16/01/2017 The Papers

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

With me are France 24's UK Correspondent Benedicte Paviot

We will get right down to it, there is only one game in town. Brexit.

And much to the delight of the Daily Express, Britannia rising to defend

the United Kingdom. We will get a clean break from the EU according to

the Daily Express. Mae reveals a vision for a global Britain. This is

how long-awaited speech. That is right, according to the Daily

Express their will be this clean break and Britain will reject any

watered-down departure deal. It will not be half in half out, a bit like

you cannot be half pregnant. It will be completely out of the European

Union. Apparently the Prime Minister will confirm her top objective,

Britain's future outside the EU. Many of the papers mostly agree

Britain will be a free trading nation, global, outward looking.

Funny, I thought the UK was pretty outward looking not just with the

EU. We were noticing the papers do not quite agree. They think she is

going to say the UK is pulling out of the single market and of the

European Court of Justice, but they are not quite sure. The word that

kept on coming up is nuanced. It is a French word. I don't think you

will be allowed to use any more, maybe it will be illegal. Maybe you

won't be able to stop it. Yes she will. So, basically, the single

market is finished? Well, there has been, Clive, apparently all this

briefing has been going on today. But whether all the pundits I have

that much better informed, or are going to be that much better

informed about where Theresa May really stands, remains to be seen.

We are told repeatedly by the pro-Brexit media that Theresa May is

now in a strong position. My big worry about the next few months, or

dare I say it years, is are we actually going to get proper

coverage of both sides of the negotiation? The British press, the

predominantly London based press, is overwhelmingly and understandably

perhaps at this stage interested in what the Brits are going to do. But

there are 26 other countries who will be part of this negotiation.

Let's look at the Daily Mail's FrontPage. Theresa May unveils a

bold 12 point plan for Brexit. We will break free from EU judges.

David is indicating not 100% clear that we are definitely going to be

leaving the single market, although the papers seem to suggest it. The

customs union. The customs union is still 50-50, but she has made it

clear there will be no negotiation on the free movement of people,

which means the single market is finished because Angela Merkel and

Francois Hollande will not negotiate on that either. No, and as the Daily

Mail says, its headline is we will regain control of our borders. That

was one of the very big mantras of the Brexit campaign, and break free

from EU judges. Let's open a ten second parenthesis. Wait this is

being viewed on the continent, the former Prime Minister of France,

Manuel Valls, thank you, Clive, is the President elect... We could do a

bilingual show... The president elect has given a great

psychological boost and that is very good and nice for the government,

but the point is it is being viewed on the continent, not just in

Germany, but also in France. France is already in the launching of its

presidential campaign and general election and it is very much looking

like it as if it is a war. Those are the words Manuel Valls used. It is

being used and viewed as a war against the rest of the EU. Although

the French president is not standing, which is a break with

tradition, he is saying we are perfectly capable of organising our

own relationships within the EU. This will not make the British

Government's negotiating position any easier. Donald Trump thought he

was doing us a favour. Hang on a minute, I seem to remember Boris

Johnson and Michael Gove being very critical of the intervention of the

US president called Barack Obama, in the back of the queue and all that,

and now an American president, elected admittedly, is getting

involved and it is good news. That is the world in which we live in.

Indeed, very volatile, but could it have, as seemed to be the case with

President Obama's intervention, could Donald Trump's intervention

have an effect on the other 27 states? Would it make them even more

determined? I saw the word Downing Street is perhaps in a strong

position at this moment, but their big worry is at a very early stage

these negotiations get rather acrimonious. Anybody who is seen to

be staring that up, well, we will see what the price to pay is. That

is why I am saying it will be very interesting the coverage of this

great Brexit negotiation. Are we going to hear both sides? From both

sides in the British media? Just watch the BBC and you will be fine.

The FT has a very interesting FrontPage. Hang on, we have not got

to that. I am just going to pick up on the point you made, forgive me,

and it is about how acrimonious it could become. I have not read this

in the other papers. The Prime Minister's team is very concerned

that Brexit talks scheduled to begin later this year could quickly

descend into real acrimonious rows of the UK's Brexit costs and

liabilities according to the FT. We still owe the EU 50 billion? 400

billion. 40 and 60 billion euros. That is the front page of the FT

which also makes the point, David, about the governor of the Bank of

England, Mark Carney's feelings that inflation could get out of hand and

he will have to raise interest rates. This is the whole point. The

economy has gone, it has gone pretty well since Brexit, or at least it

has not fallen off a cliff. It is resilient. That is the word. The

question is what about the medium-term, let alone the long

term? There are elements of the economy, for example levels of debt,

not just personal debt, but government debt, and it is not long

ago I seem to remember being told about the deficit and that debt was

a really big problem. I understand that it is now the figures that I

have seen seem to be getting worse and it is being parked as an issue.

Then you come to the exchange rate and at what point, if we have to put

up, we are told, with the exchange rate taking a bit of a battering

this week with perhaps after tomorrow, will it happen? It has

already happened to some extent, but what will be the price to pay for

that? What point does somebody in government start worrying? You were

making the point earlier that the economy is doing fine after the

vote, but that is because consumers are still spending and David has

made the point about potentially a bubble and so on and so forth.

Consumers are for the first time perhaps going to feel the effect of

leaving the European Union, which is a rise in inflation. That could

affect consumers to the point that they do not spend and the economy

goes in the wrong direction. That is what Mr Carney thinks. Yes, that is

interesting because it is different to what they were saying only six

months ago. I think the government has walked us up a very big mountain

today and this speech that we are all looking at and saying, let's

remember that Theresa May was a candidate to succeed and what

happened when we got Brexit is we did not get any kind of period, the

others drop out and Theresa May was Prime Minister. We saw very little

of her campaigning and she suddenly had to come in and bring in this

team and she did it really quickly with that famous speech at Downing

Street. But the fact is, tomorrow there needs to be some real meat on

the bone. On the other hand people say why should she show her assets

and strategy? Her hand. We will all be reporting on it. Very much so.

Continuing with the FT, David, Northern Ireland. James Brokenshire,

the Northern Ireland Secretary has called an election and the

power-sharing executive has crumbled. A lot of problems there

are clearly despite ten years of devolution. Those of us who have

lived with the Irish problem for all of our lives, and I had a mother

born in County Galway, my late mother, but I worked for a time in

Belfast in the 70s, and this extraordinary power-sharing

agreement when it was worked out some ten years ago, some of us

always believed it was fragile and yet fantastic, a fantastic

achievement which owed a lot to both conservative and Labour prime

ministers. But now almost with the departure of Ian Paisley, the death

of the reverend Ian Paisley, and now we see Mr McGuinness going as well,

you start to see how fragile it was. Is that model, where you bring

together two extremes, actually maybe it has served its purpose for

a decade. My worry is that this election will not necessarily change

very much. What happened if it is flipped and Sinn Fein gets the top

job? A very good point. There is a suggestion from one analyst tonight

telling me that it is highly unlikely that the DUP woodshed that

way around. There is no way they would allow themselves to be in that

position. We have to move on. The Telegraph, women treated like cattle

in maternity units. This is an absolutely terribly sad and

appalling and scary story. Once you are pregnant, that is not something

you put off. You deliver that baby one way or another. There are some

very serious things. Half women in childbirth are being completely let

down to a point that it is actually very dangerous. 50% of new mothers

have experienced what are called red flag events during labour where you

basically do not have access to painkillers, where you do not have a

midwife with you, and there is a shortage of 3500 midwives. We have

got the picture of this stunningly beautiful bride and mother who was

only 30 years old, and who had an emergency Caesarean. It does not

happen every day, but that is a tragedy for her family and it looks

like there are other really very serious, potential problems. It is

very scary for any woman who is pregnant right now. Very scary and I

fear another negative story for the NHS at a time like this. All right,

finally, the cartoon on the front page of the Telegraph says it all as

we all await Britannia's speech tomorrow. Let's see if we can bring

it up. There it is. I wish Vladimir Putin would hack into the UK's

Brexit plans and tell us what is going on. Hopefully Vladimir and the

rest of the FSB will not have to do that. Thank you very much for

joining us. Don't forget you can see the front

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