12/02/2017 The Papers

Cullen, on the novel for young readers, we come apart, which they

roped together. Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be With me are Caroline Frost,

entertainment editor at The Huffington Post UK,

and Tony Grew, Alongside a picture of the Duke

and Duchess of Cambridge arriving at the Baftas the Telegraph quotes

the Justice Secretary Liz Truss as saying "wicked" offenders

won't be released early in order The Express says there's fury

at a new bid to wreck Theresa May's Brexit Bill when it

goes through the House of Lords. "We all need tasers to fight

terror" is the Metro's headline following a survey

of Metropolitan Police officers suggesting two in three believe

the stun guns should be carried And alongside a picture of Emma

Stone who has taken the best actress Oscar at the Baftas:

The Guardian reports that whistle blowers face a full frontal attack

Let's begin. The Daily Telegraph, forget jail numbers, criminals will

do time, who is saying this and what is it about? This is a preview of

the speech that Liz Truss the Justice Secretary will give tomorrow

in which she is going to say in her view wicked criminals, I'm not sure

how she will define those, will spend longer behind bars. There has

always been some controversy about the fact that people get released

early as a matter of form, and that is to do with the problems we have

in the prison system, which is why I'm surprised that she is saying

she's going to be keeping people in prison longer, considering that the

prison system that she oversees is in crisis, with overcrowding under

her watch. While the Tory Right may be interested in this idea that we

will go back to a hanged and flog Tory approach to law and order, I'm

not sure that the prison system itself, it can't operate under its

current capacity, so I'm not sure where these people will be spending

their longer services. Using the word wicked, we seem to be in an era

where politicians start selling some strange things straightaway. It's

like a fairy tale. The idea of someone being innately wicked seems

to chime quite badly with the idea that they are also talking about

early interventions, nipping things in the bud, cutting things off at

the pass. Wicked is something that is totally corruptible from birth

and never to be changed, and that doesn't chime with anything I

understand. And it marks a change from David Cameron's Government's

approach to these issues, rehabilitation and preventing people

from becoming offenders, some would argue, me among them, should be the

focus of the Government's activities. Tough on the causes of

crime. Exactly, one of the most famous slogans from 20 years ago.

Liz Truss is saying that the 140% increase in sex offenders going to

prison, so she's talking specifically about people being

convicted of sex offences. And they talking about a rebuke to Labour, if

that is what it is, which called for the prison population to be halved

from 85,000 to 42,000 as it was in 1890. Was that the pledge? That was

always going to be unrealistic. I would have thought so. A lot of

squaring the circle is going on from both parties. But two decade old

tough on the causes of crime, to try to keep the country feeling safe,

feeling that justice is being satisfied while dealing with the

social problems that are behind so many crimes. As we know, Labour did

struggle with that. Michael Gove made big promises, it is always

wonder when he is not seen as the hardest hitting of the politicians

these problems. Good luck if they think they can do it with this new

approach, but I can't see it happening. He talked pretty tough,

too. He didn't get much done, he wasn't in post for long. But why has

the prison publishing gone up from 42,000 in 1990 to 85,000? Has the

country become more wicked? Word of the night! Or are we locking up

people who should be locked up? Let's move on. Daily Express. It has

another line in stories apart from the weather and the usual royal

things. They do talk a lot about Brexit here. Let's explain what

they're talking about. Furious at new bid to wreck Huw exit. Who is

threatening to wreck it and why? This is the senior house, the House

of Lords, and we know that Mrs May of Lords, and we know that Mrs May

got a surprising mandate, surprisingly large. I do about Tony

with his knowledge of the corridors of power. So, really it should be

full team ahead, both parties have replied and perhaps Mr Corbyn has

taken even more flak than he normally does because of the way his

party agreed with so many of the terms, no amendments, lots of

promises to fight on every corner, but it is going through. And of

course we know that there is a stumbling block, there is the House

of Lords, and now the Daily Express, I think they try to conjure up some

early fear, some early intervention so that everybody is on alert to the

Lords. There have even been implicit threat that if they try to stop this

they will show their relevance, is that right? The ultimate thread that

the Government is under the impression it has is that it will

abolish the House of Lords, considering that Parliamentary

parties have been making that promise for more than a century, and

it still carries on. The Express even have a logo saying get us out

of the EU. So next Monday, when the Lords comeback, of course they will

put down those amendments to the Bill in the winner Tim beast did.

The bill left the Commons on amended which weakens their position

considerably. I suspect they will try and amend it, but I suspect they

would significantly frustrated. Remind us how the Lords is composed.

A quick reading of that and you think that this conservative

Government faces to River Calder is from too many other parties in the

Lords. Is that right? What are the numbers? When David Cameron became

Prime Minister in 2015, he was the first Tory Prime Minister ever not

to have an in-built majority in the House of Lords because the

hereditary peers had been removed. The Government needs to work with

crossbenchers, they are more than 100, they are not affiliated to any

party. They are some of the experts... Experts are very out of

fashion! They are not in the House of Lords. The Commons voted to

remain, the conversation is not now about whether we vote to Remain or

Leave, it is about how the Government goes about triggering

article 50. I did six they will significantly frustrate the process.

We talked about the extremely long history of people saying they want

to abolish the House of Lords, and also coming back to the idea that

they might actually stuff it full of their own supporters, the

Government. But that is totally improbable, surely? Given that David

Cameron created hundreds of peers and took a reputational hit for it,

I don't think Theresa May will have an appetite for that, but

threatening peers is like threatening judges, they don't care,

they will just do their job. Caroline, the Financial Times,

bringing us back to very much rather alarming things that happen in the

world. North Korea has been up to it again, a missile has gone up, and

President Trump, what I found fascinating about this story is that

President Trump is hosting the Japanese Prime Minister, they are

playing golf at the President's hideaway in Florida, and then this

happened. The timing not accidental, obviously. No, of course. We think

they are playing golf, but no press have been allowed to witness

President Trump's swing. There was one picture. The president put that

on his Instagram account, it wasn't a press photo. Meanwhile, North

Korea have taken the initiative and launched another missile into the

Sea of Japan with all sorts of promises about upscaling their

capacity. But basically, North Korea are doing what they have been doing

over the last few decades, saying that they have got the power, this

is a little bit more evidence. I think it is as you say no excuse

that President Trump is entertaining the Japanese premier as this is

happening, and it is a case of putting him on the spot. A little

bit of mini Brickman ship in the first few weeks of his

administration, and we know that -- brinkmanship in the first weeks of

his administration, and we know that he things that things are terrible

or awesome or sad or failing. Or wicked? !

This is the first genuine grown-up test of his presidency and how he

chooses to respond. And he did respond in a grown-up way by saying

that we stand behind our allies. He didn't condemn the launch itself,

some may think that is an omission, but he did say, we are with you,

Japan, South Korea. I'm just grateful he hasn't started a nuclear

war already, so the fact that his response didn't involve him treating

abuse at the North Korean premier is probably a good sign. This is a

major challenge now, whoever is in the White House, it doesn't matter

how they conduct themselves, they have to face this issue. It is a

major ongoing problem, and the issue with North Korea is there is only

one country that has any leveraged with them and that is China, and

they are also neighbours in the South China Sea attending to

establish new land bases and islands with military bases, so this is a

difficult balance and I hope President Trump is aware of how

subtle the gradations of diplomacy can be. An interesting detail in

here, he said he committed himself to the great ally, Japan, the remark

that raised eyebrows in South Korea because he didn't mention South

Korea as a great ally. This is complicated stuff and I hope he

treads lightly or we could end with a much more situation than the one

we have now which is a rogue state missiles around. Indeed. Let's move

on. Tony let's go with the Metro having this story about this big

survey of what police officers actually thought about guns, tasered

and so on. Is this the result of that? It is, and that is what I find

it really interesting about this particular story, as you rightly

said, the Police Federation, the trade union for police officers,

they had a conversation about whether a knobbly should be armed,

and they asked their members and found that most of them believe that

they should have Taser is, but that only one in four thinks that all

police officers should carry guns. This is an important issue, we are

one of the few countries in the world where police officers do not

routinely carry firearms, and I think that is why we have so few

incidents of police officers being killed by firearms. In any other

country, your first option should you have a gun is to shoot the

police officer, but that is one of the strength that we have in our

policing. We are rare in that we have a sense of community policing,

the police are not separate from the community, they police by consent.

It is good to see that the vast majority still don't want weapons. I

thought that one in for thinking they should carry guns actually is

quite an advance on a few years ago. Yes, I think so, and I can remember

as a child travelling to Europe for the first time in Singh policeman

with guns and feeling quite horrified and realising we grew up

in different circumstances. Circumstances have changed. This

does seem to be a compromise of sorts, at least that we are not

going down the full firearms route, a Taser is not a nice thing to be on

the receiving end of, but the fatalities that we have experienced

in the US on both sides. Heavily armed cops on every corner. The

Baftas, you were there this evening! I wasn't in the front row, I need to

stress. We are always keen to talk to people who were there. The Daily

Telegraph has a picture on the front page of people who are not actors

are tall, but they stole the limelight on the red carpet, I

think, Prince William and lovely Kate. It is a revelation when you

are there on the sidelines and you get these a list is and their

Oscar-winning Sam Baird Golden Globe winners, and they are so used to

hoovering up the attention, and people do give them the right kind

of attention, and then the Royals turn up, and there are only two

stars in town suddenly. Is really bizarre. You feel the change? There

is electricity and attention, the service was delayed because they

were delayed in their car, we have to macro superstars. And Tony I must

ask you about the dress she was wearing. No, perhaps I won't! We saw

some very skimpy dresses tonight, but that was a nice one. We have

another lady, and we talked about this earlier, beaming in minus three

Celsius was naked shoulder flesh, give everyone an Oscar as far as I'm

concerned. I wasn't smiling, and I had a hot water bottle up my coat!

Thank you both very much indeed. That's it for The Papers

for this hour. Don't forget all the front pages

are online on the BBC News website, where you can read a detailed review

of the papers. It's all there for you seven days

a week at bbc.co.uk/papers. And you can see us there, too,

with each night's edition of The Papers being posted

on the page shortly