05/12/2017 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are former pensions minister

Baroness Ros Altmann and the writer

and broadcaster Mihir Bose.

Tomorrow's front

pages...starting with...

The Guardian leads with a story

of pressure growing on Theresa May

amid what it describes

as a "jolt" to Brexit talks.

The Telegraph claims that MI5

foiled an alleged plot

to assassinate the Prime Minister

in Downing Street.

That story also makes

the Sun's front page.

The Mirror also leads with what it

describes as

a "Terror plot

to kill Theresa May".

The Times leads with a story

on the row between Philip Hammond

and the Ministry of Defence,

claiming the chancellor has been

banned from using RAF aircraft.

The Metro leads with next year's

rise in rail fares, saying

passengers are being "bled dry".

The i notes that the increase in

rail prices will be the biggest in

five years.

The FT reports that James Murdoch

could be the new boss of Disney

if Disney buys 21st Century Fox

from the Murdoch-controlled

group of companies.

Good to have you both here. Let's

begin with the Telegraph. Rose, that

iconic picture staring out at us.

Christine Keeler in that pose on

that chair, the chair which is now

in the V&A, it was so iconic.

With a

note saying Christine Keeler sat

here?

I must look at what it does

say. This is a reminder of one of

the bigger sex scandals of the last

century. And it brought down the

Macmillan government. It certainly

brought down ministers. Profumo, for

lying. Was married. He had an affair

of apparently, Christine Keeler was

also having an affair with a Russian

attache. So have the makings of a

real scandal.

Mihir Bose, I am not

being impolite but you just about

remember the Profumo affair?

I just

about remember reading political

stories for the first time. What is

interesting looking back to from our

21st century scandals is that when

Harold Wilson made his attack on the

Macmillan government, he said it is

not about the sex, it is because

Christine Keeler has shared secrets

with the Soviet intelligence officer

with whom she shared a bed. The

point was, the sex was not talked

about. Now we are in a different

world and a better world in the

sense that this is much more open,

but then, the question was, is the

country's intelligence being

compromised by the same woman being

in bed with two different men?

And

the picture captures something of

the period, doesn't it, with the

ambiguity of how women were regarded

then. She looks like a sophisticated

ingenue, when she was actually a

young Home Counties girl.

She is

remembered as being quite naive and

caught up in all of this political

shenanigans and not really up to all

the intrigue. If she ended up in

jail for perjury as well... And she

died penniless, pretty much. It's

very sad.

The whole thing with what

happened with Stephen Ward...

The

celebrity osteopath. He would have

his own show if it were a modern

version. He would be on reality TV,

but he ended pretty unhappily too.

Let's go to a story in the

Telegraph. Mihir, this is

intriguing, the imponderable

situation Theresa May has got

herself in over Brexit. Johnson and

Gove lead Cabinet revolt, fearing

that she is going soft.

Yes, and it

is emerging that David Davis, the

man who was supposed to take us out

of Europe, the hardliner, seems to

have gone native. There was an

exchange in Parliament today where

Jacob Rees Mogg said there should be

a red line. You can't have alignment

of regulations, and he said the only

red line it's to get a good deal out

of Brexit.

So we are prepared to

give ground on that.

And that is

what Gove and Johnson are protesting

about. They are colleagues of yours.

David Davis seems to be coming into

the real world faster than people

like Johnson and Gove.

I guess you

were both Remainers?

Correct. But a

lot of Tories were Remainers, and

that is not the point. As David

Davis says, the point is to get the

best deal for Britain. If we want to

look after Northern Ireland and if

we want to treat Northern Ireland as

a full and equal part of the UK, you

can't have different rules for them

and us. The only way of having a

frictionless border seems to me to

stay in some kind of customs union,

probably the one we are currently

in. David Davis is saying that we

have to have regulatory alignment.

The EU wants a level playing field.

You can't have countries who are

supposed to be trading freely with

you suddenly cheating and having

different regulations.

This also

makes the front of the FT. Mihir

were saying people thought of him as

a Eurosceptic. He was Europe

minister under John Major. That was

why he was appointed. But your boss,

Iain Duncan Smith, has said we may

have reached the point where we have

to walk away from the talks because

there is no way that we in the

Conservative Party, MPs of his ilk,

will accept staying in the customs

union, even if you call it something

else.

The extreme Brexiters do not

speak for the Tory party. And the

idea of walking away and leaving the

issue of Northern Ireland unsolved

is not a view of all the Tory party

or the whole of Parliament.

Even if

we walk away, are we not responsible

for some of our liabilities? We

can't say, we are not paying

anything, and off we go. Look at the

Eurostar back!

We have to respect

the referendum. We have to try to

leave the EU on good terms. If it

turns out that things are changing,

and David Davis seems to be

realising that the political

decision to leave the single market

and customs union, which was not

something people voted on, may need

to be rethought, that is

responsible. But we must not abandon

Northern Ireland or abandon the

peace process that is so precious on

the island of Ireland.

Let's move on

to the sports page of the Guardian,

Winter Olympics ban for Russia over

doping. It is a banner up to a

point. Some might say it is the

wisdom of Solomon. What is your take

on it?

It has finally been done.

They didn't do it for the previous

games. The head of the International

Olympic Committee, a German, was

very close to putting and therefore

didn't do it. But now they have done

it. Even then, Russian athlete who

can prove they are keen can take

part, but not under the Russian

flag, under the Olympic flag. Which

is close to the EU anthem, so we

will hear a lot of that. Maybe Jacob

Rees Mogg should have a word.

Maybe

we could do what those football

players were doing in the US in

protest. We could have something

equivalent when they play the Ode To

Joy.

This is something sport has not

come to grips with properly. We know

there is doping. Sport is always

trying to say we are on the moral

high ground, and jet they don't take

the decision. Welcome as it is, this

is a late decision.

You would have

had a total ban, would you?

I would

have had a total ban.

But isn't it

hard for the athletes...

This is

state-sponsored doping. That means

the state is helping you. You have

to bear responsibility.

The IOC is

also considering that these are

excellent athletes, and if you want

to have a meaningful Olympic Games

and you have athletes who can prove

they have done nothing wrong, maybe

there is a case for saying to them,

you can participate. And others who

might otherwise be tempted to do

something they should not be doing

will think twice, because there are

consequences. It is right that you

have this decisive action. But maybe

we have a bit of carrot and stick

here. The carrot is, if you are

clean...

Some of them they believe,

if we tinker with the edges, we can

get away with it.

Let's move on to

the Times and something people will

not get away with, this

extraordinary story. It makes you

wonder whether this has been fed to

the papers because of the critical

report into MI5 and the Abedi case,

the suicide bomber in Manchester.

That is possible. The Abedi case and

the Khalid Masood, boasts of those

were possibly missed opportunities,

but thousands of people are under

surveillance and you can't be

everywhere at all times. But we are

seeing that two men have been

charged with allegedly plotting to

blow up the Prime Minister. That is

really serious. They have also taken

the opportunity to let us know that

nine other terrorist plots have been

foiled in the last 12 months. So

although it is awful that some of

them have not been foiled, the

police and security services are

working tirelessly to protect us and

are doing a good job, succeeding in

many cases.

We should also look at

whether they have enough resources.

In the Abedi case and some others,

it seems that they were going to

talk to him, but later on. Maybe the

week after. Maybe there is a

question of how much resources we

are devoted to something that is a

very serious issue.

That is a valid

point, but however much resources

you put into it, there is also the

legal problem. Even if you suspect

something, you have to have

meaningful evidence before you can

do anything.

And if you overreact,

you almost create a win for those

who don't like this country, because

you change the way this country does

things.

We should be proud of the

freedoms we have and we don't have a

police state.

Indeed. We have a less

flattering picture of Theresa May

here with scotch egg on her face!

This is a story about train fare

rises. Do you feel bled dry or do

you not use the train?

I do use the

train. In the last decade, trains

have changed enormously in this

country.

For the better?

For the

better. And often, I go by train

instead of driving. But there is the

serious issue of how much we should

pay in fares.

If you are on

Southern, I don't think you would be

complacent about this. The cost of

train fares for people who commute,

they can't afford to live in the big

cities, they are living further out

and now you have the train fare

rises by more than wages. 3.4% fare

rises. Train fares are tied to RPI,

the retail prices index, which is

higher than the CPI. Benefits are

tied to the CPI. Lots of areas where

you might earn more op-ed the CPI.

Let's align the two.

A bit of

regulatory alignment! Maybe that

will catch on. Ros Altmann and Mihir

Bose, thank you so much.

That's it for The Papers tonight.

Don't forget, you can see the front

pages of the papers online

on the BBC News website.

It's all there for you seven days

a week at bbc.co.uk/papers

and if you miss the programme

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later on BBC iPlayer.

Thank you both.

Goodbye.