05/02/2017 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look at what the the papers

With me are journalist James Rampton and Dave Wooding,

political editor for The Sun on Sunday.

Good to have the birds looking through the papers with us. Let's

have a look at the front pages. The front page of

the Sunday Telegraph. The paper leads on the Government's

?60 million investigation into historic allegations of abuse

in Iraq, the paper says it understands that MPs are due

to conclude that it's 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 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 that 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, Let's talk about the former

Archbishop of Canterbury defending Donald Trump, Donald Trump again in

the news in the last few minutes of course because a court in the United

States has put a block again on his appeal on the travel ban, a federal

appeals court denying the Justice Department's request for a

reinstatement of the travel ban. But the former Archbishop of Canterbury

saying critics have been too hysterical. Yes, I think this is to

terrific extort -- terrific story from the Sunday express, he said

critics have had an hysterical overreaction and it is

characteristic of those who consider themselves progressive to reserve

condemnation for America and ignore much greater evildoers. I think that

is an interesting line to take, also the fact that Trump said he would

give priority to Christian migrants from some of the Middle Eastern

countries, that has played well with Cary, but another religious leader,

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, has said Tory political leadership does not

play the fear card and that is a really good line, that when we are

in the grip of what seems to be a constitutional crisis in the US,

this backwards and forwards between the different courts, and the fear

of what Trump is going to do, protest everywhere, I think it is

scary and don't think it is an hysterical overreaction to what the

leader of the free world could do. I think what Mr Carey is doing here is

trying to calm down the hyperbole, people are using the word fascist,

let's get it straight from a user to fascist, he is democratically

elected, and he is not a dictator either because the courts are

holding him to account. Although he was criticised for criticising the

judge went against him. The so-called Judge! Some people in

America saying that is undermining the independence of the American

judiciary. The judiciary not quite as independent as ours because they

are politically appointed, we the same business with the Brexit boat

when some members of Government criticised the media as well for

criticising... What George Carey is saying is, let's just calm down the

language little bit, yes he is not an ideal president, but there are

worse people around. He recalls how, when he was Archbishop of

Canterbury, he was asked to supper with some rather odious people like

Robert Mugabe, he mentions North Korea, Sudan, Assad, other people...

But we are talking about the leader of the free world here so we should

not put him in the same bracket as those people? Absolutely not but

there is a greater point here, people taking to the streets about

Donald Trump tend to be people of the left, you don't see them taking

to the street about the president of Hungary who was criticised and built

a wall of his own against immigrants, and rehab Slovakia,

similar outspoken... But we are just a few days into the Trump presidency

and we have this legal battle starting to unravel on this travel

ban between the president and the courts. What strikes me is how

cataclysmic it appears, after only two weeks, it seems there is almost

a massive culture war going on in the US, and resonating throughout

the world. When you have Chuck Schumer, the Democrat minority

leader in the house, in tears talking about the travel ban, the

long serving Democrat saying he has served with every president since

forward and have never seen such catastrophic... Donald Trump said

they were fake tears. Yes, he said, I must consult his acting coach,

typically insulting comment in my view. This week we were talking

about going down the rabbit hole and coming out at Alice's tea party,

that is what I feel we are going through with Trump at the moment.

Lord Carey also talks about the considerable list of goods who have

served as president, some of whom railed against bids to outlaw

slavery back in the day. Well, he is not wrong there! We will not go too

far into the American history! John Adams was terrible! He wasn't,

actually! The Observer, a story about a shift

in Conservative housing policy in favour of people who rent, this is

potentially significant? Yes, as they point out in the headline it is

a break from the Thatcher homes revolution when she famously in the

1980s gave the right to buy the council house tenants. What Theresa

May seems to be focusing on with this new policy which will be

unveiled on Tuesday is generation rent, she is going to try to bring

down rent. Reading the details, not quite clear how she's going to do

it, she is having consultations with rental organisations and at the same

time trying to flood the market with more affordable rental homes to

bring down the cost of rent. In a sense, the Conservatives have been

forced into that because young people just cannot afford to buy. I

have got three daughters approaching the age when they want to leave home

and get wood of their parents! If they live in London, how can they

possibly afford the rent on starting salaries? It is impossible. It is

interesting that Theresa May is breaking the Thatcherite credo. I

remember footage of Mrs Thatcher having a cup of tea in the first --

with the first council house owners who had bought the house from the

state, said this is a massive philosophical shift, but she has got

to build 250,000 new houses a year to meet the target. Bringing down

rent is a good thing which will affect lots of people. The

underlying problem of homeownership is the number of people owning homes

has fallen dramatically since 2010, 380 2000 fewer couples with children

now own their own home and that, when we are trying to build a home

owning democracy, is important. In other European countries, home only

is not such a big deal, people take for granted the fact they will maybe

read all their lives. In Germany it is given that you will do that. We

have this old-fashioned phrase that an Englishman's home is his castle

and I think we do believe we are a property owning democracy, but it is

a market as well and if you are priced out of the market, as Theresa

May is discovering, you have to find a way around that. Enabled the

younger generation who you want to work to be able to live in

unaffordable house. Let's go to the Mail on Sunday, Nigel Farage and

some salacious allegations about him that we may not go into too much

detail on! Do we know any good libel lawyers?

He has gone from politics but haven't gone, in a sense. He is a

colourful character, always good value and everything he does is

looked at quite closely. He was asked by the Mail On Sunday a few

weeks ago whether he had left his wife and said, no, we bumble along

like any other couple, and now it appears he has a political friend, a

bit younger than him, staying in the ?4 million bachelor pad where he

spends his weekdays. He has insisted she is a friend who is staying there

purely because she has nowhere else to stay at the moment, but she was

involved in this funding issue which was dealt by the European Union some

other time. Let's move the Sunday Times, huge gaps in British

defences, all to do with defence procurement, allegations about some

of our submarines which are rather noisy, apparently, the Russians can

hear them from 100 miles away! I think this is a great story, it

makes the MoD look a bit like the comedy of errors, in a way. Russian

submarines can hear these clunky ships which sound like a box of

spanners underwater from 100 miles away, and they are costing billions

of pounds. There are also things about the front-line tanks that have

been too polite and can't fit properly into the transporters. It

is absolutely absurd that they didn't check these things before.

And after all, it is our money, isn't it, and it seems Ms blue-eyed

thing, oh, if this takes nine years and we have to reduce the size of

the AV -- the Navy or the air force, it doesn't matter, but it does, the

MoD is one of the biggest spending departments. They are staggering

sums in terms of their procurement Budget, billions and billions of

pounds. The last Labour Government ran into difficulty with the

overspend of the Budget. ?1.2 billion worth of drones which have

not been used yet because they don't work. These armoured vehicles which

are faulty. One of the people interviewed here talks about how in

submarines they were sticking with wooden wedges in the hatch to stop

it rattling so it could not be heard by Russian submarines. He said that

was a very good way of sorting the problem out! It seems very Heath

Robinson. The MoD apparently as justified these noisy ships by

saying, when they were ordered X years ago, we did not think we had

the Cold War again, but, hello, Ukraine, increasing influence in

Syria, it is very much a Cold War back on the agenda. So you think it

matters if the Russian submarines can hear our ships? I do, because

they have this new ship called the Black hole which is absolutely

terrifying, you cannot hear it coming, it is like Harry Potter and

an invisible cloak, he is there and has got you before you can see him!

I thought that was the idea of submarines?! It is, but the MoD have

not worked that out! They have, but the Russians have leapt ahead with

their technology. The Sunday Telegraph, the Government's ?60

billion investigation into those allegations of abuse in Iraq has

been unfit for purpose according to a Parliamentary inquiry.

All the expected conclusion of a Parliamentary inquiry. Does that

surprise you? No, it is the league of an inquiry due to come out

shortly, it comes in the wake of Phil Shiner, the lawyer who was

struck off last week, I think he claimed ?1.6 million in fees using

legal aid to drum up false allegations against our service men

and women serving in Iraq, and it now seems that he was being funded

to the tune of ?200,000 to his legal firm and ?110,000 I think it was

wedged to this Iraqi fixer who went around drumming up business. Some of

the British soldiers in the frame for this have spoken movingly about

the stress it has put them under, often already suffering various

kinds of post-traumatic stress anyway and then the stress of the

legal battles... Absolutely, I do think that the word witch hunt is

strong but I think it is justified in this case. Shiner launched nearly

2500 criminal complaint against troops and so far there have been no

successful prosecutions in seven years. That is an extraordinary

failure rate and it does raise questions about why the MoD actually

funded him and his agents to mount what may well be a witchhunt and has

caused very, very unnecessary degrees of stress. It is quite right

if it is going to be so strong attacking the MoD for doing that.

The press have campaigned quite happily on this, on behalf of

British soldiers, saying they have been unfairly, had a witchhunt

against them. The MoD have said that they take the way our troops behave

in theatre seriously because we are a civilised country and we look at

these things. The problem is it has dragged on too long, it has been on

an industrial scale, and like you, I have been out on these operations

and they are very professional, by and large. What some of them were

saying, I was hearing in interviews last week, that commanders make them

think twice about the decisions they make in the heat of battle, trying

to second-guess what kind of legal consequences they might face. It is

like doctors now thinking twice about taking certain procedures

because they are worried about legal action. I would say it is absolutely

right that we do take action when there is evidence of wrongdoing,

like in the Baha Moussa case, the Hotel receptionist who was beaten to

death, quite right that people were brought up about that. It is what

distinguishes us from the terrorists, the fact that we have a

rule of law that we adhere to, we don't behead people we disagree

with, they go through due process and I think it is right that we do

that, but this seems to have gone over the top. Speaking of rules,

Dave, there are certain rules to be observed will be talked about

chocolate bars, which I know is a subject close to your heart!

Apparently they are shrinking by credible event in a war on sugar?

This is the next tabloid campaign! They will cut the size of bars by

20%, I am surprised they have not blamed it on Brexit. When all is

said and done people said those who voted Brexit were fruit and nut

cases! But will they cut the cost of the bar by 20%? I think that is

unlikely. In which case we are all being diddled. I think this is a

huge scandal, the manufacturers have said, and I apologise to people

having breakfast, they have not been able to do this before because the

artificial sweeteners have an unfortunate effect on your stomach.

God forbid chocolate causes harm because it is one of the best parts

of life! I don't think we have only now, it is a little bit early! Thank

you Bob, that is The Papers for now, and we will take a look at

tomorrow's print pages every evening at 10:40pm here on BBC News.