27/04/2017 The Papers

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

With me are the political commentator Lance Price

and Caroline Wheeler, political editor of

The Metro leads with our top story tonight, the terror

The paper features a picture of the suspect being wrestled

The i shows the man being led away by officers just a few hundred

The Telegraph front page is also dominated by that story.

But the paper also reports that allies of Boris Johnson

believe he could be moved from the Foreign Office

The Foreign Secretary's sister has joined the Liberal Democrats.

As European leaders meet to discuss their strategy

for Brexit negotiations, the FT says they are preparing

to recognise the potential for a united Ireland within the EU.

Hundreds of headteachers warned the Prime Minister that education will

collapse without what the paper describes as proper funding. Here,

the head of the NSPCC has warned that social media companies should

be fined if they fail to protect children online. And here, they look

ahead to the release of Marine A tomorrow.

Ladies first, the Guardian. The terror story. A little after 2pm,

2:22pm, a man was arrested in his 20s, very close to Downing Street,

it appeared that in his rucksack was a series of knives. Not very long

ago we were hearing of a similar style of attack with a knife when

another assailant broke into the Houses of Parliament compound with a

knife and killed a police officer. It has echoes of what happened then,

but on this occasion the interesting thing is that it appeared the

security services were on to this individual, a number of the papers

have splashed on this story, with the notion being that either a

member of his family or somebody within his community had become

suspicious about his behaviour. There is lots of different elements

of detail that we have been given about how he was tracked down, the

notion that he was followed onto a tube and when he got quite close to

the Houses of Parliament, he was closer to Downing Street when he was

swooped upon and arrested. That is when they made their swoop and they

stopped it, so there were no consequences, no death, nothing. You

have worked in Downing Street, would you have take a trip there, what has

struck you about the story. Caroline is right to say that the most

interesting thing is that he did not succeed, and the police and security

services did what they were paid to do. We are always being told in

briefings that the police foil an awful lot of attacks that we get to

hear nothing about, but this was played out on the streets, with

cameras and people filming on their phones, so we could see how

successful a well briefed, with good intelligence, operation can be. If

he was followed on the cube, the police would have deliberately tried

not to have arrested him on the cube, where he could have done more

damage, they waited until he was in the right position, where they could

disarm him and make sure he could not do any damage. The daily Mirror

has this shot of his face. It spread online. What struck me about this

story, they waited until he was off the tube, he got above ground, but

what a location for them to swoop. Exactly. It was so public and it was

intelligence led. I was walking down Whitehall, it seems to keep

happening where I am not far away. I was walking down Whitehall at pretty

much the time that this was happening. The only signed I could

see. There was a crowd of people around the entrance closest to the

Downing Street entrance, the Houses of Parliament. It was indicative

that something happened, but a very different atmosphere from that which

we had with just five weeks before, where there was a very real sense of

panic, a feeling that they did not know what was going on, a sense that

there may have been one or more assailant at the time. It is clear

with this that it was a well contained police operation, there

was no sense of panic, people inside the building were aware there had

been an incident, but there was not the level of concern or panic, there

was more of a sense of the police having it under control, it has been

dealt with, almost a suggestion that it was much less of an event than we

had had with the attack five weeks ago. They knew he did not have

accomplices, there was not the risk of the early attack that there was

somebody else will stop the interesting thing was the headline

on the Daily Mirror, the smirk. He appears to be looking right pleased

with himself, even though he has just been arrested. One concern I

have with him being on the front of the newspapers is I worry that the

people who do these things come for whatever reason, ideological

notoriety is one thing they are notoriety is one thing they are

seeking, and we are doing them a favour by putting them all over the

papers. You think it should stop at social media? Certainly not, I am

not saying journalists should not cover the story, but it was an

incident that will still put quickly, there are not issues

resulting from it, apart from giving the services a pat on the back.

There was the notion of whether or not you splash with the picture of

the assailant or whether you went with the victims who had lost their

lives five weeks ago. The Daily Telegraph has the same image, but

the story we have picked out on the front page, we had to touch on Boris

Johnson. He would be disappointed, I am sure he watches! Religiously, to

see if he will get a mention. You got a mention. It is not anything to

do with mugwumps. Did you know the word? Charlie And The Chocolate

Factory? Something to do with American politics, but I could not

have explained, but now I know. We are now clear about it. But this is

something which he is more concerned about, his own political future, and

whether or not, if Theresa May get a very substantial majority, she can

dispense with him. She has already joked she could dispense with him.

Why was he needed? He will be leading figure of the Brexit

campaign, he led the campaign with a certain panache and all of the style

we associate with him, the question was whether he could knuckle down

and do a serious job in Government as Foreign Secretary. Some people

think he has, some people don't think he is a credit to the

Government. Theresa May is sober, she may not be impressed by some of

the hijinks. At the weekend it was the Sunday newspapers in the wake of

the election that began the speculation around reshuffles. It

was the story that is still several weeks hence. And we were taking

briefings, the suggestion was that the highest offices would not move,

Amber Rudd, Iris Johnston, Philip Hammond. As time moved on, there was

a question that began to emerge around Boris, the notion that he

might be sidelined from the campaign, a suggestion that he would

not go down well in some of the northern seat, he was too posh, and

it jarred with the big's daughter image that she is trying to portray.

There were stories in the media this morning suggesting that ministers

are briefing against him. I don't think he has been briefed against in

the way that some embers of the Cabinet are being briefed against.

We don't have long, let's turn to the Financial Times. A bit of Brexit

in Ireland. This is interesting, and curious, the suggestion being that

EU diplomats might be raising the prospect of Northern Ireland voted

in a referendum to rejoin, or join the south, to have a united Ireland,

and state in the EU. And that somehow this possibility would be

enshrined in the Brexit treaty, because the Irish Government would

like it to be, just off the Spanish Government would like Gibraltar to

be included. It is bizarre, I suspect it's diplomats in the EU

wanting to make life difficult for Theresa May, talking about a united

Ireland and Gibraltar. And this weekend, the other European leaders

meet behind our backs to talk about us. How dare they! How dare they

unite to oppose the British Government, shocking! The Times has

another serious story, very quickly summarise this, Internet safety. How

on earth do you begin to tackle it? As a parent it is a nightmare, the

notion that your children are on their iPad, you cannot police what

they are looking at, although there are that you can adapt so they

cannot look at certain things. It is probably the biggest risk in terms

of safeguarding for parents. We have the suggestion from the NSPCC that

social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter should be fined

if they fail to protect children online. How do you do that? It is

very difficult. You could put health warnings or age warnings, but that

will not stop people. It might be an invitation. It is policing the

Internet. The same with terrorism. I think people at home using the

Internet will think, this is what politicians should be worrying

about, rather than throwing insults around. Thank you for your time. A

visit from us, goodbye. Mother Nature has been

keeping us on our toes.