09/04/2017 The Papers

speak to Scarlett Thomas about her switch to writing for children and

the creation of a fictional world full of magic and danger.

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

With me are the journalist Lucy Cavendish, and Tom Bergin,

Hopefully not suffering from too much sun after a lovely day out

there tonight. Tomorrow's front pages

then, starting with - The Daily Telegraph leads

with claims that Russia and Iran are threatening

to retaliate against America, following last week's

air strike on Syria. Donald Trump is accused

of crossing "red lines". The Financial Times focuses

on President Trump's decision to increase US naval power

in Korean waters. The Independent leads

with an exclusive on the rising number of domestic violence

victims withdrawing charges The Daily Express claims that

Theresa May is under pressure to introduce a five-year pause

on unskilled migrant workers coming to the UK in order

to reach immigration targets. The Metro also looks at the claims

that Russia and Iran are threatening to retaliate

against the United States - it also carries a picture

of the funeral of PC Palmer, who was killed during

the Westminster terror attack. The Guardian says that most asylum

seekers are placed in the poorest PC Palmer's funeral takes place

tomorrow, he is lying at rest in the Houses of Parliament tonight. Let's

begin with the Telegraph, and a couple of the papers are running on

the fallout following those cruise missile strikes by the United States

against Syria earlier in the week. The Daily Telegraph's headline,

Russia's threat to strike back at Trump, we will respond with force

Moscow tells the US after attack on Syria airbase. How specific are they

being? It is not specific at all. It is a pretty good one because of

course you wrote expect Russia to come back with something because it

does feel like an attack on Assad and they are in cahoots with a sad

but I'm not sure what the force is. I don't want to make light of it but

the bromance is over -- Assad. Trump has gone this way, Putin is going

that way, he is standing alongside the Iranians and it feels

threatening but no one has exactly said what the force is. The

accusation Donald Trump has crossed red lines which is ironic since he

felt red lines had been crossed some time ago, 2013, President Obama

hadn't responded even though he had drawn a red line. We might need to

use some different colours here, purple markers, and we have so many

lines going on here. Yes, as Lucy said the bromance is over, lots of

discussions about whether President Putin helps, Trump, we will find out

if that was the case, any reason to hold it back might be gone. It is a

confusing situation. It is not usual we see the kind of language being

used here. Childlike language. Childish. The mechanism is Twitter,

the messages are thinly veiled insults, the kind of comments used

to describe Britain by the Russians. It is a strange situation and

heightens this political unpredictability we have now. It is

one of those things when looking at financial markets and other areas

people citing political uncertainty in the way they have not done in the

past. Even in the developed world and in the place where in the past

we have certainty about policy, namely the United States, people

would trail the economic policies for a long period of time. In the

course of a week we have had a U-turn, turning on a dime, and we're

not used to seeing these things. He is an unpredictable man. Which one?

Both! I felt with Trump there were checks and balances around when he

came into power and lots of people said the checks and balances and

sensible people... But this seems to be spiralling into literally like

two people trading insults across social media, it is extraordinary.

Yes, it's not the sort of discretion we are used to in sort of diplomatic

terms, is it? No. You wonder how useful it is, they look to have much

more distance between the White House and the Kremlin than was

suggested a few weeks ago. Absolutely, and they are talking

about threats. The US has been careful not to have any Russian

casualties in the action. The Russians were notified at a military

level in advance of this military strike. On Twitter! It is or was

possible inadvertently that could happen and that would ratchet up

things, as we have seen before with Turkey and Russia with respect to

the downing of the Russian fighter. These things can get out of hand and

lead to escalate unintentionally. The Guardian talks about the British

aspect of this. Russian fury as Johnson is snapped as Syria tensions

rise, Boris Johnson's decision not to go to Moscow -- snubbed. The

reaction from the Russians, particularly Sergey Lavrov, who is

his Foreign Secretary counterpart. Yes. The Russians are basically

saying that this shows that Britain is incapable of independent thought

when it comes to foreign policy. Basically, the UK is a lapdog to the

United States. As I said earlier, this is not really typically

diplomatic language and they are obviously not happy about this.

Interestingly we are also seen the opposition in the UK, the Liberal

Democrats and Labour, criticising Boris Johnson for not going to

Russia, working on the basis of Rex Tillerson, the US Foreign Secretary

who is going to go, so why should Boris do not go? We have not had a

really clear explanation from the Foreign Office of the thinking here

and this is leading the opposition parties in the UK to say Theresa May

is afraid he is going to go and they will be gaffes. Much further down in

the article it says the Foreign Office says the talks were called

off owing to Russia's continued defence of the Assad regime. Russia

says this is not had a pleasant -- diplomacy works, you don't just not

turn up if things get tricky. Have they missed a trick not being in

Moscow to say those things? I think he has but Russia has always

supported the Assad regime. I was always the case before he was going

anyway. The interesting thing is there has been no reason given. He

apparently needs to work on proposals a bit longer. The

opposition parties are right, there is a big question mark over whether

or not Theresa May trusts Boris Johnson. Do you really think that is

what it is? At this point of time I would say it is pretty important

that he does go over there, it is a visit that is planned, and to back

down, again, there is a Twitter spat saying he's not on the dome at up to

the job. Isn't that for our benefit? We reported all the time. If you

make these statements you can box yourself into a corner and the

problem is Trump has committed to so many things, from health care to

foreign relations, he has made promises, his written a lot of

cheques on Twitter but he can still be held accountable for those if he

doesn't deliver. Donald Trump was putting America first. There was not

going to be much engagement abroad, was there? That has changed because

of the circumstances. Like he looked at health care and he said it is

complicated. Boris Johnson isn't going to be there to sort it out and

have a place at the table. Shall we stay with the Guardian? Most

refugees sent to the poorest parts of the UK, calls for appalling

system to change as Labour areas bear the brunt of the cost. Is this

accidental or deliberate? How do people end up in the poorer parts of

the country? I think it's very complicated. Another thing that is!

Life is complicated. Essentially Yvette Cooper, who said this is a

shambles and has been part of the whole thing highlighting the thing

that has gone on. Since 2012 there was a change by the Conservative

government to do with the contracts. Which the coalition put in. It says

the Conservative government but you are right, it is the coalition, to

do with contracting out to private companies. It is a money thing the

same thing that happened with how much money you have for school

dinners. How much people have in order to be able to how much people

have in order to be able to house asylums. What has happened with that

is the richest places have managed to ring fence things, the rich are

part of the country who probably don't want asylum seekers there.

They say you can't come here. It was a function of how much housing

costs, rental accommodation is cheaper in certain places and that

is where you put them because the money goes further. It is that

simple and difficult to draw up a system in a different way. You can

consciously say we want to spread the burden more broadly but implicit

is that is you have to spend a lot of money. Underpinning just about

half the stories in the newspaper today is the tight budgetary

situation. It is clearly unfair in many ways. But on the other hand,

would it be much fairer if we actually had less money to go

around, which would be the impact if we decided to house people in more

affluent areas? Let's look at the Telegraph again. Pay of Southern

Railway boss almost doubles. This is Charles Horton's page that has gone

up to almost ?500,000 for one reason or another. And, of course, we know

how beset with all sorts of problems, trains not running, trains

being cancelled, and then strikes on this particular railway line. We

don't get a lot of detail so we do not see exactly why his pay is going

up. I am sure the consultants hired by the company to help set his pay

have come up with a very rational reason why even though they might be

certain problems with the rail group it is totally justified. The issue

is we look across the board and seek pay rocketing and performance often

very mediocre. It is difficult to see, if you look at the data, the

connection between executive pay and remuneration. The Chief Executive's

share of company profits has gone up about three or four times over the

past ten years. There is no real sense to it. It is part of the

bigger thing, Parliamentary committee saying they want to end

some of the bonus programmes. It is another example of outcomes we don't

really understand how they are justified. It could just be that in

his contract he is owed this money, maybe as simple as that and there

might be a performance aspect to it. It might be as simple as that but in

terms of PR it is a complete disaster. There have been bosses

recently who have said I'm not going to take my pay rise because it's not

the right thing to do and everyone would have felt happier, because the

people who have used Southern Railway man as we have seen, it has

been a disaster and it has been miserable and they will not be

happy. He still has the chance to turn it down, if he wants. He does

have a chance to turn it down. Back to the FT, or to the FT for the

first time. Push to close gender gap starts at the top. This is how

companies can address the gender pay gap. This month new legislation

comes in that big companies will have to publish data that will tell

us just how big the gender payback is going to be -- pay gap. There is

further analysis in the newspaper but it is an interesting story.

There is still obviously a gender pay gap and a friend of mine works

in headhunting and working out what is going on with winning and why

there aren't more women at the top of companies and why the pay gap is

so big. It is partially because companies are not very good, certain

of them, not all of them, adjusting their working practices so people

can work effectively and maybe they are not constantly five days a week

in the office. This is looking at if people at the top just what they are

doing to make the company is more available for women, which is

interesting, like for example having a supermarket. Because women do all

of the shopping! That is exactly it. It is a fascinating point. Quite

right. That's great, how wonderful to have a supermarket but what about

the idea that only women go to supermarkets to do the shopping.

That betrays a lot. Looking at the message from the top, if that is the

message from the top, that will not encourage people. Clearly in

everything the ethics of the company, coming to attitudes, and

all kinds of things, the chief executive sets the tone. But this

comes in the context of the UK facing a productivity crisis and we

need the contribution of all kinds of people to help come up with smart

ideas. Including women shopping in the supermarket! A novel idea!

That's the papers for this hour. Don't forget all the front pages

are online on the BBC News website where you can read

a detailed review. It's all there for you -

seven days a week at bbc.co.uk/papers -

and you can see us there too - with each night's edition

of The Papers being posted on the page shortly

after we've finished. Lucy and Tom - we'll see

you again at 11:30pm. We all know what it feels

like to get lost in a book. In Scarlett Thomas's novel

Dragon's Green she turns it