05/04/2017 The Papers

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

With me are Kate McCann, senior political correspondent

at the Daily Telegraph, and Dan Bilefsky, London-based

The Telegraph leads with a warning that Donald Trump could threaten

military action on Syria following reports

The Metro features the same story, with President Trump describing

the suspected gas attack as a red line.

In the Financial Times there's claims that Theresa May might

soften her stance on free movement as part of Brexit talks.

The Express says house prices are set to rise by a quarter

The i reports that the UK is trying to improve diplomatic

The Guardian says there is mounting pressure on Jeremy Corbyn

to expel Ken Livingstone following his remarks on Hitler.

The Times reports the Government's rise on probate

And in the Mail, claims that the UK's foreign aid budget has

I am not normally hear on Wednesday, I am discombobulated. Some grim

stories tonight. We will do our best to find some light relief towards

the end but we start with the Telegraph. Donald Trump squares up

to President Assad over the gas attack but we start with this

picture story of this 29-year-old man who lost all of his family,

including twin babies, he is holding in his arms, and there is a moving

dispatch from Beirut. This is a heartbreaking story about a young

man who discovered that his twin children, babies and wife, or in the

line of fire of the attack and he ran from his shop to be with his

wife and children and took them to a safe place in the basement and he

realised they had been hit by the gas, and they died. And this

photograph shows him cradling those babies in his arms and it is

absolutely heartbreaking. Some of the pictures we have seen of

survivors and the condition they were in, medics making the point

that these attacks leave no marks. This is not the first time that

Sarin gas is suspected against civilians and this is not an

accidental attack, this is an attack on civilians, 86 people have died,

30 children. This is not the worst picture by far, there are pictures

of children piled on top of each other, stripped of their clothes

because when this gas hits, the best thing is to dust their clothes and

water. Imagine how awful that must be. Two days later, there has been

nothing done, no action, we talk about the need to consider things

like this carefully and they will come onto the comments from

President Trump but can we stand by and let this happen again? Talking

about the politics and international diplomacy around this, because

Russia maintains this was that Syrian air strike on a store of

rebel-held weapons, they hold the veto on the Security Council. There

will not even be a resolution, probably, condemning this? Russia

has consistently used its veto on the council to veto any attempt to

castigate Assad, given the fact that Moscow is his biggest patron. Until

recently, President Trump made clear his main objective in Syria was to

defeat Islamic State and he was considering cultivating Assad as an

ally and now this has happened, any attempt to cultivate Assad or

support Vladimir Putin becomes morally unconscionable for Trump and

at the same time he criticised President Obama for being weak and

he failed during the last chemical attack to abide by his promise to

take action if Assad breached the red line and he cited chemical

attacks. He also said, whatever you do, do not go into Syria? Do not

take military action? When Trump changes his mind every few days,

depending on the last person he spoke to... He recently blamed

resident Obama are not taking action after Assad breached the red line

and now you would expect him to be decisive and this is a geopolitical

powderkeg, very dangerous, given the involvement of Vladimir Putin. We do

not know what he might have in mind when he says, his ambassador said

that if the UN will not take on Syria, we will. Let us look at the

Guardian and the look at the New York Times, the same story. The

right-hand man and of Trump loses the national security role, Steve

Bannon. Many eyebrows were raised when he was given the seat at the

table and there are all sorts of sensitive information. It was quite

astonishing when he was appointed to this board, the committee on the

National Security Council, the council is the nerve centre of

American foreign policy and you have the chief advisor to the President

being appointed and everyone was worried this would politicise

American foreign policy, he is a very controversial figure, he was

the head of Breitbart, a very right-wing neo-conservative media

organ. He is depicted as the dark leader of American domestic policy.

And he is an ideologue in many ways. The front page of the New York

Times, Trump removes Steve Bannon from the National Security Council.

This is how it looks on the internet. Who was this a result for?

It is not quite clear yet who has engineered this. McMaster, who was

appointed, he seems to consolidate his power and other people say that

Jared Kushner is up and Steve Bannon is down but he still occupies a very

important part of the White House and he can continue to exert

influence on domestic policy but his wings have been kept with foreign

policy in this committee, which has been very military dominated. We can

move on to the Telegraph, a story that Kate has had some involvement

with. Trust might -- Liz Truss might lose her position. Liz Truss, ten

years ago, as Justice Secretary, you automatically became Lord Chancellor

because that was held by judges? What is happening? This is

interesting. It has been building over the past couple of months.

Cabinet Ministers have told the Telegraph that they believe these

rules need to be spit, Tony Blair brought them together in 2007, that

happened, and that means Liz Truss is not only the Justice Secretary

but the Lord Chancellor and those rules are different, they sit in the

same department and has been criticism of the fact that from very

senior judges, the most senior in the country, that this Lord

Chancellor will, Liz Truss is not doing a good enough job. She was

heavily criticised a week ago for not coming out strongly enough and

standing for the judiciary, particularly in the wake of some

attacks in the newspapers on them after the Brexit court case and

there have been other businesses are concerned about the way the

Department is running and while the present policy is managed. There

have been other incidents recently but things have not gone to plan.

These are sources talking to the Telegraph about how that role needs

to be spit and they are appealing to the Prime Minister to say we need to

look again at how this works. This is something that is likely to take

a long time because it is completely dead and something that has not been

done for a while, ten years ago these rules were put together. It is

something we need to keep an eye on but it is interesting to see people

moving against Liz Truss in that way and that position. Is she on

borrowed time? It'll be interesting to see how things proceed. The

Department admits the Lord Chancellor role is not working

properly, if you remember about three weeks ago, they had to change

the discount rate, which sounds technical but it resulted in

concerned about insurance premiums going up as a result. In the

consultation document subsequent to that, the Ministry admitted that

perhaps an independent body needs to set that in future, which I believe

is a condition they do not think that Google is working properly.

Quite a lot to keep an eye on. -- that role. The Financial Times,

Theresa May envisages free movement past 2019 as the Brexit stance

softens. It seems to be softening as he is out of the country. Hold on...

Getting rid of free movement was one of the main reasons for not wanting

to remain part of Europe? Another example of the government appearing

to backtrack on the cornerstones of the reasons for Brexit in the first

place. Britain wanted control over its borders but if you want that,

that means you lose being in the single market, which is economically

important and at the same time, Britain needs workers from the EU

for the economy to function well. It seems like she is hedging their

bets. Isn't this a transitional phase? Is not a permanent acceptance

of free movement forever? Quite. Theresa May says that after 2019,

she has admitted there was likely to be a transitional period so

everything can be sorted because two years is not very long. And this is

an admission that effectively, while you remain in the single market and

if we do in a transitional period, we would also abide by the rules.

There are many interesting points but two particularly is that this

looks like we're starting to see how Theresa May will play ball with the

EU. We had harsh words recently, all other stories about security linking

to the economic feature and people getting frustrated that perhaps the

Prime Minister might make a threat like that, even if it was thinly

veiled. And we can see Theresa May softening her position to say that

there may be some we can give and we might not be quite as hard line on

this as you thought. That is going to be interesting because it keeps

people on their toes. Is she really hard line? He/she prepared to give a

little bit of ground? Interesting quote from Steve Baker, a

Conservative MP... He was one of the leading lights behind the Brexit

movement and he has championed this for a long time. He says that I do

not want to discuss hypothetical scenarios, we cannot have MPs tying

the hands of the PM by drawing new red lines with every twist. The

question is, how long will that hold? How long will the hard-core

Brexit MPs be prepared to allow her to play her hand without rumbling

from the sidelines? That is the question going forward. Back to The

Daily Telegraph. This is a light relief we promised. A couple have

been fined 2000 euros because of their cooking! I will not spoil

this... My guests can explain. A court in Rome has come up with the

most marvellous word. Olfactory molestation! The case of a couple

who enjoyed cooking pasta and that is so smelly that the residents in a

tower block have complained about that rich pasta source and mixed

seafood, a beloved dish to Italians, but some noxious these people have

filed a legal suit that has gone all the way to one of the highest

courts. It seems to be quite a problem in many places in Italy? I

would not mind my neighbours cooking pasta! Had as a benefit to having

somebody next-door who can cook. There is a funny set of quotes in

this about how there has to be a line drawn between the people

cooking and those complaining because was another man who wants to

prosecute his neighbour because she cooked chicken soup at eight o'clock

in the morning. I have never had that for breakfast! It does sound

like this is one case and there are lots of others who will not end up

in court. Olfactory molestation! And I am thinking of moving there! That

is with this offence took place. Nice part of the world! That is

its... Fragrance free! Don't forget, you can see the front

pages of the papers online It's all there for you - seven days

a week at bb.co.uk/papers. And if you miss the programme any

evening you can watch it A fine spring day, 16.6 in Cardiff.

We have some breaks in the cloud, we could hang on to clear skies for

much of the night towards South south-west and eastern Scotland and

the north-east.