04/02/2017 The Papers

electronic ankle tags too loosely so they could be removed.

After days of huge street protests, the Romanian government has

withdrawn a draft decree which would have reduced some

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.

The Sunday Telegraph leads on the government's

?60 million investigation into historic allegations of abuse

The paper says MPs are due to conclude that it's unfit

The Observer reports that Theresa May's Government

is going to make a major shift in housing policy,

away from promoting 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.

He's quoted in the Daily Express as hitting out at the "hysterical"

overreactions of the president's critics.

The Sunday Times has investigated what it call "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's headline is a story about the former

Ukip leader Nigel Farage, and how he is sharing a ?4 million

property in West London with his friend, Laure Ferrari,

Let's begin. First, the observer. He will have to come to Mr Trump in a

moment. The lead story, Tories break with policy to back renters. It is

breaking with the Thatcher policies, but you could also see it as Theresa

May breaking with Cameron as well. This is essentially saying that it

is now so difficult for so many families to ever get on the housing

ladder that now they should sort out the renting sector. They are trying

to do three-year guaranteed tenancies and trying to get rid of

rogue landlords and make the whole process a lot easier for so many

people, who will never own their own homes. There are many European

countries where people don't and it is not an issue. They spend a lot

less of their disposable income on renting and it makes a more mobile

workforce and in many ways you could say it is better. Indeed. But it's a

break with the past. People talk about Margaret Thatcher but it is

hardwired into Conservative policy, to make us homeowners. Absolutely.

Not long ago David Cameron addressed the party conference, talking about

trying to transform people's lives from being generation rents due

generation by and she is doing a reversal of this policy. Again, this

isn't just about raking with David Cameron on foreign policy, in

essence tearing up his views of interventionist foreign policy, so

she has done it again. Also what interesting is it really fits with

what her narrative is. This narrative about being for the many

and not the privileged few. There is an assumption, and it is something

chief of staff wrote about before getting into this post, that housing

policy was very much geared towards those with bigger incomes and that

actually goes on low and middle incomes were neglected and almost

forced into homes that great at the expense of pouring more money into

people who could go on and buy their homes. We should say this is a white

paper as well. Yes, and only part of the announcement we expect. There

will be more in the coming days up until Tuesday. And they say that

instead of insisting that there is affordable housing for sale, they

will make it affordable houses to rent and long-term. Staying on the

front page of the Observer. They have the story about Trump slamming

the judge who blocked his... So-called Trump! Yes, I am just

quoting the headline, but you are right! He uses his usual strong

language to describe this judge. Absolutely. This story has been

going for seven days and was breaking last Saturday night with

this ban are coming into force, that it would impact Conservative MPs, Mo

Farah, etc, and overnight we get the news that basically a judge has

launched a bid to overturn it, it has been successful and Trump is not

very happy about it to say the least and he has done his usual wave of

tweets at this so-called judge. He is very bombastic. There are people

who suggest that the way he does this is that he puts it out there so

that actually... But his position is actually further back. Talking about

tweets, we've got a few more of them that have been coming in through the

day. This is going back to the judge. He avoids a personal insult

but does say this. Because the ban was lifted by a judge, many bad and

dangerous people may be coming into our country. A terrible decision.

There's another one. What is our country coming to when a judge can

alter homeland security and anyone even with bad intentions can come

into the US? It is a different sort of politics. It is. And his use of

expressions like "bad dudes"... You might say he speaks the language of

ordinary people. Look at the support he has had from people who support

him anyway. His ratings are skyhigh with them. He is doing stuff and

getting on with it. And quickly. Just what they want. Trump is

obviously involved in this, but this is the Independent. The digital

newspaper these days. Many is not Thatcher, we won't get US trade

deal, Ken Clarke! -- Theresa May is not Thatcher. Interesting isn't it?

Yes. As you say, not a huge surprise, and I suppose all he is

saying is echoing what everyone is saying, but this is not something

that we can fix in a day. It would be lovely if we could do, as many

people would love, it would be great to say, right, let's sit round the

table and sort this out and do it then. That's not how things happen,

sadly. The other interesting thing about this, he was Margaret

Thatcher's Chancellor and his saying they will never enjoy the kind of

relationship that Maggi and Regan did. With the handholding and the

inappropriate touching in this election should, as others have

said, he is... Allegedly has a fear of slopes and steps! This whole

thing is about this relationship and he has echoed this in conversations

with her and apparently this was a story we had a couple of weeks ago

and he refers to her as "my Maggie". The problem is, the chemistry, we

were all sitting there and looking at the chemistry, he is quite brash

and loud and forceful and she is a kind of vicar's daughter and how it

this will interplay is fascinating. Do you think he has done this...

America is important to us and she is just getting on with trying to

build a new relationship. It was in fortunate in some way in that she

had the successful in some ways, and everything was going smoothly,

except for that question by the BBC which was suggested to destroy the

relationship. -- unfortunate. But largely it went off without a hitch

and then of course she is on the plane overnight, in fact I was there

with her, and of course she introduces this executive order

which throws the whole world, in terms of its borders, into chaos.

The Sunday express front page. Your name is on this story. The

Archbishop of Canterbury called for the world to give Donald Trump a

chance. Why is he saying this? It is interesting because normally

religious figures don't comment on political stories. Obviously he is

the former Archbishop of Canterbury which gives him more leveraged to

make these kinds of interventions. What is not saying is that Trump is

brilliant and indefensible, but what he is saying is that ultimately we

can't say that he is the worst politician in the world. There are

certainly others like Robert Mugabe who could claim that role more than

him. But ultimately there has been an hysterical outpourings could

really undermined, as you were saying, the special relationship,

which in this prose Brexit scenario is very important to us. And he has

also applauded Trump's decision to put persecuted Christians at the

front... This to the former Archbishop? Yes, absolutely. And

inside is about what Trump might give the queen on the state visit

that is coming up, which I'm sure the queen is looking forward to. Of

course we don't know when it is happening. But if it does he is

going to give her a lovely Western saddle, when he isn't busy tweeting

and doing selfies and he doesn't just want to give them something

that will be gathering dust on the mantelpiece. This is what a source

says. He wants to give them something that he knows they will

enjoy and use. Of course a keen horse woman. He is going to in grave

on one side... On one side the Queen's seal and the other side with

the President's Cup group three. He is big gestures. I was sent to

Washington twice in the same week, so have established a number of

Trump's contacts. Apparently this is genuine and something he is already

planning, because there is a suggestion that this state visit

could be in June. They obviously like giving presents because of

course Trump's wife gave a blue bag to Mrs Obama. But also the presence

aren't always that great. President Obama gave the Queen something like

an iPad Manu with some show tunes on it. As we were talking about big

gestures, we have just heard President Trump will attend the G7

summit in Sicily. That's a White House statement that has just come

out. That will be an interesting occasion! That is a beautiful area.

It is. But the thought of Mr Trump with all of those European

leaders... I like that Theresa May suggested she could possibly be a

go-between between Europe and Trump. They say, it's OK, we will do it

through Twitter. You were raising earlier than I thought that he might

tweet from inside Windsor Castle or wherever he will be. Yes, Buckingham

Palace, or wherever, from inside the coach. I'm sure we will see every

step of the way very close up. Moving on. The Sunday Times, serious

business, the huge gap in UK defences. Penny? There are a lot of

things in here. Pick out a couple. This is the former MoD director who

is talking about the gaping problems in our defences. For example, they

say these are ?1 billion apiece and could be detected and disrupted for

up to 100 miles because they sound like a box of spammers. Have new

light armoured vehicles, too big to fit into the main transport aircraft

without being partly dismantled and then they have to be accompanied by

a crane. Then we have the reconnaissance drones. They cost 1.2

Ilium pounds and are still not up to real service because of the

technical difficulties. So it's a litany of things that have gone

wrong, where he is essentially suggesting that people aren't

looking ahead and working out what these things... IT hasn't spoken to

the paper. This has been dug out by the Sunday Times. And if you see the

byline, it isn't the defence editor who would have been plugging away at

this for some time to come up with a dossier of offences that have

happened and of course it is very topical at the moment, given the

fact that we are finding ourselves in this new unknown age. What's

America going to do? What's happening with Iran and Russia? So

making sure that we are up to our capabilities and we can sort of send

off any aggressive force that comes towards us and that's quite

important. At this isn't new. We've seen this kind of thing happened

before with aircraft carriers being ordered to carry aircraft and the

Trident missile heading towards America rather than the Middle East.

It quickly, the Sunday Times. -- very quickly. Cuts of 20%. This is

because they don't want to be named and shamed because of the amount of

sugar in chocolate bars, so instead of reducing the amount of sugar they

have to meet government targets for reducing sugar, they will make them

smaller. -- and having to meet. They say the American food giant behind

Cadbury will take a bite out of it. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

My children are addicted to chocolate and the idea of me trying

to give them a carrot as a treat probably wouldn't go down so well.

So if someone has taken a choice out of my hands... Do you not think you

would just buy two? Well we won't be able to buy carrots any more anyway!

The vegie shortage! Anyway, thank you very much.

Coming up next, it's the Film Review.