to get into power and polls have shown that 24%, the lowest support

ratings since July 1983 which was the time of Michael foot. The

writing is on the wall but as you say, I think there is a lot of

politicking going on there. His main rival in this contest is Jarrod

Coyne who was a moderate himself and will be sold off, you know, pursuing

an agenda which is not quite so pro- Jeremy Corbyn. He has to choose a

different tack, I think, in order to show up the support he needs. People

looking at the front page of the Daily Mail tomorrow morning and

thinking of how much they spent over Christmas. Goodness. Well, the mail

has a long-standing campaign against this foreign aid budget that the UK

has. We will one of the few countries that spent directly on

foreign aid. They think it is a terrible use of resources and

especially the time austerity. This is the latest instalment of their

forceful and angry campaign. They say that people in Pakistan are

being issued with cash cards so they can get foreign aid money directly

rather than as food or whatever. A terrible scandal that shows why we

should stop spending so much money. Willis talking earlier about how

there is very little context given. Who are these people? And what basis

are they being given this money? And without that information it is

impossible to make any sort of decision about whether or not this

is money well spent will not. And we've just spent all this money, you

make the comparison and we are feeling the pinch and all this money

is going to these people living abroad literally into their pockets.

The interesting thing that they say is that the amount giving in direct

cash has gone up and there have been concerns around corruption around

the scheme. It is also right to put it that this is historic. This has

been going on for five years. However the new International

developments that Terry has been very very clear that actually she is

aware of what is going on and she is taking her time to review the entire

aid budget and to make sure that basically the British taxpayer is

getting some kind of value for money and that actually aid should not

just be about a bottomless pit it should also be about as spending in

a sensible way that gives us something back in terms of, you

know, the national interest. Some of the money has been going in to help

us with counterterrorism, for example. If you look at the area

that this money is in, and think about what was going on in

Afghanistan and winning the hearts and minds, etc, etc. But, also, I

think we do need to know more. It is a knee-jerk reaction to say that

this is an abhorrent situation but on the base of it, yes there will be

many people who are annoyed that this is going on and I think without

further information it is a dangerous sort of conclusion to draw

that this is ultimately a bad thing that is happening. More detail

inside the paper, hopefully. Quickly, the Daily Express. An extra

incentive to stick to your health. The paper as saying that it will

help you defeat dementia particularly if you have type 2

diabetes or are obese. Does that make you think that you need to

stick at it this year? We were talking earlier about fitness and

health. Any message of this kind of nature at this time of year is

always going to try and move readers, definitely. I think many

people rethink that they need to keep in shape, keep down their fat

consumption etc. It is good for us. But I, kinda, a regular will

reminder is always warranted although I do prefer the headlines

that say chocolate make you smarter or that drinking wine is good for

you. In a way that contradict themselves because they say keep

feet to defeat dementia and then they have a think yourself thin diet

plan. Just do the metalwork, don't worry about exercise. -- just do the

mental work. That is it for the papers. Coming up next week a sports

day.