12/12/2017 The Papers

Hello, and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Joe Watts,

Political Editor of the Independent.

And Caroline Wheeler,

Deputy Political Editor

of The Sunday Times.

Tomorrow's front pages...

The Mirror leads with the miraculous

story of a three week old baby girl

-- born with her heart outside her

body. The first baby in the UK to

survive this rare illness. 'Tories

go green' - the I looks at the

Conservative governments new climate

change policies in what they call a

push to win back younger voters and

broaden the parties appeal. The

Metro reports on allegations that a

20-year-old woman was raped by a

Conservative Party aide in his

office in Westminster. The Times

reports of a scandal involving the

President of the European Commission

Jean Claude-Junker and alleged

evidence tampering. The Guardian

leads on its exclusive story

detailing how some big companies are

paying intelligence firms to monitor

groups that challenge their

business. The Telegraph leads with a

warning to households and motorists

to expect a sharp rise in gas and

petrol prices. The Express says the

Prime Minister is enjoying a boost

in the polls after her Brexit

negotiation breakthrough.. And...

The Daily Mail says that Social

Media giants Facebook and Twitter

helped fuel abuse towards

Conservative Party candidates in the

last general election. What is the

story about in the Guardian?

The

Guardian appears to have been

leaked, along with a another news

organisation, a cache of documents,

suggesting that it is not just the

police force involved in the illicit

espionage, but private companies are

doing this too. Not just spying on

each other but buying on people who

perhaps are making choices to take

those companies to court or campaign

against them or protest against

them. Or perhaps even, you know,

encourage consumer activity against

them as well. There are a string of

really big name companies that are

involved in this. Companies like

British Airways, the Royal Bank of

Scotland. Within the detail of these

documents, come all of the ways in

which these companies are spying on

those individuals.

Caroline, at one

point the police have claimed that

commercial firms have had more spies

in bed in political groups than

there were undercover police

officers!

Basically they have

infiltrated campaign groups that

have been opposed to some of the

actions that these big corporate

firms have been undertaking in, and

posed as activists themselves. In

one instance, the infiltrate is

pretended to be activists

sympathetic to the cause of the

campaigners, helping to organise and

attending demonstrations, including

on one occasion dressing up as a

pirate with a Cutlass and an eye

patch as part of a protest! These

are extraordinary length that these

organisations are going to to sort

of infiltrate and find out what it

is that people who are opposed to

the goods are kind of worried about.

It shows you the level of concern

that there is around the kind of

protest that we have seen

surrounding these big, multinational

corporations.

We know it made people

really angry, the story quite

recently about police forces

infiltrating undercover green

groups. There was one case in

particular where a police officer

out of relationships with other

activists, was leading a real double

life. The question is, you know, it

does stay in the story that the

activity is much more widespread

than people would have expected. The

question is, how long have these

undercover operations been going

on's have they been playing with

people's lives in the same weight as

white interesting stuff.

Tories go

green to win back voters. I remember

hugging the house the end the North

Pole, David Cameron. And then it all

got junk. Well, apparently is coming

back on the Michael Gove, who is

trying to almost arrange the image

of the Department of environment and

getting out there and hitting back

on social media -- change the image.

What do you make of this, joke?

There is a Cameroonian feel to this,

after the Theresa May drive we are

coming back to the fluffy,

compassionate Conservative deal with

this drive, anyway. I think this is

a reaction to what happened in the

election. A lot of young voters

completely deserted the Tories for

the Labour Party. And a lot of that

was to do with not this is the only

particular policies or tuition fees,

but just the way the Tory Party was

promoting its values. Going back to

much more kind of Conservative,

socially Conservative values, away

from Cameroonian Liberal

Conservative feel. After being burnt

on things like fox hunting, the

ivory trade during the election,

this is a real push back to try and

win some of that.

You can sense that

they don't want to go back to being

the nasty party, a sense that they

have been sort of uncaring and they

want to become the kind of, very

sympathetic and loving and animal

loving, you know, other things they

are going to focus on our school

standards, there was a sense that

they lost some of the mummy vote at

the time, it's not just the

environment. As with everything,

there's been a bit of a backlash

around the whole rebranding that was

going on. It's one of the things

they are definitely going to ditch.

For me, it doesn't sit with the new,

caring party, because they are not

making a big thing of the NHS. They

seem to have decided that actually

they can't win on the NHS. One would

imagine that investing in the NHS

would make you be the most caring.

That is the problem. When you poll

people, the NHS is up there and the

environment is not the top issue. I

remember someone was saying that

after blue planet on Sunday, lots of

tweets from Tory MPs, quite similar

stuff. It's a co-ordinated thing

that they are trying to deep.

And

not everyone is happy about it. Not

all MPs... One MP told me the other

day that they don't get any letters

really about animals at all other

than bees. And actually it hasn't

made much of an impact in the sort

of mailbags. And also talking about

school standards, it's not school

standards which has been bugging

mums, it's school funding. Some of

this seems a bit kind of misguided.

It's about positioning the party.

How much of it about positioning

Michael Gove?!

Indeed! Looking at

the policies that the Tory Party has

brought forward since the election

and the policies that Michael Gove

has brought forward, he has won to

be fair to him, some plaudits from

green groups, who have said, you

know, it's good at least that we

have a Secretary of State that is

looking at the right things. We

still waiting to see the proof, the

piece of legislation he is

promising, whether that is going to

come through. If you look at the

policies that Theresa May announced

week, which has formed the platform

for the new PR push, they are not

that the revolutionary than what was

announced this week. There was a big

PR push on this. Whether it actually

follows through is yet to be seen.

Let's have a look at the FT. Talking

about the Conservative Party, the

picture of Damian Green. He is still

awaiting that inquiry into his

alleged behaviour, saying here,

Theresa May has got to pep up the

top team. And the Brexit deal blow.

Do you think it is a glow, Caroline,

after the Brexit deal?! The

Government,

the basking in the glow

of success, this wasn't the story

that we were discussing last week

when everything was going horribly

wrong.

I think it's safe to say it's

a bit volatile.

This could easily

set fire to the paper!

The crisis

has almost become the new norm with

this Government. Normally you would

get political crises and they would

last for days and days. You can have

very turbulent days and then it is

like you in a new country the next

day. They pick themselves up and

move on. This story is saying,

things are all right, by contract,

maybe now she is strong enough to

carry out the reshuffle which has

really been on the cards pretty much

for months.

Will she wait to the New

Year?

Most Tory MPs will tell you

they do not expect her to last

beyond Brexit anyway.

There is a

talk about the younger generation

being brought in in some weight.

There is.

Lots of talking about

that.

Looking about as off at the

picture, there is a big question

mark hanging over some of the older

members of the party. There can be

no reshuffle until we know what

Damian Green's fate is going to be.

If he is going to be forced to

resign, there has been some chatter

that that is the direction of

travel, although it seems to ebb and

flow every week this saga goes on,

she cannot do anything and all that

is decided. What she doesn't want to

happen is that she saves him and

there's more revelations and he is.

William Hague has said very clearly,

-- he is false to go again. He says,

you need to start really elevating

some of those people in the junior

ministerial positions and stamped

your authority.

She has been trying

to get William Hague did come back,

and he has refused to so far.

Let's

move the times. Rob Tait will be

beamed to dashboards. Joe, what's

this about -- Road data.

Everything

has to be smart these days, you

can't just have a manually operated

thing. You can't have a motorway to

just drive along! This with the

hundreds of miles of fibre-optic

cable buried alongside motorways.

Through this fibre-optic cable in

the wizardry of broadband, you would

be able to beam into driverless cars

all of the information about

traffic, speed limits, no doubt it

could probably direct your car where

to go to avoid the worst traffic

jams and make sure that you avoiding

ice patches. I mean, it is exciting,

it does feel very futuristic.

What

could go wrong?!

This is also the

point, it is preparing the way for

these driverless cars. The

Government is really, really keen on

this as an idea and think that we

can lead the way on it. The

technology, however, there is

question marks even around smart

meters and things like that. So

actually having cars on the roads

that could be potentially open to

hacking and all of those things, I'm

sure that they will do all of those

tests, but it is one of those things

that you look so many things could

potentially go wrong, lights being

flashed at you and things on your

dashboard, it sounds very back to

the future.

We need to get with it!

We are going to talk about the

Independent next. Almost half of

British people want Donald Trump's

state visit scrap, according to a

poll. It doesn't sound very popular.

But the state visit seems to be on

the back burner. A working visit to

London might be happening.

There is

an indication, including from the US

ambassador today, that the working

visit, as it is being called, to

open the new US embassy could go

ahead in February. But the polling

that we had done even shows that

around half of people are against

from coming in any capacity. But the

state visit really riles people

because it involves the Queen and

all of the pomp and ceremony and

giving the huge honours for the

president. In her heart of hearts,

even Theresa May regrets making and

I'm sure she regrets making the

picture of herself on the White

House lawn hand-in-hand with Trump.

It seems a long time ago. The state

visit is not going to happen any

time soon, is it?

I think the state

visit has now been postponed. It is

usually something that presidents

get in the second term. It was

always going to be quite

controversial this idea that it was

going to be a great expansion and

visit given to him. The working

visit, as I understand Joe said

correctly, I understand it is at the

end of February. But the actual

state visit I think will now be in

2019. In 2019, she may well not be

Prime Minister any longer. I don't

know what the protocol is on this.

From maybe impeached by then as

well.

Let's have a look at Star

Wars, the premiere of the latest

film. Are you a Star Wars fan?

I am,

yes, ever since I was very, very

young, it's been part of my

upbringing. I've seen all of them, I

had all of the toys when I was a

kid, and I massively excited about

this.

Are you massively excited?

I

loved it when I was a little girl, I

got my hair done as Princess Leia.

But I'm looking forward to taking my

little boy to see it, he is wildly

excited.

It was quite a big

premiere. Even got some royalty who

were there.

The fact that it has

made the front of most of the papers

shows what a big deal it is and how

it's going to beat the film that

really captures the imagination this

Christmas.

5-star review. Thank you

very much indeed.

That's it for The Papers tonight.

Don't forget, you can see the front

pages of the papers online

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later on BBC iPlayer.

Thank you, Joe Watts

and Caroline Wheeler.

Goodbye.