28/05/2017 The Papers

We'll be taking a look at tomorrow morning's papers in a moment.

Police investigating the suicide bombing in Manchester on Monday have

The Conservatives and Labour promise more action to minimise the threat

of terror attacks in the wake of the Manchester bombing.

Thousands of British Airways passengers have faced a second day

of delays and disruption following the massive computer

failure which grounded all BA planes at Heathrow and Gatwick yesterday.

We've tried desperately to contact BA by email, by phone,

on their website and also trying to find ground staff,

and we haven't seen anybody on the ground at all.

Landslides and floods in Sri Lanka have killed at least 150 people

and the country faces the risk of more mudslides as

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

With me are John Rentoul, chief political commentator

at the Independent, and Ruth Lea, economic adviser at

The Financial Times leads on the IT chaos causing

misery for BA customers, but carries a photo of a rather

happier-looking German Chancellor at a campaign event.

The male report claims of a moronic cover-up over cutting costs on

computer systems. The election campaign is the main

story for the Telegraph. It claims that Jeremy Corbyn has

been denounced by members of his own party after attending

a ceremony in honour of a terrorist. A key legal power has been used only

once to control British jihadists, say the times.

The Mirror has a full-page photo of some of the 40,000

people who took part in the Great Manchester Run.

The paper calls it a "defiant act of solidarity".

A terror warning is the top story for the Express.

It reports fears that Libya has become a breeding ground

British Airways, the photograph says it all, a female passenger looking

absolutely exhausted and desperate, sitting on a trolley with her bags.

Here it is, camera three! The worst chaos I have ever seen, the quote

from a pilot. Half term misery as disruption to continue for days.

Very, very few BA staff seem to know what is going on or the Indy

terminals explaining to passengers. It is a terrible story. This

weekend, as half term starts, bank holiday weekend, the worst possible

time, and it makes me worry about whether I have backed up my

computer. You take these things for granted, you should computers will

work, and when they don't, you ought to have back-up systems, and it

looks as if cost-cutting means that they do not. It aims to have been a

power failure which has brought the system is down, but the union were

quick off the mark, they said, you outsourced a lot of this to another

country. That is what the Financial Times say, because of the

cost-cutting, we do not know, but we are so dependent on the systems, if

they go down, it is a tragedy. We only have to think about the

ransomware virus, damaging the NHS. There does not seem to be adequate

back-up, either in BA or in the NHS or anywhere else if something goes

badly wrong. If it is a problem with cost-cutting, they are going to lose

a lot of money. The Telegraph is suggesting that compensation

payments could be ?50 million and loss of goodwill and loss of

business could be another ?50 million. Some terrible statistics.

The ineptitude staggers you. This is what comes across to us, passengers

cannot get any information. The company does not by what has gone

wrong. They are not sending anybody out. They have nothing to say,

everything stops. It shows how dependent companies are. Even if

everything stops, having people out there, surely, would be a sensible

thing to do, offering people refreshments, accommodation, health,

advice. They do not have the contingency plan. People complaining

they did not have food or drink. The minimum you can do is keep people

reasonably comfortable if they are going to be stuck in an airport

lounge. They did not seem to have anything. The only common sense or

comments that seem to be coming from the cabin crew. They have said, we

are not doing -- going anywhere. They will have to start talking

tomorrow or Tuesday, after the bank on. The Financial Times, Angela

Merkel holding a large rear. She is in Munich, signalling that Germany

and France will have to get closer together, because they cannot rely

on Britain and America anymore. It is farcical. She says, we can no

longer rely on the USA, because Donald Trump was less than polite to

them in Brussels at the Nato meeting. He told them to pay up,

because of the Nato members, only three or four meet the 2% of GDP

target, one is the UK, Greece, France and the USA. Germany is way

behind. She is one to talk. But the idea that the US or the UK will walk

away from Nato is absurd. When it comes to the UK, Theresa May went

out of her way when she invoked Article 50 to talk about security

cooperation. She had said as Home Secretary being in the EU was

important for security. She has done one or two U-turns. Joking apart,

when she sent her a letter to Donald Tusk, she made a big issue about

security. The UK will not walk away from the security agreement with the

EU. I do not think she is a fan of Angela Merkel! Off the back of the

G-7 summit, when they were trained to get people on the right page over

climate change, the United States could remain isolated if they do not

carry on with the Paris accord. The important thing, apart from the

quantity of beer that Angela Merkel is trying to drink... Did she drink

it all? Angela Merkel is running an election campaign, as Chancellor in

Germany, and this kind of anti-American talk goes down quite

well with the German electorate. That is the true story. It tells us

her direction of travel. Where Germany will head if she is still

Chancellor. The Brexit negotiations start in the middle of June, you see

positioning going on in the EU, toughening up the talk. It is big

talk. There is so much of that. They are politicians, that is the

problem! What will we do without them? The daily Mirror, a fantastic

picture, he streets of Manchester filled with tens of thousands of

runners taking part in the great Manchester run, putting on a show of

solidarity. Life will carry on as best we can. It makes you proud of

Manchester. I don't live there, I have not lived there, but one of the

striking things about the response to Monday's awful events is the way

that Manchester has asserted its identity and sense of solidarity,

and I have found it very moving. When people started sinking the

oasis song at a memorial service, and this again, it is wonderful. I

am very proud of them. I come from just south of Manchester, I can put

a Manchester accent on, I can be right authentic! We must have known!

I go back to my received pronunciation! I agree with

everything John has said. The Mancunian people are the most

wonderful people, they really warm. Out of this appalling tragedy, it

seems as though you have seen the good side of nearly everybody in the

community, whatever their religious persuasion. One of the most touching

scenes was with a Muslim gentleman with an elderly Jewish lady, and

they are very good friends. Part of a multi-faith forum. I thought, that

is so right, and to see him there was so incredibly helpful. The

spontaneous applause when the balloons were released in memory of

one of the victims when her parents turned up to set them off in Saint

Anne Square. Lots of little moments which have been extremely moving.

More and more arrests today. A 25-year-old man, and more raids in

different parts of Manchester. Obviously, still an investigation

going on, which is why I thought it was a bit unfortunate that the

politicians started arguing about the politics of it on Friday. I

thought it was too early, I thought, leave the political arguments until

this week. Campaigning was suspended for several days as a sign of

respect. Let's look at The Times. Power to ban UK jihadis has been

used just once. These are the temporary exclusion orders. They are

to stop various people coming back into the country if they have been

in various suspect countries. I am not a security expert, you have to

be careful what you say, but perhaps the services have to tighten up

big-time. It is not just about these orders, I would not be sorry to see

the control orders brought back. They were introduced in 2005 and

dropped in 2011 at the behest of Nick Clegg. They are essentially

house arrest for people under suspicion. We have to take this

terrorism seriously, no doubt, and if it infringes some freedom of

movement, that is part of the balance of trying to get this right.

This is symptomatic of the fact that the security services have to be a

little bit, or substantially, more security minded than they have been.

It explains what it means, you can be kept out of the country for up to

two years. It is not inconsiderable. It is a case of slamming the stable

door after the horse has gone. From what we have learned about the

perpetrator of the Manchester bombing, he seemed to be coming and

going from here to Libya without much attention being paid to him,

and that has got to change. That is what this is about. Travel documents

can be cancelled, they can refuse re-entry unless they agree to

restrictions, or reporting to police on a regular basis. You would

imagine that would be quite helpful to the authorities. That ought to be

happening more than just once. I wonder why it has not. We are not

experts, but it suggests they have just been rather lax. The bomb was

on the radar, he was one of several hundred that the security services

were looking at, and somebody from one of the mosques in South

Manchester had reported him as being suspicious in his attitudes. They

will just have to tighten up all round. It will be good to know who

decides who is subject to these exclusion orders. The Home Secretary

is to sign it off, that somebody at a lower level has to decide. Let's

finish with the Independent, back to politics, and the campaign up to the

election, which is not too far away now. An exclusive, Labour most

trusted to protect pensioners, the poll is a major setback for Theresa

May. We have a lot of polls in the independent, but this is

significant, because the Conservative vote depends so much on

older people turning out, because they turn out much more than younger

people. I think the significance of the social care proposals in the

manifesto, which have not gone away, has not been sorted out, has

unsettled a lot of old people who are going to have their free care

visits withdrawn if they owned their own house. That is going to have an

impact. It has still not been made clear, the original selection --

suggestion would be a cap, then the Conservatives suggested, which came

to the surprise of the party, that you would have to pay everything in

your estate up to 100,000, which flipped it round completely... That

what the big change. It was reported in various bits of press, they took

at the idea of the CAP, because it had originally been in the

manifesto. That was not a clever thing to do. It was not just about

the social care, which is a terrific worry for anybody in their 70s and

upwards who need care, and there are an increasing number of them, but

the means testing of the winter fuel allowance, and the end of the triple

lock. All in all, adding it up, it seemed an absolutely anti-pensioner

manifesto. A lot of the narrative was that a lot of these people, who

are going to vote Conservative anyway, will do no matter what is in

the manifesto. How certain can they be? That is why it is so

significant. You cannot take people for granted. If you unsettled

people, they are not going to vote Labour may not turn out to vote at

all, and if at the other end you have Jeremy Corbyn promising free

cherishing and succeeds in mobilising young people and getting

them to turn out, you could see a dramatic effect. Almost twice as

many people trust Labour to protect pensioners than the Conservatives,

that does not break it down, and fishing, into age groups? Whose vote

will be affected by this? Your concern maybe younger people who are

concerned. Maybe, authority would expect it would be the older people

who would be more concerned. But it is one explanation as to why the

Tory poll lead is narrowing quite substantially, although it still

suggests that Theresa May is en route for a fairly large overall

majority. But it does not look quite as secure as it looked a fortnight

ago. It does not. Let's leave it there for now. You will be back

later. Don't forget all the front pages

are online on the BBC News website, where you can read a detailed review

of the papers. 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 Ruth is so polite, always saying,

may I say! You may! This week on Meet The Author Jim

Naughtie talks to Ann Patchett