11/04/2017 The Papers

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

With me are the broadcaster Julia Hartley Brewer

and Associate Editor at The Guardian, Hugh Muir.

The Financial Times leads on Syria, reporting that Vladimir Putin says

the US is being duped into attacks against the Syrian regime.

The I focuses on the diplomatic moves to attempt to punish

Vladimir Putin for his backing for Assad and the vetoing

The Guardian reports that the American attitude to Russia has

hardened. Boris Johnson's failed diplomatic

moves also feature in the Telegraph, which says he has been rebuffed

by all sides for failure to secure support for sanctions on Russia

and described him as being out The Metro's lead story is today's

ruling at the High Court that the gravely ill baby

Charlie Gard should have his life support machine turned off

as soon as possible, The Daily Mail says Charlie's

parents are vowing to fight on. The Express quotes an Oxford

University study which says eating fresh fruit every day cuts the risk

of diabetes despite We are not looking at that front

page. The statements of the obvious. The story on the front page of the

Daily Mail, it is on the other papers as well, little Charlie,

eight months old. A height court judge said it was with the heaviest

of heart that he came to this decision that doctors are in the

right if they decide to switch off his life-support. There but for the

grace. We would want to be the parents, who would want to be the

doctors and he would want to be the judge? A horrific story. None of us

is a medical expert or a legal ethics expert, but this is a

situation no one wants to be in. It is ?1.2 million just in donations to

fund this possible treatment that might work in the States, but the

judges ruled it is not fair on the baby. He needs to die with dignity

and I don't know how, as a parent, or as a doctor, you make that

decision but there comes a point when it is kinder to let your baby

died. I don't think any of us would ever be happy to make that decision

ourselves. I think that is actually what has made this decision easier

for the judge and further doctors, because they firmly believe that

more treatment would put little Charlie in more pain. I think that

is right and I think this is a case where we all have to accept that

everyone is acting in good faith and trying to do their best for Charlie.

I think it deserves its prominence on the front page because there are

important societal issues here. Who can we say it has the best interests

of the child at heart? Is it the parents or the judge? The judgment

went to the hospital. He did his job. If ever there is a case that

needs to go to a higher court, this is the one. The parents say we think

there is something else we would like to try. As a society we have

exercised our duty of care getting him this far and the treatment we

have given him so far, but if the parents do feel there is something

else they want to drive, is it right that we should say they cannot do

that? It is not about the cost on the NHS or anything like that, but

there does come a point when it is not fair to put a child, or for

adults, we make this choice all the time, we have been battling for the

right to die for adults. There is a point when you need to let people be

and let people make their choice. I wouldn't want to be the judge, but

they do have the right of appeal. It seems likely they will. They do have

the right of appeal. They are considering whether they want to.

They are right that there will come a point at which further treatment

is inhumane, but he makes that decision, is it the state of the

parents? That is something we do need a definitive legal ruling on.

These cases do individually go to court because we are talking about a

human life you. You mentioned people acting in good faith and doing their

best. Let's talk about Boris Johnson. Front page of the eye.

Johnson loses fight for Russian sanctions. I spoke to the former

Foreign Secretary today and I said if you had a particular policy you

wanted the rest of your colleagues in the G-7 to come on board with,

would you talk to them about it first before saying that this was

the policy and I want these guys on board? He said yes, but that clearly

didn't seem to happen in this case. We are a really been a lot of what

we have something that we do not appear to have a functioning

diplomatic operation at the moment. We have a buffoon as Foreign

Secretary. I think many would disagree with that characterisation.

Theresa May would be won, she gives him the job. The point is that he

has a relationship with other nations, the Foreign Secretary is

that would allow him, when we need him to strike sums of arrangement,

that we as a nation think is desirable, to get that done and he

clearly cannot get that done because they clearly think he is a bit of a

joke. I personally think foreign -- Boris Johnson was a terrible

appointment and is out of his depth. This shows that. I don't think

foreign policy is made by Foreign secretaries. It is made number ten.

The problem is, we have France, Germany and Italy refusing to take

action. They dragged their feet over economic sanctions over Crimea. What

happens if Russia marks -- marches troops into an allied country? They

are happy for innocent children to be gassed and they will do nothing.

They should be ashamed. This is a collective failure of British

diplomacy. It is a failure of Germany, France and Italy. The point

is we have to persuade. If we have to persuade Western democracies to

take action against a man who is it a tottering demagogue supporting a

mass murderer, I'm not sure I want those people to be my allies.

President Obama didn't do anything. He has blood on his hands. I think

President Obama has a lot to answer for. A failure to take any action.

That is the one blot on his presidency. We are not going to

analyse the legacy of President Obama. I would have voted for him

but I don't think he was a great president. Sometimes you don't get

to choose your allies, sometimes you have to say what is the objective we

all want and see if you can persuade them of the course of action?

Talking about the objective that most people would want, the front of

the Financial Times. Russia ramps up Syria tension with claims US tricked

into action. To drive a wedge between Moscow and Damascus, that

clearly hasn't worked. In fact, it is driven them closer together.

Putin is Dublin done. This is it, you are not quite a shame Vladimir

Putin on this. This is a man who is happy to kill his own people. He has

done it on London streets. This is a man who is shameless in every sense.

There is no question. The claim that America was duped into an air

strike, I think Donald Trump might have accidentally done the right

thing but for the wrong reasons. He wanted to get the aclaim, to be

thought of as a strong man. He wanted to get rid of the niggling

issues about whether he is just the puppet of Vladimir Putin? He thinks

he has dealt with that. The big issue is Rex Tillerson is in Moscow.

Looking at economic sections, which is of the American company with the

biggest investment in Russia? His old company ExxonMobil. The

tentacles of Russia and American business and the trumpet

administration are so closely entwined now. We are in dangerous

territory. Whether Rex Tillerson can strong arm or Sweden something with

Vladimir Putin, I do not know. I don't hold much hope. What makes you

nervous at the moment is the problems seem subacute and the

people you are relying on notice of them don't seem up to it. I don't

have that particular faith in Rex Tillerson. In some ways he might be

conflicted. Trump seems to make policy completely on the hoof. It

might be the last week he did the right thing for completely the wrong

reason. I think the thing that makes me nervous is not even the ideology,

the ideology makes me nervous, but what really makes me nervous is that

all the people we seem to be relying on to get us out of the sticks are

pretty incompetent. John Spicer, the American President's press

secretary, went into a former press briefing and said how awful, awful

Assad was because not even Hitler had gassed his own people. You could

see everyone looking around. These people cannot walk straight and chew

gum. He doesn't even know basic history. Alexander Litvinenko, his

death in London streets, Moscow of course denies that. I love that the

BBC feels the need to say that. The Russians did it. You wanted to

mention the Telegraph. It is laying into Boris Johnson's seeming failure

of diplomacy here and Boris Johnson used to be a writer for the

Telegraph. He did. ?250,000 a year. It was chicken feed that. I wouldn't

get out of bed for that money. We could pay all the stuff on the

Guardian for that. He is in the cold from the G-7 and the United Nations

and his own government. I think Theresa May doesn't trust for

minute. Let's go to the Times. A breaking story this evening. This

explosion, some kind of blast, involving the Borussia Dortmund

football team on the way to the ground for the Champions League game

against Monaco. Very worrying. One of the players has been injured. All

the people, the spectators honoured in the stadium waiting for the game.

They were told to wait at least half an hour. They have rescheduled the

match now for tomorrow night. Very worrying. Germany has had so many

terror attacks. Lots of speculation about who is behind it. Certainly

very worrying. Roadside bombs appeared to be aimed at the

travelling from the hotel to the stadium. Very nervous time.

Westminster, Sweden, now this. There is a heartening element, that is how

people responded. There was a ground full of people who left in an

orderly fashion. There were fans from Monaco to work given beds for

the night in Germany. They were cheering for Dortmund in the

stadium. I think that is the way forward. You just can't stop these

things. I was speaking to the cab driver on the way here and he said

it is a high profile game, what would not protected? How can you

protect against that? I am fed up with candlelit vigils when people

die. I think we should start getting angrier. A lot of people get very

angry when they saw the video uploaded online of the United

Airlines staff driving a passenger who paid money to be on the plane,

they dragged him off and, frankly, this is the kind of PR blunder that

is in every PR person's worst nightmare. It is absolutely

extraordinary. The incident itself was so problematic in terms of the

decisions that they made, the questions they have to answer about

what made those decisions, how they chose people to take off the flight.

We know one of the reasons the fight was over but was because the airline

was flung its own staff and they were distancing paying customers to

get their own stuff on. It is all very problematic. The stuff

afterwards, the way the company reacted, it has been extraordinary.

They said this guy was belligerent. I would be belligerent. It is a

textbook example of how not to do it. I like the fact that the Pepsi

chief executive but we had the worst PR disaster this month and United

Airlines said how that beer. The statement has changed. There is

accusation that they were accommodating this passenger. It is

sold and nothing else. The staff did nothing illegal and nothing against

company policy. It was all according to procedure. You can drag someone

this. It is different in America. They double click and overbook

morphemes in America. We tend to get fights for longer journeys, but even

here, what they have done in the EU, they have upped the compensation

parents after plate which means they are less likely to do it. If they

had paid someone have $1 million to get off that plane, they would still

be quids in right now. This is America. Someone would have cut off

the fight for some money. We have to live there. It has been great having

in. Don't forget you can see the front

pages of the papers online It's all there for you,

seven days a week at bbc.co.uk forward slash papers and if you miss

the programme any evening you can watch it later on BBC iPlayer

Thank you Julia and Hugh.