04/02/2017 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the The Papers will be

With me are the broadcaster Penny Smith and Caroline Wheeler,

political editor of the Sunday Express.

Let's take a look at some of the front pages.

The front page of the Sunday Telegraph leads on the government's

?60 million investigation into historic allegations

The paper says MPs are due to report that it's unfit for purpose.

The Observer reports that Theresa May's government

is going to make a major shift in housing policy - away from trying

to promote home ownership - and towards better deals for people

Donald Trump appears to have found a new ally

in the shape of the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

George Carey is quoted in the Sunday Express as hitting out

at the "hysterical" overreactions of the president's critics.

The Sunday Times has investigated what it calls "deficiencies"

in defence procurement, including ships so noisy,

Russian submarines can hear them 100 miles away.

The photograph is of England player Ben Te'o celebrating victory over

Finally, the Mail on Sunday headlines that former Ukip leader

Nigel Farage is sharing a ?4 million in West London with his friend

with his friend Laure Ferrari, a French politician.

Let's begin with the papers themselves and the ones we thought

we would give people a bit of a rest from Trump to start with. We can't

avoid the man but let's start with the Observer story about the Tories

breaking with Thatcher's home policy. This is interesting, backing

renting. This is something I've been talking about for some time. In

other countries, you have a more mobile workforce if you have people

who rent, for example. This is finally an acknowledgement by the

government that is saying, for too many people, they will never own

their own homes. It is now so far out of reach that they never will so

let's try to sort out these ridiculous rents, banned some of the

fees that are charged by letting agents, try to sort out rogue

landlords and make it so that renting is not a terrible option, so

that you don't have to spend your entire life trying to get on the

tiny, possibly broken first rung of the housing ladder. Caroline, quite

a switch when you think of conservative values and policies our

many years, certainly back to Thatcher. Exactly, and it's

interesting they cite that you because if you think back, this is

also Theresa May ripping up David Cameron's housing policy as well. We

can all think back to the Conservative Party conference, his

last conference speech in 2015, and he said to them that we should

switch from generation rent to generation buying Ulster this is a

complete reversal of this. Basically acknowledging that this policy was

putting low income families, and denying them access to decent

quality homes at the expense of basically ploughing all this money

into this unattainable dream of people owning their own home. And

then trying to make it so that instead of having affordable housing

for sale, that it's affordable housing to rent. And this is part of

the housing white Paper. It is only part of the announcement because

that is how Downing Street rolls, we will get a taste of this and that on

Tuesday, we will get more. It is likely she will also make some

announcements about building more homes because of course, there is a

housing such -- housing shortage but this is a taster of the direction of

travel. On we go, the Sunday express, Caroline, great to have you

because your name is on the story. It is. George Carey, the former

Archbishop of Canterbury, has blasted Trump's predicts. Is he in

favour of Donald Trump? He's not saying that he thinks everything

Donald Trump does is brilliant, he's quite cautious in his language but

he does say there has been an overreaction and he is basically

saying that as we have had today in London, thousands of protesters on

the streets, he has said that you have not seen that level of hysteria

around other politicians that he would say were far worse, like

Robert Mugabe, or President Assad. But one of the interesting things I

find from his particular intervention is he welcomes one

particular proposal that Donald Trump has introduced, which is his

refugee policy, where he is actively deciding to put Christians or

persecuted Christian minorities at the front of the queue. This is a

story we particularly have looked at on numerous occasions, in fact, with

George Carey as well, in that there has been this tendency, in Britain

as well and Prince Charles has spoken about this, that Christian

minorities are pushed to the back of the queue and actually discriminated

against in terms of when asylum seekers are being brought into the

country. Terrible things happening, whole communities being obliterated.

Absolutely. It is intriguing, Penny, that here is a man coming up with

this kind of... The Archbishop of Canterbury, a former one, anyway,

surprising? I suppose his point is that he's there, he's been elected

and sworn in. Let's get on with it. He's democratically elected, no

matter what you think about this alternative truth or anything else

but the point is, he is there and we have to get on with it. I noticed

some other things you have inside the paper which are rather fun, that

Donald Trump is going to give the Queen, if he comes on the famous

state visit, he will give her a saddle. She will like that, a

horsewoman. Or Western saddle for the Queen and also the grandchildren

but not just a saddle but one which is engraved with his seal and hers

as a symbol of the special relationship. I tell you what, we

will see at first because he will be tweeting direct from the palace. To

be honest, that is what they are concerned about, from what the royal

editor says. There are concerns about private conversations being

tweeted and so forth and as you can imagine, the monarchy does not take

kindly to that sort of thing. I can do is to imagine him taking a selfie

in the state carriage! -- just imagine him. Don't rule anything

out. It will definitely happen. It might. The mail on Sunday has a

story about Nigel Farage's live in Lady and the ?400,000 Ukip... And

all sort of things but really it's about the French politician, Laure

Ferrari, sharing a property with Nigel Farage. What interests me

about this, whatever people say about these things, the fascination

with Nigel Farage is a bit like the one with Trump. It is odd, we were

chatting and we were saying that when you consider how the party,

Ukip, he is a former Ukip leader, he does not lead a party. They've only

got one MP. Years, and yet, and how much he gets mentioned is huge. --

yes, and yet. There are many quotes and I'm going to put my glasses on

because we need to make this absolutely right. Mr Farage last

night concerned that Miss Ferrari,... You are really going for

this! I can just about understand you. She has been living in his

Chelsea house but he said it was ridiculous to suggest they were

having an affair. He said he knew her well and was helping her out

with, to say. They met a decade ago when she was a waitress and he got a

job in the European Parliament. She is the head of a think tank accused

of breaking rules by diverging public money to Ukip and Mr Farage

was quick to say they were allegations, and we should make this

clear. These are allegations. He denies it absolutely. He denied

everything and says he's not answering ludicrous questions like

as he ever had dinner with her. She is someone he has worked with and

known for a long time and she wanted summer to stay for a week that would

not cost any money. He said it was a working Russian ship, inflated how

you will. There is this fascination with him, isn't there, as a

political editor, you must have to cover the story a lot. We do and

there is this fascination and one wonders whether it is because some

of the other politicians have slightly colourful lives and

certainly when I was out with Nigel Farage in Washington. When you say

you were out with him? You mean you were accompanying him. I went to

cover the inauguration and was with Nigel Farage and his entourage for

quite a considerable number of days while we were out there and attended

his party at the top of the beautiful hotel which overlooks the

White House. But he is a figure which is not only fascinating to us

on this side of the pond but over there but in a very different way.

Over there, they treat him like a rock star, they want to talk to him

whereas over here, I think his relationship with the public is very

divided. And they know his name? They know him as Mr Brexit and much

more than Theresa May. Let's move on because we don't have a lot of time.

The Sunday Times front page, a deadly serious story, gaps in UK

defences. Tell us what the gaps are that have been identified. They have

put together a precis of some of these astonishing bungles that are

happening with our defence equipment. One of which suggests

that there are warships that so noisy, Russian submarines can hear

them from 100 miles away. Drones costing ?1 billion that have not

entered front-line service for 12 years after being ordered and light

tanks that are too big to fit into the troop support aircraft. This is

a litany of things that has gone on with our equipment. There are others

we can allude to, before, do you remember the aircraft carrier that

was commissioned for absolutely tonnes of money and then it turned

out it could never have aircraft? Even the Trident missile misfiring.

I was going to say that. But they say that is what happens. The fact

this destroyer sounds like a box of spammers under water and you can

hear it from 100 miles away, you just... It does beggar belief. Do we

know how they are getting the information? Rear Admiral Chris

Parry, a former MoD director of operations. Someone to listen to,

then. He is saying that it is bundling. He says the Navy

mistakenly overlooked suppressing noise of the destroyed after the

Cold War ended because the threat from Russian submarines had

diminished. And it is important, this kind of story because we are at

the moment in this kind of untested time with the new president and a

new relationship with the president and the Kremlin and we don't know

how it is going to fall out and beans being mentioned about Iran

again. We need to know that our defence agreement. -- things being

mentioned. Who wants to have a quick go at the vegetable story? This is

the story. The Telegraph front pages talking about eBay. A huge vegetable

shortage because of terrible weather in Spain, when they had a load of

rain followed by frost which meant they could not replant. Lettuces, we

know that already, they are being rationed and various vegetables are

being rationed and now they are being seen on eBay for gigantic sums

of money. Were you aware of the shortage? I don't know if you'd been

round the supermarket. Reds with three children, I buy vegetables

every day and feed them to them but it makes you think that those of us

who have allotments, if anyone does, could be coining it in. I'm going to

go and look in my vegetable patch right now! We have to leave it

there. Thank you for joining us. You'll both be back at 11:30pm

for another look at the stories