04/03/2017 The Papers

We'll be taking a look at tomorrow morning's papers in a moment.

Barack Obama's spokesman says President Donald Trump's accusation

that his predecessor ordered his phones to be tapped

Sinn Fein describe the Stormont Assembly elections as a watershed -

after coming within one seat of drawing level

Clearly, the unionist majority in the Assembly has been ended

and the notion of a permanent or perpetual unionist majority

There are fears for the future of Vauxhall plants in Britain

after a French car company which produces Peugeot vehicles

reportedly reaches a deal to buy General Motors' European operations.

Hugh Jackman returns as Wolverine in the Marvel blockbuster Logan. We

will hear more about that in the film review.

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

With me are the broadcaster Charlie Wolf and the Chief Political

Commentator for the Independent, John Rentoul.

Welcome back to both of you. Firstly, let us have a look at the

front pages. Beginning with the observer who says that the UK's

River is the watchdog is launching an enquiry into how the data of

voters is being used during political campaigns. In Sunday

Telegraph, allegations from President Trump that Barack Obama

orchestrated an illegal Watergate style phone tapping operation at

Trump Tower. Meanwhile, the Mail on Sunday says that Tony Blair attended

a secret meeting at the White House to discuss working for Donald Trump

as a Middle East peace convoy -- envoy. The Chancellor will use the

budget to build up a war chest of boost Britain's post Brexit

resilient. The independent leads with its own poll suggesting the

majority of the ukase against government plans to cut corporation

tax in favour of the money going towards the NHS. And, finally, the

Sunday Express claims that nearly ?150 million from the health budget

was spent on overseas aid last year. So, those that were just some of the

front pages this morning. We have a selection we will be discussing.

John, Charlie, why don't you start us, Charlie, with the front page of

the observer? By my standards this is amazing. When I first started in

journalism, we used to have scammers in America to Hibberd calls of

police departments. And these days, we just get tweets and Twitter. This

helps us see what Mrs Donald Trump is coming out with. And this morning

it was a doozy. He has launched a verbal assault on Barack Obama

accusing him of a wiretap in his office in New York. This is almost

unprecedented. I won't say it is totally unprecedented. If you think

back to, for instance, Clinton and George W Bush Bush. They made a

mess, they trashed it. A couple of days ago, however, Trump said that

when he took place over it was a mess. Instead, he is finding stuff

that is going on. I guess he had a meeting with one of these people

over national security that said we have been bugging you. What

happened... That is not what they are saying is that. They say he

simply read something, a news article. I'm not sure. We don't

fully know this. He is not providing us with evidence. But it is possible

that he could have been wiretapped in that the FBI and the CIA... This

is something you may have had mentioned after 9/11, when the

Patriot Act was being discussed. That would be the way for the CIA if

they wanted to investigate suspicions of possible terrorist or

something like that. As I understand this, the CIA and FBI went to this

man, were rejected and came back. Trump is essentially saying that

Barack Obama was behind it and... I guess I would have to surmise,

again, this is speculation, if the FBI were to do that because they

felt there was a Russian connection of some sort, I would have thought

that something of that importance would have to go to the top. I just

cannot see... Can you imagine the Home Secretary here? This is a

paranoid fantasy of Donald Trump again. Shades of that, yes. But I

think there could be more to it. You would imagine, even, most democratic

countries you would have to have probable cause before the wiretap

was okayed. Absolutely. If the FBI were doing it officially then they

would have had to have announced it during the election campaign as they

announce their investigation into Hillary. If they did it

unofficially, then all sorts of things might be going on but... Did

you read that, you know, is such a serious allegation that it has

warranted a response from President Obama he... I don't think anybody

would suggest that Obama himself would have ordered it. But it is

unprecedented, what Donald Trump has said. Then again there are many that

think that Barack Obama has been doing things, if not by himself but

through his minions are getting things to happen such as, come these

meetings the town meetings that senators returned to where they are

facing protests. This is unusual. There are probably people there who

are Republicans who are mad at senators over healthcare. But there

is... One man wrote about, for instance, you go into a town hall,

there are only a handful of view. You sit separately and looks at the

whole hall is... There are shades that may or may not be true. It is

also fair to say that Donald Trump has been hamstrung. He does not have

a full cabinet yet and the Democrats have been obstinate. Maybe he is

putting two and two together, possibly not getting seven but at

least getting six. John. The Mail on Sunday. Tony Blair has been in the

Trump White House meeting Jarrod Kushner, the President is's

son-in-law to discuss the Middle East and trying to broker some kind

of peace settlement which is what Tony Blair was involved with is

representative of the quartet for some time until he stood down. An

extraordinary story. It does... It's a sort of explain why that

remarkable coincidence occurred when Tony Blair was in the same

restaurant as Kushner just after Donald Trump's election. The really

does seem to be something going on there and it is interesting because

Jarrod Kushner and his wife do seem to be the sort of moderate centre of

the Donald Trump White House and if you could get some kind of progress

in the Middle East and would come from that source. Interesting to

know if his side issue here. He will come into contact with Ivanka, who

is friends with the former wife of Rupert Murdoch. Eyebrows at the time

I believe were raised. Rupert Murdoch read a lot into it. How is

Tony Blair regarded? We know about his special relationship with

President Bush. How was he regarded amongst the encircle? Again, I

think... If Nidal Nigel Farage can be well looked upon, the way the

Americans look upon it is that these guys who seem to have knowledge

about what they are talking about. Trump likes Nigel because he has the

sense of thoughts on Brexit, etc and he likes people who seem to have

some subtle level of experience that could help him. Yes. Tony Blair

knows a lot about the Middle East. Unquestionably. And, yes, he is

extremely well-known and well appreciated in the United that. We

will not hang him out to dry as they try to do here. So, Trump thinks

that dogmatic black and white level. I can seem very much, you know,

taking Tony Blair on. As I said earlier, Donald Trump worth $12

billion is probably the only guy who could afford Tony Blair. Let us look

at the Sunday Times and the two stories there that caught our

attention. The first of which is the picture. Tells the story behind the

picture. I stared at this for sometime I first saw it. I'll try to

work out why Donald Trump had a slab of wax stuck to his head. It is a

map of Palestine. A map of Palestine. It is actually his tie

which has blown up in the wind and you can see it as Sellotape on the

bottom, which holds it together. What a treat. I need to learn from

that because my tie always looks like MSN splits at the bottom. What

I obviously need a Sellotape to hold it together. Shops are about to run

out of tape. You are stealing all our secrets. In the model world, his

wife and daughter would have done just that, they take the back of a

jacket to make things fit. Ukip surprisingly, Charlie, with your

knowledge of women's undergarment stop they do take down bits. I know

that. Let's move on. Sunday Times and the stay with this. The UK story

at the Chancellor's ?60 billion Brexit fighting fund. This is the

advance spins at a budget from the Chancellor. This is Philip Hammond,

the straight no spin Chancellor who is preparing the ground for the

budget which is... Fake news! They can use! Is shown to lower the

expectations of people because financial forecasts suggest he has

more money to play with the new 40 at so he says we cannot risk a

spending spree. I take that to mean he can risk a small spending spree.

Perhaps he can put money into the NHS and into social care which are

the pressure points. He does not want to get people carried away with

the idea that he has plenty of money in his back pocket. The question is,

of course, when he gets the $60 billion. People say there will be

cuts. That exactly the forecast surplus that he may have in 2020 it

is not actually real money that he has got yet. That will be a chest

mark. OK. -- chestnut. If you asked people what they would do on the

money they would tell you... This is, again, not fake news, this is

manufactured news with all due respect to this very fine newspaper.

They have done one of these opinion surveys, a slow news day, again. An

overwhelming majority of the British people want Theresa May to stop cot

to corporation tax -- to stop cuts to corporation tax and give the

money to the NHS. This is according to an exclusive poll for the

Independent. The problem with this again is, yeah, you asked people and

they would give you an opinion and it is just that. I do not fault them

for that. But sometimes it is not as simple as that. For instance, the

cry you normally get from the anti-war people, about how all much

the cost is. You can't use our money for other things, does not work that

way. Manufactured news is an unkind way to describe opinion polls.

Newspapers often do that. This is actually an important story. There

is no question that the British people do feel that the NHS is

underfunded at the moment. It is in a period of crisis. It had several

years of smaller increases than it needs and this is a big test for

Philip Hammond in the budget, how much it will give to it. The

suggestion in some of the papers are that he will kick the can down the

road to use an American phrase, and try and solve the problem in the

autumn. I need to bring this to a close. John and Charlie, thank you

so much. Do you know what, let's just stop here and head to the Film

Review. It is lovely to see both of you.