23/01/2018 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are political

commentator Jane Merrick

and Kate Forrester,

political correspondent

at the Huffington Post.

Thank you for coming in.

Many of tomorrow's front

pages are already in.

The Metro leads with

the story we've been

reporting here this evening,

that police are investigating

a new allegation of sexual assault

against the convicted rapist,

John Worboys,

who is due to be released

at the end of the month.

The Financial Times leads

with report on what the paper calls

a secretive Mayfair men-only charity

gala - the Presidents Club -

which raises millions for charity.

The Telegraph leads with news

north of the border.

It says Scotland's First minister

has ruled the union flag should not

be flown on government

buildings in Scotland.

-- it will only be flown on the

Scottish Government buildings on

Remembrance Sunday.

The I leads with news

of an attack on fake news.

It says a new national security team

has been launched to tackle

disinformation spread online.

The Express leads with health news.

The paper says a new cheap pill

could help arthirits

sufferers fight the pain.

And finally The Daily Mail warns

that people could be

risking their health by taking

herbal remedies at the same time

as prescription drugs.

So, Jane and Kate,

let's get started.

A lot to have a look at. Starting

with the Metro and this John Worboys

story because it looks as if, in

this ongoing saga, this could be

quite significant.

Yes, obviously he

is a quite notorious sexual predator

who is due for release in matter of

days. He has served less than ten

years for 19 offences and is due to

be questioned over another alleged

assault in 1997. If this claim leads

to a prosecution, they say he could

be kept in custody to await trial.

This could put off the problem that

David Gauke as new Justice Secretary

is facing because there was a

suggestion in the Sunday Times a

couple of weeks ago that the

government would try to block his

release but David Gauke has said

they cannot do that because there is

little chance of success. I think it

is important for the government to

get this right because it is

obviously very high profile.

And if

there was a fresh prosecution, it

takes the political heat of the

government in the immediate time.

Absolutely. David Gauke was under

pressure last week because of this

and the victims are very concerned

because they say he knows their

oppressors and they are worried

about him coming out and they have

launched a crowdfund is an attempt

to stop it. It is politically

difficult but this courageous person

has come forward over this assault

in 97 and we will see what happens.

And a lot of those victims did not

know he was going to be released

which is one of the big bits of the

scandal. The Financial Times, we

have to be careful with this story,

it is an investigation from the FT

but they are making some pretty

serious allegations about what they

are presented as an evening of

debauchery.

This was two report

going undercover at this Presidents

Club dinner which I had never heard

of but apparently has been going for

33 years and it is men only, the

guests, 360 guests and they hire 130

hostesses to entertain the men in

the evening. Hostess Inc happens a

lot in clubland and so on but some

of this reporting is quite

strawberry, the things that happened

that are -- quite extraordinary

things like groping and things that

would be constituted as sexual

assault.

And without going into

names, there is a long list of

people invited to this event, the FT

says they don't know if they went

but it is titans of industry and the

like?

Completely, a lot of

well-known names on the list,

obviously we do not know if they

actually attended but it goes to

show that a position of authority or

power is not necessarily an

indication that you're going to get

away with this kind of thing.

The

Presidents Club has said they

received leads hosted their annual

dinner and raised several million

pounds for disadvantaged children

and the organisers say they are

appalled by the allegations are bad

behaviour that the Financial Times

is talking about and this it is

unacceptable and the allegations

will be investigated fully and

promptly and appropriate action

taken. I suppose that surely the

focus this comes at a time where the

zeitgeist is very much women have

been demeaned in public life and by

powerful men, it is Hollywood,

Westminster, all over the place. How

do we move from this to a situation

where the system itself is changed?

That is really important and

everything about the metoo has been

spotlighting this behaviour. And

also spotlighting all sorts of

incidents is picked has to be backed

up by concrete and systemic changes,

slightly granular, but that stop

this thing and give women the

confidence to be able to report

things independently without fear of

a backlash.

But also a change in

what is deemed to be acceptable.

This is clearly something, this is

an event and yes, there are denials,

and yet it was deemed to be

acceptable. Even if only half the

allegations are true, you would have

thought the FT stands by its story,

but even if half of them were true

it is shedding a light on the way in

which some people choose to amuse

themselves.

And I think it is

shedding a light on the scope of the

problem. We would be kidding

ourselves if we pretended this sort

of thing did not go on a much

smaller scale in smaller firms. We

were talking earlier and we said

that the City has not had its own

metoo moment yet and that is

significant and this could be an

early indication that it could come

soon.

Moving on to the Daily

Telegraph, this is a story we often

hear from the United States, but

Britain hooked on prescription

drugs?

The figures in this are quite

stunning. The figure they have drawn

out is 64 million NHS prescriptions

each year for antidepressants to bed

to 22,000,002 thousand which is an

extraordinary amount considering the

population is only 70 million and

ministers are looking into a review

of prescription drugs not only

anti-depressant but powerful

painkillers. We have heard a lot

about fentanyl which is an extremely

powerful opiate painkiller. There is

a concern of the rise of

prescriptions which is allowing

people to be hooked on them. Another

figures shows that two thirds of the

people on these medicines are women

in their 50s and 60s and that is

incredibly concerning.

And just

above it, the story from Scotland,

the union flag sometimes flying?

It

is only going to be flown once a

year from now on. I think it was

only flown a couple of times a year

anyway. The cynic in me says this

might be an attempt by Nicola

Sturgeon to stir up her support base

in Scotland again. Obviously she was

kind of flavour of the month until

last year and support for the SNP is

now falling slightly. I think

supporters of it will think this

annoyed the Daily Telegraph, a

quintessentially English paper, and

people it are quintessential English

Tory MPs.

And moving on your

Huffington Post and the story that

everybody has been covering, Boris

Johnson getting slapped down. Is it

a problem for borrowers rather than

Theresa May? I don't know if it is

-- for Boris Johnson.

I don't know

if it is, a lot of the news

organisations are leading on him

being slapped down but if you are

not following the intricacies of

what is happening in the Cabinet and

with Brexit at the moment, Boris

Johnson Saunders looks like he is

just championing the NHS again --

sort of look. As he did in the

referendum campaign with the £350

million promised for the NHS. Again,

I'm not sure that this is a

particularly bad story for him.

And

I think it works, as Kate said, in

his favour. There are not any fresh

ideas coming out of number ten,

there is a vacuum and he is coming

up with slightly mad ideas like this

bridge to France last week but this

is a populist and popular proposal

which is more money for the NHS

which I think voters will recognise

as seriously needed.

Moving onto the

i, fake news unit to fight web

threat. I was reading that Italy had

done something similar.

And we have

heard so much about fake news

factories in various countries,

using Twitter and Facebook to

propagate this stuff. Theresa May

has decided that part of the

response to this has to be a

dedicated unit to stop it and make

sure it is not happening and there

is also a parliamentary enquiry into

how Twitter and Facebook, who claim

they are platforms not publishers,

are being used for this kind of

thing. It is important because there

is not only the fear of Russian

interference into the referendum and

so on but a more pernicious and

people died really notice it is

there and they think it is real news

on Facebook, they trusted because it

is their -- people don't really

notice it.

Going back to the Metro

to cheer ourselves up. This is the

nomination of Daniel Kaluuya for

best actor.

There is a lot of

incredibly young talent up for

awards this time round. This the

Daniel but also Rachael Morrison who

is up for the first e-mail

cinematographer -- female. I watched

the film at the weekend, it is

fantastic, Mudbound. It is nice to

the big presence for this kind of

thing across a few of the papers.

And I'm ashamed to say I did not

know this, but a nomination for Lady

Bird, the director of that, a woman,

is only the fifth woman ever to be

nominated for best director.

Which

is extraordinary, only the fifth in

90 years and given there were no

women on the nominations list that

was picked up at the Globe that will

grab the Golden Globes. The whole

atmosphere in Hollywood the temple

movement has shone the spotlight on

women and people of colour but it is

extraordinary as you say that it is

only the fifth woman nominated.

And

let's finish with Kyle Edmund.

This

is a great story for British tennis,

obviously Andy Murray is injured and

Kyle Edmund has become only the

sixth British man to reach a grand

slam semifinal.

So much was made

last week that Andy Murray would not

be there, Johanna Konta was our only

hope and all of a sudden, for people

with only a casual interest, up pops

Kyle Edmund.

If you don't follow

every match on the taught you might

not have heard of him but it is a

fantastic achievement for him but

what struck me, he did not stop

playing tennis until he was nine

years old and he is only 23. My

daughter is seven at the moment, she

started when she was forced it gives

parents like me great hope! -- when

she was four.

And her mum and dad

are heading out to see him.

Dad is

already out in Australia and his mum

is following on. My favourite line

was that he joked that his mum sent

him to tennis lessons because he was

annoying her!

The same with your

daughter?

Yes!

Thank you very much

and if you're daughter makes it to

the semifinals of Australia I

presume you're flying out. Thank you

both indeed.

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.

It's all there for you,

seven days a week, at

bbc.co.uk/papers, and if you

miss the programme any

evening you can watch it

later on BBC iPlayer.

Thank you to Jane and Kate.

Goodbye.