30/08/2017 The Papers

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

With me are the journalist James Rampton, and Annabelle Dickson,

Political Correspondent at Politico Europe.

Tomorrow's front pages, starting with:

The Telegraph Harvey two stories which dominate the front pages as a

whole, marking the 20th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana, and

also reporting on Theresa May's intention to stay in power to fight

the next general election. The FT say there could be an early

leadership contest. Many MPs expected her to step down following

the Brexit negotiation. The Guardian leads with the Prime Minister's

interview also, in which she insisted she was not a quitter. The

Daily Mail has: I will fight the next election. It could mean she

remains Prime Minister for the next ten years, if you do the maths. Then

the Times says the Prime Minister wants to stay on to focus on social

justice as well as Brexit. And the metro dedicate the front page to the

tributes to Diana at Kensington Palace. In the sun, they give a full

page to Princess Diana, saying she is still the people's Princess.

Let's start with the Daily Telegraph. I'm no quitter, says

Made. It's not going to be 2019, after Brexit, that she goes, it

could be longer. That's right. This came about when she was on tour. She

has the lobby packed with her in Japan, and after the reports at the

weekend in the Sunday Mirror that she might have gone by the 30th of

August 2019, she was asked about this and hit back, saying, no, I'm

no quitter. I'm going to stay and I want to fight the next election,

much to everyone's surprise. After the election, there was this

understanding almost that she was the caretaker leader and she would

see Brexit through and then kind of after she had dealt with Brexit and

had the stability, then the Conservatives could start having a

bloody leadership battle ahead of the next election. I was talking to

sources today after we got wind of what she had said, and it was a

mixed response. You know, there were one or two who said she can't fight

an election, she's proved she can't do it. She was termed the Maybot. We

all remember the wheat fields, the naughtiness in the wheat fields.

Yes, and there are others who say, let's see what happens. Who knows

what will happen in the next couple of years? For someone who is

supposed to be boring, she does pull out is, first of all the general

election and now this. I do fear for her. I think what George Osborne

said a few days after her disastrous result, that she was a dead woman

walking. I don't think anything has happened since the change my mind

about that. What also makes me very suspicious is one of her main

rivals, Boris Johnson, has said he gives his undivided backing. Will he

stabbed her in the back, the front, the side? He is undivided in his

opinion about that. He also says he is there to support her. Alarm bells

ring for me because it reminds me of when Michael Heseltine said, I do

not foresee circumstances in which I would take over from Mrs Thatcher,

and then the next day, he stood against. People who say they are not

a quitter and look like they are clinging on for dear life look

desperate, and that is smelt by the electorate. I don't think she will

make it to the next election, and if she does, she will be completely

toast. Party conference season is coming up in the autumn, and after a

relatively quiet summer, one assumes she has regrouped. One would imagine

that is when people will start to mutter and put their colours to the

mast. Yes, and this is a key test coming up. It dissolves the back is

almost a month to the day before conference season. This is when all

the grassroots will be there, and this is a key test of the mood. They

were the ones who are out on the doorstep with what they were saying

was a manifesto they despaired of. It wasn't something they could sell

on the doorstep. They were the ones that rubbed away this shoe leather,

as it were. Definitely, this is going to be the key test for her,

and she will have to pull off the performance of a lifetime. James,

inside the Telegraph, one of the editorial pages, Nick Timothy has at

page to make -- has a piece. Can she grab political ground that will

appeal? His contention is that she will be appealing to the common

ground, which is not necessarily the centre ground which many liberals

are hankering after. You know, there have been suggestions, James Chapman

last week saying, could we form a centre ground party? He says that

people suggesting that are the Metropolitan elite who are out of

touch with the rest of the country. I do think that her performance was

so bad in the last election, if I heard strong, stable leadership

again, I was going to run off the nearest cliff. Here, she seems to be

reading the tea leaves. I don't know, but I do fear for her future.

As Eunice she says, grass-mac as soon as she says, I'm no quitter, I

think she's finished. She was asked the question, and she was kind of

dammed if she did and dammed if she didn't. If she had said, actually,

no, I will pack up my bags in two years and go, then the optics for

Brussels and Brexit talks wouldn't have been good. Really, she had to

say this. I think there was a sense from other MPs I spoke to today that

there wasn't a surprise about this. They didn't expect her to wave the

white flag and say she was. You are right, because we are getting flak

from Brussels or ready for the ambiguity of our position papers,

and the supposed vagaries of what we are presenting. So, if Mrs May said

she was off aim yes, that would create a further sense of

instability and chaos, which I think is the case within the Tory Party,

but it would make it even clearer. We shall see if it's a blog or not

when the time comes. Let's just shimmy over to the Financial Times,

because they have a picture of her, but her main story -- but their main

story is the NHS faces a huge agency bill. This is Jeremy Hunt going on a

recruitment drive for doctors. Tell us more. It is basically saying that

the NHS is going to have to pay ?100 million to find 5000 doctors, and

half of them will come from overseas, to plug staffing

shortages. It is not a new story is that there are staffing shortages in

the NHS. I'm sure it has been discussed regularly on this lot.

Absolutely. It is an eye watering sum of money, and that is just going

to recruitment agencies, not doctors' salaries, which I'm sure

will beg the question for hard-pressed nurses, loads of

workers in the NHS, as to why those sort of sums will have to be paid to

those agencies, and it is worth saying, I think it does in the

story, that this plan predates Brexit, so it is not even taking

into account the potential doctors who might leave. Yes, because there

is this issue of doctors coming from overseas and the ramifications if we

lose even more of them. I keep thinking of a joke that begins,

Doctor, doctor, whatever happened to the ?350 million we were promised on

the side of the Brexit bus for the NHS? I don't know the conclusion,

but it is true what you say. Helen Stokes Lampard, the chair of the

Royal College, says, losing the skill and experience of EU workers

would be disastrous for the sustainability of

our health service. 2000 of the 34,000 GPs in England are from EU

countries. If, through some, I think, bizarre outcome, we lose

those people, that they are not allowed to stay, that is quite a

large proportion of GP numbers in this country. They take 5-7 years to

train, and you can't just snap your fingers, Whistle down the nearest

pub and get 2000 new GPs. They have to have experience and very

expensive training. The idea they will appear from nowhere is

fantastical. Get Arnold Schwarzenegger in to do an advert

and everyone will come running... I think it is absolutely bonkers. A

huge story which will dominate tomorrow, of course - the 20th

anniversary of the death of Princess Diana. The Daily Telegraph is one of

those that had pictures of Princes William and Harry at Kensington

Palace today. That's right. And lots of people have made the link between

what they were doing today and what they were doing just under 20 years

ago. We should say, the Sun and the Mail have that juxtaposition of

photos. 2017, the adult sons, and in 1997, taking us back to the

teenagers, well, Harry just 12 at the time. That contrast. I'm sure

lots of people who have been watching, and have been lots of

documentaries about it, and these two very articulate boys have been

talking about the sort of terribly traumatic in their lives, and they

had said that, actually, this is the last time that they are going to

talk about it, on this 20th anniversary. And that is kind of it.

It has been extraordinary hearing what they had to go through, and

those sort of conversations that went on about what was the best

thing to do. You had this public outpouring and their own private

grief. Actually, tomorrow, they are having private grief. You know,

today was the sort of public appearance, they went to Kensington

Palace. I am not a monarchist, but I think they behaved impeccably

throughout this. They made a surprise appearance today,

absolutely delighted that people who had come to pay tribute, and there

are moving little details that they gave, such as shaking hands with

some of the mourners soon afterwards and their hands were wet because

people were crying so much. I thought those little details really

brought it to life. Obviously, it is a terrible thing they went through,

but if one good thing emerged, it is that they talked about how they

dealt with bereavement and made that OK in inverted commas and a general

topic of conversation, because so often in England, and across the UK,

it is taboo. You do the stiff upper lip and don't talk about your

feelings. But they have validated that and said it is OK if you have

suffered a loss to discuss it and say that you are grieving and

incredibly sad. I think that's an amazing achievement they've done, to

really open up for public debate. Obviously, there will be a lot on

that tomorrow, with the anniversary. A very quick parting look, again in

the Telegraph, about Bake Off. There is a cartoon at the bottom.

Annabelle, talk us through this cartoon. It brings a smile to your

face, doesn't it? Yes. They have taken me to make big news stories,

obviously apart from Theresa May saying she won't quit and Princess

Diana, and put them into one. That would have taken some doing!

Exactly. We have Bake Off, which started again last night. I have to

confess, I haven't watched it. They showed viewers... They got good

numbers. It was fewer than the BBC. But the cartoon is great. Bake Off

is rubbish, it says on this site. Kim Jong-un has gone too far this

time! You can criticise anything except Bake Off in this country! We

have to whiz through everything, as always. It would be nice to have

more time. But thank you to James and Annabel. That's it for The

Papers tonight.