26/01/2018 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Helen Brand,

Chief Executive of the Association

of Chartered Certified Accountants

and Jason Beattie, Head of Politics

at The Daily Mirror.

Many of tomorrow's front

pages are already in.

The Times reports that every

rape case in England

and Wales could be reviewed

by the Crown Prosecution Service

after the collapse of several

trials over the failure

to disclose evidence.

The Telegraph says the UK

is in negotiations with the EU

to extend the Brexit transition

period to nearly three years.

The government, though has strongly

denied the story.

Now you've got to be in agony

to have a hip op is the headline

in the Daily Mail which claims NHS

Trusts are turning down patients

for routine hip replacements.

The Express leads

with the rise in GDP.

The UK economy rose by 0.5% in

the last three months of the year,

defying economists predictions.

A poll in the Guardian

shows support has grown

for a second EU Referendum.

The ICM survey says 47% of people

want a second vote after the terms

of the UK's withdrawal

from the EU was clear.

The FT reports on an apparent

diplomatic rift between the UK

and China that could threaten trade

talks due to take place

during the Prime Minister's visit

to the country next week.

The Sun says that a darts governing

body has banned women appearing

on stage in a move the paper labels

as political correctness

going too far.

And the Mirror has the death

of the wife of Singer Paul Young.

Stacey Young died today

from Brain Cancer earlier

today at the age of 52.

And so a variety of stories vying

for top billing across a range

of tomorrow's papers.

We are going to begin with the

times, every rape case to be

reviewed, trials faced delays as

disclosure scandal mounts. This is

because something like four rape

trials recently have collapsed,

Helen.

Yes, and it is having very

serious consequences. First and

foremost, obviously, miscarriages of

justice need to be prevented. The

nondisclosure, we have discussed it,

surrounding incompetency is, and

lack of resources, but it is serious

that so many cases are falling by

the wayside. Following on from that,

we know rape cases are

underreported, under prosecuted and

there aren't enough convictions that

come through from rape cases. The

effect it has on the women whose

cases are already in process, all

women who are thinking about coming

forward, this throws all of that

into doubt now and it is very

concerning.

Whatever they do, it

seems there isn't the trust in the

justice system that the judiciary

would want.

Helen is right. Will

this deter women coming forward?

They already have a lack of face

that claims will be taken seriously.

We should be quite careful. This is

current rape cases, not historic

ones. It's one is going through the

courts at the moment. And it is off

the back, as you said, of 2-3 cases

where there has been miscarriages of

justice. One particular one was Liam

Alan, where his defence team asked

for evidence and the police failed

to hand it over and said it didn't

exist. It was only when it got to

court and a barrister said we need

to see the evidence, and it turns

out that the woman in question had

been sending lots of texts of a

flirtatious nature. Therefore, the

case collapsed and why didn't the

police disclose that information?

This is the problem, are the police

under resourced? That is one

complaint. Are they incompetent? Or

is there a greater conspiracy going

on that they are trying to push

through convictions to meet some

sort of target?

Alison Saunders was

talking about that, she said that is

absolutely not the case and rejected

that entirely. Let's move on, it

wouldn't be a paper review without

Brexit, would it?

We like Brexit. I

am excited by it.

Are you?

Yeah.

OK.

I do politics for a living.

Let's start with the Daily

Telegraph, it is on three front

pages. UK in talks over longer

transition for Brexit...

The

transition...

David Davis has been

setting out what he thinks

transition should look like from a

UK point of view.

This is what

happens, we actually leave

officially the European Union on

29th March next year, and then we go

into a transition period where we

don't leave at all. We then have two

years, we were told, or around two

years, to actually prepare for

leaving. Even during transition, we

have ad hoc membership of the EU,

accepting the rules, freedom of

movement, members of the single

market, members of the customs

union, under the jurisdiction of the

European Court of Justice, all the

things Brexiteers hate. Now we are

told, strongly denied by Downing

Street, the transition period could

go on for three years. That is a

possibility. I have spoken to very

senior EU officials that say they

don't want to go on beyond two

years. But if we get to the stage

that we haven't got our border

systems in place, and we haven't got

the cheques ready, and we haven't

sorted out regulatory alignment, and

worked out membership of various

agencies that matter, planes can't

take off because they can't get

permission, because they are not

regulated, we need to do that. That

is why you can see the timescale

slipping, and you can see the anger

of Brexiteers that want to leave now

because our glorious future ahead of

us is not. That is why it's so

matters.

The government is angry or

a categorical lie already.

They

have. Shall we deal with the

statement from Downing Street? This

is a categorical lie, the

time-limited period should be

determined by the length of time it

takes to put in place new

arrangements, and we believe it

should be around two years. The

Telegraph is ranked a front-page

article suggesting British officials

are in discussions with Brussels.

They are in. Business wouldn't like

it to go on any longer, would they?

Certainty is what is being looked

for, currency is what is being

looked for. We can only see an

extended transition period injecting

more uncertainty into the process. I

think they're probably have been

some discussions along these lines,

whether it's as formal as is said

here, because of the practical

issues, it is a very practical

process that needs to be gone

through.

Shouldn't there be

contingency plans and pays? Nothing

has worked out how anybody expected,

it is a good idea to think about all

eventualities, isn't it?

Government

or for business? Certainly

businesses are thinking about all

eventualities and lots of

contingency plans are in place, but

as we heard from the Chief Executive

of Goldman Sachs this week, those

contingency plans are being

activated because I can't wait any

longer.

Matt says, somebody is

having a drink, a tipple, opening a

bottle of wine, and the legend is,

"We are doing dry January after a 30

day transition period." The Daily

Express, Brexit boom is here. How

big is this boom?

Well, it was 1%

issue at the end of 2017, stretching

it a little to describe it as a

boom. The growth figures for the

entire year of 2017 were lower than

2016, and the lowest we have seen

since the D12. It is hard to

extrapolate from that that we are

seeing a boom. Where the country is

growing, it is largely on the back

of global growth where we are seeing

that filter through into the British

economy, rather than anything in

particular that has happened in

relation to Brexit.

The project fear

was supposed, we were told, we were

going to be plunged into a

recession, and it was, the economy,

it was good to be in a bad way. Even

those that have been negative about

the impact of Brexit, it is not

quite that bad.

Some bits of project

fear have already come true in terms

of seeing a slowdown in growth, we

are seeing the pound fall in value,

and we are starting to see

businesses move offshore. The

doomsday scenarios were 42034, after

Brexit had happened. Brexit hasn't

happened, so we should hold judgment

here. They were long-term

predictions, rather than short-term,

and they may well come true.

We

haven't yet left the European Union

and we don't yet have the

settlement, so it has not happened.

The Guardian, though, is looking

towards a second referendum, because

there is a surge in support for it.

Who has got the stomach for this?

LAUGHTER

Britain favours a vote on Brexit by

a 16 point margin but only when we

know the final terms of departure.

Then what do we do if we say we

don't like the terms? Then what

happens? I don't suppose they have

looked into that, have they, but...

We had a poll in a similar area last

week, which had a slight majority

for not wanting a second referendum.

We asked a slightly different

question. What we then found was, if

there were a second referendum, the

majority of people would vote to

Remain. Nobody wants an election,

because we are tired of elections,

but I think we are starting to see,

and we always have caveats with

polls, we have had a run of polls

recently showing a bias for another

referendum.

It is stalled very

split.

Very marginal. What we are

seeing is the entrenched views

amongst age and the people that

voted Leave, the older people, the

over 65 is, they are just as

strongly in favour of voting to

Leave. For younger people, as the

Guardian poll bears out, as our poll

there is, they are fanatically

wanting to Remain. It is a fanatical

divide. The Guardian shows the

Midlands, particularly East

Midlands, very, very strongly still

for Brexit. But you go to Bristol,

classic metropolitan area, slightly

higher educated, very, very strongly

for Remain.

Talking trash about the

East Midlands, we won't stand for

it! There are lovely people from Lee

Smith and! Self praise is no

recommendation. Let's look at the

Daily Mail. Now you have to be in

agony to have a hip operation.

The

article says it all comes down to

cost in the end. The NHS is having

to try to delay operations because

it doesn't have the funding to go

through with them. Therefore it is

making sure that people really,

really are in agony before they go

for their operation and insisting on

weight loss, insisting on stopping

smoking, those kinds of measures. In

themselves, they good things for

general health, but aren't medically

relevant to having a hip operation,

so again, it is another symptom of

that general NHS challenge around

finding the resources to meet the

medical needs of the population.

£9,000 for the average hip

replacement.

That would make sense.

By problem here is that we have

right wing papers complaining for

years the lower taxes, vilifying

governments raise taxes to pay for

health care, and turn around and go

this is terrible, they can't have it

both ways.

Politicians find it

difficult to sell the case for

higher taxes.

There is definitely a

shift on this one. People are

starting to wake up now. They want

public services they desire, whether

it is education or a better health

service, they have to pay for it

somehow.

There is also a message in

here about the wider health care

issue, social care, preventative

health care, which puts you in a

position where you might not need a

hip operation, and the joining up of

those budgets.

Social care in

particular, it has been cut by 6

billion in the last six years. No

wonder hospitals are struggling.

The

FT, rift Taisho 's UK China golden

hero. This is the Belton Road

initiative.

It is essentially a

really big the ancient silk Route

China's plans for China businesses

involving billions and billions of

dollars of investment throughout

Asia, Africa, into Europe. We have

done a lot of research around the

opportunities that this presents,

and it presents a lot of

opportunities for British business

in many countries across emerging

economies. That, essentially, is

where the future growth will come

from and we are talking about a

protest Brexit well, it is where

trading is going to happen.

Theresa

May will visit China. China is

hoping for a formal endorsement.

What I don't understand is why we

are reluctant to endorse this given

we are meant to be a free trading

wonderful Britain post-Brexit.

Pictographic, the Prime Minister's

former disaster after the decision

to call the election, it just seems

weird that Britain would not want to

support this.

We will see what

diplomatic language gets used when

she is there.

This time last year,

President Xi was talking about free

trade, we welcome that very much. It

is in contrast to the speech today

from Trump in terms of global versus

protectionism. It is part of that

free trade initiative.

Let's finish

with a bit of navel-gazing. BBC male

presenters take cut in pay. John

Humphrys is one of six highly paid

male presenters who have done the

decent thing, supposedly, for which

the BBC says it is grateful.

We

should be, should we, very no-ball.

Men self-sacrificing in this way to

help the good cause of gender pay

equality.

I wonder how effective it

will be in resolving the wider

issues amongst 19,000 people.

This

is an interesting story, which

essentially is why we are talking

about it. But the bigger issue on

equal pay and gender pay reporting

are the systemic issues that exist

within organisations. We will see

more around these issues in the next

couple of weeks.

You are right. My

company, I know, we have to reveal

this. The BBC is the first one to do

it, and therefore we are talking

about it. But it is a weird way to

handle it, saying they grateful,

maybe expressing attitude to the

women that have been underpaid for

many years and do a wonderful job.

Thank you for your comments. I don't

have a view. That's it for the

papers for 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 Jason and Helen. They

have both been paid the same for

appearing hits a night. Now, the

weather.