17/02/2017 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the papers will be

With me are Lindsay Razaq, Westminster correspondent

at the Scottish newspaper The Press and Journal, and Kevin Schofield,

It's reporting that Britain's third largest company, Unilever,

has rejected a ?115 billion takeover offer by the American

The Independent leads with an exclusive report,

saying more than 600,000 patients could be denied access

to life-saving clinical trials after Brexit.

on Tony Blair's Brexit warning, saying he faced a backlash

from Labour MPs for fuelling the party's divisions before

The Times predicts the number of home transactions completed

in Britain will fall by 11% this year, the lowest levels

The Daily Mail focuses on planned sharp rises in business rates,

saying the increase will turn Britain into a "retail wasteland".

And the NHS features, reporting on a looming staff crisis as recruitment

struggles to keep pace with retirement. You were surprised Tony

Blair was not on that many front pages. I thought he would be on all

of them. He is on the front page of the Guardian, he looks like he is

praying. He knew he would spark fury. It was not just about Brexit,

it was about Labour. He admitted that, he said he knew there would be

a volume of abuse in response to his speech. But it has not just come

from the people who want to leave, Boris Johnson, Iain Duncan Smith,

they have all come out saying that the will of the people should be

respected, but also there is criticism from Labour saying that

the timing of this is really bad with two by elections coming up and

it is unhelpful for Jeremy Corbyn. A couple of weeks ago we had Article

50 coming through the Commons and he backed that I'd ordered his MPs to

back it and not block it and this flies in the face of that. Not very

helpful for Jeremy Corbyn. The Guardian is focusing on the reaction

to the speech and he expected that reaction, he was almost saying,

bring it on. He picks and chooses his moments these days, not being in

the of British politics any more. So when Tony Blair enters the political

debate it is a big event and everybody wants to be there. He is

still a political superstar. He knew what he was doing and the best line

in the speech was probably when he is essentially blamed Jeremy Corbyn

and labour for Brexit, saying Labour was in such a parlous state. He says

he does not and people close to him have said to me that he does not

want to set up his own centralist party. Do you buy that? I do. I do

not sense there is much appetite. He is talking about movement. As a

political campaign, as a cross-party campaign to fight against Brexit as

opposed to setting up a whole new party. It is fraught with

difficulty, especially in our first past the post system. It is set up

as a 2-party system, so to break into is difficult. You can get 4

million votes and only get one seat, so it is very difficult to do that,

so the best he can do is influence the political debate from the

sidelines with like-minded politicians. Nick Clegg was one of

the first people to come out on Twitter to say he agreed with every

word that he said. He said similar things in the past. People like Nick

Clegg and Tony Blair have the EU in their DNA. They have met a lot at

meetings. Tim Farron as well. They have been discussing this for quite

some time. He also strayed into the Scottish independence debate as

well. I do not think he had to go there. He said the possible break-up

of the UK is on the table. I think he said the case for Scottish

independence is much more credible in the context of post-referendum

voting. Nicola Sturgeon commended him. He got some support. The Daily

Express put it quite bluntly, arrogant Tony Blair tries to block

Brexit. A new poll reveals an increasing number of voters are

demanding get us out of the EU. This is incredible. Yes, it is ICM,

respected pollsters. 68% responded to get us out of the EU now. That is

the big problem that somebody like Tony Blair has got. All the polls

that we have seen since the Brexit vote, none of them have indicated

there has been any change of heart by people. Now most people accept

it, regardless of whether they voted remain or leave. They accept that is

the result and they have to get on with leaving. There is no indication

out there that there is a massive clamour. He acknowledged that to be

fair. He said there was no widespread appetite for this, but he

said people should have the right to have an informed to say. It is by no

means scientific and not as scientific as an ICM poll, but I

discussed this with Ian Watson earlier tonight, when you go on

radio phone in shows, a couple of which I present, you do get people

who voted for Brexit who are very angry. They do not feel they are

getting what they voted for. They do not feel the white paper that was

produced was about the core issue of immigration. They still feel they

are being short-changed. They also feel it is taking too much time. I

speak to MPs who tell you that their constituents do not understand why

we have not left the European Union now. They think in a general

election you change government and it happens that day. Does it not

suggest, and this is not my opinion before you start tweeting, does it

not suggest the possibility that there are people who are confused

and they did not know what they were voting for? It looks like it needs

looking into. But you did not know what you were voting for at that

point. The Lib Dems have repeatedly said that the EU referendum was a

vote to leave and there should be another referendum on the

destination. He is saying the first vote was when people were not

informed and there are those who want to see it delivered

straightaway and as quickly as possible. Shall we move on to the

Daily Mail. It is our headline. It is talking about business rates and

business rate rises. My understanding is it is like council

tax for people who own shops and businesses. Essentially, yes. There

is a formula to the way it is calculated and there has been a

revaluation, the first one in seven years and it looks like that's small

to medium-sized shops and businesses will be clobbered in April when they

have to pay their bill. This has been a bit of a slow burn as far as

the government is concerned and it has almost blindsided them and there

is a real head of steam building up against these rises. For some shops

it is thousands of pounds, a massive increase in their rates, which they

will have to find from somewhere and they will have to make people

redundant or increase prices. There is a lot of pain coming and there is

a head of steam behind this campaign to get the government to try and

perhaps in the budget if the Chancellor can bring in some kind of

relief for the businesses which are going to be worst affected. They

cannot overturn the idea. The shopkeeper, a guy called Tom Innis,

a wine merchant in Monmouth in Wales has written to the secretary in the

Treasury and it is a strong letter. He is accusing the government of

being completely out of touch, stuck in Westminster, they do not realise

what the reality is like out there and the high street is on its knees

and shops are empty. Another interesting point to raise is that

from today the growth is much slower than predicted as well, there is a

downturn on what consumers are willing to spend. Exactly, I do not

know how the formula works, but it is slightly perverse and that the

larger businesses like supermarkets will see their rates coming down,

while smaller, less profitable businesses will end up paying more.

The whole thing seems a terrible mess and the government will have to

sort it out quickly. The government is arguing it will be better for

most and worse for a few. They are arguing some people will do better

and they are also arguing that this system needs to be brought up to

date with property prices. That is the point they were making. We were

quite surprised when we saw the headline in the Daily Mail. Why are

they splashing the views of one shopkeeper, but when you read the

letter, it begins, what a pity you have not got out into the real

world. It is quite a compelling letter. The Daily Telegraph, new

rebellion over the rates. It looks like it is not just going to be the

public business owners that will be fighting, there will be some

political comeback. You see a bit of cross-party agreement in this

article between three influential people from three different parties,

taking a similar line on it. It is mentioned in this story, which we do

not see in the Daily Mail I don't think, that this will not just

affect businesses, not the private sector, but the NHS will be affected

as well because it owns premises and it has to pay these rates as well.

It is not just businesses. The knock-on effect is what we end up

paying for goods and services. It will be and inflation is already

starting to creep up. A lady was on the telly earlier on and the

estimates were that her business rates would go up from 20,000 up to

40 7000. The only way is to pass that on to your customers. An

interesting story on the front page of the Telegraph. A warning over

street names. I know there was a Jimmy Savile Street in Scarborough,

but there seem to be a few of them and it has raised concerns over

other street names. There are hundreds of pathways, street names

and plaques named after Jimmy Savile. There is some advice from a

Local Government Association, which is incredible. You have to look at

the top of the page to see whether it is not April the 1st. Councils do

not name a street after people just in case in the future at some point

it turns out they are paedophiles or involved in some other unseemly

behaviour, or criminal activity. Where do you draw the line? You draw

the line by saying we will never do it again. And you end up with a town

with street eight, street B, street C. Marcus Jones is the Minister for

local government and he says it is a nice way of honouring heroes. It is

a good way of recognising that people have done something special.

The idea that you would bring in a blanket ban because of just in case

seems ludicrous. A sledgehammer effect. Darren Dodwell, the leader

of Dagenham and Barking Council, he said they would have probably

thought twice about Trafalgar Square! Or Nelson Mandela straight.

What does it take to change the name of the street? Scarborough Council

were very quick to get rid of Jimmy Savile Road. We are looking at the

FT. There are a lot of fantastic business stories around at the

moment. Unilever's snub to craft Hinds. You have found an interesting

story on the front page about the pound cawing, the future of the

pound chorion. This is David Cork again, the Chief Secretary to the

Treasury. We cannot keep him out of the papers. He is not focusing on

business rates, he is saying that people will have to spend their ?1

chorion is, the current style... They are great to save. They have

worked it out that there are ?433 million worth of ?1 coins that are

not in circulation, they are down the back of the city, in the piggy

bank. We do not have any in our house. I am a bit rubbish at change.

I just tend to leave it everywhere, so I have got one of those barrels

you have in the bottom of your wardrobe and if I found ?1, it is in

there. We have now got to read our piggy banks to keep the economy

going. It is about half ?1 billion. Children like saving ?1 coins. They

could start saving the new style 12 sided ?1 coins. The current style is

very easy to forge, so they could do that. The saddest thing is you have

to go into the piggy bank to get a few quid because you cannot find it

anywhere else. I cannot believe I am reading it. It is good that kids

need to save their hard earned pocket money. If you have got anyone

pound coins, start spending them I suppose. That is one of the stories

in the FT tomorrow. Much more about Unilever in the FT. Let's move the

times. It dedicates front page, or nearly all of it, to the Olympic

champion hockey players who are receiving the OBE and the MBE at

Buckingham Palace. It is a very different and almost uplifting

story. Maybe we needed it. The honours system gets a lot of

criticism, quite rightly, because it is used by Prime Minister is to

reward cronies and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth and taint the

whole process, but this is thoroughly deserved. The Olympics

was incredibly successful for Team GB and Kate and Helen were also part

of the surprise gold medal winning women's hockey team which beat

Holland in the final. It was a dramatic game. It is nice to see

people being rewarded. It is very uplifting, which is something we

need right now, there is a lot of doom and gloom will stop Kate has

retired, what a lot of hives to go out on. I remember watching the game

and we went to penalties, so it was very exciting. They are also

married, so it is a great day for them. Kate said she wanted to be a

PE teacher when she was at school, but she said this was like being in

a movie it was so exciting. I think they are dubbed hockey's golden

couple. A great day for both of them. It is uplifting in terms of GB

women's hockey. It was our first Olympic gold medal and they have

done a lot for the sport. A lot of people around the country will be

getting involved. We have got to leave it there. Thank you for coming

in. You can see the front pages online on the website.

It's all there for you, seven days a week, at bbc.co.uk/papers.

If you miss the programme any evening, you can watch it

Thank you, Lindsay Razaq and Kevin Schofield.