09/12/2017 The Papers

My guest on meet the author this

week is historian Norman Davies who

leaves his usual European territory

to navigate the world in a global

journey into history.

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

Our guests joining me tonight

are the political commentator

Jo Phillips and Nigel Nelson,

political editor

of the Sunday Mirror.

The Mail on Sunday reports

that Theresa May had

to intervene in a stand up row

between the Defence

and Foreign Secretaries

in the House of Commons

The Observer leads with a warning

that the EU is under

pressure NOT to give the UK a better

trade deal than other non-member

countries get after Brexit.

The Sunday Express says leading

Brexit supporting MPs want the UK

to make clear it will walk away

from any trade deal they don't

think is good enough.

The Sunday Telegraph goes

with tensions within the Cabinet

over the meaning of the commitments

the Prime Minister made to move

the Brexit talks on.

And the Sunday Mirror reports that

some delivery drivers

are working 14 hour days,

and earning less

than the minimum wage.

Let's dip in to some of those.

Plenty of Brexit to mull over. Take

us to the Observer, their front page

talking about trade deal talks that

will follow what emerged in the last

few days.

There's nothing like

puncturing somebody's party balloon,

is there? What a week, there we were

on a knife edge, the DUP looking as

if they were going to blow up that

particular balloon, then everything

goes fine and the Observer have come

up with an unnamed source, an EU

source close to the talks, who is an

official. They go on to say, as he

just said in the headlines, we have

been approached by a number of

nonmember countries expressing

concerns and making it clear it

would constitute a major problem if

suddenly the UK were to get better

terms than they got. You can

understand where they're coming

from, but frankly if this is based

on one unnamed source, unofficial,

it's not much of a story.

That's

right. The deals that have been done

with other countries obviously are

specifically for other countries,

Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the

one that takes our fancy if we don't

go the Norway route would be Canada.

At the moment, Canada just goods, so

we would really like a Canada plus,

so we can have services in there.

That's the most important thing, if

we don't have services we don't have

much of a deal anyway.

Presumably

the arguments, as you say, from

those outside is that if we now see

a better deal being done by someone

else, albeit somebody a very

different situation geographically

and in recent terms, historically,

they may want to renegotiate their

own position.

I think that is the

argument. If you have a country that

wants to join, who is going through

the slow process of becoming a

member or partial member, or getting

to the stage of becoming a member,

if they see us coming out looking

like we've got a jolly good deal,

that might put them off.

The other

danger is, if it was New Zealand and

we ended up on World Trade

Organisation rules, we would want a

load of New Zealand's land quota, so

it may not actually go quite so well

for other countries if we ended up

in that situation.

Take us to the

Sunday Telegraph, going with Brexit

as well, this time talking about the

Cabinet truce threatening to

unravel.

The argument here is that

Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, key

Brexiteers in Cabinet, were bought

off in the sense of, they would

support Theresa made's breakthrough

on Friday, on the basis that it

doesn't actually mean a great deal.

So we had this wonderful alignment

is nothing about, and according to

the Telegraph, full alignment does

not mean a thing. No legal basis, we

don't have to care. I think that

might be a bit of a

misunderstanding. The whole issue of

the Irish border at the moment, now

described as kicking McCann down the

road, but what we have actually done

in Scott McCarron in the right part

the road. The Irish border should

never have been discussed one. --

what we have done is got the can in

the right part of the road.

The question really comes down to,

do we follow EU rules as we do now,

which means we followed the process,

or if Theresa May Sallai, do we

follow... We don't follow EU rules,

but we arrive at the same

destination? -- if Theresa May gets

her way. While we are a member of

the EU, we must take each rule

step-by-step and obey it. The

argument is probably can get to an

open border by going a different

route.

Is that you're reading of it?

Pretty much, that was fairly

comprehensive!

I wasn't quite sure

where the can was at one point, but

I'm with you otherwise!

Rattling

around the curve in Nigel's head...

Is it an Irish road? An Irish lane?

It's now a phase two lay-by.

Lovely,

as long as we're not going up a

cul-de-sac.

The mail on Sunday, I

think I may have said Boris Johnson

in the intro but I didn't mean it, I

meant Mr Hammond.

This is lovely.

Never mind Cabinet Brexit truce

threatens to unravel... This is

Gavin Williams, some may not be

familiar with him. He is the new

Defence Secretary. He allegedly went

head-to-head with Philip Hammond and

had a furious bust up in the Commons

and the Prime Minister had to step

in and say, stop behaving like

children or cricketers and pull

ourselves together and be sensible.

Interestingly, political editor of

the mail on Sunday has done a really

interesting piece on Gavin

Williamson inside, because it's

quite clear there is a huge loss of

bad blood between the Defence

Secretary and Philip Hammond, the

Chancellor, who of course was a

Defence Secretary. Simon Walters has

done this piece where he compares

Gavin Williamson and he is meteoric

rise -- his meteoric rise to John

Major under Thatcher. He is asking

the question, a month ago, the idea

of Gavin Williamson succeeding

Theresa May if she stands down in

March 2019 would have been dismissed

as a joke. Look at now. He has gone

from wit, his feet under the MoD,

launched a one-man publicity blitz,

picked a fight with the Chancellor,

he has saved two military dogs from

being put down on last week said all

Britons who fought for Isis should

be killed. He is obviously out there

to get the headlines. I just wonder,

I know he's a whip...

Or was a whip.

And if you were a whip, you tend to

make one or two people unhappy along

the way.

And you know where all the

skeletons are, so you have a bit of

Lethbridge.

I don't think Williamson

has had a great week. He had a

comeback, suggesting you should

start shooting IS fighters, wherever

they may be. Saving the two dogs was

a plus. But he's also now lost his

tarantula, because it turns out it

contravenes MoD pet policy, and MoD

pet policy is no pets. So the

tarantula has had to go. His week

has not ended on a high note.

I'm

afraid it is now so publicly known

that apparently somebody in the

Treasury refers to him as Pike,

stupid boy.

Everyone in the MoD is

now referring to him as Private

Pike.

Which the mail on Sunday

picked up on. With their little

photo of lavender, and John Murray

of course, who played Frasier. The

Sunday Times. This is fast track

degrees... Sorry, this is the

Telegraph.

Yes, good idea, this one.

Comes from Joe Johnson, universities

minister. What he's trying to do is

reduce the time people need to take

their degrees from three years to

two. The idea is it will save you a

whole lot of money because you don't

have to pay extra tuition for the

last year, that's £5,500. You would

need a maintenance loan for the last

year, what Joe Johnson says is...

You will also be out earning a year

earlier.

This is the point. He says

25,000 is what a student will save

by that of sleight of hand because

19,000 of it is the average wage of

graduate gets in their first year

away from university.

That's the

assumption that you will learn that

in your first

Broadley, not a bad idea. The idea

is it will be available in every

subject rather than just if you,

like accountancy, Law, journalism,

and it gives students a chance to

get through it in those two years

and it would certainly be cheaper.

Actually, there are an awful lot of

students who are feeling that they

are not getting value for money,

particularly when you look at the

walloping great salary that so many

vice chancellors and senior

university staff are getting. Also

for mature students, before the

family commitments and things, a two

year commitment, over and done with,

get out early, perhaps much better.

It makes you wonder why somebody

under that system would still opt to

do every year.

The way the Joe

Johnson puts it, it's tradition. We

are so used to the idea that a

university course is three years,

that people have not thought about

trying to do it in two. Obviously,

doing it in two means a lot more

hard work, it does cost 20% more a

year to go and do, but it does seem

sensible if you could make it kind

of fashionable, it is something that

could work.

And employers would be

happy as well.

It does come in the

wake of the National Audit Office

report which says so many degrees,

so many poor quality degrees, have

left many graduates with very low

earning potential. 11 people who did

not go to university.

I nearly went

to the Sunday Times early but I will

go there now. This is civil

partnerships to go straight, this is

effectively mooted for a while?

Exactly, it's a campaign that

heterosexual couples have been

campaigning for, to bring them in

line with homosexual couples,

because people who don't necessarily

want to get married, heterosexual

couples, up till now can't do it.

This is now a Private bill setting

out the changes to bring everything

into alignment, quite why they

didn't do it in the first place,

Lord alone knows. It does seem as

though it has good backing, and it

is as we say something that has been

long campaigned for. It would also

help stabilise families. It would

give people who live together who

previously had not wanted to get

married, it would actually put them

on a more equal footing and would

make life a lot easier in terms of

pensions and wills and things like

that.

It's also a matter of

equality.

Illegal case.

Broadly, the

reason heterosexual couples could

not have this is because it was

reserved exclusively for same-sex

couples, on the basis that same-sex

couples could not get married. Now

they can, both things should be

available to all.

Doubters, there is

one quoted, Andrew Williams might

it's not helpful, making do with a

very pale reflection of marriage.

They may well think that the people

living together with no protection

in law as an even worse reflection,

and as Nigel says, it's not equal.

Should we finish with Christmas

themed photograph?

Let's!

I think

this was your choice.

Actually, my

choice was a scantily clad man

getting out of the sea...

Maybe when

it's a bit later, after the

watershed! The Sunday Telegraph has

a photograph of the Prime Minister,

with a Christmas tree, and a

hilarious little tag line, special

Branch.

Very good.

There she is,

putting what apparently...

It's an

ornamental stiletto. It is the tree

she devoted herself, apparently, to

her local church. I must say, it's

actually a very nice photograph.

It

is, actually.

Whatever you think

about code politicians, they do work

very hard. You know perfectly well

she's not had a minute to herself,

and I think it's very nice

photograph.

And she's smiling a lot,

but then you would, wouldn't you?

She has seen her premiership

survival of the last minute. Could

have been very different.

And it may

change by Monday.

That's politics.

Even in an hour's time it may.

That's it for The Papers this hour.

Thank you Jo and Nigel,

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.