11/11/2017 The Papers

Donation's favourite marmalade

sandwich eating their returns to the

big screen. Gashed the nation's.

We'll get Mark Kermode's thoughts on

Paddington II in the Film Review --

the nation's -- sandwich eating

bear.

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Kevin Schofield,

Editor of PoliticsHome

and Benedicte Paviot,

UK correspondent at the French

broadcaster, France 24.

Tomorrow's front pages,

starting with...

The Observer leads on Jeremy

Corbyn's calls for Boris Johnson

to quit after comments he made

about a British mother

imprisoned in Iran.

The Sunday Times says 40 Tory MPs

have agreed to sign a letter

of no-confidence in Theresa May.

The Telegraph leads on plans

by the Environment Secretary,

Michael Gove, for stronger

environmental policy

following Brexit.

Meanwhile, the Mail

on Sunday says Mr Gove

and Boris Johnson are holding

Theresa May to ransom in order

to secure a hard-Brexit.

The Sunday Express says the economy

is in for a £3 billion

windfall after Brexit.

We don't really have favourites on

this, Kevin.

So let's begin.

Next time, put it right. We will

start with The Mail on Sunday, Boris

and go of plot to hijack Number 10,

a secret memo has emerged written

after the party conference in the

autumn.

When they felt Theresa May

was at her weakest and they are

Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, the

Environment Secretary and the

Foreign Secretary, so The Mail on

Sunday quite rightly calls this a

bombshell leaked letter so the

secret letter is a secret no more.

It seems the bromance is absolutely

back on. These two men have known

each other for a long time, since

university, they had their major

falling out when there was the

leadership election when David

Cameron needed to be replaced and it

seems they've come up with a list of

instructions for a woman, the Prime

Minister, Theresa May, who,

according to The Mail on Sunday, has

been the victim of a soft coup and

is almost being held hostage

effectively in 10 Downing Street.

Amongst the duo's demands, according

to this leaked letter, our

post-Brexit transition must end on

June 30, 2021. Philip Hammond, the

Chancellor, about to deliver his

budget on November the 22nd, another

big test for the Conservative Party

to get that right for the Chancellor

and the government as well amid the

Brexit negotiations, Mr Hammond will

be told he will be held over a

barrel because he must not criticise

all be seen to criticise either

privately or publicly a hard Brexit.

The line that will go down really

well with the civil servants is this

line the Whitehall machine and its

ossified ways of working, be left to

its own devices, new high-powered

staff are needed to apply grid to

the Oyster. Explosive stuff. Theresa

May might be gagging over her

cornflakes or whatever she likes to

eat. This plotting, I am reminded

of, if we had sound effects, I would

go tick, tock, tick, tock for the

government, for certain ministers,

for this Prime Minister, tick, tock,

tick, tock for the Brexit

negotiations and plot, plot, plot

because the plotting seems to be

continuing. Boris Johnson, we will

come onto that, doesn't have the

support he would have liked to have

because... And we will also come

onto that, because of what has

happened in the last few days on

Iran, that's all I'll say at the

moment.

Indeed. Is it just the hard

Brexit they are angling for, getting

themselves into position for when

they no longer think Theresa May is

required?

I think that is definitely

on the cards. We know Boris Johnson

is hugely ambitious, desperate to be

Prime Minister. Michael Gove

likewise looked like he shot himself

in the foot when he stood instead of

Boris Johnson last year, didn't go

terribly well but he seems to have

reinvented himself almost and he's

been mentioned in dispatches in the

last few days as a potential leader

so there's all sorts of manoeuvring

is going on within the Cabinet and

everything that happens within the

Conservative Party at the moment has

two BC in within the prison of the

fact everyone knows the Prime

Minister is living on borrowed time

and it's all about succession and

jockeying opposition -- has to be

seen. Last year we could have

thought Michael Gove and Boris

Johnson was a dream ticket when

Theresa May goes.

40 MPs saying

Theresa May must go according to the

Sunday Times and those on the Remain

side of the referendum debate saying

we don't want this ultra hard Brexit

and they are manoeuvring into

position?

Essentially it is the Tory

party being two parties in one now.

You still have the Remain backing

MPs who want a soft Brexit, and the

hard Brexiteers who essentially want

Britain to walk away and not give

the EU terribly much. Things seem to

be coming to a head. A couple of

weeks ago I spoke to a former

minister who said they sense a

change in the mood where previously

there been a belief Theresa May

would stay in place until Brexit,

2019, and probably depart later that

year maybe at Tory conference 2019

and they would elect a new leader

and Prime Minister -- there'd been.

It looks like, not just because

Brexit, but you've got Michael

Fallon and Priti Patel leaving the

Cabinet. You've got the sex

harassment stuff. It looks as though

events are being done to the Prime

Minister, to the government, rather

than the government shaping events

and all of this, the backdrop is she

called a snap election in June, it

blew up in her face, we now have a

hung parliament and she's being

pulled in all sorts of directions

and she doesn't seem to be...

We've

got a minority government.

She

doesn't seem to be in control of her

Cabinet, her government, her future.

The whole thing...

Events.

Indeed,

things seem to be coming to a head.

And the EU withdrawal bill coming up

on Tuesday. This is all being

watched very carefully in

Continental Europe, not just in

France and Germany, by President

Macron or Angela Merkel, but

interesting, in the Sunday Times,

this line, which will infuriate

Brexiteers, EU negotiators say their

UK counterparts have signalled

willingness to resolve the key

outstanding, the divorce Bill, the

so-called payment cheque, to agree a

60 million euros exit bill which is

a condition for starting trade

talks.

But these EU negotiators are

concerned that what is happening is

because there's this loss control,

this huge division in the British

government, that they are no longer

convinced that actually because of

what they call the internal

psychodrama of the Conservative

Party, they are no longer sure if

Theresa May will be in place

throughout the process and that is

of great concern so they are making

contingency plans.

Staying with the

Sunday Times, one of those

Conservative MPs who has been in the

news of late, Damian Green, and the

Met Police chief who was in charge

at the time of an investigation into

computer leaks in 2008 apparently

knew that pornography had allegedly

been found on Damian Green's

computer.

We also have to stress

Damian Green completely denies this,

last week put out a strong statement

saying it was completely untrue, it

was smears, seemed to be fitted up

by a disgruntled former anti-terror

officer, Bob quick. This is another

headache that the Prime Minister

could well do without. He's not just

any Tory MP or Cabinet minister,

he's a first secretary of,

effectively Theresa May's deputy.

Our closest -- her closest ally in

government, long-standing friend

going back to university days. If

you lost Damian Green Ben...

All

bets are off.

She would be in a lot

of trouble -- then. She relies on

him an awful lot to put it mildly.

There's an investigation going on

into whether he broke the

ministerial code, not just the porn

allegations but also allegations he

also denies about sexual

inappropriateness with a female

journalist. It never rains but it

pours.

It's a Sunday Times story we

should point out.

They broke the

story.

What's unfortunate in a sense

is this is, as you pointed out, the

boss of Bob Quick, at the time, but

the fact Damian Green, it was the

computers, plural, that is crucial,

that is the alleged accusation. The

problem is Mr Green said it was

completely untrue and these were

disreputable comments. Now to have

Sir Paul Stephenson coming out

saying I knew about them...

Knew

about them at the time but he said

it wasn't relevant to the enquiry,

which was about the computer leaks.

Let's look at the Observer, sack

Boris for shaming our nation, Corbyn

tells the Prime Minister, over the

comments Boris Johnson made

regarding Nazaneen sa careea

Radcliffe, who is in prison in Iran

-- Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

He

said that she had been in Iran

training journalists, he told a

Commons Select Committee, obviously

she wouldn't but ears pricked up in

Iran at that point and it would

appear they are using that as an

excuse to increase her sentence.

Boris Johnson this week has tried

to... I was going to say apologised

but he hasn't apologised, he's

apologised if people misunderstood

what he said but if you look at what

he said, it is pretty clear. He

misspoke.

He was taken out of

context.

Made maybe he misremembered

what he was briefed or maybe he was

badly briefed -- maybe. He landed

her in it. If it turns out she has

her centres increased then his

position I think becomes untenable

-- her sentence.

We should point

out, everything you said I

completely agree with, but we should

point out that the treatment of

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is

appalling by Iran. To separate her

from her little girl, who barely

speaks English any more now, who is

with her maternal grandparents, and

the fact that she was hooded at some

point. Of course she would be very

depressed, she already 18 months

into this. What would be very

serious is if her sentence is indeed

lengthened as a result of this miss

speaking, I do hate that word, but

what happened and what Boris Johnson

said to the Parliamentary committee.

As you say, Tehran has jumped on it

and there are divisions in Iran, the

hardline is pushing for another five

years on top of the five years she's

already in four.

Let's look at the

Observer, we shall not forget them,

some schoolgirls observing the two

minute's silence at the Cemaat after

day -- already in for. -- the

Cenotaph.

I am wearing a British

poppy but I am wearing the French

equivalent and we had a ceremony at

Victoria Station with the French

ambassador today with a very

impressive British soldiers there,

as Brexit happens, that bilateral

relationship will be all the more

important and prominent. What has

always moved me greatly and

impressed me as a child and

increasingly as an adult is in

France in most villages and in

towns, you have monuments to the

dead. For people who have never come

across them, that might seem a very

morbid thing but it's very humbling

to look at these and to take a few

minutes to look as a mark of

respect, not just one day a year,

but to see it as part of a living,

thriving community and you can go up

and have a look and you see names

and the first names are different

most of the time, but the surnames,

you see entire families of men wiped

out. That tradition, these young

children, girls, as it happens, on

the front of the Observer, that oral

tradition we going to lose in ten

years, the generation who were

children in Britain, France and

Germany and elsewhere, this oral

tradition of helping people

understand, this is literally deadly

serious, it is so important to pass

that on. I want to tonight pay

tribute to Robert Hall, I've met him

and I want to pay tribute to him,

the work he does for the BBC and the

way he approaches his reports is

absolutely commendable because it's

a legacy that is very important.

That is it for the papers for

tonight. Thank you Benedict and

Kevin. Good to see you both. Coming

up next it is the Film Review and

I'll be back tomorrow. Goodbye.