:00:12. > :00:20.Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the papers will be
:00:21. > :00:26.With me are Jason Beattie, head of politics at the Mirror,
:00:27. > :00:30.and Tim Shipman, political editor at the Sunday Times.
:00:31. > :00:35.The Express features the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge
:00:36. > :00:38.who saw their visit to Paris overshadowed by the
:00:39. > :00:42.The Royals "continued defiantly with their
:00:43. > :00:46.The Sunday Times also pictures the Duchess of Cambridge,
:00:47. > :00:49.but its main story is that alleged rape victims will be spared
:00:50. > :00:51.cross-examination in court, under new reforms announced
:00:52. > :00:56.The Mail goes it alone with a controversial call
:00:57. > :00:59.from a retired doctor for women to be able to terminate a pregnancy
:01:00. > :01:05.The Telegraph says new evidence has emerged over claims that a pregnancy
:01:06. > :01:07.testing drug has been linked to birth defects in
:01:08. > :01:23.We'll come to court in a minute. Let's start with the express. An
:01:24. > :01:28.exclusive from Caroline Wheeler suggesting there may be a snap
:01:29. > :01:32.general election, hold on a medic, Theresa May has always said she
:01:33. > :01:41.doesn't want it. And she has even given a date. As you know, there are
:01:42. > :01:45.all sorts of obstacles before we can even think about a general election
:01:46. > :01:48.matters because of the fixed term parliament act introduced by David
:01:49. > :01:57.Cameron, she has to get two thirds of an MP who agreed -- to agree. And
:01:58. > :02:04.Downing Street has been fully assistant that it does not want to
:02:05. > :02:13.go early to look holes. The big card, Theresa May has up heard
:02:14. > :02:22.sleeve, if things go wrong with Brexit, then we comply a general
:02:23. > :02:27.election card. Why do it now? But there are many things to attract her
:02:28. > :02:33.to it. This is a fantastic story. I spoke to use people in Downing
:02:34. > :02:36.Street to said, we are not doing it, the Prime Minister is absolutely
:02:37. > :02:42.firm in this, and yet, what Caroline has got tonight, art text between
:02:43. > :02:46.senior members of the party, speculating about it. There are many
:02:47. > :02:53.reasons why they might. They have 20 MPs under investigation, there might
:02:54. > :02:57.be by-elections reruns if they are found to be breaking their spending
:02:58. > :03:02.rules. Nicola Sturgeon is kicking off about another referendum. It is
:03:03. > :03:06.hard to see the SNP doing as well as they did last time, they won all but
:03:07. > :03:10.two seats, if they retreated a bit, it would Emad the Gulf for
:03:11. > :03:15.independence to go ahead. And Theresa May is having to bow down to
:03:16. > :03:20.backbenchers whenever they complain about anything. It is that she
:03:21. > :03:24.impossible to get a tax rise on anything now. If ten Tory
:03:25. > :03:30.backbenchers decide they don't like a policy, it doesn't happen. If you
:03:31. > :03:39.have a general election, she would inevitably have a massive majority.
:03:40. > :03:46.Inevitably? It looks that labels top Labour's internal polling suggests
:03:47. > :03:51.they could lose 50 seats. Theresa May's people say that voters have a
:03:52. > :03:56.way of punishing the party that is illiberal itself. If they call a
:03:57. > :04:01.general election just to get a bigger majority, there is a danger
:04:02. > :04:07.voters will punish them. Well MPs vote for this? A lot of MPs are
:04:08. > :04:10.always resistant to this because they wonder however big their
:04:11. > :04:15.majorities are whether they will still hold onto their seats. If it
:04:16. > :04:20.is going to be me the fourth, they should get a move on. I think the
:04:21. > :04:24.theory is Theresa May will trickle -- trigger Article 50 in the last
:04:25. > :04:29.week of March, possibly Wednesday the 29th, five weeks before May the
:04:30. > :04:34.4th, that is about when you call a general election as well. I don't
:04:35. > :04:37.expect them to do it but it is interesting that senior people are
:04:38. > :04:46.talking about it. The Star Wars date, May the 4th. The Telegraph,
:04:47. > :04:51.where we are looking here. Hammond faces mutiny from Brexit ministers.
:04:52. > :04:55.What they cross about? They across they haven't got enough civil
:04:56. > :05:00.servants in that department. Having told us repeatedly they are well
:05:01. > :05:04.staffed, they have all the officials they need, to help us past Article
:05:05. > :05:09.50, now they are saying they need more staff and more money and dark
:05:10. > :05:16.upset about the 6% departmental budget cuts the Chancellor is tried
:05:17. > :05:20.get through. This is the first thing that Liam Fox, Boris Johnson and
:05:21. > :05:24.David Davies have agreed about in six months, that they all want more
:05:25. > :05:28.money. There is this additional pressure of their and this came
:05:29. > :05:35.about when they did the U-turn on the national age as contributions,
:05:36. > :05:40.it was partly a Brexiteer trying to destabilise and weekend the one to
:05:41. > :05:45.lasting Remainer in Cabinet. They see him as the block and then trying
:05:46. > :05:52.to get the Brexit they want because he is the realist. He keeps saying,
:05:53. > :05:57.come down to earth, guys, this is what it is going to be like.
:05:58. > :06:02.Anything they can do to undermine Hammond, they will do. There was
:06:03. > :06:06.concern immediately after the referendum result that there were
:06:07. > :06:13.not be enough people that was killed in trained negotiations. Well, we
:06:14. > :06:17.haven't done if for 40 years. Most countries outside the EU have dozens
:06:18. > :06:23.of these people. We are trying to hire them. We are tried to pay large
:06:24. > :06:28.amounts of money to foreign experts to tell us how to do it. And the
:06:29. > :06:36.civil wing of the civil servants, amazingly, they have included that
:06:37. > :06:47.they need 30% more civil servants weeks after Brexit and we are still
:06:48. > :06:52.not there. The Sunday Times, how many bylines have you got this week
:06:53. > :07:01.on the French page, Tim? -- the front page. Just the two. Osborne
:07:02. > :07:11.scuppers second jobs for MPs. He's got about six jobs. Why is this a
:07:12. > :07:14.problem? What we have got this evening is the chairman of the
:07:15. > :07:22.committee on standards in public life who is taking a dim view of Mr
:07:23. > :07:28.Bourne getting all this money for all these jobs. He is investigating
:07:29. > :07:32.this and they are saying they will hold a meeting on Thursday and open
:07:33. > :07:36.investigation into second jobs. It turns out the parliamentary sleaze
:07:37. > :07:43.committee which is a pal of a bunch of MPs are also writing and M --
:07:44. > :07:46.report on second jobs which is looking at banning MPs from doing
:07:47. > :07:51.anything out side of the hours that Parliament sits which would pretty
:07:52. > :07:56.much do it for George Osborne. He has already been reported to see
:07:57. > :08:03.whether he has broken a code of conduct with what he is doing. And
:08:04. > :08:09.Iain Duncan Smith has been caught out comparing him to Gordon gecko
:08:10. > :08:14.with the motif, greed is good. So not a great evening for Mr Osborne,
:08:15. > :08:21.who appears desperate, from the friends I have spoken today, the
:08:22. > :08:27.Klingon. As an MP. Yes, with all the money and that jobs, but I think he
:08:28. > :08:36.will get a rude awakening in Parliament. Other MPs might have a
:08:37. > :08:46.little earner on the side but to the tuna of 20,000. There is an MP who
:08:47. > :08:54.is a lawyer down in Devon but he doesn't quite as much as Mr Osborne.
:08:55. > :08:58.Is it just the money? I have some sympathy with MPs because it is a
:08:59. > :09:02.typical Lord implement. A lot of MPs right for the Daily Mirror and
:09:03. > :09:08.sometimes we pay them to do that. Are we going to say that as a second
:09:09. > :09:16.job? Are we going to stop MPs writing for us. The charitable
:09:17. > :09:21.concern. And Johnson has written excellent books. It is difficult to
:09:22. > :09:24.say, you have a blanket ban on any outside interests. What Osborne has
:09:25. > :09:34.done has slightly taken the Mickey here by taking every job going. Next
:09:35. > :09:39.week, he will be presenting. We were saying, if he was a newspaper
:09:40. > :09:42.editor, we could have him here. I am sure you will get full coverage of
:09:43. > :09:47.this lorry when he becomes the editor. If the MPs earn a few quid
:09:48. > :09:54.here and there, the whole thing will be spoilt by George taking the
:09:55. > :10:02.Mickey. It would be an easy thing for him to do, to lose the ?74,000
:10:03. > :10:06.from being an MP. That would be painful for him to do because he
:10:07. > :10:11.doesn't want to lose his position in Parliament. He is keen to have some
:10:12. > :10:15.fun, make some money, friends say determined to throw himself at this
:10:16. > :10:19.and prove he's a good newspaper editor, he likes to be good at
:10:20. > :10:26.everything. But if Theresa May falls under a us, George Osborne wants to
:10:27. > :10:31.be in Parliament, in case he is required to pick up the pieces.
:10:32. > :10:36.Staying with the Sunday Times, rape victims to be spared court ordeal
:10:37. > :10:41.and a new Lord to ban grooming of children. There was a bill going
:10:42. > :10:47.through on Monday, the second reading of the bill on courts and
:10:48. > :10:51.prisons, and we have an interview with the Justice Secretary and she
:10:52. > :10:57.is saying they have done trials with child sex cases where you allow the
:10:58. > :11:01.victim and vulnerable witnesses to give evidence outside of the court
:11:02. > :11:09.room on video, they get cost examined and video --
:11:10. > :11:12.cross-examined, and this speeds up guilty pleas, it hasn't raised the
:11:13. > :11:18.conviction rate at the defence lawyers look at the evidence and
:11:19. > :11:23.realise they won't get off and its speeds things up and reduces former
:11:24. > :11:30.for the victims. They are going to roll this out for adult rape trials
:11:31. > :11:36.and sex offences. And they hope that will lessen that former for some of
:11:37. > :11:43.these allegedly teams. I'm surprised we need a new law that bans the
:11:44. > :11:50.grooming of children. This is one of these examples where technology is
:11:51. > :11:54.overtaking where existing laws are. Anything that lessens the form of
:11:55. > :11:58.rape victims must be a good thing. They are awful cases where Reykjavik
:11:59. > :12:03.teams have appeared in court -- rape victims, and the alleged offender
:12:04. > :12:12.wearing exactly the same close they were wearing when they committed the
:12:13. > :12:16.crime. -- same clothes. It has been complained about for a long time.
:12:17. > :12:22.The Independent, Scotland split over referendum before Brexit. Nicola
:12:23. > :12:30.Sturgeon is let -- yet to win support for an early vote. You have
:12:31. > :12:37.to be sure of your numbers. I'm not surprised by this is Rory. What
:12:38. > :12:42.people think about this, they found out that three years ago, the
:12:43. > :12:47.country was split, and three years on, they conduct a poll and find the
:12:48. > :12:55.same thing. What is Nicola Sturgeon doing? She wouldn't want to do this
:12:56. > :12:59.She has stuck herself into quite a She has stuck herself into quite a
:13:00. > :13:02.whole. She is under Russia from people in her own party to move
:13:03. > :13:07.things are little quicker. -- pressure. The more you up the
:13:08. > :13:10.rhetoric, the more it you have to look like you are doing something.
:13:11. > :13:15.People who know her well know she has a massive balancing act on her
:13:16. > :13:20.hands and she has looked like she is going for a referendum whilst not
:13:21. > :13:23.really going for a referendum. They were saying, yes we must have this,
:13:24. > :13:29.and the will of the Scottish people must be respected, but we will talk
:13:30. > :13:35.about that timing, so, yes, the will of the Scottish Parliament will be
:13:36. > :13:38.respected, but will it be respected in 2018 or 2021? I think there is
:13:39. > :13:42.evidence that whispers to will be able to resist this for quite some
:13:43. > :13:47.time because of polls like this that show a lot of people in Scotland
:13:48. > :13:53.haven't changed their minds on where they were before and a lot of people
:13:54. > :13:57.really hate it -- hated the referendum process. This was a lump
:13:58. > :14:01.of thing. We are obsessed with Brexit in England but most people
:14:02. > :14:08.who have spent time covering Brexit and who followed what happened in
:14:09. > :14:11.Scotland said it was much uglier in Scotland, families were divided, a
:14:12. > :14:16.lot of people don't want to go through that again. Until the polls
:14:17. > :14:22.show there is a real groundswell, Nicola Sturgeon is basically doing
:14:23. > :14:26.internal party management rather than responding to a national will
:14:27. > :14:32.that says we must either referendum. Sunday Telegraph again, stop
:14:33. > :14:38.repressing Cornwall, the English have been warned. The Council of
:14:39. > :14:44.Europe has finally recognised the importance of Cornwall, and my whole
:14:45. > :14:49.family live in a tiny village in Cornwall and in favour of this. The
:14:50. > :14:55.fact that we're not Devon, that is important. The fact that we now have
:14:56. > :15:00.two make-up cream tea. It is extraordinary that you do jam and
:15:01. > :15:10.then put cream on top, that is the correct way. And in Devon, it is the
:15:11. > :15:17.cream first? Yes, they backwards. Apologies to people in Devon. How
:15:18. > :15:28.can we help bolster Cornwall? Eat more Pastis. You wonder whether
:15:29. > :15:35.there will be a referendum in court as well to break away from the
:15:36. > :15:40.people of Devon. That is it that the papers this hour. I am sure it is
:15:41. > :15:50.fine if you put the cream on a first. Jason and Tim will be back
:15:51. > :15:54.later with another look at the front pages but first of all, Reporters.