21/01/2018 The Papers

on a Kabul hotel -

they're thought to have been

deliberately targeted.

Hello, and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Ben Chu,

the economics editor

at The Independent, and Ruth Lea,

who's an Economics Adviser

for the Arbuthnot Banking Group.

Many of tomorrow's front

pages are already in.

The FT leads with news

that the German government has taken

a step towards breaking a four-month

deadlock, as Angela Merkel's Social

Democratic party voted in favour

of formal coalition talks.

The Metro reports on the death

of eight year-old Mylee Billingham

who was stabbed in Walsall.

The front page of The Express

features the BBC's interview with

French President Emmanuel Macron -

and his comments that French people

would also vote to leave the EU

if they had the chance.

The I says wildlife conservations

have issued a warning that the UK

is aiding sales of ivory,

because there is no outright ban

on sales on the illegal goods.

And The Telegraph leads with a story

about the British Army -

the paper says that a lack

of resources means our troops

are struggling to keep up

with military advances in other

countries like Russia.

So it's a mixed bag of stories

from those papers there -

with lots to discuss and more front

pages still to come in.

We will bring you those as get them.

Let us start shall we with the FT,

as our first story, and Angela

Merkel, the German situation which

has been a complete sort of flux for

four months but finally the SPD do

seem to have been won round to

entering formal coalition talk, to

you think this has saved Angela

Merkel?

Well, it is a significant

moment obviously, because as you

say, after the back in September

when they had the election, it was

expected she would sweep to a strong

position, and it should be a simple

process, it has been anything but.

She tried to make a coalition of the

Greens and Liberals, that failed.

Now she has been forced to other old

partners in the SPD. They have.

Voted just about to allow these

talks to begin,

Pretty close.

Tighter than people thought it was

going to be. It looks like they are

going to go ahead. The betting is

they will probably do a deal. What

would be the price of that deal?

What programme will this new fourth

Government led by Angela Merkel

have? There is lots of speculation,

maybe it will be more European

integration, more health spending,

it looks like it will probably be

quite influenced by what the SPD

wanted, because Merkel has nowhere

to go now, this is her last chance.

She has listen left a slightly

weaker figure because of this. She

has been awful powerful in the EU

for a long time, but this has been a

bit of a knock back for her.

It has

been appalling for her. In fact her

party, the CDU and the SPD did very

badly or relatively badly in the

September elections and the SPD

blamed having been in the Grand

Coalition with the CDU for their

poor showing. Initially the SPD

leader said I don't want to do with

any more coalitions so he has almost

been dragged kicking and screaming

into this position. So as Ben said,

the next thing is to have the

detailed coalition arrangements

decided, then it has to go the

membership, that will be March,

which is six months after the

election, what a mess, and the

membership may throw it out. Merkel

looks an incredibly weakened leader,

interestingly enough, because of her

weakness Macron has managed to come

in and look as though he is the

golden boy and almost the leader of

the European Union. But it has

certainly helped France that Jeremy

are so weak.

When we had a coalition

here in 2010 we were frustrated it

took ten days to sort it out. This

is incredible, such a powerful

country can be without a government.

The Germans are a lot more used to

cogses, the nature of their

constitution and political system.

This is abnormally long, even by

German standards. And it does, it

is, it is not uncharted territory

but it is very fragile territory.

What is interesting what does this

mean for Germany's role in Brexit

negotiations as far as the UK is

concerned.

You mentioned is Macron

there, let us look at the front-page

of the Daily Express, man Ron in an

interview, a BBC interview today and

after that visit to Sandhurst to see

Theresa May which was quite an

event. This headline saying the

French would vote to leave the EU, I

think that would be Frexit. Macron

said he thinks the French people

would feel the same way. Why was

that?

Frantic Frexit. There are is a

lot of Euro-scepticism in France and

Le Pen managed to pick up on this h

but he was interesting what he said

to Andrew Marr, yes, probably in a

similar context but our context

would be different and he would

fight hard for the prech people to

stay within the European Union, but

the mere fact he sort of suggested

you know perhaps the EU isn't all

singing dancing for the French

people is exciting. Thinking back to

the Lisbon Treaty in 2005. If memory

serves me right the French voted

against it. The Dutch, the Irish but

they were asked to vote again. This

idea is that Europe is everything to

France is just not true, they are

still a very nationalistic country

that interesting because of this

meeting with May, still wants to do

bilateral deals which I find

interesting.

Macron's solution to

that is closer integration, within

the EU, so, that is how he thinks

they should improve things with the

European Union.

But he is also

making the point about the nature of

referendums, he went on to say if

you give people a yes or no question

you will get a distorted answer

because you don't know exactly what

people are voting about. He was

saying, he seemed to be saying the

way I read it, I would never have

put myself in the position that

David Cameron put himself in by

offering this all-or-nothing volt to

the British people. He is saying,

you have to give people about to

find solution to the problems they

may see in the relationship between

your country and the European Union,

so it was a bit subtle. Ruth is

right, the idea French, all French

love the EU and they are massively

pro European is not true, at the

same time he was making a slightly

subtle point about the nature of

referendums and how they can be, not

answer the questions people want

them to.

You mentioned his clear

ambition you know to be a leader in

the EU, particularly with Angela

Merkel maybe weakened, what did you

make of his visit with Theresa May,

how he handled that. How he has

handled things on the world stage.

It was fine, some of my fellow

Brexiteers had a nervous breakdown

he came at all. He is talking about

Britain can get a bespoke trade deal

with the EU. I think this is

positive. Then he went on the talk

about financial services but that is

negotiation, that is one noise, I

thought he was being positive. I was

interested in the way he wanted to

have this bilateral security

agreement with the United Kingdom,

in other words we still want to be

friends, we still want to deal with

you even though you are having the

temerity to leave the currency union

European Union.

He did talk about

Britain can't cherry pick.

He was

straight about it. That is why

people appreciate it. If you leave

the EU you can't expect to have the

same benefits a being in otherwise

there would be no point being in it,

a simple line. He says when it comes

to the single market the same apply,

you can't have it unless you are in

it. A lot of people are falling over

themselves in admiration about a

French politician who comes over

here and speaks English. It is the

clarity of the message, that people

appreciate that sort of straighted

for wardness as well.

Talking of --

straightforwardness. Let us move on

to the story about Ukip. And their

leader Henry Bolton, who is today

had a vote of no confidence and the

party membership will have to vote

on what happens to him. I have lost

track how many leaders.

Or how many

girlfriends he has has.

It is

because of her tweets he is in some

trouble. His argument is this is

what my girlfriend, what she says,

it shouldn't have anything to do

with his leadership of Ukip. What do

you think?

I think he looks

incredibly weak and the National

Executive committee, they met today

and voted in no confidence. I think

he is toast. But come to that, I

think Ukip is pretty much toast, I

think he is the fourth or the fifth

leader, there was Diane James and

Paul Nuttall, and someone called

Nigel Farage if my memory serves my

correctly! The big question has to

be for Ukip do they have a future

and I suspect they don't. Their

great raison d'etre was to leave the

EU. What is interesting, we have a

picture here in the Express, of

Nigel Farage, and he is presumably

or apparently in conversation with

someone called Aaron banks with the

idea of having a new organisation,

which may be out of what, there is

something at the moment called Leave

Means Leave I think it might be

something out of that to keep

Theresa May's nose to the

grindstone.

But that is the role. I

remember on the morning of the

referendum interviewing Nigel Farage

and saying that, what is the point?

You have succeeded, you have got

what you wanted but he said we are

going to hold their feet to the

fire, we will make sure they deliver

Brexit, that is what some Brexiteers

feel, is there a role for Ukip?

You

can make that case, I mean the

trouble is it has become such a

pantomime, the ins and outs of the

character in it and what their views

are and this stuff, it is not

anything to do with the project

which the party was founded to

further, and to what extent does

this now distract from their point

of view, from the actual objective

itself? And I presume this is why

Aaron Banks and Nigel Farage are

setting up a new organisation,

because the existing one is so

tainted, even by the standard of

political parties it is just become

a hindrance rather than a help.

Do

you think the party or any party

with this view can succeed, without

Nigel Farage? It seems to be without

him at the Mel. They can't cut

through?

I think that is right. I

think that is why he wants to have

this this new movement away from

Ukip. It is worth remembering that

back in 2014, Ukip won the European

Union elections in this country,

which was extraordinary, so

obviously that was, but it has gone,

I think Ukip's time is over.

OK. Let us go now to the Financial

Times again and this time the US

shut down. I thought this happened

all the time. It has only happened

four times in 25 year, the

difference one party the Republicans

are in control of both houses, so

that is unusual. What is going on?

They have failed to agree to roll

over the agreement to keep funning

the federal Government. Without

that, it means that apart from the

very basic law enforcement and the

military, everything shuts down,

they can't pay the wanes of people

who work in it, and they don't have

to work until that I do, they are

going to meet again on Monday so

presumably the last shut down was 16

day, they will aim do better than

that. It is interesting you say it

has only happened four times in 25

years, that is a lot. Huge

responsibilities and very important

jobs to do, all across the public

sector in the US, it is a sign of

dysfunction, this really is S they

couldn't agree, senior politicians

on each side, and the brokering of

the presidency couldn't agree to

keep federal Government running. It

is not a great symbol of American

democracy.

It is a massive fail your

of American Government.

The last

time it happened in 2013 and the

Government closed down for a month.

This is about the budget for the

fiscal year, 2017/18 which started

in October, but as Ben was saying

they were talking about rolling over

and they have had two extension,

they can't agree on the third, and

they can't agree on the budget, it

is is a bit of a mess, what Trump

needs is a 60 vote support in the

Senate, so he has to have 60-40 vote

and the problem is he only had 51

Senators so he has to say something

nice to the Democrats.

Is that going

to come easily, do you think?

It is

interesting because he styled

himself as this great deal broker,

the guy who wasn't sort of mired in

the infighting of politics, he was

above that. But he has not been able

to... The Democrats say we will do a

deal but we need you to go the

Republicans and say, they say he is

too weak to do that, to stand up to

the Republican, who knows what the

truth is, that what they are saying.

He will have to come of politics, he

was above that. But he has not been

able to... The Democrats say we will

do a deal but we need you to go the

Republicans and say, they say he is

too weak to do that, to stand up to

the Republican, who knows what the

truth is, that what they are saying.

He will have to come pro-Mize, but

he is a "Deal maker" he will sort

it.

Let us finish with the Daily

Telegraph. We have heard a lot about

Big Ben. It is looking a bit sad at

the moment, covered in scaffolding.

This headline says Eurosceptics Big

Ben will not bong Britain out of the

EU because they did resurrect it for

New Year eves, didn't they, but that

is what they are clearly concerned

about. Do people care about this?

I

am sure some people care deeply.

I

care.

I bet they will do it. You

know, what David Lidington, the

cabinet minister said today. If you

get enough people to sign a

petition, regardless of how many,

what proportion of the country care,

if enough people make out they care,

then that I will probably happen,

We

should have Big Ben bonging us out

of the EU.

Would you be standing

there in Parliament Square?

Unless

they go up to Rochdale Town Hall

where the bells are similar. Let us

go there.

Regional rebalancing.

We

should have some stamps as well.

I

have read about this.

Royal Mail

disgrace, how, if people want to

make a case for stamps, is there a

mechanism. There were stamps when we

joined the EEC, they are tucked

away.

Have you got them?

Of course.

On the exit we...

I treasure thresh

your them, as I do all my stamps.

You can collect a set.

To make the

story complete you need the exiting

stamps as well. We must leave it

there for this hour, that is it for

The Papers for this hour. You can

see the front-pages of The Papers

online.

It's all there for you, seven days

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