18/03/2017 The Papers

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

With me are Jason Beattie, head of politics at the Mirror,

and Tim Shipman, political editor at the Sunday Times.

in a moment we will find out the correct way to make a scone.

The Express features the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

who saw their visit to Paris overshadowed by the Orly airport

The paper says the royals "continued defiantly with their programme".

The Sunday Times also pictures the Duchess of Cambridge,

but its main story is that alleged rape victims will be spared

under new reforms announced by the Justice Secretary.

The Mail goes it alone with a controversial call

from a retired doctor for women to be able to terminate a pregnancy

The Telegraph says new evidence has emerged over claims

that a pregnancy testing drug has been linked to birth defects

And the Sunday Mirror has an exclusive interview

with George Michael's personal medic,

who says the star knew his death was near.

We are going to start with the Sunday Express an exclusive which

tells us that we may not be faraway from a snap general election.

Perhaps. This is a very interesting mineshaft because we've all been

talking to MPs who think it might be a good idea to have a general

election. The Tories are in a bit of a mess with perhaps going to court

over breaking the spending limits during the campaign. Nicola Sturgeon

is calling for a referendum, we have evidence as a result of the budget

that the government is finding it difficult to do anything because

when ten or more Tory MPs object things don't happen. So there are a

lot of people around the Prime Minister who would like to have a

general election. The Express says they have been text between senior

members of the party, suggesting let's go for it on the fourth of

May, let's declare Brexit on the last week of March and go for it.

One problem is that the one person who still doesn't agree with this is

the Prime Minister Theresa May. She is a pretty determined lady.

According to the people I've spoken to she is still absolutely adamant

that she isn't doing it. But this is an interesting development that

people high up are beginning to talk about quite seriously. Hold on a

moment, aren't we bound by fixed term parliaments? We are. Introduced

by David Cameron to strengthen the durability of the coalition means

that if she wants to hold a general election she has to go to MPs and

two thirds of them have the vote in favour of calling an early poll.

That's not impossible. I think it would be difficult for Labour to say

no, partly because it would look on that they would have an election

when the Tories can say, these people didn't want you to have a

vote. Labour would have to pretend that they are in a position to win

over the general election. It may look unlikely at the moment but they

have potential. That's a technicality. The more difficult

thing for Theresa May is what is the benefit of going alone? As Kim said,

-- Tim said, she doesn't have on mandate and that came up when Philip

Hammond had to do the reverse -- reversal... Yes, it would be useful

to say, this is what I am standing on, a parliamentary majority that is

far too thin. But she has Brexit coming up and she has two years of

difficult negotiations. If they break down, that's when she will

have to say, this is my plan for Brexit. The EU are not accepting it,

I am going to put this to a vote. Who else is going to benefit? The

Lib Dems? They are back up into double figures in the polls and seem

to be ahead of Ukip. If you look at local council by-elections they are

winning seats off the Tories and Labour, so they are doing OK. It is

their Spring Conference this weekend and they are beginning to try and

say some interesting things about how you might bring together some of

the moderate Labour types and be Remainer Tories and then into

something that will appease the hardliners. What the Tories are

worried about is they think voters punish parties who are in it for

themselves. the Sunday Telegraph. Philip Hammond faces mutiny from

Brexit ministers. They don't think they are well equipped for the job

they have to do. Yes, after months of telling a day have all the staff

and they have the finest negotiators possible, now we've got the free

Brexit departments, we have Boris Johnson and Liam Fox and the

department of national trade and the department for exiting the EU. They

all say they don't want the 6% budget cuts they will impose just as

the entities negotiations. Beyond that, there is an element of the

Brexiteers ganging up on an already weakened Philip Hammond. Why would

they want to do that? Because Philip Hammond is the last true Remain

around the table. It sounds like the title of an epic novel, The Last

True Remainer. It could be like the last of the dinosaurs! They see him

as the block for getting the Brexit they want. The phrase is Brexit

blocker. He isn't effective blocker as he was a fortnight ago, because

he has been weakened, but this is a tiny bit, if one was going to be

cynical, like an attempt to weaken him further. I'm told there were

Brexiteers getting together last week who had a WhatsApp group and

they were sharing their thoughts and the instruction went out to certain

backbenchers to "kill Phil", which is demotic. It is the first time the

Brexiteers have really agreed on much for some time, but they all

agree that they think Philip Hammond is wrong about Brexit. The Times.

Jaws or is born scuppers second jobs for MPs -- George Osborne. How so?

He has six of them now. He has six jobs. Lots of MPs do something on

the side. Some are qualified lawyers or they have EADS -- business

interests. What we are revealing tonight is that there are lots of

different watchdogs and investigation committees and they

all pretty much do -- restrict things further. What these Tory MPs

are discovering is that by going off and earning such colossal amounts of

money and doing quite so much in-depth time-consuming work, Mr

Osborne may be spoiling the party for all of them. He personally is

facing God knows what and Iain Duncan Smith, the former leader, has

been on another WhatsApp group, they are at it everywhere! He is

comparing George Osborne to Gordon gecko, from Wall Street, greed is

good, look at this. I was told by someone from GCHQ that the use of

WhatsApp because it is about the most secure form possible. All that

means is that the spy agencies and anyone else can't break into these

messages. When there are 40 odd people on a message stream, it

doesn't take too long to four -- on up someone and share the jokes. It

is about the money George Osborne is earning? If he was and earning any

money for these jobs would it be a problem? Some Tory MPs are going, he

has all our jobs now. It is a very difficult area to police. For

example, some MPs occasionally like to do a bit of journalism. They can

write for papers like the Sunday Times and get paid for it. Very

rarely, actually. Do you want to stop them doing something like that?

Do you want to stop someone like Alan Johnston writing books in what

he says is his bedtime? So it is and that they want to outright ban all

jobs but they get paid handsomely, three times the average wage to do

this job. They think George Osborne doing all these jobs diminishes

their job. He makes it looked like something you can do in a couple of

hours a day and for them this is a noble calling, for some of them.

They are also worried he will go into the tea room or to the

committee and write down what they are all saying and stick it in his

newspaper. He might not put certain negative things about people in the

papers and put negative things about people like the PM in the paper.

Small story, page 26, moving along now! The second story on the Sunday

Times. Rape returns to be spared court or a deal and this will be

pre-recorded cross examinations, so that a witness or an alleged victim

wouldn't have to be there in court. Potentially facing the person who is

accused. That's right. This is Liz Truss's big announcement. There is a

big deal coming in on Monday. -- Bill. She is saying that they've

trials this with child sex cases, where the victims give evidence on

camera. They are cross-examined, but the judge can limit the amount of

time they have to undergo cross examination and the type of

questions that are asked. They have been cases in the past where they've

been asked about their past sexual history and often that is regarded

as inadmissible by the judge, but quite often what will happen in a

courtroom is that the defence lawyer will ask it, they will rule it out,

but the jury has heard it anyway. In these cases the incentive to do that

is low because if it is inadmissible if simply gets cut out of the

videotape and never gets played in court and what they've done with the

trials that they've done is that this speeds up the number of guilty

pleas by people and stops the victim having to go through a situation

where the evidence is very strong and the defence will back off, you

get an early guilty -- guilty plea and you save time and save trauma

for the victim. That's been criticism for many years, the trauma

witnesses have to go through. I think if anything it will make it

less arduous and sometime a horrific process. Let's look at the Observer.

It said the Guardian, but it isn't! There must be somebody who can send

it across! Secret tape reveals the mental to seize control of Labour.

This is the momentum of the group... The people who helped Jeremy Corbyn

become leader. What's the plot? The head of Momentum has been recorded

suggesting that the head of Labour's biggest backer, who is up for

election in April, if he gets re-elected, which now seems likely,

then he could, and I have to emphasise this is good, he could

affiliate with Momentum and that would mean a lot of money or be pro

Jeremy Corbyn. What's interesting here is we've got drama on top of

melodrama on top of infighting, which is so Byzantine. But we've got

these personal fights going on between Len McCluskey at his old

former flatmate, Tom Watson. It are at loggerheads -- they are at local

-- loggerheads. Tom Watson is determined to stop Len McCluskey

building Annie Power. To the extent that he is back in the rival. We've

got that drama and then we've got this big drama of Jeremy Corbyn at

some point having to stand down and they are desperate to make sure that

before he goes they get their left candidate in place, which again the

border at in the Labour Party are trying to stop. We have this big

drama and these personal fights going on as well.

Momentum have all the people and United have the money. If you bring

them together you can change the rules of the leadership election so

you need far fewer MPs to get on the ballot paper. If you do that, there

is a hard left candidate on the ballot paper every time and that is

how they get a stranglehold on the Labour Party going forward. That is

what this is about. Fascinating. Stopped repressing Cornwall. --

stop. Do you feel oppressed by the English? I don't think so. We just

want our talents and skills all around the area... People don't

appreciate our spirit. We know how to make the best tea. The Devonians

might not get this, put the cream on top after. I wouldn't put cream on a

pasty. This is upsetting, but we need to finish. It was nice to see

you. We have run out of time. Coming up next, The Film