26/12/2017 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Jo Phillips, political

commentator and Nigel Nelson,

Political Editor of Sunday Mirror

and Sunday People.

A chance to cut up each -- to catch

up with them because they've had a

bit of a head start.

Tomorrow's front pages

then, starting with...

The Times says that Paedophiles

are using YouTube as a 'shop window'

to showcase abused children.

The Telegraph says that police have

sparked an increase in shoplifting

by not investigating

thefts under £200.

The Guardian leads with

Tory MPs demanding that

Chancellor Phillip Hammond reveal

the Brexit research papers

looking at trade outcomes.

Brexit also fronts The "i" -

following comments from

the Conservative Mayor

of the West Midlands

warning against a Hard Brexit.

The case of Laura Plummer,

the British women jailed

in Egypt leads The Mirror.

The Financial Times says

that the retail sector

is disappointed at the drop

in footfall for the traditional

boxing day sales.

The Sun leads with British Troops

being asked to use

gender neutral words -

dubbing it the PC Brigade.

And The Express says

a stroll in the garden

will help fight dementia.

So let's begin.

Good that you have joined us for the

rest of the festivities.

What else

would you be doing! Just stuffing

yourself with cold turkey!

Talking

about some of these stories seem to

have been reheated! Well we end the

year as we began talking about

Brexit. Tell us about, we will talk

about that in a moment. But first

the case of Laura Plummer. Jailed

for taking drugs into Egypt.

So

she's 33, she comes from Hull City,

she went out in October to see her

partner and she was arrested on

suspicion of trafficking drugs at

the airport. She was found with 290

tramadol tablets in her luggage

which she claims were for her

partner who suffers from chronic

back pain. Tramadol is a very heavy

duty pain reliever which you can

only get in this country in

prescription. Her family obviously

devastated, she has been in a jail

in a communal cell since being

arrested in October and clearly very

distressing. But there are I think

questions about, if the prescription

for tramadol was not for her then

who was at four. Because you can

take prescription drugs legally

providing you can prove that they

are for you and you have only the

amount you need.

So you think if she

had been able to accept a

prescription, present bad, that

would have helped her case?

Exactly

and another question about 290

tablets being quite a lot. I'm sure

for her family it is devastating and

for her as well but there seems to

be something not quite right.

The

Guardian straightforward and

factual. The mirrored taking a more

judgmental view.

That is right and I

think the contrast is interesting.

The mirror pretty much more on the

side of Laura Plummer, our girl will

die in hellhole jail. Not talking

about the rights and wrongs of the

case are much as more of an appeal

for clemency. One of the things that

comes out from this is that we all

need to be aware of what we can take

into someone else's country and what

we cannot. The advice on the Foreign

Office website. If you are taking

drugs in the prescription drugs

albeit, to find out if they are

legal in the country you're going

to.

People might not necessarily

think about it.

According to an

interview with her MBE earlier today

on Radio 4, Karl Turner, that

information may only went up on the

Foreign Office website since her

arrest. But you should still be

asking the question, you would

expect to take enough jerks that you

would need for your own prescription

for the length of time you will be

there.

But 290. Politically this has

played better for the government

than the case of the Iranian woman

because the Labour MP poured praise

on the Foreign Office.

This is the

point I was making about this being

a clemency issue, that if she did

not know and was a bit naive about

taking drugs, it may well be we

could ask for mercy from the

Egyptian authorities. But that is

the kind of thing the Foreign Office

could do, and at the moment from

what we've seen it does not seem to

be that that the conviction is

actually wrong.

Moving on to a

subject that is no great surprise,

the Boxing Day sales. Have you

picked up any bargains?

Have you

seen the bags in the corridor! Back

in the old days when we were young

reporters, will often dispatched to

some department stores where some

hapless couple would spend their

entire Christmas waiting to purchase

a reduced price suffer and they

would get a bargain. Those days have

gone. But apparently people still do

flock to the shops. And judging by

Oxford Street in London, they still

do. But not as good as it looks

because according to analysis,

football is down by 5.2% on last

year.

Retail having a tough time

this year. Will it matter if instead

of footfall in the shops, we just

let our fingers do the walking?

I'm

not sure it would, as long as people

are buying things it does not make a

huge difference where they are

buying them. It does to the shops

but not the economy as a whole.

Provided you have people doing that.

But at the moment the online figures

have not come through so there is a

questionable whether inflation has

now stopped people buying stuff.

We

will know when we have the full

picture. But if you shops go bust,

and the high street becomes... And

also you would imagine most high

street stores probably pay their

fair share of tax. For some on rail

-- online retailers may not

necessarily.

Many of them do not as

we have seen.

Well there is a novel

take on this story?

Again a

light-coloured rehash, because this

is about what came into force with

the anti-social behaviour act. The

police decided that there would be a

£200 threshold for pursuing

criminals for shoplifting and things

like that. And if caught and

prosecuted it would all be done by

post. So they're looking at limited

resources, they are cash-strapped.

But of course retailers are getting

fed up with this. And what is

apparently anecdotally according to

this story coming to light is that

organised gangs can go into shops

and they can steal stuff valued

under £200. So £199? Or to lots of

£100 or whatever, that can still be

used, it is still good and can be

used for other things whether it is

buying drugs barons or whatever. So

they're worried about the

consequences.

And also retailers are

still out. And no one would want the

message to go out that this is what

you should be doing.

This happens

with some police forces

investigating car theft and suddenly

there is a spate of car thefts,

bound to happen.

Well the Sun

newspaper, again talking about from

an Chantrey, always good to find a

PC story.

Underneath a photograph of

Rhianna. About the Ministry of

Defence, allegedly. Allegedly. The

PC brigade, very large writing.

Apparently a notice has gone up in

some base.

This is one for the new

Defence Secretary!

They do not like

army slogans. Anyway what it is

suggesting is words like mankind,

sportsmanship, because they contain

the word man, they should look for

alternatives. I do not mind too much

humankind, I can just about manage

that. Mankind is anthropological. I

appreciate that. There are certain

areas... When it comes to things

like manhole covers I do not like

the idea of human hole covers. And

also, I think writing nowadays has

got more difficult so I quote

government 's books man, spokes

woman, depending on who is providing

the information.

This is going to

run and run. We will be back at