10/06/2017 The Papers

revealed the London Bridge attackers tried to hire a 7.5 ton lorry to

carry out the attack, but the payment was declined.

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

It will be extended compared to usual.

With me are Jack Blanchard, political editor of the Mirror

and Caroline Wheeler, political editor of the Sunday

The Observer says May's Premiership is in peril.

The paper leads with its editorial comment saying Mrs May

is discredited, humiliated, and diminished.

It says she is now weak, with rivals and opponents no

The Daily Mail focusses on the Foreign Secretary Boris

Johnson saying he is set to launch a bid to become Prime Minister.

It also carries a picture of former Top Gear presenter,

Richard Hammond, who was involved in a car crash during filming in

The Telegraph says Theresa May may be in Downing Street but she has no

power after losing her majority in Parliament.

The paper says senior tories are jostling in an unofficial race

The Sunday Times claims as many as five cabinet ministers are urging

The Express leads with the resignation of Theresa May's two

closest advisers Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill.

It's headline refers to them as "toxic."

A great deal to discuss, mostly focusing on the Conservatives. We

will also mention Labour at some point. The Observer. Blocking the

DUP coalition. I wonder how or the DUP would have been on the

coalition. The experience the Lib Dems had in 2015, the formal

coalition running the country for five years, it was disastrous for

them. They were almost completely wiped out as a party. There is no

appetite to repeat that because of the impact it had among the major

parties. We now have a loose arrangement. The problem with that

is it is anything but strong and stable in the words of Theresa May.

It is weekend wobbly. It could fall apart at any moment. -- weak and

wobbly. We don't know how much you will get through, not much, I

imagine. For some in the party that clearly think the DUP I'm not the

right bedfellows... Absolutely. Ruth Davidson broke ranks yesterday to

support she was very concerned about their stance on gay rights. That

started many others coming out. There is similar rhetoric about

women. Many have come out to speak vocally about fears of getting into

bed with the party whose track record on those issues is quite

concerning to them. They are antiabortion and also they have a

problem with gay marriage and issues like that. There is genuine concern

about this. That is aside from the overarching issue about the peace

process. Think about where we are at the moment. It is a very fragile

peace process. The current power-sharing arrangements and this

month. The government previously has been a neutral arbiter of the

process. If we get into one, it is shattered. Yes. They are supposed to

be neutral and sit above it all. It is easy to sit in London and forget

how fragile it is. But people involved in a process for 20 years

are coming out this weekend saying it is dangerous and stupid. Jonathan

Powell, Tony Blair's Chief of Staff, he was central to making the peace

happen. This is a bad idea. You don't know where this goes further

down the track. The last thing we want is this peace process to fall

apart. Peter said the same thing in our newspaper. He talked about civil

servants intrinsically involved in the process raising fear and alarm

about the damage this could do to the process moving forward. There

are genuine concerns now it could be absolutely, in his words,

calamitous. The DUP say they don't want a hard Brexit, because they

don't want a border between Northern Ireland and the republic. That might

prove to be some leverage they can apply with regards to Brexit which

would please a lot of people. They could do that in all sorts of

things, some might please people and others not. Now people in Northern

Ireland are wagging the dog of the entire country. It is what the

Conservatives have said Labour will do with Scotland. And then half an

hour on a Friday morning, let us do that. Reckless. They are not

thinking about the implications for the peace process and what it will

look like. Professor John Curtice, who never seems to be wrong about

this, he called it right away. He said that is where she could go to

for support. UKIP... I mean, in politics, don't you sometimes have

to make allegiances were you never expected to? They're restricting

that. But the Conservatives have been running a seven-week campaign

about that. Four hours later, they are doing exactly what they said

they would not do. It is hypocrisy. They would argue it is an

arrangement which has been informal for some time. You often find the

DUP go behind the Conservatives on lots of things. The difference if it

is a very cynical bid to shore up her own power base and majority.

That is what people are taking exception to as opposed to... I just

want to say, the DUP saw off the Ulster Unionist Party. Exactly.

There is only ten of them. It is enough to get her over the line just

if every one of her MPs it supports us. There might be ten DUP MPs.

There are 19 openly gay Tory MPs. They are furious to see their leader

jumping into bed with this very anti-gay rights party. If they

decide to vote against Theresa May, the majority has gone straightaway.

These concerns have been raised with her already, especially the LB GT

rights issue. I know she has had assurances, Ruth Davidson, that

those issues will not be on the table. But if you are in a situation

where you are desperate to shore up votes on a particular issue, for

example, a vote on a Brexit deal on the grand repeal bill, for example,

how far would she go to guarantee she gets that through the house if

it became a confidence issue? It became about her leadership again?

She would do pretty much anything, I would imagine, to get that through.

They use the expression jump on the bed so many times. We need a

different phrase for it. -- jump into. Via The Observer. She has no

mandate. It is up to negotiation. I had an interview on Friday with

David Davis. He said this is all about Brexit and she wanted to

strengthen her hand with this election. How many votes does she

need to claim she has the mandate for what happens next? He said to me

a majority of one was enough. Of course, she does not have a majority

of one. There are serious question marks about whether she has a

mandate. Having said that, lots of people are saying this is academic,

that she went to the polls for different reasons and used Brexit as

the general excuse for doing it. There are other things a play. The

threat from Scotland. The expenses scandal that was nipping her toes.

It will be tough for her to get through the kind of Brexit she has

wanted to pursue and said she would. I know Whitehall insiders, lots of

them have said they are literally ripping up the plans they had made.

They are saying those plans are pretty much dead in the water. We

have not heard much about it, happily? They now realise they have

to make concessions. The most important bits, getting out of the

custom union, it is hard. This is the first time in this election we

have had a chance to vote on what type of Brexit... Were they really

voting on that? Many people said it is the NHS and education and social

care. That is why they liked Jeremy Corbyn. There were people in the

referendum voting on the NHS as well. How can you do sting which

these things? A party puts forward a manifesto... Distinguish Yarmouk --

distinguish. It is the first time they have had a chance to vote on a

type of Brexit. Theresa May said this is why we are going to the

polls, specifically for support for Brexit and her planned. She did not

get it. It is hard to argue now that we will leave the EU in this way.

She needs more of a consensus than the way she has tried to do it. What

has happened during the course of the day. The Sunday Telegraph. In

office and not in power. Fragile leadership. Her two chiefs have to

resign. Another bit of pressure added. The feeling is that senior

services thought Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill had too much say. Yes. It

was a settling of scores as well. It is hard to overstate how powerful

these two people were. They were running the country with Theresa May

almost exclusively. That upset other member is of the cabinet and Tory

party and people in Whitehall who felt they should have had more say

and could not get near the Prime Minister because these two people

were basically running the country. -- members. They could not wait to

wield the axe so to speak when the opportunity arose. It was not just

the election result. We were talking about how fragile the power base was

right from the moment the Tory manifesto was published three weeks

before polling day. People lapped onto the front pages of newspapers

about it. -- lept. MPs were taking this policy onto the doorstep. They

were finding it was absolutely monstered and savaged. Many said it

was going down like a bucket of cold sick among Conservatives voters.

Like the triple lock for example. They have been seen as culpable for

that. The Sunday Express, your paper, May's toxic aides resign. And

incomes Gavin Barwell, who lost his seat, finding himself with a good

job as Chief of Staff. -- in comes. Twice the money. They are not paying

to of them. They are saving money. Austerity is working. Yes. He is

reasonably popular among Tory MPs. They have been getting along well

over the past two years. It is seen as a conciliatory measure. You have

to understand these two aides were the life of the reason made. Along

with her husband. Now she is looking isolated. -- Theresa May. They were

her sounding board. Now that is taken away and she is left standing

alone. But Barwell is like. He will have to be a critical friend. He

dubbed Theresa the freezer. He said she left everyone out except for

those two. MPs are saying it is time to thaw and to stop that freezing

out of people, bringing them back into the tent. That is possibly what

this appointment signals. The other people we have heard from today have

said that. It is a brave decision she has made. She kept her powder

dry since leaving Downing Street, the former Director of

Communications, who broke cover to talk about her own experience of

working in Downing Street and how she felt, that they were very

dysfunctional, that they were not very inclusive, that they ruled

everything with an iron fist, that there was not much negotiation

discussion, and everything was rubberstamped and went through them

and that made life pretty umpires and for her and others. -- pretty

unpleasant. Ultimately they are AIDS, not the

Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister? That's how they were

acting. Looking at the public, they will say while on you carrying the

can, you didn't win the vote on your leadership by the margin needed, you

need to be walking away, not sacking your advisers and blaming them.

There are rumours Theresa May wanted to resign but was persuaded to stay.

Moving onto the Mail on Sunday, Boris is set to launch bid to BPM as

Theresa May clings on. His team is circling a wounded leader. That's

not a surprise that people, notably the Foreign Secretary, are thinking

about having a shot. Literally from when the exit poll came out we

started talking about Boris on manoeuvres. There was further

speculation when he came out and didn't say things supportive of

Theresa May in the aftermath of the election results. The story

inevitably moves on whenever there's a wounded Prime Minister, it's a

sign there is a leadership contest brewing. Fires are starting. The one

thing we know about Boris is it in his DNA that he wants to be Prime

Minister, there's no doubt that is the top job he wants and he's almost

willing to trample over anybody to get their. No, it's not a particular

surprise that this is the story featuring both in the mail and the

Sunday Times but what is a surprise is the idea he is set to launch it,

which suggests something imminent -- Mail. I don't know what your

soundings are like from MPs but certainly Conservative MPs,

especially the more critical ones, of Theresa May's premiership, are

quite clear this isn't the time to get rid of her and it would be

damaging for both country and party and would make the prospect of a

general election all the more likely, which of course they feared

desperately would lead to a Labour government. I'm going to put a cat

amongst the pigeons and change the order, we will do the times, the

Mirror and then back to the Times. That's what we'll do -- Times. I

have missed something out. I'm supposed to be honest! We're doing

the Times next. That is also about Boris Johnson, we must call him by

his Paul Mayne, people get quite cross when we give him not his

nickname, just his first name -- full name. Five ministers urging

Boris to topple Theresa May. He has tweeted today that the Mail on

Sunday is tripe, I am backing Theresa May, let's get on with the

job so whether these ministers will persuade him? This won't take a lot

of persuading for him, this is about timing, when is the right time? How

will it look when he does go for it? There's suggestion that he might be

looking at having a stalking horse candidate, somebody else makes a

challenge to Theresa May's premiership first, someone who

doesn't think they will win but triggers the leadership contest so

the process gets under way, the MPs start to consider it, start to vote

and at that point Boris goes in and says, if you're having a leadership

contest, why don't I put my name in the hat and he romps to victory!

That's the most likely thing. Others will want to stop him, not everyone

will want him. There are other names like Amber Rudd and David Davis

particularly but I want to point out in Tim Shipman's excellent story, he

says although he has had these calls from these five Cabinet ministers

urging him to stand, he decided on Friday challenging May would

destabilise the government and catapulting Corbyn into Downing

Street and that's what the fear is, if you have a leadership contest you

make the possibility of a second general election more likely. I was

talking to a couple of Tory contacts today and there is genuine fear

among some of them that if there was another general election, which is

possible, this one hasn't created a result, they could lose and that's

the worst thing, losing to Jeremy Corbyn and having him in Number 10.

The Daily Mirror exclusive says we might not have to wait that long

according to Jeremy Corbyn. He thinks he could be Prime Minister

within days, that is what he has told my Sunday Mirror colleagues. He

is of the opinion that Theresa May is not going to be able to do this,

she has stitched together this coalition of crackpots as we

memorably dubbed it in the Mirror yesterday and is it really going to

hold? She's got a tiny majority in the Commons with the help of the

DUP. But the party is in turmoil. She's not going to be able to get

things through, can she get her Queen's speech through unamended

Quanne a budget? Maybe, maybe not, it could fall apart quickly and the

Leader of the Opposition is within his rights to try to form a

government. But he doesn't have the numbers either, he can say what he

likes to the Mirror, even with the support of the SNP and the Lib Dems

he doesn't have enough. He is waiting in the wings and snapping at

her heels and there's another revelation today he is already

putting together his alternative Queen's speech if there was an

opportunity for him to put his forward over the one now Theresa May

must literally be tearing up, the one they had prepared before, there

are huge question marks about her policy agenda, for example the

grammar school revolution, can she get that through, no, the DUP can't

vote on education reforms anyway because it is a devolved issue.

There's huge question marks about some of those policies. The other

thing with Labour, suddenly the Conservative Party are taking Jeremy

Corbyn seriously. So is the Parliamentary Labour Party! That's

absolutely true. So is the press, they have laughed at him and mocked

him, the Conservative Party were overjoyed he was the Labour leader,

they thought they would not him out of the park and suddenly it's not so

funny any more and suddenly they are seeing him as a genuine threat who

could genuinely be in Downing Street if another election happens or even

if it doesn't. Suddenly the dynamic has changed. One Labour MP told me

we are all Corbyn Easter is now. Something they weren't saying a few

days ago. There's a sense the party is going to pull behind him because

they can sense Tory blood, and they now think there's a realistic

opportunity they could form the next government whenever the next

opportunity arises. Labour is more united now than in a long time.

Let's pull you away from this story. Do you want me to do the Sunday

Times? Charlie Hollis it up? It is connected to the Sunday Express

story we will do in a second -- shall I hold it up. Hospitals warn

they are terrorist targets. A week since the horrific attack in London

Bridge and Southwark killing eight. How do you protect public buildings?

Hospitals and other buildings are open, you just walk in. But you have

to do, people are using things like kitchen knives, vans and cars,

everyday things, you can't ban these things, you can't have armed guards

on the front doors of every building so I don't know how you protect

against it. The trick is in the end catching these people before they

act. Stopping the radicalisation as well, which is the real problem with

this happening online, not people meeting people on the streets all

going to see hate preachers but sitting in their bedrooms and seeing

this hate that mobilises them to commit these terrible atrocities.

Let's finish on a more positive note that has come out of those awful

events of last week because Geoff Ho, one of your colleagues, he has

been writing about his involvement in trying to stop these attackers? I

know I am biased but even if it weren't my particular paper I would

urge everyone to read Geoff's Tory. Geoff is a trusted colleague and a

good friend -- story. What he did this time last week was incredibly

brave. Now for the first time in his own words he has told the story of

what happened to him when he took on the three jihadists in a pub in

Borough Market just moments after he intervened in another fight,

stepping in between a bouncer and some troublemakers as he describes

it in his own words, he made the fateful decision to follow up that

little altercation with a little snifter in another pub rather than

getting the train home. That fateful moment led him to walk into what...

It's just an unimaginable thing, I don't think many of us could imagine

what it would be like. The way he describes what happened, he

literally used his own body, his own skill, he is a martial arts expert,

to fend off these attackers. He took the decision very, very consciously

that the only way to stop a huge loss of life was to keep these guys

talking, to try to distract them, to play for time, to make sure, praying

the police were on their way, that they would do as little damage to

him as possible as he kept others hiding behind barstools and tables

safe. That's exactly what happened. He had his throat slashed. He was

very lucky to be alive. I work up to the news on Sunday morning he had

been very badly injured and was in intensive care -- I woke. We didn't

know his prospects but I'm really pleased to tell you he is sitting up

in bed, he is accepting visitors, there are queues outside the

hospital ward to see him, we are all struggling to see him. If he is

watching, best wishes to Geoff and speedy recovery. Thank you to the

gallery crew for following my front-page bingo. I love that shot

from over there! Use that again! Thank you, that's it for the papers

tonight. Don't forget you can see the front pages online at the BBC

News website and we have colleagues that tweet them on Twitter every

night. All of the papers are there seven days a week and all the

additions are posted there and on iPlayer if you missed them. Thank

you to Jack and Caroline. Time for the weather forecast next. Good

night. Good evening. Mateen always keeps us

on our toes and the weather does as well. Different day tomorrow

whatever you had today --