22/05/2017 The Papers

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

With me are Paul Johnson, Deputy Editor of the Guardian

And Director of Bell Pottinger, Tim Collins.

Good to see you both. Let's have a look at some of the front pages.

Tomorrow's front pages, starting with...

The Financial Times leads with the undisputed

political story of the day - the Conservatives'

It says it's "rattled" the Tory campaign.

It reports there's confusion about exactly what the new social

It calls it "May's manifesto meltdown".

Pensioners will pay for the new policy,

according to the Times, but it reports that Tory sources say

it won't require tax rises or spending cuts.

The Metro says that the Prime Minister has denied accusations that

she's not so much "strong and stable" as "weak and wobbly".

The Mirror asks, how can we ever trust Mrs U-turn? A different lead

investigation reveals vulnerable investigation reveals vulnerable

teenagers have been exposed to pornography through Facebook.

A rather topical front page from the Express,

although it's not actually about the so-called dementia tax.

It says scientists have found dementia runs in the family.

Tim, I'm going to start with you. Theresa May, strong and stable all

week and wobbly, like jelly on a plate, so goes the nursery rhyme!

This plays against the very thing that she was trying to put forward

in this campaign, it's all about leadership, that it's about a strong

negotiating hand, that you want Boadicea leading us into these

Brexit talks. Jolyon a plate, according to the Metro? -- jelly on

a plate. Brexit more than anything else was about politicians not

listening. For decades they wouldn't listen to what the public was saying

about emigration and power is going to Brussels. We do have a prominence

to now who clearly has listened. -- we do have a Prime Minister. The

reaction of particularly Tory leaning voters on the doorstep was

very negative to this, and she has listened. The thing about the U-turn

bit, that element of the policy that is new today actually takes us

straight back to David Cameron's policy and what was the Goverment's

policy until a week ago, that there should be a cap. It's not as if she

has plucked an idea out of nowhere. That used to be a Tory Party policy,

I thought about it further and we will go back to it. Paul, it was

clear what Tory cause was under David Cameron last week. In fact,

Quadri days ago -- what Tory policy was. She decided to pass it out and

now she has brought it back in again. I was looking forward to see

how Tim would spin his way out of that one! This is a complete

shambles. The first time in history that a manifesto promise has been

broken even before the election. It's just been a day of complete

confusion. You've had a very angry Prime Minister, ministers running

away from BBC TV cameras shown on screen. You had anger, blame gaming,

you've had finger-pointing, the whole thing. It is a meltdown. It's

being called meltdown Monday. This is not a rational act, it was forced

upon Theresa May on the Government. Tim, come on, the front page of the

Telegraph, chaos. The fact is, there were people within her own party,

people within the Cabinet to thought it was a bad idea. Is she just not

listening to anyone? I do think one of the lesson that has come out of

this is that we know, this is true with Tony Blair and probably with

David Cameron, he had a very sort of gilded circle, it does seem that

prime ministers of all parties are to you eager to just listen to a

very few voices and they tend to govern much better when they listen

to a wider Cabinet and consult a bit more. That is probably a lesson that

needed to be learned by Mrs May, as it was learned by her predecessor. I

suspect after this, she will... One thing that is good about her is that

she does listen. She campaigned for a Mane and now she is carrying

through Lees, but she listened,. I don't think she will make this

mistake again. They get up this morning and say, Prime Minister,

we've got to get rid of this, how do we get rid of the policy? What we

do, Prime Minister, we ditched the policy, how do we explain that? We

say that nothing has changed. But who do we blame? We can't blame

Cabinet ministers or the head of policy at Downing Street, they had

nothing to do with it. We will blame Jeremy Corbyn! How do we do that?

Say it is fake news, that is how we get out of it. By the way, you have

a half an hour slot in your diary this afternoon to explain all of

this to Andrew Neil! I bet that went down well! It is a difficult day. Is

it a mortal wound? No, the reality is we are going to come on later to

the story about opinion polls. It is important but all of this in

context. She remains further ahead even in the worst opinion polls that

were above is a work published over the weekend than Margaret Thatcher

was before her general election landslide, more than Tony Blair was

in his worst poll before the 1997 landslide. The reality is, most

general elections over the last 30 or 40 years, in fact, every general

election, you have had the result in the end that you did in the middle.

We get very excited about these things, but most rotors have made up

their minds already. They decided that they prefer Mrs May to Mr

Corbyn. This hasn't been a great day for her but it won't change

anything. Left-leaning press, Paul, playing this. Your front page in the

Guardian is doing so, the Daily Mirror as well. How can we ever

trust Mrs U-turn? Not the most flattering picture of the Prime

Minister. PM flip-flops again. The fact is, she still is, according to

the polls, we ahead of the Labour Party. This has been a good day for

them. -- we ahead. We seeing an element of hubris here on behalf of

the Prime Minister, because she was so far ahead, we have the changes to

getting rid of free school lunches we have means testing winter fuel

payment, winter fuel allowance is. And we've now got this U-turn as a

result of the belief that she could potentially scare her core vote.

Yes, it is quite extraordinary. You could characterise this as callous

or as complacent, you could characterise it as a trust issue.

You could characterise it as the right thing to do! There is no doubt

she did the right thing by introducing the future of social

care into the rational conversation, there's no doubt something has to be

done about intergenerational wealth. But to do it in this way was very,

very or indeed. To say to a big ball of the country, to say to a big pull

of your constituency -- you're going to have to pay, I'll tell you how

much after the election. I understand why Tories like me or

upset with the idea of undermining the principle of inheritance. What I

genuinely don't understand is how socialists like John McDonnell or

Jeremy Corbyn can say, we're going to fight for the right of

multimillionaires in the south of England to hand over the entire

value of their homes. We're going to fight to make sure that

multimillionaires keep the winter fuel allowance is. Why is the left

saying, we are keeping every privilege for the rich? I thought

Jeremy Corbyn's allowance is that the system is rigged for the rich.

It's mad! I think we are in argument about whether the rights or

wrongs... The triple lock. The Conservative sums don't add up. In

the Andrew Neil grilling we saw, tell us about taxes. I can't give

you any promises. Tell us about the NHS and the extra ?8 billion. I

can't tell you where it is coming from or whether it is new money or

not. There two default position is that the primers has. Number one is

evasion, number two is blame Corbyn. The most important sadistic she out

with in that interview was she said, in the next ten years there will be

2 million more people over the age of 75 needing care. We can't expect

people in work to pay higher taxes because the tax burden is the

highest it has been for 30 years. We can't borrow it because our or ring

is far too high. Where do we get it? At least the Tories have some ideas

about. Labour is the magic money tree and a free unicorn for

everyone! If we had got to the Don Lock cap, it could have been costed.

-- the Andrew Dilnot cap. Ministers yesterday was on... Gentlemen,

please! I need a whistle or something! We are back to the cap,

but we don't know what the cap is, the interesting debate, no limit has

been set by the Conservatives so far. Paul, interesting, this poll.

This is the Huffington Post suggesting that in Wales Labour are

racing ahead with Welsh voters stop your yes, this is curious, this

poll. They are talking about an extraordinary 16 points swing to

Jeremy Corbyn's favour in Wales. Now, we've been here before with

swings. We've been here before with poles. We are quite a way out from

polling day. These figures are doubtless moving around, but they

are only moving in one way. The Tory vote is staying basically steady, or

so it seems. Labour seems to be inching up. And the other parties

seem to be involved in a third-place play-off. Polls are just polls,

that's it. Lets not forget, the polls called the referendum wrong,

they called Trump from, they called the last general election wrong, I

wouldn't get too excited. I know you are looking forward to the great

socialist republic, but it ain't going to happen. You were talking

only about how far ahead Theresa May was in the polls. If she is as far

ahead as Mrs Thatcher was, it she didn't do very well either. Let's

move on to the Financial Times, Trump at the wall. I hope we can get

this picture on screen. Can you imagine from tweeting this out to

say, number one he is made stopping a flood by holding back the waters!

-- here is me. Number two, I told you I would build a wall! It is

significant, though. It is significant and very interesting,

the significance has been underwhelmed, it has got into

difficulties. Because Trump, his approach to secrecy has been

encapsulated in this visit. In a trip to talk to the Russians he

talks about secret intelligence being passed on from Syria. He then

gets other people to deny it. He then confirms it himself, and today

he says in public, oh, but I'm never mentioned Israel, it wasn't me,

honest. It's! It was an incredible clanger. One issue of substance. At

the weekend he was in Saudi Arabia, he spoke at a conference of 40

Islamic countries, all of whom are delighted that under him US foreign

policy is going back to its traditional stance of backing the

Saudi view of the Middle East rather than the Iranian view of the Middle

East. Although that will be unpopular with some, he is amazingly

popular in the Gulf states, because they feel that America is back being

their friend against. The Times, apparently storms and tea on not

going to be part of the break between cricket matches as people

thought they would. When I saw this on page three I wondered why it

wasn't on the front page! And act like this ripping apart the very

fabric of society, this has got to be another thing that Jeremy Corbyn

has come up with! But it isn't. There is a reason it is the bottom

of page three, it is talking about doing away with cucumber Sam Wood

is, but it comes from Tony Oxley of fear of Cricket club. -- cucumber

sandwiches. -- fare Roque Cricket club. If it was the Test matches, it

would be the most important story of the day. I wonder why the Theresa

May to boggle is not on the front of the Daily Mail. -- De Bock all.

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/papers.

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