18/12/2017 The Papers

up in a moment here on BBC News it

is the Papers. Thanks for watching.

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are John Rentoul,

who's Chief Political Commentator

at The Independent, and Lucy Fisher,

Senior Political Correspondent

at The Times.

Tomorrow's front pages...

Starting with the Financial Times

which leads with the new leader in

South Africa at seeing his election

threatens Jacob Zuma's grip on

power. The Times has the same story

which also carries a picture of

today's train crash in the US. The

Guardian carries a warning from the

EU's chief Brexit negotiator saying

Britain cannot expect a special deal

for the City of London as Theresa

May hopes to begin talks on the

trade agreement. The ISS the NHS is

facing a record number of staff

vacancies. The Metro highlights an

admission that women are working for

the Government are being paid up to

nearly 17% less than their male

colleagues. The Daily Express

reports scientific research that

suggests an active social life will

the risk of developing diabetes. The

daily Mirror says up to 3200 Toys

"R" Us staff are facing the sack

over Christmas with business close

to collapse. And the sun says the

Royal Navy's new £3.1 billion

aircraft carrier has a massive leak.

The Navy have told them tonight it

is scheduled for repair and sea

trials programme will not be

affected. Let's begin and start with

the story on the front page of the

Metro about Whitehall's gender pay

gap exposed. Lots of talk at the BBC

about the gender pay gap, what's

that saying about Whitehall?

There

is an 11% gender pay gap across

Whitehall concentrated more

particularly in some departments,

transport is the worst with 17% gap

in salaries, even worse with

bonuses, 25% higher for men. It

breaks my heart and makes me feel

frustrated and annoyed that yet

again we are having to talk about

the situation, but it is a good

thing the data is being reported and

hopefully bringing back into the

light will change things.

There is a

quote from somebody from the Fawcett

Society which campaigns for women's

rights saying that women are

overrepresented in lower paid civil

service jobs and underrepresented...

That is the main explanations of the

gap. It is not so much women are

being paid less for doing the same

sort of jobs, it is that they tend

to have the less well-paid job. I'd

remember the Cabinet Secretary

Jeremy Heywood was proud of the fact

that half of all Whitehall

departments had a female permanent

secretary. I think it has fallen

back since then. Some progress has

been made recently in breaking into

the top jobs. For women. But there

hasn't been a woman Cabinet

Secretary yet.

No, no, indeed. Let's

move onto the front page of the

Guardian, they've got an interview

with the EU's Brexit negotiator and

he's dropped a bit of a grenade on

an important day for Theresa May.

Theresa May has hosted the first

Brexit War committee, ten Key

Cabinet ministers have spoke about

their vision for the trade deal and

they hope the UK can get with the

EU. Michel Barnier have come out and

said that under no circumstances is

the UK going to get financial

services as a bolt on to a trade

deal, services make up 80% of the

UK's economy. Just having free trade

and goods is no good for us. I think

we need to take his point of view

with a pinch of salt. The EU 27

member states at the beginning of

this process are speaking about what

they want, he is going and hard

which is to be expected. The mood

music I am hearing coming out of

Brussels is that there is a lot of

concern among the EU 27 that the UK

if it was cast adrift and have the

ability to use state aid, that could

be pretty disastrous for some of the

sectors like the rest of the EU.

There will be more compromised than

is being suggested here.

Absolutely.

If this is a negotiation, he's

setting out his position, David

Davis has set out the UK position

which is that they want a Canada

deal, which is mostly goods, and we

want to add things to that. Michel

Barnier says you can add justice on

defence and criminal cooperation,

but you can't add financial

services. We will see about that. We

British do like to beat ourselves up

about what a terrible negotiating

position we have. It is a weak

position. But Theresa May achieved a

lot in the first stage of the

negotiations and let's wait and see

what compromise can be reached on

this.

Let's go on to the Financial

Times which has Cyril Ramaphosa's

victory in the ANC election, the ANC

leadership election today. Lucy

Fisher, the Financial Times

concentrates on the threat that he

now poses to Jacob Zuma and Jacob

Zuma's position. That's right. He

ran against Jacob Zuma's ex-wife,

the candidate that Jacob Zuma

supporters, an interesting dynamic.

This is the story I am fascinated

by! Fancy having your ex-wife as

your candidate to succeed you.

But

the paper suggests that Jacob Zuma

might then have expected a certain

immunity from legal follow-ups given

various corruption...

It depends how

he gets on with his ex-wife.

And

whether he has dote on her if she

tries to sink him, maybe he will try

and think her. It is interesting the

way this news Cyril Ramaphosa

winning the presidency today, cheers

in the conference call, but not an

entirely clear-cut picture because

Jacob Zuma's allies were elected as

deputy president and Secretary

General of the part are also Jacob

Zuma allies.

The civil war is going

to go on. I should call it civil

war, because there has been violence

is another pair in the past, but the

ANC is bitterly divided and this was

a very divisive contest. Only one by

2500 votes to 2200 5000. It was very

close. After a lot of recount and so

one. This is obviously not going to

be the end of the story.

Let's go

onto the front page of the

Independent which has got that

startling image from the united

states of this disaster which is

still unfolding. We know there have

been fatalities but we don't know

how many yet.

Six is the latest

figure that I've seen, but possibly

more. A train coming off the tracks

at 80 miles an hour is not good. If

it's on a bridge over a motorway,

that's even worse. Those pictures

look horrible, don't they?

Donald

Trump's reaction telling his first

impulse was to tweet about how this

dreadful carnage was relevant to

infrastructure policies he's trying

push through. He followed up with a

tweet expressing his somebody's

after there was backlash about that

saying that his thoughts and prayers

were with the victims. Unsurprising

the US president has tried to

capitalise on this tragedy.

Another

interesting feature about it is this

was the first passenger train to go

along this line. It was the first

joining it was taking.

The inaugural

run of the route between Seattle and

Portland down the West Coast.

Terribly sad scenes. The other story

on the front page of the

Independent, NHS jobs crisis leaves

100,000 reels vacant.

This is a

reminder that one of the big

domestic stories of the next couple

of years properly is going to be the

state of the NHS and whether it can

be turned around. The NHS have been

under such a squeeze for so long.

They are spending more in real terms

on the NHS every year, but the rate

of increase is nothing like it was

under new Labour and the strain is

beginning to tell. That's going to

be a political problem for the

Government.

It is an extraordinary

figure, 100,000 reels. Let's go to

the front page of the daily Mirror.

Toys "R" Us on the brink. A cheerful

Christmas story!

My first boss warned me that. This

is a new category, it is sad on the

eve of Christmas that a toy company

like Toys "R" Us would be making

profit, it turns out it is £500,000

in debt.

After all the money I have

spent there!

You echo my sentiment

entirely! But presumably this is

again online trading...

I remember

moving to the Toys "R" Us website

many years ago after going to the

actual shops and the website wasn't

great. There is just so much

competition. You can buy toys from

Amazon. We are not allowed to

mention other brands, are we! Online

shopping is a highly competitive

business and Toys "R" Us have

obviously failed to take their

competitive advantage into the

online world.

I am just really quite

devastated that 3200 employees are

facing the sack just before

Christmas.

It is sad. It is very sad

indeed. The front page of the times

has a different sort of story,

loosely linked to children. White

children get a taste for

punishment...

Lucy knows all about

the Times stories.

This is an

interesting story, it is the age at

which you derive some sort of

pleasure from seeing others

punished. Scientists also think it's

the age at which you have a sense of

fair play coming into practice.

They've carried out experiments with

children were children have been

able to sacrifice a token for which

they have been given a sticker in

order to see a bad puppet being

beaten up. It is a rather convoluted

experiment! There is a moral in

there somewhere.

It is amazing that

the whole nation's schools are run

on the basis children want to have

stickers.

But they might just want

to look at puppets. Children like to

pull legs of spiders, they can be

quite cruel. I'm surprised to see

sadists at six years old.

Six years

old is quite late. For a sense of

fair play and justice, I would

imagine three-year-old can scream

that things aren't fair. There you

go.

It's three times, it must be

true. Let's go to the front page of

the express which has perhaps my

favourite headline of the year,

socialising can beat diabetes.

Canet? A social life low the risk of

developing diabetes. -- lowers the

risk. I will have to get some people

rant over Christmas.

It makes sense

to me in a certain way, you are

going out, you are in a bit more

active. If you enjoy fruit in a

convivial way with friends, you are

possibly going to be posing a bit

more, being a bit more moderate for

the sake of manners, a better

appearance rather than sort of... I

can be a bit more greedy if I'm

sitting on my couch with my takeaway

pizza.

There is some common sense in

that. You don't look convinced,

John?

I'm wondering about causation

and correlation, whether if you are

healthy you are more likely to have

an active social life anyway. I

haven't read the small print of the

science. It is in the journal BMC

Public health whatever that is. I

haven't had a chance to study it in

detail.

You don't look like you're

going to.

I am very taken by the

picture... I am very puzzled by why

the Duchess of Cambridge, what is

the

the Duchess of Cambridge, what is

the new look? She looks exactly the

same as before.

You haven't been

paying attention.

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.

pages of the papers online

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later on BBC iPlayer.

Thank you, John Rentoul

and Lucy Fisher.

Goodbye.