22/01/2017 The Papers

That is all your sports are now. Now it is time for The Papers.

Hello and welcome to our review of the Sunday morning papers.

With me are the journalist Yasmin Alibhai Brown

and the Political Commentator James Millar.

The Sunday Express leads with news of Theresa May's upcoming meeting

The global protests against the new president makes

The Mail on Sunday claims the Prime Minister is set to use her

meeting with President Trump to tell him to stop insulting women.

While the Sunday Telegraph says the president is planning a new deal

with Britain to reduce trade barriers and reach

The Sunday Times leads on a story that Downing Street covered up

a nuclear weapons mishap which apparently led to a Trident

missile veering off course during a test firing near Florida

and heading towards the United States.

So, let us get started. We will stop the Sunday express. Theresa May is

my Maggie. The Prime Minister will be the first world leader to meet

the president. The relationship is expected to be as close as Margaret

Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. A lack of imagination. Theresa May and a

right wing American president. It will be like Reagan and Maggie all

over again. It really does suggest a lack of imagination. This is not

Ronald Reagan and this is not Maggie. Clearly different people. I

think I might end up missing Margaret Thatcher by the time this

period is over. Honestly! That would be a first. Would be. Listening to

Theresa May's speech I thought, my God, she is hard right in some ways,

which Margaret Thatcher never dared to be quite that way. She wasn't so

in your face. But one of the things in this story, it's all about

wanting to go to the palace! He is like a little boy, isn't he. He

wants a bigger party, a big reception. More than Obama had. This

is where the Queen will do the nation's business and will welcome

him, whether it is Buckingham Palace, golf at Saint Andrews or

whatever. The Queen will fly the flag for Britain. She always does,

which is nothing in a way. Publicly it will be very level and all the

rest of it. The question is will the rest of them meet with him? Prince

Charles is a champion of climate change. Donald Trump does not

believe in it. It is off the White House agenda. No, he said it doesn't

exist. It is not happening, you know? It is a plot by China. It will

be an interesting meeting. Let us move on. I was struck by the Daily

Mail headline. Cut out your sexist chat, Mr President. First of all, I

don't know how much of it is too much imagination or wishful thinking

or whatever, but I don't know if she can. If she does, good. But do you

really think that the first meeting, and they will curtail to him because

of this trade deal, that she is going to say that? I doubt it. I

hope so. If you are a grown-up place with a bully who is offensive to

women, she should walk into the room and so, please don't do that. Can I

point out, he got half the women's Bob. That is why I am fascinated by

the headline. The mail on Sunday is not a champion of women's rights,

shall we say, as a title. But it does have a lot of women readers, so

they clearly think the readers are offended by Trump's sexist insults.

Whereas as you say, a lot of women in America when so offended that

they couldn't bring themselves to vote for him. I'm intrigued by the

fact that the Daily Mail thinks that the readers, if they work in

America, would be Trump voters. That is very interesting. Also, the mail

on Sunday is a very different paper from the Daily Mail. The mail on

Sunday was four remain and the Daily Mail was for Brexit. Maybe they have

a different place they are coming from. And I suppose we will hear

this tired phrase about the special relationship, which every British

diplomat who has worked in Washington can't stand. There is a

special relationship. We have to be quite careful about how we use that

phrase. But Theresa May will be the first foreign leader to meet him on

Friday, we now know. It is a koo. Mr Farage will take the credit for it.

I think the British ambassador in Washington might take the credit. He

will get that within the diplomatic service. And Theresa May's team went

over a few weeks ago. Beyond this, we have the Sunday Telegraph who

have the substance of what we think might go on. Trump's new Deal for

Britain. President's teamwork on deal, despite global protest. A deal

to reduce barriers between British and American banks. A working group

to identify barriers to trade and a joint statement on defence. But the

context has got to beat America first, hasn't it? It is. That's a

striking thing about his inauguration speech, that if any

other nation thinks that he cares at all about anybody else, I don't know

what they are thinking. And there is also this small problem that we are

still in the EU, so we still can't go around signing agreements until

we are out. Or even formally discuss agreements. It is against the rules,

but honestly this man doesn't understand anything about

international relations and how the whole world works. But a warm

personal relationship, if that is what Theresa May can establish, is

important? What we have seen over the last few days suggests Trump

might be absolutely crazy. He is still a bit of a mystery. Is he

crackers or is it a big plan to distract people with one thing

whilst something else is going on? Theresa May, whatever you think of

her politics, is a grown-up. She is a very serious person. To have a

grown-up men him who has his ear and can possibly have some control over

him... She is a woman. Him dancing with his wife. His wife seem to be

curling away. So Theresa May, don't dance with him. He is not Ed Balls,

in terms of the dancing! In so many ways he is not Ed Balls. I think

another interesting point over the last few days is this sensitivity to

things which other people might think are less interesting. Like the

size of the inauguration crowds. We have seen the pictures, but we are

now told that it was the most viewed inauguration in history. Maybe on

TV, but the crowds look thinner. He hates it. He is a bully in

everywhere, but if anyone criticises him what he thinks he has achieved,

then there is this real anger that erupts out of him. They are not

able, I mean they have controlled messages for long enough, but we may

be entering a time when there is proper coverage of what this man is

and people are less scared of his tweets and his bullying. But the

White House press spokesman has made it clear that they will hold the

media to account. This is what I mean about is it all part of a plan?

Quite clearly the crowd was not as big as previous crowds. He said it

was. Is it because he is mad, which is a worry because he has the

nuclear codes, or does he want us to worry about the crowd was he is

trashing Obamacare behind the scenes. He wants to control

everything, including the story and that is what we now have ahead of

us. It is a plan. So you're talking about the crowd instead of talking

about Obamacare. No, talking up the crowd. That is crazy. There are

millions of Americans who distrust the so-called mainstream media. They

don't regard it as reflecting the views. They look at Donald Trump's

tweets and think that it reflects their views. I have a problem with

the term mainstream media. And we have two admit, the mainstream

media, we hate each other because we are all competitive. Sometimes! It

doesn't really matter in a way because the bottom line is, there

were only so many people there at Trump's inauguration. It doesn't

matter who is reporting it, it is a fact! In one breath he said what he

said about Muslims when he was campaigning. And then the next day

he got up and said, I like Muslims, they are good people. Some of my

best friends... I think he even use that term. He said he didn't mock a

reporter with disabilities. Yes you do, we saw it. The Observer talks

about the protests. Does it change anything at all? It is important

because if we are not going to let us get into the situation of a new

kind of neofascism, one way or another, individually or as

collectives, we have to resist or at least be cut because otherwise I

don't know what is going to happen to be world. The whole world, not

just the United States. Remember, this happened during the Iraq war.

On one day the world came out. They could not stop the war, but nobody

has ever forgotten that in one of the reasons Blair ended up when he

did was because of that coming out against the war. So it is important.

How do you see James? As one who was on the march in London yesterday, I

don't know how much it achieves, but it does make you feel better being

amongst like-minded people. I was struck by the number of men who were

either on the tube on the sidelines of the module are saying exactly

that in an aggressive way. Why are you doing this, it won't change

anything, your ridiculous. I shouldn't be surprised by it, but I

was. No, it's not going to change the fact Trump is president, but it

sends out some sort of message, either to him to like-minded people

that you not alone will stop that there is hope if the lee-macro. --

that there is hope. But he is being skint. More people turned out for

the protest marches than his inauguration. And that will really

affect him. It's a strange story. They've reported on the American

march and not the British one. At the top of the front page of the

paper be leader line, this summarises absolutely clearly what

many of us feel has happened. Let's move on to the Sunday Times. They

have an exclusive. A really good story. House covered up Trident

fiasco. -- number ten. There was no nuclear tipped on it, but it clearly

malfunction. The head of all of this has said it is safer we know what we

are doing, but we will never know if it happened and how it happens, I

don't think. I think the contrast with the Observer, that is a story.

It is exclusive. Some people will be reporting tomorrow and the next day

because the Commons want to know what were wrong. The protest were

reported on the story. I thought one of the most interesting stories was

about 10% of people not owning a single book. Would you make of that?

I believe it and I find it terribly depressing, especially as now

libraries are closing down, you know? I just find it really sad that

there are people, I know people, I have got some rich friends who have

artificial books. They look like books? They look like leather bound

books, but they are not, so that is where we are. I am suspicious of it.

It might be fake news. It is a PR survey will stop if it is true, as

you say, the worst thing is if people don't have books, you can't

go around to the house and judge them on what they read. People have

e-readers on the trainer. He has got an e-reader, what is he reading? Is

it something dodgy? I'm talking to an American -- I remember talking to

an American teacher and she said that they determine how well a child

is going to do based on if there are books in the house. That is an

important determinant. I helped a young child to read. She had a

typical home life. The first time I gave her a book, she was six and she

did not know which side to open. It was very sad. But she did learn and

within three months she was reading fluently. It's just the opportunity.

Does it matter that much these days with e-readers? You can read books

online. Are we terribly old-fashioned? I am glad we are

old-fashioned. I am in favour of newspapers as well, something you

can pick up and read, but the kids are not necessarily reading, they

are reading something else. I do think you can give a child be hungry

Caterpillar on an e-reader. Most kids started with comics. There is

only BB note left. Dandy went online a few years ago. I don't know is a

simple answer. Not ideal for a pundit to say that. We will leave it

there. That is it. And a reminder, we take a look at the front pages

every evening, here on BBC News.