16/12/2017 The Papers

We'll hear Mark Kermode's thoughts

on that, and the rest of the week's

top cinema releases,

in The Film Review.

Hello, and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Benedicte Paviot,

UK Correspondent at the French

broadcaster France 24,

and the defence editor

of the Evening Standard, Robert Fox.

The Observer leads on Brexit,

and warnings from Tory peers

that they will vote

against the government in Parliament

if the Prime Minister tries to bully

them into supporting an extreme

version of leaving the EU.

The Sunday Telegraph's front

page features an article

by the Prime Minister with a quote

"I've proved doubters wrong".

And another of its stories

highlights changes to company

pensions, and new government plans

reduce the automatic enrolment age

from 22 to 18.

In the Sunday Times,

as well as their lead

on Boris Johnson's warning

on Brexit, there's a story

on tuition fees, with the former

universities minister

David Willetts, saying he wants

an urgent government review to scrap

high interest rates

on loan repayments.

Theresa May writes

in The Sunday Express,

saying she will not be 'derailed'

from her duty to deliver

the public's decision

to leave the EU.

The Mail on Sunday claims left-wing

trolls sent abuse to the pregnant

wife of a Tory MP after he heckled

Jeremy Corbyn over his age.

Let's get started. The Sunday

Telegraph, first of all. Robert, you

can start us off. Theresa May says

she has proved doubters wrong. One

might think she had a very tough

week, but she sounds rather

triumphant.

It is rather like

somebody who has taken too deep a

scuba-dive, and has at last broken

the surface. A rather elaborate

metaphor, that you can almost hear

her gills heaving in and out.

She

has survived, is what you are

saying.

She is saying, strong and

stable, one wonders if she will

declare another election! There is a

certain quiet triumphalism. She sees

even her near rivals in utter

confusion. The thing that she is not

focusing on, which she knows is the

problem, is Parliament. Lots of

stuff in the papers over the weekend

about Parliament having its say,

from quite extraordinary, well, very

interesting, I should say, Tory

voices. That means that if the

battle ahead. In the Express peace,

which is related, she does a piece

for them, and she has an interview

with the Sunday Telegraph, but she

insists that it is her duty to

deliver your democratic decision.

Brexit means Brexit. The trouble is,

very few of us really know the

implication of what Brexit is going

to mean, five years hence.

Well,

what do you think? How was the Prime

Minister doing? Is she getting over

the idea that this is all actually

going quite well, really, despite

everything?

Well, she is still in

the job.

That's the point. She's

still standing. I don't know if she

has been taking any tips from the

sidestepping, waltzing and tangling,

it takes two to tango in Strictly.

She has tweeted about this. She is

Strictly standing, she is strictly

defined. She is very much claiming

victory for getting that green light

of phase one two phase two. -- phase

one to says two. But there are

challenges looming. She says in this

Telegraph article that she has

proved the doubters wrong. She has

other challenges which are coming in

the days ahead. It will be a crunch

week, because there is going to be

this cabinets preparing to discuss

for the first time.

The full

Cabinet, but... It is just going to

be the opening cannonade, as we

know. One of the things that we are

not discussing and I am sure it will

come up over this holiday period is

whether she is going to change her

team. Because one of the really bad

moments was when David Davis was

asked by the House of Commons

committee, have you done the stress

tests on what's the impact will be

on the British economy? And he said

no. It then turned out that civil

servants in his and other

departments had started doing them.

But they had come up with some

figures that they didn't

particularly like. I can see a move

around going on.

OK...

Damon Green,

that is the other challenge that the

Sunday Telegraph is talking about.

That is a big, looming challenge

ahead on the fate of Damian Green.

And the fact that her embattled

deputy could go. Could go as early

as this week, according to the

Sunday Telegraph. Besides the fact

that she needs a united Cabinet

which she obviously doesn't have.

You've got what I been called be

divergers and the liners.

Let's go

onto one large character in this,

Boris. Brexit must leave us a vassal

state. I think this phrase, vassal

state, that will pass into the

language for a week or two.

CROSSTALK. What is he actually

saying?

It is interesting. This will

worry the Prime Minister, this lead

article in the Sunday Times, Brexit

mustn't leave us as a vassal state.

Boris is going to be making an

intervention, it would seem, in the

coming days, to what he says is the

government seeking to maximise the

benefits of Brexit. Failing to get

an agreement which allows

divergences mean that the UK

could...

That we wouldn't be in the

European Union, we would still be

shadowing it as far as all the

regulations are concerned, in the

transition years?

Correct. That

makes a Boris Johnson extremely

unhappy. Clearly this is also

pointed reference to Philip Hammond,

what he said in China, about

wallowing during the implementation

period or the transition period,

whatever we want to call it, for two

years. -- following. Following all

the rules of the EU, while not being

part of it any more.

Robert, this is

where we see the cracks in the

Cabinet. Not just cracks, yawning

gaps.

I think the wonderful abuse of

the English language, of the

political and which which comes up,

as you say, we have the Jacob

Rees-Mogg thing. We cannot be a

colony of the EU for two years.

Colony! On, get over yourself.

Equally, Boris Johnson says Philip

Hammond, this is a quote, "We can

have a very original economy". I

hope it isn't too original in Boris'

terms, because he is no economist.

This is so strange. Just to draw

that together, he is obviously

cooking up an arrangement with

Philip Hammond. Let's do this

together, and it is an interesting

duopoly, it is a meeting of

opposites.

Yes, as far apart as they

could possibly be.

And

temperamentally. Philip Hammond is a

tremendous man of details. Nobody

has ever seriously accused Maurice

Johnson of being that.

Speaking very

briefly about the tone of the

debate, which is invoked by Boris

Johnson, he has apparently rounded

on hardcore Eurosceptics who called

for the deselection of 11

Conservative MPs to help defeat the

government last week.

The famous

rebels.

There have been death

threats. He says this is absolutely

obscene and I think this is very

important, the fact that Boris

Johnson makes this point in the lead

article.

Let's move on. Robert, I

think it is your turn again.

Automatic pensions. This is the

Observer, automatic pensions for

young people at work.

Well, they are

saying that any young person in

employment earning £10,000 and over

must go into the pension scheme,

must go into the general

dispensation. This is a small detail

which is almost cosmic. Certainly it

has huge implications. It comes to

this point, too many pensioners, too

many non-productive people, and how

on earth are we going to keep public

and private pension system is going

as the pop relation gets older? --

population. This is a step towards

it. One of the things that we do

know is that young people do pull it

off the evil hour, such as it is,

but it is in there a summation, of

buying into a pension scheme. The

fact is that with the present

welfare dispensation, I'm talking

about 15, 20, 25 years from now, it

is unsustainable. So they are trying

to get young people to buy in and

say very early on.

Any resonance

here with what goes on with

President Macron in France, and the

source of reforms he wanted to do? I

don't know what the pension

situation their makers, but are

there any similarities?

Well, France

also has an ageing population. And

people lower down the scale are hard

pressed to save enough money.

Well,

that is the point, if you are

earning £10,000 or more, certainly

in the London area, that would be a

pittance.

There are no tuition fees

in France, though. So you do not

begin your adult life of the 1000 or

whatever it is in doubt.

It is also

the problem that people are living

so much longer entering state

pensions and other benefits. I mean,

it has suddenly expanded in the last

20 years to an extraordinary degree.

When the 65-year-old pensioner

exists, the maximum average of state

employers, drawing pensions, that

averaged 13 years. It would be

double that now.

It is. It is almost

23 years now.

Let's move on to a

Christmas time story. Amazon faces

Christmas parcels enquiry on the

front page of the Sunday Telegraph.

Parcels not arriving in time. Do you

use Amazon?

I do occasionally use

Amazon but I am not an is on prime

subscriber, unlike my fellow

reviewer, who pays £79 a year, I

gather. -- Amazon Prime. Because he

has been promised deliveries within

two days.

And it is those people who

have been let down?

Yes. They are

not happy. Interestingly, Amazon's

helpdesk has apologised, saying that

this is a busy time of year. Wow,

funny, that. Sometimes it is 48

hours and at other times it isn't. I

think the smile that is on the side

of the Amazon parcels will have been

wiped off some of those boxes when

they arrive late.

Big, bad company

time for you, is it?

(INAUDIBLE).

What was that? They will make a huge

amount of money, a huge amount of

sales over Christmas. £1.4 billion

in 2016 in profit. It is better to

promise three days, don't promise

two days and then say it is a busy

time.

I want to take your points

about the image of Amazon. One of

the things that was chilling, which

came out of the story of the Murdoch

deal, Murdoch selling to Disney,

your media editor spelt it out

fantastically. The world of

communication is going to be

dominated by three or four, possibly

five giants. That is why I said,

unfortunately, it is not going to be

the BBC. One of the really big ones

is going to be Amazon. The fact is

that they have an image problem.

They have a severe image problem

because they run roughshod over some

of the people that are contracted

indie gig economy to deliver for

them, and this high-handed attitude

which you have indicated here.

You

have suffered from this, you've got

parcels you are expecting... Herston

Mark it may not necessarily be

Amazon's fault, there is quite a

look bit of stealing going on.

But I

have had parcels which never

arrived. You do need a reliable

service. I do love Amazon, but we

are still talking about books,

thankfully.

If you want a book go to

your local bookseller.

You have to

be prepared to pay for that, but I

agree entirely.

On to another story.

Robert, you can start as on this

one. Royal wedding fever. The

Sundays press FrontPage, at hotel

room £629. Have you booked your

hotel room for the royal wedding in

Windsor?

Talk about cheese eating

surrender monkey, I am going to be

in Italy guiding a tour when it

happens.

And I shall be on the high

seas.

So neither of you will be

watching that, or the FA Cup? I will

not be shedding a tear from either

Michael. This is a fabulous piece,

my esteemed colleague and I had a

problem, we are told that 90% of

hotel space is in Windsor are booked

out. -- 98% of hotel spaces. But

come on, how many hotel spaces are

there in Windsor? We asked

everything on our smartphones and

they cannot tell us.

There are quite

a few hotels in Windsor. So, this is

a story that I am sure the French

are grouped and fascinated by, and

you will be covering it right the

way through to the bitter end?

Well,

I haven't booked my hotel, which

is... I've been concentrating too

much on Brexit. I do know that I

will be there.

Have you got your

glossy 2018 royal calendar?

Finally,

quickly, come on. There is a picture

of people on the front page holding

up a glitter ball, because they are

the winners of...

Yes, 42, the

oldest champion in the BBC's show's

history. We should also point out he

had a fantastic Strictly Come

Dancing partner. Full credit to her.

We wondered if you could give us the

inside story as an excavator?

I

might do, after this.

Is it going to

be in your memoirs?

It might be. Did

you watch the programme?

I didn't,

but added watch the final, which was

quite interesting. The real star of

this, you are quite right, it is Ms

Jones. It is only the second time

around for her. She did wonderful

choreography. The other thing that

is slightly, you know, I get a tear

in my ire with the Reverend Richard

Coles, who was wonderful. -- eye. It

was so professional, the final. All

of those competitors, actually, the

season of goodwill, they worked

jolly hard.

We will have to lever to

there.

You can help Lexia 's

competitors. -- next year's.

That is

all from the papers. Thank you to

Benedicte Paviot and Robert Fox. Up

next, The Film Review.