14/01/2018 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look

at this morning's papers.

With me are political commentator

Vincent Moss and contributoring

editor for the Daily Mail Ian

Birrell.

Let's take a look at

the front pages then.

The Sunday Times reports

that the new Justice Secretary

is preparing to intervene to halt

the release of the so-called "black

cab rapist", John Worboys.

The Mirror also leads

on the future of John Worboys -

reporting on concerns

about whether he could return

to the same flat he owned

before going to jail.

The Mail looks at the row

surrounding the girlfriend of Ukip's

party leader Henry Bolton -

after she reportedly made racist

remarks about Meghan Markle.

The Sunday Telegraph

has an interview with

the new Conservative Party chairman

Brandon Lewis , he tells the paper

he wants to galvanise the party's

digital campaigning.

The Observer reports claims

by Nigel Farage that pro-Europeans

could overturn the result

of the Brexit referendum,

and that the Leave side

has "stopped fighting".

The Sunday Express claims economists

are warning the EU that failing

to reach a Brexit deal with Britain

could cost it £500 billion.

And The Sun claims TV host

Ant McPartlin has filed for divorce

from his wife of 11 years.

Let's begin with The Observer, how

our historic Brexit vote could be

reversed phase Nigel Farage. It

doesn't seem very likely but he is

saying that pro-EU people, Remainers

are campaigning harder now than

Leavers.

are campaigning harder now than

Leavers.

He's right about that. You

could argue that the Leavers won the

argument so they are sitting back

and Nigel Farage eyes on the is

saying unless something changes you

could have a second referendum on

the Leave Campaign could lose. It

looks increasingly unlikely that

there will be a second referendum

but I think the argument is not

necessarily one and that's the point

Nigel Farage is making. He says

there is a majority in parliament

who are Remainers and that's a

problem.

Is this a rallying call to

the Leave Campaign in a way?

I think

it's partly about the fact Nigel is

feeling unloved and missing the

spotlight. He said something on a TV

show which sparked a few headlines

and he's pushing it hard. It's also

about saying I'm the best campaign

on this issue and it's all being

lost and people aren't campaigning

hard enough. Having a go at his

rivals on it. Also I think it's

about the fact there is still this

problem in defining the Brexit the

leave camp want. There is a variety

of different Brexits being presented

and I think he's pushing for a hard

edge Brexit and keep pressure up and

trying to revolt Leaver revive a

role for himself as a person who

believes in a hard Brexit. But

reality seems to be intruding and

people are finding it harder to

define what is the sort of Brexit we

want to find something that works

for everyone involved.

As we go into

the trade negotiations it seems it's

all to play for still in terms of

what sort of Brexit it ends up

being.

That's right. I think the

fear from Nigel Farage and the Leave

Campaign is the idea that there

might be a form that still sees

Britain in the customs union and

single market. He is part of this

push back and there is a lack of

definition from some of the leave

aside about what they are seeking.

That's part of the problem. I'm not

too sure how interested many of the

readers will be in the process of

this story but in terms of the

details it's not going to go away

and will continue to run and run as

a story on the front page of The

Observer but I'm not sure it's

worthy of a front-page, in terms of

every little bit of it.

The front

page of your paper The Mail on

Sunday and a story about the current

Ukip leader Henry Bolton, or really

his girlfriend talking about the

fiancee of Prince Harry Meghan

Markle and a series of text

messages.

It follows on from the

Farage story. Here is his former

party, they seem to have a new

leader every week and the leader is

seen to run into also some personal

issues. Here we have a leader who's

had a Danish wife and then a Russian

wife and now he's moved in with this

other person. Obviously that's up to

him but she doesn't appear to be the

most appealing character and she

shows up what a lot of people think

Ukip is really all about under the

surface with a lot of people. I

think for them you've got this

fringe group which has diminished

interest in the public debate. It

won its big argument and has become

a fringe group and its going through

this ludicrous process.

These are

text messages from Jo Marney. We

won't go into the details of what

they say but obviously we are used

to reporting about people's Twitter

messages, their posts on Facebook.

But these are text messages.

Yes,

that's what I find interesting. The

content is horrendous and unpleasant

and racist and Jo Marney has been

suspended and has apologised. What's

interesting is the context. This

isn't something that we've seen

posted on a public website. It looks

as though these are text messages

sent to someone else who has then

passed them on to the newspaper, to

The Mail on Sunday. That is an

interesting point about when is it

acceptable to print people's text

messages because many people put

things in text messages but they

wouldn't want to see in a newspaper.

In this case I suspect when a Mail

on Sunday would argue there is a big

public interest because he is the

leader of a political party but it's

an interesting area because it is

different from something you put on

a public facing forum.

The BBC

haven't seen these messages

independently and also Jo Marney has

said "I apologise unreservedly for

the shocking language I used. The

opinions I expressed were

deliberately exaggerated to make a

point and have it to an extent been

taken out of context but I fully

recognise the offence they have

caused". She is apologising.

She is

but there's no doubt whether they

are exaggerated or not, they are

vile and deeply racist and give an

insight into the person who is

currently the partner of a leader of

a political party.

Should he resign?

I'm not sure many people care about

Ukip and to their current leader is

but I think he looks a diminished

figure from a very small standard

already. I think there is a genuine

public interest. If it was Theresa

May's partner or Jeremy Corbyn's

partner expressing those views it

would be a legitimate area of press

concerned.

Let's talk about how to

fight the next election. The Tories,

it's well known that Labour, OK they

didn't win the last election but

arguably they won the election

online, in terms of getting younger

people out of eight they were very

successful and the Tories want to

try and match them.

Labour did do

well in the digital area and the

Conservatives recognise they've got

some catching up to do. There have

been some funny examples recently

how badly the Conservatives have

done their social media so they are

trying to improve on it. The Sunday

Telegraph has eight interview with

Brandon Lewis and he says he wants

to get shy Tories out there in the

digital world and wants to give them

a toolkit of gifs and videos and

graphics and all the rest of it.

This recognition of a way of

engaging with younger voters and

moving away from things like

newspapers, sadly and more into

social media. It's an interesting

story about what the plans are for

the new Conservative chairman and

how he wants to reinvigorate their

base among young voters.

No one

knows this better than Brandon Lewis

because the Tory party managed to

announce someone else had his job

during the reshuffle. Their

communications operation put the

wrong name in the frame. There is a

more fundamental problem, for the

Tories young devotees didn't vote

for them -- younger voters didn't

vote for them. There is a more

fundamental problem which is the

current conservative message which

is tough on immigration, tough on

borders and above all Brexit doesn't

appeal to people in their 20s, 30s

and 40s. All the polling data shows

that. You can build houses, change

but ultimately it's not the method

but the core message. For the

Conservative Party at the moment

back core message is deeply

unappealing to young people and

that's the problem they've got.

Given that they are stuck on this

track of going for Brexit and

pushing it through and being

identified with it, and it's really

something we are having because of

the ruptures and divisions in the

Conservative Party, this is the

problem they've got. It is something

inherently unpopular with younger

people.

Let's stay with The Sunday

Telegraph. They've also got a story

about Carillion which does

construction as well as other things

and they are in serious trouble.

They are clearly part of the

government's plans for HS2 and so

on.

This will be the big story of

the week, they have huge debts of

about 1.6 billion, a pension fund

black hole of 600 million and a

company that looks as though it is

on the brink of collapse. So far the

government has been fairly quiet and

I think it needs to probably come to

the House of Commons tomorrow and

explain what it's going to do. If

this company collapses it would be

bad news not just for the people who

work there, it would be terrible for

public services and then there's the

banks and the shareholders. People

may not feel that much pity for

banks and shareholders but it's a

problem the government hasn't really

said what it's going to do about it

and it needs to get a grip on the

situation and explain its plans.

Let's go to The Sunday Times. John

Warboys the black cab rapist and the

Justice Secretary preparing to

intervene, says The Sunday Times, to

try and stop his release which was

sanctioned by the parole board. This

is hugely controversial and it looks

like David Gauke has been under

pressure from other Cabinet

ministers to make the parole board

have another look at this.

He's in a

difficult position because clearly

there are valid questions over the

prosecution and whether this guy,

who was convicted of one rape and a

variety of sexual assaults, but

there's lots of women who say there

are cases that went taken up and

prosecuted. Due process has been

followed and there is questions over

in forming the victims but the

judicial system is operating

correctly. The new Justice Secretary

has a difficult conundrum which is

many people feel this guy shouldn't

be released, he remains a danger and

he's terrifying for a lot of those

people who he abused and attacked.

There is a political pressure to do

something about it.

What do you

think will be the outcome?

It's hard

to go down the route of a judicial

review because the release is not

the issue, potentially. The parole

board may well have followed

everything correctly. The issue is

the sentence and whether enough of

the prosecutions were followed

through with. There's potentially

100 victims.

12 victims were part of

the case in the trial so there are

others.

Allegedly there are up to 93

other cases out there so it's a big

problem. I can understand the fears

of the victims because it is highly

likely I would imagine that he will

be given a new identity and all the

rest of it. It's possible he could

be linked near his victims and they

wouldn't necessarily know.

A

suggestion the parole board should

do more or be entitled to do more to

explain their decisions. I think at

the moment they can't really go into

the details of how they reach a

decision. In future that would be a

better way forward.

It would help

people have more confidence in the

system. If there's a lesson from

this, should be looking at our rape

cases and these serious sexual

assault cases, are they still taken

seriously enough and are they being

prosecuted in. That is the

fundamental issue I think.

The

Observer's front-page story is about

Donald Trump not coming to Britain

for a visit and it says his

deteriorating relationship with

Britain is likely to kill off any

lingering Cabinet hopes of a Swift

post-Brexit deal with the US. Is

there a deteriorating relationship?

There's got to be. Just the recent

story we saw about him pulling out

of the opening of the new American

embassy and the general anti-Trump

rhetoric over here can hardly endear

us to the Americans.

Surely we

aren't the only country with

anti-Trump rhetoric.

Know but it's

always about the special

relationship and they would be a

greater focus on us. We look as

though we really don't like Trump

and whatever the views are of him a

lot of people voted for him and he

is the president. These comments are

from a former British ambassador in

Washington pointing this out. There

is a poll highlighting 70% of Brits

think Trump is an trustworthy and

not a good bet. It's really

highlighting the obvious because

America is critical to our

post-Brexit trade plants. If we

can't get a deal with America than

Britain will really be struggling

and that would be bad news is the

Theresa May and Liam Fox.

Does the

trade deal really depend on what

Donald Trump thinks of us?

He has an

influence on it because he is the

leader of the government and if he

wants to stay me it he could. As we

know he's not a conventional

politician so he could easily stymie

it. Canada took seven years famously

to get a trade deal with the

European Union. This is a deal of

incredible complexity. The idea you

could do it in a few months as a

pipe dream. It's always going to be

a long, complicated, difficult

process. In that respect I think the

row over whether Trump is upset by

not being able to meet the Queen or

come to a royal wedding or open his

embassy is a red herring.

The last

story in The Sunday Times, it's

dried January all year. They are

saying traditional January detox

could last all year because of new

government health guidelines.

The

headline makes it sound like it's

about alcohol but it's more about

food. Public Health England talking

about calorific intake and saying

that we should all be calorie

capping lunch and dinner at 600

calories and breakfast at 400, and

saying the guidelines for women

would be about 2000 a day and men

2500, pointing out a Kentucky mighty

bucket for one is 1200 calories.

It's less about alcohol and more

about eating less.

You've got to

share your bucket for one because it

is 1200 calories than say 600 -- and

they say that 600 is the maximum.

Are you guys doing dried January?

Occasionally, with the odd day off.

I started.

I feel rather better for

it. I don't know whether it will

last all year.

You are a model for a

healthy living!

That's it for The Papers.

Thanks to Vincent and Ian.

Just a reminder we take a look

at tomorrow's front pages every

evening at 10.40pm here on BBC News.