21/04/2017 The Papers

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

With me are Torcuil Crichton, Political Editor at The Daily

Record, and the barrister and broadcaster Sophia Cannon.

Thank you for staying for a second review, which is an unusual retreat!

The Financial Times says there's alarm within Downing Street

as the Chancellor hints that he wants to scrap the 2015

Conservative pledge of not raising taxes.

The Mirror also leads with the Chancellor's comments.

It suggests Mr Hammond has signalled he could increase VAT or income

The Times says sources in Washington have told the paper

President Trump is prioritising a trade deal with the EU over

The Independent reports on a British judge,

who warns the Government is displaying "invincible ignorance"

in thinking they can free the country from

The Daily Mail warns of a new mortgage price war

The Sun also warns of tax rises and pension cuts

if the Conservatives win the election.

It says there could be an increase in overseas aid spending.

The Express writes the Prime Minister is to reject

a fresh call from Brussels to give a life-time guarantee of working

rights to EU citizens currently in the UK.

And the Guardian leads with the Presidential elections

in France, and the heightened security in polling stations

Starting with some reflections on three days of campaigning we have

had after the snap election was announced, much to everyone's

surprise. The Daily Mirror is where we will begin. The Tory bombshell.

The Chancellor says he will drop a pledge not to hike taxes. This isn't

comfortable for Philip Hammond, who says he wants to lower the tax

burden on people, when the economy is doing well. Indeed. Spreadsheet

fill, as he is nicknamed in the British press -- Phil, as he is

nicknamed, is that the Tory party is the party that supports the economy

and is fiscally secure. However, he has a black coal. Two forces are

undermining this. First of all the demographic changes and also he is

seen those who voted to leave or remain, the economy will be under

pressure. When we leave the EU. Indeed. Where is he finding the

money? Has tried to raise national insurance... That didn't work so he

did the U-turn. Indeed. This way is a clever way. He is thinking to

raise VAT, to put a tax on everything that we buy that special

for people and the issue is VAT is paid by more people, poorer people,

at a higher rate because it is the way people buy and consume their

goods. Who would have thought it? The rule of politics, you can't go

into an election promising to raise taxes because you will lose that

election. Unless you are a long way ahead in

the opinion polls. Unless you are confident of getting more than 100

seat majority, as you can afford lose if you friends on the way.

Philip Hammond, last month he tried to raise taxes by raising national

insurance by 2p. He had to drop that in 48 hours. That budget melted in

his hands like chocolate! So he is saying, I will have to get three of

these restraints. The 2015 Tory manifesto said there would be no

rises in national insurance because David Cameron's backroom boys when

they wrote that, they thought they would get in the Lib Dems anyway.

Now they are having to stage an election to escape their own

manifesto. It's now about taxes and it will be the same for tomorrow.

Should we applaud politicians for admitting taxes? We need more

funding if we want the NHS to have enough money in the office. It

depends who is paying the tax. John McDonnell said this is a tax

bombshell. This is the mother of all tax bombshell is. More importantly,

this is bullying the poor, bullying people who can't not pay VAT on our

heating, on our consumables, on things that people need to have in

their homes. Labour is accusing of hiding this VAT bombshell that was

brought in after the election. As you said, the poor pay as a

proportion of their income 10%, which goes on Vatable goods. But he

might just opt for income tax instead of VAT. That's what happened

yesterday. When Don McDonald considered the idea of people

earning more than ?70,000. The day before, yes. Yes. The whole issue

was if 70,000 pounds, it's a lot of money, are you rich on ?70,000? We

are having existential questions being asked. Where should the tax

burden rests? Because Brexit, even though we do want to talk about it,

is making us look inwards as to where we will get this money from,

who is going to pay and where the savings will be found. You ask

people, ask voters, if they are willing to pay more tax for these

essential services and of course they say yes. Someone should.

Someone should. But they don't say yes in the ballot box, bedded reward

politicians who say they will pay taxes. The Sun. It supports the

government and Theresa May and says no to tax rises, no to an increase

in the national aid, no to the end of the triple lock for pensioners,

all of which might happen if the Tories back out. Pay and DisMay.

They know their readership. The Sun, they appealed to the white 'van man'

electorate. They would feel this. Obviously a lot of them are

self-employed and a lot of them use the VAT system. Added on to this,

OAPs also face an attack on the triple lock. Although we are out of

Europe, we still would be paying 0.7% on our foreign aid budget and

they see that as very much a bitter pill. Why should we be paying into a

foreign aid budget when a should be raised? Soft power and all of those

things Britain benefits from. They blinked it together to make you feel

at -- as a Sun leader that these are linked and it's a clever device, but

as you say it is the wrong one. That amount of aid... Theresa May has

recommitted it and she has had to, which is quite good because she was

being bullied earlier in the week. It will be put in black and white

what each party thinks. Different forces, mostly media forces, have

been trying to claw back on Britain's commitment to overseas

aid, which is hugely important in terms of exercising international

compassion and basically doing the right thing. Capitalism has been a

major force in the past century to lowering poverty, to increasing life

expectancy, and to ensure that there is more quality in the world. But at

the moment capitalism isn't running the way it is supposed to. The

Times. Angela Merkel lands a Brexit victory for Brussels. Do they prefer

a block of 27 member states with hundreds of millions of people in

it? This is a good story. A good Times splash. Before Brexit Obama

put us at the back of the queue, then Theresa May goes to Washington

and they hold hands, we are in front of the queue and Boris Johnson says

we are the front of queue. Hold on, Angela Merkel! She doesn't seem to

get on that well with Trump. She is pragmatic. She says this

transatlantic trade partnership will be simpler and easier than you

think, Donald. Donald Trump likes deals, he likes big deals, and Trump

on America trade does five times more. And doesn't provide a path in

for the EU. It depends on what the deal is. Is it a surprise that

America wants to make a big deal with a big trading bloc and then put

the smaller company further down the queue? It's not a surprise. It's not

a golden carrot. This whole idea that Trump is supposed to be coming

this year to see the Queen and for a state visit... And see some

relatives in Scotland! We are no longer this idea that we are the

nation that we used to be. We are looking at the wrong end of the

telescope. If we leave we ongoing to be very small, a small island

nation. We have always batted above our weight. Then why don't we

continue to do so? Because things have changed. Technology isn't what

it was. It has recently come out that... But all of that innovation

we are capable of, all of the things people price about Britain, that

won't change. One would hope it won't change but the whole idea now

is the way we are trading and have traded in the past 40 years and it

has been supporting our economy, it supported it, and now we are

dismantling it in three years. Robotics might take care of that! We

are more likely to be a nimble offshore economy with low taxation

rates for big companies. And of course that probably means lower

wages as well. Finishing with the Guardian and looking ahead to the

French presidential election, the first round run-off is on Sunday.

France heads for the polls on high alert. There are some rather

stringent legal guidelines when you report in the run-up to the French

election. Anything that's broadcast which could be considered propaganda

in France risks in infringing these guidelines. That means things like

material that you might be favouring one candidate over the other, so we

will have to avoid that and explain it just you wonder why we aren't

mentioning in the -- the individual candidates. This is an election that

is probably more important than the one we are about to vote on in six

weeks. It may have a bigger effect on Brexit than those going to be

ballot box later. France will be a big player in negotiating with the

UK. And if they are still in it. That's not the issue. The issue now

is democracy in the shadow of the gun. There will be 60,000 extra cops

on the streets. This is a European democracy that we are talking about.

Troops being stationed on the streets. When you list the attacks

that have undermined the French sense of security, we had Bataclan,

Nice, Normandy, and what happened yesterday. I think when you see them

and you list them the pedestrian nature of them... The horror, I hope

the terror is slipping away because it has now become so mundane that we

are just waiting. We have become immune to them. France is becoming

fatigued. That may or may not play into the hands of any one candidate.

We have to remember things like our own referendum in Europe was

overshadowed by that terror attack of Jo Cox, which kind of soft the

collective breath out of politics and the nation for some time. Did it

affect the results? It seems not. Will this attack affect the result?

The difference obviously with the people of France is they've had

history. There have been occupied and have had this issue where

they're very democratic foundations have been undermined by the forces

and many people are undecided. I think it is 20%. But we can't say

too much about that. We are expecting a high turnout and it is

the first round run-off. We will be covering the results at 6:30pm on

Sunday here a BBC News. That's it for The Papers tonight.

Don't forget you can see the front pages of the papers online

It's all there for you, seven days a week, bbc.co.uk/papers.

And if you miss the programme any evening you can watch it

Thank you, Torcuil and Sophia. It's time for Sportsday.