26/11/2017 The Papers

That's all the sport for now.

Now on BBC News, it's

time for The Papers.

Welcome to our look ahead is at what

the papers have brought us to

With me are the journalist

and broadcaster Rachel Shabi

and Peter Conradi of the Sunday

Times.

Before I speak to them, let's have a

look at the front pages.

The Sunday Telegraph claims

that the Prime Minister has been

warned by MP's not to retreat

from a pledge to "take back

control" of British laws

from Brussels post Brexit.

The Sunday Times meanwhile reports

that top private girls schools

have suffered a slump

in exam performance.

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.

It hasn't happened yet, but anyway,

let's begin. Peter, will you start

us off? This is a story in the

Observer about island in the border,

whether it should be on the

mainland, down the Irish Sea or

whatever.

This is a crucial argument

in this whole debate. It's a

statement of the obvious rather than

an exclusive front-page story, what

they have got is the agricultural

minister said another problem. If we

have a hard Brexit, if we don't have

a trade deal, if we crashed out of

the single market, what is going to

happen to Northern Ireland? The

problem being that you either have a

hard border between Northern Ireland

and the Republic or have some

arrangement when Northern Ireland is

part of the Republic. Then what

happens to its status within the

United Kingdom? Lots of other things

you can see a way of fudging it, but

this one, I don't see how.

There has

been a lot about technology covering

to people's rescue and it matter

about borders in the old-fashioned

sense.

I think the reports about

technology were widely dismissed. It

was things like drones which people

pointed out were going to be

affected by things such as weather.

It is quite a big thing and doing

you can understand why islands is so

concerned about it -- Ireland. The

DUP have said they don't want to

have a different set of regulations

to the rest of the UK and the

Republic is saying actually, we

absolutely do need to have that. We

need some sort of continuity in

customs regulations otherwise there

will be a hard border between us and

that's the last thing that anybody

wants, given the history, given the

past and given the fact that it is a

condition of the Good Friday

Agreement. It does seem to be that

because staying in the customs union

and the single market in some shape

or form seems to be such an anathema

to the hard Brexit component of the

government that it's actually making

this intractable.

Ireland want us to

stay in the customs union.

Of course

they do. We are the biggest trading

partners. If Brexit is going to be

complicated for the United Kingdom,

it will be even more competitive for

the Republic. Anything involving

Brexit, ultimately all the other 27

member states have a right of veto,

so if we don't keep Ireland happy,

they can effectively veto any deal.

Staying with the subject, perhaps

you can start us off with the Sunday

Telegraph. A warning to the Prime

Minister? It's about British law is

being taken back and we don't want

European courts telling us what to

do.

It's interesting because it's

another one of those red lines

imposed by the hard right Brexit

element of the Cabinet and their

cheerleaders in our press. This is

another one of the issues that needs

to be resolved before we can proceed

to the trade components. It

concerned EU citizens and the idea

was that there

would be a situation where the

rights would remain as they are and

the hard Brexit element of the

Cabinet is saying no because we have

two be the ECJ because that is what

we voted for. It's interesting to

see how all these elements that

could be resolved, we could move to

the next stage of negotiations, are

being impeded by the same group in

government.

All these words are

being used. Cabinet ministers,

politicians, but it never says

exactly who they are. Talking about

bouncing the Prime Minister. It

sounds chaotic.

It does, but

underlying it is that this is

something that is hugely important

to a small group of politicians I

think fundamentally. The average

reader, the average member of the

country is probably indifferent to

whether the European Court of

Justice rules on particular issues

or it some other court. In such an

arcane thing.

You say that, but for

people who voted for Brexit it was

one of the things. We want our laws

back and we don't want to be told

what to do by Brussels.

It was

always a web thing to say about laws

that Britain had a huge part in

making and was beneficial to the UK.

Its was a web thing to say about the

ECJ, right?

If you were to ask

people how important is it to you

that the ECJ has jurisdiction over

British laws, I think it will be

high on the priority list like

things such as the NHS, immigration,

the cost of living.

Let's move on.

The mail on Sunday, again there is a

Brexit link, but as always, it's a

personalising of stories. Boris and

Gove. I have to admit I read it

about four times before I understood

it.

Unravel it for us. It's a

difficult one. I think the headline

is the simplest bit. Essentially,

they are building on a scoop that

they had a couple of weeks ago in

which there was a letter by Boris

Johnson and Michael Gove to the

Prime Minister with three key

demands. One to force Hammonds to

plan for Brexit, and also to sweep

away all the bureaucracy around

Brexit.

It's all complicated. It's a

suggestion of building on the

previous crew and building on this

Institute.

Is it tied into Putin?

No. There are questions to be

answered and we need to know why

they have such influence over this

think tank and members of the

Cabinet. It has a big stock in the

Russian state-controlled gas

company, but that could just be

because they took advantage of what

was called the short doctrine and

capitalism would describe it as

making hay, which was to go into

Russia when it was just changing,

they went in and bought up all

state-owned utility companies.

It's

a long way from that to getting

involved with Boris Johnson and

Michael Gove.

But they are free

marketeers. They are into having a

Singapore style type of tax haven.

Let's turn the UK into that post

Brexit. That is the hardline version

of Brexit favoured by people like

Boris Johnson Michael Gove. We do

have to wonder why this Institute

has so much influence.

We have to

remind ourselves that the mail on

Sunday is a Remainer. It is. The

agenda is skewed here.

It is. I

worked many years in Russia and I

follow events the closely. You have

written about Russia. Yes, thank you

for mentioning my book. Anyone who

has ever done business in Russia, if

they are in the spotlight for any

reason, its protein and used against

them and they are turned into

Putin's pawn, which is a little bit

far-fetched.

Let's move on to the

Observer. Fake online accounts

driving anti-Muslim abuse.

What is

this about. It's following on from

the mail on Sunday who have been

running stories about Russian

involvement in our political

conversation in a few weeks ago they

had a story about Russian troll

farms pumping out fake news on

Twitter. One of the things that was

mentioned is that it was

particularly bees trolls who are

pumping into our political

conversation supplies stories that

were fuelling anti-Muslim hate. This

is the story based on research from

the anti-racist organisation that is

looking into the impact of these

tweets. It is skewed our national

conversation by pushing up the

influence of these sort of hate

filled and anti-Muslim Islamophobic

tweets, thereby creating the

impression that there more support

for the sentiments that actually is

the case.

Peter, what did you make

of it?

It was interesting and

alarming that this is being

artificially flamed up. They don't

make the Russian connection, which

is a missed opportunity. They are

basically pinning the blame on

American racist groups and Pamela

Geller, a controversial activist,

who is allegedly behind a number of

these issues.

We stay in the world

of cyber matters. Let's go back to

the Sunday Times front page. Peter,

your turn. Cyber slackers doom at

the UK economy. Is this the issue of

people looking at Facebook, Twitter,

e-mailing?

One of the big stories

that came out of the budget this

week is that Britain has a problem

with productivity. Living standards

are depressed and will continue to

be that way because we are not

productive enough. They're having

all sorts of explanations. Is it to

in -- is it down to under

investments? Or is it that we spend

too much time at work on our phones

on social media and shopping. A

senior analyst that the Bank of

England who wrote on the blog said

that people are spending too much

time at work checking the devices

which leads to a crisis of attention

which is leading to a drop in

productivity. You are not checking

your phone now, are you?

It does

make me a bit cross a story like

this because we note that

productivity has that line. We know

that we are looking at lost decades

where wages can't grow and indeed

they are currently at levels lower

than they were ten years ago before

the crash. People up and down this

country know that they are working

harder for less pay under worse

conditions. I find it insulting to

all those people, all of us who are

working hard to suggest that low

productivity, which is something the

government can fix with investment

and stimulation, the blame is passed

on workers spending too much time on

the devices. It's an insult. There

are ways to fix the economy. Germany

is way more productive. Why is that?

They have a government that invests

in infrastructure. That is how you

get innovation, creativity, where

the efficiency.

Last story, very

briefly. Sunday express. Royal guard

for Meghan.

Will they announced

their engagement? You know, it is

widely tipped to be imminent. People

are looking at all the signs of why

this is going to happen. One of the

reasons is this the as the story

says, she has been given a wild

card, Meghan Morkel. There has been

speculation all week. -- Meghan

Markle. She has moved her pet dogs

to the UK as well.

Very telling.

Well, she has begun the process of

sending her dogs to England.

It

takes a while. We will all have to

keep checking on social media to get

the latest. Thank you both very much

indeed. We will take a look at

tomorrow's front pages