05/11/2017 The Papers

might be as high as 27 but we will

be back at a news conference in

Stockdale, Texas when it begins.

Before that, it's the papers.

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Ruth Lea,

Arbuthnot Banking Group Economic

Adviser and Ben Chu,

economics editor at The Independent.

The FT leads on anti-corruption

arrests in Saudi Arabia,

in which 11 princes

and

dozens of senior figures are among

those who have been held.

The Express reports on icy weather

conditions set to hit the UK,

with the country set to suffer polar

winds and snow.

The Telegraph has a warning

from the Home Secretary,

that more ministers are likely to be

sacked over the Westminster

sexual harassment scandal.

The Metro reports on the mass

shooting in Texas in which at least

20 people are reported

to have been killed,

it also pictures the Queen,

amid the Paradise Papers leak

into offshore funds.

The Guardian also reports

on the Paradise Papers.

Which it calls the world's

second biggest data leak.

The Times also has that story.

Let's start with the Guardian. They

have unsurprisingly gone with the

Paradise papers, because they are

one of the organisations who have

been providing information in the

first place.

The International

commission of investigative

journalists or whatever they are

called. Whatever gets me about this

coverage is we know it is a huge

link, 13.4 million files have been

hacked. Many of the rich and

powerful have actually been

implicated in this, but of course

the papers tend to pick on the

Queen. The Queen's investments in

various cayman funds, but it's

nothing she has nothing to do with,

it is the Duchy of Lancaster. It's

very unfortunate they have picked on

her. But we are where we are, so to

speak. I suppose they think that's

the sort of catchy story. Yet again,

it brings the whole question of tax

havens into question. There is

nothing illegal about these tax

havens of course, it's about tax

avoidance, which is not illegal.

Some people call it tax planning,

not evasion. There is always this

feeling of the morality issue. I pay

my taxes, why can't, why do these

people get away with not paying them

just because they go through tax

havens where there is zero tax, it's

all secretive? It's always with a

bit of a smell about it even know

it's not illegal.

And that's why it

matters to lots of people.

If you

are someone who does not have the

ability, the facilities and the

amount of wealth to take advantage

of these things, it does not feel

fair that you are paying a certain

amount of tax and some people

potentially are not. Ruth says we do

not know about any illegality

involved in any of the people or

organisations cited in this, but the

point is that there is so little we

do now because of the lack of

transparency. We cannot say one way

or the other a lot of the time. This

is where the difficulties come. In

relation to the Queen point, Rufus

Wright, it's not the Queen herself

making the decision to put 5 million

of my money in tax haven, its people

advising her -- Ruth is right. There

is the issue of the Duchy of

Lancaster which does manage our

money. They say they have an ethical

consideration when it put the money

and it would appear if some of this

money is going into tax savings and

this White House group which is a

aggressive high Street organisation

which mainly lends the poor people,

perhaps they have failed to some

degree in living up to those ethical

considerations in that respect. --

Bright house. There is some

substance here we have to engage

with.

One of the questions asked of

the Duchy of Lancaster, and about

who manages the funds.

Moving to the

Telegraph, as you hint, a moment

ago, with all the different options

that the newspapers have, in terms

of what they focus on, they have

gone with the Queen as well.

Indeed.

The poor Queen. I noticed here that

I'd take Ben 's point about the

morality but they do claim the Queen

does not manage the Duchy of

Lancaster's investments which are

decided by the council we have just

implied. It pays tax voluntarily on

any income, now what tax that is,

perhaps they do pay voluntary on tax

which is from Cayman Islands. Who

knows. That will be very much in

focus. I think they have a bit of a

media problem here. They have got to

sort this out.

Of course, leaving

Buckingham Palace to one side, there

is more this to come in the next few

days.

There is. Presumably a similar

pattern to what we have with the

Panama papers, where we will get

some on the first day, some on the

second day and it will go on as long

as they've got their names because

it's in the interest of the media to

string it out. Fair enough, this is

the way of generating publicity

around their story and the whole

issue. What I would hope is that we

actually get onto some of the more

substantive issues. It does feel a

bit like Groundhog Day, there is not

that much difference in what's been

revealed since the Panama papers

last year. What we really need to

talk about is the policy response,

things to do with the campaigners

around this, the registry of these

trusts, the offshore organisations

which decide how much money can be

paid out and coordination between

governments to try and sort this

out, rather than the endless...

It

does require that coordination

because if anything significant is

going to change, there needs to be

international change.

That's right,

I quite agree about the Panama

papers because I remember following

that story and there was going to be

a meeting, I think there was,

chaired by David Cameron. But

nothing came of it as far as I

understand. For too many of the tax

havens, it's too beneficial. Who is

going to throw the advantage away? A

lot of the tax havens are actually

British territories. That's a

problem. If we close I was down, for

example, if we made a great

sacrifice, someone else would pick

up and in the meantime our overseas

tax savings presumably would be

losing out.

In the end, a cynical

view might say nothing will ever

change because unless every country

at the same point agrees the same

thing, some of the money will go

somewhere?

You can't use that as an

excuse and you certainly can't say

we are taking this seriously as a

nation, as a government, then say we

don't want to do anything

substantive, because it means we

will lose some lucrative business

overseas or some overseas

territories will live out -- lose

out. There is a danger of saying,

let's wait till we have

international agreement before doing

anything. As you say, nothing will

ever happen. In this Groundhog Day

leaks. Do not forget, we will

probably get more of these leaks

because it's so easy to take a USB

out of a company now and get that

information out there than it was in

the past.

Let's stay with the

Telegraph and do with political

matters closer to home. This is

Amber Rudd, with regards to the

current scandals emerging of

Westminster.

She is effectively

saying, it's not over yet. More to

come. I think she is effectively

saying what everybody else knew.

They have been various lists of

behaviour, bad behaviour by MPs,

even ministers, circulating. Some of

those names have been people

involved and forced to step down,

the Chief Whip Gueye, Chris Finch,

reporting himself to the police over

some allegations contained in the

mail today. Lots of other names on

that list. Lots of women likely to

come forward because we are now

seeing the dam breaking and people

being emboldened them feeling it's

the right thing to do, to speak up

now, so Amber Rudd is essentially

confirming what we all suspected,

which is this will keep going.

And

party leaders meeting tomorrow,

Telegraph talking about today but

talking about coming up with some

sort of plan.

One is deploying the

seriousness of this, it's just

terribly unfortunate at this time in

the government has so many other

problems on its plate and so many

other challenges. It does seem as

though one of the names very much

top of the list of concern is Damian

Green, who was the first Secretary,

State Secretary, and very close to

Theresa. One of her close friends. A

crucial member of the government. It

does seem all this business about

pornography on his computer, this to

me, this morning when I saw it in a

certain Sunday paper, struck me as

being trialled by newspaper. If the

policeman in question really have

seen this pornography on the

computer, why on earth was he sell

this to the papers instead of

actually taking it to the police?

Mr

Green saying now there was not any.

This appalling, but it's just drip,

drip, drip of implications and I

find it very unnerving. I'm not

condoning harassment for a second,

but I just think at this particular

time, it's almost the last thing the

government need, or having said

that, it's not just the Conservative

Party.

It is not, it's everybody.

Everyone caught up in this.

We are

seeing a lot of questions raised

about Labour having promoted one of

their MPs to the Shadow Cabinet,

after being told by someone that he

had harassed them. No one is safe,

spotless in this.

It's a mess.

The

government is faced with the same

issues, similar to tax savings, you

have to be taken seriously in your

condemnation, you have to act. You

cannot say we're taking it seriously

and not act. That's the issue the

government faces the Damian Green in

particular. Though he is obviously

very close to Theresa May, more

evidence comes out, which I think,

Kate Maltby who made the excuse

Asians against him says others have

said things, it will be a bit like

Michael Fallon situation. -- Kate

Maltby who made the accusation

against him.

He lost his credibility

I suppose, which again was a great

shame under the circumstances, to

lose a Defence Secretary who

actually was very confident.

A word

about coverage at this stage of the

story that still has not fully

unfolded, sadly, Ruth, this is from

the front of The Express. They go

into more detail inside with

reference to this shooting in Texas.

The irony is that when I last of the

papers here with Bennett the story

was Las Vegas. That was absolutely

horrendous, he is yet another

horrendous shooting. You just think,

when will this ever stop? I remember

when we was discussing Las Vegas we

talked about gun-control and I think

I said at the time that given the

particular interests of the National

Rifle Association etc, it will be

very difficult in the States to get

any sort of gun control. But

unfortunately, the consequence is

that people can get is extremely

easy and then you see this appalling

massacres. It's Agnes.

With a Las

Vegas so recently in people's minds,

does that make a difference in terms

of how the politics might take a

look at this?

As Ruth says, when Las

Vegas happened, there were some

suggestions that this is surely the

straw that breaks the camel 's back,

so many have died. Donald Trump

McKnight had said something, maybe

we will look again at gun-control, I

do not think we have seen anything

on that front since. As horrific as

this is, a massacre in a church,

apparently it is always shaping up

to be one of the fifth worst mass

shootings in history. Yet we get

numb to it. We do, I don't know how

Americans must feel, seeing this so

often. I am very pessimistic about

even something as horrific as this

making a substantive difference to

American attitudes toward

gun-control.

They are all spec

elating might have been some family

dispute. You have a family dispute,

you don't should everybody, it's

just bizarre.

The motive is one of

the things that might emerge at that

press conference which might happen

in the next little while, but as yet

has not occurred. It was finally

about the Financial Times, taking us

to Saudi Arabia. Arrests and

significant change at some speed.

When Saudi makes the headlines it's

not usually for things like

corruption purges, it's more to do

with oil prices and

behind-the-scenes deals, Yemen,

geopolitics. This kind of thing is

very rare in Saudi. But a very

interesting, because something is

happening there. They are trying to

float their job all companies with

some transparency, they have let

women drive, which is a tiny

incremental change in the Saudi

context, important. Now this. A

corruption crackdown. 11 princes and

dozens of senior officials arrested,

so it's obviously not just going

after the small fry, even Princess,

who we have heard about as investors

in Twitter, Citigroup. Prominent

figures.

People who may have thought

they were well out of these kind of

areas. The Crown Prince, the king 's

son, does seem absolutely sort of

determined, to change Saudi Arabia,

and to change the corruption, he

says no one involved in corruption

will escape the are a minister or a

prince and are plenty of Princes in

Saudi Arabia. The airport was closed

because they did not want these

people they were trying to arrest to

get in their jets and shoot off.

A

flight risk, literally.

That is

worth knowing, isn't it! Thank you

both.

That's it for The Papers this hour.

Thank you Ruth and Ben,

you'll both be back at half 11

for another look at the stories

making the news tomorrow.

Coming up next, it's

Meet the Author.