25/11/2017 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are the Associate Editor

of The Times, Anne Ashworth

and the Playwright and Writer

in The New European, Bonnie Greer.

The Sunday Telegraph claims

that the Prime Minister has been has

been warned by MPs not to retreat

from a pledge to "take back

control" of British laws

from Brussels post Brexit.

The Sunday Times meanwhile says that

a member of the Labour Party has

died after apparently

taking his own life amid allegations

of sexual misconduct.

The Mail on Sunday alleges

that there are links

between Boris Johnson

and Michael Gove's bid to persuade

Theresa May to take a tougher stance

on Brexit and a Russian Tycoon.

And finally the Sunday Express

reports that Meghan Markle

is being guarded by royal protection

officers as the Palace

prepares to announce her

engagement to Prince Harry.

Let us begin our review today. The

Mail on Sunday, it's all about

Michael Gove and Boris Johnson,

probably the two leading Brexiteers.

They wrote a letter to the Prime

Minister secretly trying to get her

to take a tough stance on Brexit.

What is this link, alleged link with

the Russians?

This story, it's a

multi-layered story and you need to

have a lot of background knowledge

of who is who in think-tanks.

And a

lot of music too.

In order to be

able to understand it. The bare

bones seem to be there are the

think-tanks that seem to be having a

huge amount of inNorwich Unions on

Michael Gove and Boris Johnson,

notes of secret meetings. But the

institute is interesting because the

people behind it who're two very

rich brothers who made their money

through Gazprom, the big massive

Russian energy giant. It's alleged

they have links to Putin.

Johnson

and Gove wrote a letter earlier on

this month to Mrs May saying you

have got to do this, that and the

other and this story in the Mail on

Sunday is saying, what they wanted

in the letter is already happening,

including £3 billion set aside in

case we don't get a Brexit deal.

A

letter that was leaked to the papers

so that we all knew about it.

Yes.

It was called, for your eyes only,

Gavin Barwell.

The Chief of Staff,

yes.

Full disloads sure, like they

say in America - I wrote a piece for

my paper, the New European. I used

to have some sort of dealings with

them a few years ago and it's an

interesting place. I didn't quite

know what it was about. It was at

the time I was there very much

interested in Boris when he was

Mayor. They published a prosperity

index which is apparently the thing

they exist for so they gather this

data in which they then describe who

is the most prosperous. The whole

thing is prosperity. Any time you

see prosperity in relation to Brexit

which David Davis has used, it's the

buzz word. People are starting to

wonder how much it's influencing.

There is some kind of rumour. There

is a big meeting out of Chequers or

something. People trying to figure

out what it is.

There is no reason

to think they're sinister, is there?

Well, think-tanks would like to be

thought of as sinister and powerful

behind-the-scenes bodies but within

this story, there is a claim that

one of the members of staff is

already the day facto Brexit czar

which was one of the demands made in

that.

To be honest, when I heard

David Davis say prosperity, I went

bing, bing, bing, because that is

one of their buzz words. I think we

are entitled and good for the Mail

on Sunday for bringing this up. We

are entitled to know a bit more. If

they had that kind of inflews, it

doesn't mean it's bad. We just need

to know.

Transparency?

Sure, that's

all, just find out who they are.

It's a good talking point.

It's a

good story.

Who are they, yes, that

is all.

Let us move on to the Sunday

Times and another disturbing story

as we have had a lot of claims about

sexual impropyrety, a story that has

been rumbling on for a few weeks --

impropriety. This is a suggestion

that somebody who worked for the

Labour Party had been accused of

something and they've been

suspended.

It's alleged that this person worked

for the Labour Party and has died.

There are no other details.

What

worries me is that we are seeing

these stories emerge. We don't know

the background to this and there

seems to be no apparatus in place to

deal with this, no party seems to

have a proper policy on how to deal

with these accusations, how to deal

with the aftermath and it seems to

me that it's something they need to

tackle soon because there are some

politicians who still do not know

what the accusations are that are

being made against them. I think

it's down to the leaders and the

speaker to find some way to assemble

this. The same things go on in

America and France. It's a cultural

shift. It's a very big culture, one

of the biggest in my lifetime

certainly, and it's happening. It's

coming on and it's important that it

happens. But what the politicians

need to do and also businesses, they

need to find a mechanism by which

all of this can be gathered up,

weighed up, can be understood. We

don't understand it yet.

Fees like

they are racing to catch up, doesn't

it? The leaders are discussing how

to make it work?

They need to move

faster. In the United States, there

are apparently some kind of slush

fund that existed that was basically

made from taxpayers' money to sort

of pay. You know, we need to move

this a lot faster and get some sort

of a mechanism by which women and

men who're making these accusations

can come do, this and this whole

thing can happen very quickly.

There

seem to be no guidelines as to how

the system should be used. I mean,

people seem to - I mean the divide

between private and professional

life seems to have been blurred and

people are looking at things on the

IT systems at their work and not

realising all of that will be logged

and there will be consequences

because people in the IT department

will be looking to see what is going

on.

It's quite shocking. I'm proud

of the men and women starting to

ring the alarm bells. Certainly when

I was young, there was nowhere to

two. You couldn't say anything. Now

this is all starting to come out,

it's happening faster than the

system is able to cope with and

that's what's happening.

Let us move

on inevitably to another story about

Brexit and the evening cannot go by

without one or two stories about

that. The Sunday Telegraph.

Whether

anybody picks up a Sunday paper and

thinks yippee, there's a Brexit

story.

I work in Westminster

normally, even in our office there

may be times when that may be

voiced! This is a story, another

warning to Theresa May as if she

hasn't heard enough from people in

her own party about not betraying

the party over the European course

which is something that many of them

feelshire strongly about -- courts.

Slightly baffling. I thought the

European Court of Justice would

remain only to deal with cases of

the EU nationals after Brexit.

Wasn't that going to be the

restriction on the basis if we were

able to offer that to the EU, that

might be able to ease other parts.

I

think the problem is that you can't

have a parallel court system, you

can't have a parallel EU or a bunch

of people who live here. Brexit

people are saying the hardline, get

rid of the whole thing and the EU is

saying, you cannot have our citizens

living in your country and there are

the only EU citizens who're not

under EU court, that is off, it

can't happen, it's not going to

happen. The hardlines are saying,

get this court out of the country.

That's where she is. Brussels has

been very, very precise. There

cannot be a parallel EU, a market

where there is no freedom of

movement, a group of citizens in the

EU who're not under the court. You

make another level of EU

citizenship. They don't want that.

She's got to figure out how to

navigate this against people say who

want it all out of here.

I wonder if

sometimes the European Court of

Justice doesn't get confused with

the European Court of Human Rights.

It all gets confused.

Also I would

have thought that the EU story today

would have been Ireland.

Yes.

The

idea that there might be in the

republic an election before

Christmas. I wanted to read more

about that.

But this is a Telegraph

doing whistle and it's important for

them to keep, for their readers to

keep this kind of thing forward

because Ireland is extremely

complicated. So if you do... Well

it's not really, but if you do the

bang, bang, bang about the courts,

it reminds them of what the hardline

Brexiteers say.

We'll move on from

Brexit. I know you are very sad

about that! Let's talk about

productivity. This in the Budget was

one of the big problems with the

British economy and has been for a

long time. This seems to suggest

there might be the answer. What is

the problem

Well, it's not that we

don't have good enough technology,

no, it's because we spend too much

time at our desk looking to see if

we've got a WhatsApp message or a

text or updating our status on

Facebook or going on Twitter. That

is what is happening, our minds are

not on our work.

You are distracted?

Yes.

I get tired of people beating

up on the British worker, I don't

buy this at all. I think people work

very, very hard. What is going on

now, we are having a revolution in

technology. A lot of things are

shifting. We are having different

things to indicate productivity. We

don't know the answers to this yet.

I think people work very, very hard

and I wish that we had a system

whereby the new technology can be

sort of measured up and captured.

The system is not up to snuff yet.

People work hard. That is wrong.

It

is quite interesting, there is just

this whole kind of mystery as to why

our productivity remains low.

I

think the measure isn't there yet

and I would love to see someone,

some science geek or whatever come

up with a way to measure how people

are working because I think they are

working very hard.

I wonder if we

have become a look-down society. You

know when you are on the train, the

tube in the morning, you want to

say, take your eyes off that phone

and see the world.

Talk to the

person next to you!

Yes. I wonder

whether this is a broader problem,

maybe it's stopping collaboration at

work. I think we need to look at

productivity...

It's no more

different than Paris or New York. I

think people shouldn't do this. This

is a lot more complicated.

Let us

move on because we can't end Without

a Royal story. Engagement expected

any day. Theresa May cleared her

diary on Thursday because it was

expected to happen and it hasn't.

Americans would have killed her if

that news came out on Thanksgiving.

That is why!

Yes, that is what

happened. She's American, there is

no way that this was twoing to

happen on Thanksgiving.

You mean

they've all got too much to do, to

eat?

No, this is a down news day. If

this came out on a down news day,

this country would never have been

forgiven so I think they pushed it.

That is what happened.

It will give

the nation's spirit a lift. I'm

quite excited about it. I'll want to

read the details and I'll get

excited about the dress. I think

it's what we need. Also, she is

going to be a new spirit in the

Royal Family. I do really think that

we are looking at the moment for

things to...

This will be the one we like. We

like this guy. We like Harry.

We

like a good news story.

Every

country needs the lift.

We must

leave it there now. That is it for

the papers this hour, thank you to

Anne and Bonnie. They'll both be

back at 11. 30 and we'll do it all

over again. Coming up next, Meet the

Author.