19/12/2017 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are the political

commentator Lance Price

and the public affairs consultant

Alex Deane.

Tomorrow's front pages.

Starting with...

The Metro leads with the sentencing

of acid attacker Arthur Collins,

who has been jailed for 20 years.

The Daily Telegraph reports that

Scotland Yard has announced a review

of all current rape and sex abuse

investigations, after a second trial

collapses in less than a week.

A story also picked up by the

Guardian, which claims the case is

the second in which material had not

been disclosed to the defence teams.

Four meant arrested in Derbyshire

and South Yorkshire to prevent an

alleged terror plot. The Sun claims

the men planned to attack over the

Christmas holidays.

The Express claims that household

face a hike in council tax,

after Ministers allow Police

and Crime Commissioners to raise

funds for local forces.

The Daily Mail also headlines

a possible rise in council tax,

which it suggests could add more

than £100 to average

household bills.

The Star warns of three massive

storms set to blast Britain over

the Christmas period.

So, let's begin...

Starting with the front page of the

Metro, which has the sentence for

Arthur Collins, who threw acid in a

crowded nightclub 20 years, a hefty

sentence.

But no less than he

deserved and some of his victims

expressing the hope he would serve

life in prison. He is a man who was

no stranger to the criminal court

system and he was on a suspended

sentence for another nightclub act

of violence. When he committed this

one. To be clear, people may not

know how serious it was. People with

third-degree burns on their face

with the City through. Corrosive

acid in their eyes. His wilful act,

injuring many people, 16 people were

injured that night, was an act of

supreme selfishness. And almost

sociopathic, in total disregard for

other people.

A sentence really

designed to send a message about

what the system thinks of this sort

of attack.

Yes, it is a one

sentence, of course. As Alex says, a

lot of the coverage, there is the

heartbreaking evidence from the

victims of the attack. You see his

face all over the front pages, but

it is the victim is we should be

thinking about. And by pleading not

guilty, he forced them to go to

court and relive the horror of what

happened. And they say that every

year now, one of them was

celebrating her birthday and every

year now, it will be the anniversary

of that attack and their lives will

never be the same again.

They have to disclose evidence. That

obligation lapses.

Like the same scale but the

ex-girlfriend of his who was on the

TV show, because she had an element

of Fame she gets mentioned in every

story about this awful person.

Let's

move on to the Daily Telegraph and

another crime

The paper points out that the

conviction rate is 11%.

They are

hard to prove and it is one word

against another. It is difficult. In

our system, the right thing is to

contest these as best you can. Not

withholding material that is plainly

relevant. It was clear they had held

back material that was plainly

disclosed.

Let's go on to the Daily

Express which shares the same front

page story.

Both these middle market tabloids

look very similar this morning.

Concentrating on how much this will

cost individuals. The reason it will

happen is this massive funding

crisis. In part it is the need for

police and growing commissioners to

get more resources into combating

crime but more important is the

social Care Bill. The government has

failed to come up with a solution to

this. The government have not

stepped in and local government are

having to step up the cost. This

money is going into that.

It seems

to me we've ducked some of the big

questions on council tax, and plenty

of properties are worth a great deal

more money than they were when they

went into the bands initially.

Furthermore, the increase in value

means we probably need some higher

bands to represent more significant

value.

They don't necessarily

reflect income, do they? True. These

are regressive and will hit poor

people the most. That's why these

papers have run identical front

pages. The front page of the i. It

is a second day front page. It was

that the NHS was running a deficit

of 100,000, and now it has the

Health Secretary agreeing that there

is a problem.

He disputes that

number. He says it is not accurate.

That is a Labour figure, an estimate

he says is not right. But he does

say there's a problem.

Notwithstanding more people working

as professionally qualified staff,

32,000 more people working there

since 2010 but nevertheless he

concedes there is a very big

problem. What a thing to have to say

having been one of the longest ever

serving Health Secretary is.

Imagine

if he had not said it. He would have

been laughed out of court. There are

times in politics when you have to

take it on the chin and recognise

that you are facing a problem,

provided you can indicate that there

are things in the pipeline designed

to address that problem. The problem

is that a lot of those things take a

lot of time to come through in terms

of training new doctors or making

sure those going through medical

school go into general practice. In

the short term, the NHS is hoping we

don't have a really cold winter. GPs

are the first port of call. Let's

move on to the Financial Times. It

has a very happy looking Paul Ryan.

Let's put some context into it.

People view this as if it is a

rampage through the tax rate. It

will still be higher than ours but

not by much. Ten years ago the tax

rates were broadly comparable. There

is was a bit higher, ours was 28%.

Now we have a flat rate of 20. The

Americans have been so uncompetitive

that it is a wonder they've done as

well as they have. You can criticise

this administration for many

different things but this is

desperately needed.

They are smiling because they can

say that they've got to the end of

the year and actually passed

something. It is a significant.

His

first victory. The other front page

story is banker bonus hopes dashed

as the EU insists on rules for

access. We've bitterly opposed any

limits on bankers bonuses. We say it

will not be global if you pause

across the EU. People earn megabucks

across the world. One of the things

people have hoped for, written by

people like Mark Carney, is that

when we leave the EU we can be

outside the banker bonus caps and

preserve the city of the's edge. It

seems that the EU wants to say you

need to maintain equivalents on

things like goods, to make sure your

material is the same standards but

also have equivalents in the rules.

It becomes almost impossible to

envisage the EU -- the UK agreeing

to that. It's stymies the point of

leaving. We want to trade with the

world and not just the EU. Great

front cover of city AM. It happens

every year. Somebody gets likened to

Scrooge. He is stating the obvious.

If the United Kingdom wants to have

freedom of access, which now trade

deal has ever been offered to

anybody else with that advantage, we

will be to stick by the rules.

It is

not obvious at all. Nobody else

outside the EU have bankers bound by

requirements imposed by the EU.

Leaving the single market is a

fundamental, not least because it is

about freedom of movement. That

doesn't mean they get to dictate

what are bankers do. News in brief

on the front page, promote parking

to get the green light.

I thought

cars could already do this. This is

great news for everybody who finds

parking in tight spaces difficult.

They need to rewrite the Highway

code.

It must be safer.

I think you

are both hopeless. It is part of the

skill of driving. That is it from

us. You can find the front pages on

the BBC website. If you missed the

programme you can watch it on BBC

iPlayer.