10/12/2017 The Papers

Hello.

This is BBC News.

We'll be taking a look at tomorrow

morning's papers in a moment -

first the headlines...

Up to 30cm of snow has fallen

in some areas of the country,

affecting travel on the roads,

railways and at airports

and causing hundreds of school

closures tomorrow morning.

The Foreign Secretary has left Iran

without any agreement on the release

of the British-Iranian woman,

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

The Brexit Secretary,

David Davis, has warned

that the UK could still refuse

to pay its divorce

bill if it doesn't get

a trade deal with the EU.

Disgraced celebrity publicist

Max Clifford has died

in hospital at the age of 74.

He had been serving

an eight-year sentence

for historical sex offences.

Qatar has signed a £6 billion arms

deal with the British defence

contractor, BAE Systems.

It includes the confirmation

of a large order of fighter jets.

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are the Parliamentary

journalist Tony Grew

and entertainment reporter Caroline

Frost.

Tomorrow's front pages...

The Metro leads with the heavy snow

that's caused travel chaos in many

areas of the UK today.

It also has news that the average

house price has dropped.

The FT leads with Brexit -

it says Britain's chemicals

and pharmacutical industries have

asked the Government if they can

remain within EU rules.

The Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson

is also pictured in Iran

with the country's president

as he tries to secure the release

of a Briton jailed there.

The Times leads with Brexit

negotiations and Ireland's

unhappiness over comments

by the Brexit Secretary,

David Davis, that a hard border

on the Island is a statement

of intent rather than

a cast iron guarantee.

The Daily Telegraph leads with news

that 10-year-olds are being asked

if they feel comfortable

with their gender in

an official NHS health study.

Police failure to attend

domestic violence call outs

is the Independent's lead.

The paper also points out

that the snow may have caused

headaches for many of us

but for others, it was

a chance to have fun.

So let's begin...

The Metro has a glorious photograph

of the snow but on the main story,

the biggest fall in house prices for

five years.

Is this true? Yes, there

is a lot of economic uncertainty

that will affect how people feel

about the global economy and whether

they buy a new house, but it is

worth pointing out that it says the

average asking price has dropped by

£8,000 across the UK, £23,000 in

London and that is not suddenly make

properties affordable for people who

cannot get onto the property ladder.

That is a small dip in what can seem

an unsurmountable ocean. It's a

difference three for people who own

their homes, such as Caroline!

Is

this bad news, then? Only if you are

hoping to sell your property in the

immediate future, which I am not. As

Tony said, this is just a chink of

relief for aspiring first-time

buyers and the previous chink was

for the great gift of the exemption

of stamp duty for properties up to

£300,000 and that was a political

move and this becomes an economic

shift and it is good news that

first-time buyers will be watching

carefully to see that the market

carries on decreasing in their

favour. However, they have quoted

the right move director that this

should be seen in the context of

push and pull price pressures. I

said that in one go! Adding to this

impending increasing uncertainty

over Brexit. Perhaps some light but

with a grain of salt.

You need to

see a trend. The man from right move

is quoted as saying the trend will

be a mixed bag.

Strange wording that

shows that house prices have been on

the same trajectory for a period of

time, they forecast another year of

slowing in the pace of price rises.

A slowdown in the pace of them going

up, so not exactly the breakthrough

news people might think.

Let us move

on to the front page of The Times.

Ireland warns Theresa May over

Brexit. This is after the story we

have been running about David Davis

saying that the deal is not cast

iron?

This comes as is a prize to

people in the EU that they have done

the deal with and it is interesting

that David Davis thinks he runs his

own Brexit policy and I remember

having collective Cabinet

responsibility when the government

spoke with one voice and it now

seems to be whoever happens to be in

the studio. That has not gone down

very well in Ireland because one of

the key issues is the British

government has given assurances that

it will avoid a heart border and the

British government says it will

think up brilliant regulatory

infrastructures and use technology

to mean that is no border

infrastructure but the thing about

this that annoys me is David Davis

has chosen to say these things not

because he believes they are in the

national interest but for a narrow

party reasons. Everything the

government has done over Brexit is

for narrow party reasons. David

Davis still fancies himself as a

leader of the party and he is

signalling to the right of the party

and the Brexiteers that a hard

Brexit is still on the table and no

deal. Neither of those are on the

table because the commitments made

by Britain to the EU last week.

Is

it that clear that he has gone

freelance in this sense? Michael

Gove said the other day that nothing

is agreed until everything is

agreed?

What does that even mean? I

remember, nearly two decades ago,

that the piece was hard four, those

lights in the rooms in Northern

Ireland, the entire Labour Party,

there wasn't this breaking away of

the message and the fractured

branding, it was Tony Blair and Mo

Mowlam and I remember waking up to

that great thing that they had this

breakthrough and this week I

remembered that because I saw this

thing overnight, the same thing, we

are going to work through the night.

What for? So we then get to the next

chasm, the next disagreement? There

was a lovely treat that's it either

Northern Ireland is going to fail

because of Brexit or Brexit is going

to fail because of Northern Ireland.

I cannot speak about this

dispassionately.

The front page of

the Daily Express. The weather is

always a favourite story. Just

surprised it is not Brexit! The big

freeze chaos to get worse. How do

you feel but in response to bad

weather?

Places outside London

respond in a perfectly normal

fashion, they get on with it. People

from other countries find it strange

that the weather is such a constant

source of conversation for British

people and for the Daily Express.

Once again, this shows that as a

country we cannot deal with our

infrastructure, the transport

infrastructure is not particularly

able to deal with a dusting of snow

and it is not that unusual when we

find this chaos at airports and no

doubt there will be significant

chaos tomorrow morning. It is

December, it snowed!

It has been

quite mild in recent winters?

We

will have the classic English

conversation, today was slightly

colder than yesterday and tomorrow

will be slightly warmer!

It is

psychological as much as anything.

There is an economic productivity

equation and this will affect

enormous numbers of people, perhaps

it is the people writing about it,

the journalists in London and

photographers going nearby, we know

all about that, I will get a phone

call saying, I am in Scotland and

you are lightweights in London.

But

it makes for the beautiful picture.

The front page of the Financial

Times. An interesting story here

about Labour and its policy on the

Bank of England?

Labour have asked

consultants to look into a series of

issues, not just do with the Bank of

England, and one suggestion they are

considering is moving some functions

of the Bank of England to Birmingham

Six and thinking about whether or

not the governor should be based in

Birmingham. Labour are also talking

about creating two new institutions,

the national investment bank and the

strategic investment bank and those

might be Birmingham. A separate

financial hub in Britain's second

city and as someone who is

hopelessly part of the London

bubble, when I go to places like

Birmingham Six for party

conferences, it always strikes me

that they have these really big

financial centres in our major

cities, it is not just in London. We

have centres across the country and

I like the idea of decentralisation

and less focus on London. But I

worry that this idea that the

governor should be based in

Birmingham, that is just fluff. It

doesn't matter. He will spend his

time in London all the time anyway.

In terms of building new

infrastructure, it is interesting

and exciting, it will not win many

votes and I am sure people in the

Bank of England will be horrified at

this headline, should they wish to

stay in London. But there are lots

of advantages to staying outside of

the capital, I am told!

Reliably

told by pigeons! Caroline, there

must be some sense that the economy

does need to be rebalanced? This is

what the policy, whether you like it

or not, is aiming to do?

We heard

George Osborne before departing the

Cabinet with his great Northern

Powerhouse and even though he has

left, the wheels of that continue to

turn successfully beyond the borders

of the Watford gap. I can only add

my voice to toady's, it is

refreshing as somebody who, not as a

victim, but you get into this matter

centric bubble, thinking things only

happen in London, it is refreshing,

when you go to places beyond the

city walls and he realised there is

a lot going on, culturally,

socially, artistically, and if it

takes an economic shift of the

weight of the Bank of England, then

so be it.

The front page of the

Telegraph. A little bit more signed

to enhance our environment, tills

ringing to the side of these

transactions.

I am horrified by this

story. Marketing employees and visa

have spent one year choosing the

perfect noise that can single speed

and convenience! It says the company

has been running a complete

vibration at users feel through the

phone claiming they are entering a

new era of sensory branding. God

help us all! I don't think I want by

phone to vibrate a certain way.

Obviously, they think there is some

currency in this because Visa have

put a lot of effort into this but I

am not sure if they have done much

market testing, I am not

particularly in favour of sensory

branding.

Any idea of what this

energetic and optimistic sound bite

big? I love the idea that you are

immune to sensory branding.

I

thought this meant bespoke. I

thought every time I went to a shop

I would get my own, personal signed

and I was sinking, which song or

bridge or ref would like? Van Halen?

That would get me going! Lots of

people who are not of our generation

perhaps will have more fun with this

and we might?

Lets move back to the

front page of The Times and the

story that Caroline really wanted to

talk about! What the Queen really

did next and writing on the crime,

you have spent many hours of your

life in the interests of research...

So, the Queen, series two, for the

uninformed, has landed on Netflix

and Tony has watched even more than

me. It is quite brilliant but it

does raise the question because

Peter Morgan, the scriptwriter,

calls this a combination of error

and dense research, some very

informed speculation and some quite

rightful dramatic tendencies so we

have ended up with this incredibly

powerful inside story of the

monarchy in the second half of the

20th century.

Dramatic tendencies?

Playing around with what really

happened? Just some necessary

borrowing from the wardrobe, the

dress up wardrobe. For all intents

and purposes, for me, this has shed

light on chapters of history I did

not know enough about, the Suez

crisis, the Macmillan government,

that is promised in this series,

Tony is cross with the JFK arrival,

but...

There is a more fundamental

point, I understand artistic

license, implying that the Duke of

Edinburgh's father blamed him for

the death of his sister in a plane

crash is not an inaccuracy or

playing with history or received

wisdom, that is just a lie and that

is wrong and someone of the... It is

not true and any amount of artistic

license does not change the fact

that this is not just on true but

deeply hurtful to the Duke of

Edinburgh.

Who will not watch this

and when asked, don't be ridiculous

will be the answer!

He is immune to

sensory branding! It is a version of

history that is demonstrably not

true.

We will leave it there for the

moment.

That's it for The Papers this hour.

Thank you, Tony and Caroline.

You'll both be back at 11.30pm

for another look at the stories

making the news tomorrow.

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