29/01/2018 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me is the political

commentator Dina Hamdy

and broadcaster David Davies.

Many of tomorrow's front

pages are already in.

Let's look at them. The Metro shows

photos of David Beckham at the

unveiling of his new football team

in Miami. The paper's main story

says Angela Merkel has mocked

Theresa May for dithering over

Brexit negotiations.

Billing an exclusive, Buzzfeed News

says it has seen a new Brexit impact

assessment that claims leaving the

EU will adversely hit almost every

sector and every UK region. We will

be discussing that indepth. The

Times claims Theresa May is now

facing calls from party donors to

resign with a number of financiers

calling for her to leave at a

fundraising event.

The Financial Times headlines that

MPs found guilty of bullying, sexual

harassment could lose their seat

under new plans drawn up by MPs. The

Telegraph leads with equal pay here

at the BBC with claims women have

faced what it calls vailed threats

from management when asking for

equal pay. The paper also writes

that e-cigarettes could raise the

risk of cancer according to a new

study.

The I says that the British have the

worst diet in Europe. We eat up to

four times more fast food than the

French, Greeks and Italians.

The Guardian has an exclusive

interview with the outgoing German

ambassador in which he tells British

Brexiteers to stop fixating on the

second world war.

That's it for the papers tonight.

Plenty to talk about. Let's start

with the Metro. I think it's a snide

headline, what do you make of it,

David?

Well, these are dire times

indeed for our Prime Minister. I

don't think there's much doubt about

that. If she was looking for a few

friends, whether Mercury has helped

her by one of her briefings to

journalists, apparently last week in

Davos, MrsMerkel confided that

MrsMay responds to all her questions

by saying make me an offer and

MrsMerkel replies, but hang on, you

are leaving, we don't have to offer

you anything.

Dire times indeed. If

we move on to Buzzfeed, this is

potentially explosive.

This is a

huge story. Kudos to them for

breaking it. The most striking line,

you take out...

This is a Brexit

analysis, they've got their hands on

it. One of the Government's own

Brexit analysis.

It does finally

exist.

Exactly. We have been told

maybe it does or doesn't.

Exactly.

They've seen a Brexit impact

assessment due to be shown to

Cabinet this week. It says?

There is

no scenario that does not leave the

country worse off. That is the

scariest part of the story, the

whole story. The softest Brexit

scenario leaves the country still a

lower growth by 2%. The

comprehensive deal, if you get a

comprehensive deal, it's still 5%

lower growth rates. The no deal

scenario, leaves you with an 8% less

growth over that period. So it's

very dire. It's been kept secret so

far and the reason is it's

embarrassing, according to sources.

But on the plus side it does say the

analysis assumes in all scenarios a

trade deal with the US will be

concluded and that it would benefit

GDP by about 0. 2% in the long-term.

Trade deals with other non-EU

countries and blocs such as China,

India, Australia, nations of

south-east Asia, would add in total

a further 0. 1, to 0. 4% to GDP in

the long-term. But these do not

outweigh the costs.

Exactly. What's

interesting about this is one

wonders how they thought they would

always keep it secret, that this

existed and this was the conclusion.

They say they're trying to keep it

secret or under wraps because they

don't want to give away their

negotiating tactics or - the thing

is even with the benefits that David

outlined, it comes down to less than

1%.

If this is right.

Was this

really worth it to leave the EU, is

the question that you would be

starting to ask immediately after

reading this article. For me, the

biggest negative impact that comes

from leaving the EU is you are going

to have to leave the customs union

and the single market.

Yet those who

support leaving Brexit would say we

have heard this before, it's not

happening at the moment, why is it

going to happen?

That's exactly what

they'll say. They will say this is a

draft, I am sure it will be a draft

of some sort or another. Or an early

version or something like that. But

it is...

It's the Government's

analysis.

Congratulations to

Buzzfeed for having something like

this and printing it, and indeed you

may be going on to The Times. It's

in The Times story, well down the

story, I can't believe it would have

been had The Times had this story.

Well, exactly. You are right. Let's

move on to The Times. It mentions it

there in the second column. It adds

to the substance of their story, May

faces growing calls to quit. This is

going to increase pressure on her.

Crucially, last week evidently there

was a meeting of Conservative donors

which was very, very rough indeed.

They do matter in the Conservative

Party, not least at a time like

this. All this, the critics of the

Prime Minister do seem to have

seized the initiative in the past

week-and-a-half or so and how she

will deal with it, in this Times

story, they say one source close to

the Brexit supporting European

research group of back bench Tory

MPs thought her survival were no

better than 50-50.

I was talking to

a colleague in Brussels earlier, who

was saying actually the thing that

really spooks the EU, today we had

Michel Barnier outlining their

negotiating position in terms of the

transition phase, but the thing that

really worries them is how secure is

Theresa May's position and how

stable is her Government. It's not

going to be good for anybody if in

the middle of these negotiations we

get into another leadership crisis.

But there is a storm brewing of some

sort, whether it culminates in a

leadership contest, that remains to

be seen. But there has been this

Winter of Discontent feel to

MrsMay's Cabinet for the last few

weeks and the decisions she keeps

making are not helping, like the

botched up Cabinet reshuffle and the

lack of vision and the lack of

focus, the lack of a plan on what

Brexit should look like and also the

fact that she doesn't seem to be

having a strong hold on the Cabinet

members themselves. It's almost as

if she's paralysed with fear of

saying the wrong thing so ends up

not saying anything at all.

Briefly,

political journalists love a good

story and amazing story from their

perspective would be the leadership

challenge. Is this media flam?

It

must be seen as more than that now.

The one thing that's always kept the

Conservative Party together,

ultimately, is what the alternative

would be, not least at a time like

this. Just as a film doing the

rounds at the moment about

Churchill. I happened to see it

yesterday.

Darkest Hour.

1940.

Churchill at a moment when he didn't

have the support of everyone on his

back benches, he had problems on the

front bench as well. Ultimately, and

he definitely dithered for a moment.

Ultimately, there was a moment when

he was bold. He decided, I am going

to go for it. Now at what point is

MrsMay going to stand up and say,

whatever the cost of this, this is

what is right for this country.

That's what people are crying out

for.

Theresa May's Churchill moment.

I have my doubts she's going to this

moment and I have doubts there are

many people in the Tory Party and

this Cabinet that are putting the

country first.

Where is the

alternative?

We could talk about it

all evening if we had time, we don't

unfortunately. The Financial Times.

A couple of stories vaguely related

in terms of equality. Let's start

with the MPs risk losing their

seats.

Yes, which is drastic

actually. It's a good thing I

suppose that somebody's finally

decided to do something and take

some sort of action on the whole

issue of the sexual harassment

that's been brewing over since 2017,

since the wine teen thing. This is

supposed to -- Weinstein thing, this

is supposed to be a cross-party

working group of MPs and staff. It's

going to have a phone line,

dedicated phone line for reporting

and resolutions and independent

investigators to consider evidence.

If there are offenders after the

investigations and everything, the

decision could be taken by the

parliamentary commissions for

standards, which is independent, to

suspend so-called said MPs. That is

huge. People have to worry about

their careers now and losing their

seats and that is a good thing.

It

sends out a very firm message.

Yes.

Interestingly, in a softer way, but

still a strong message, this story

they've put up in the briefing

column, page 18, story about

easyJet's chief, his pay. He has

opted to lower his salary.

Well, I

talked about boldness and the

inequalities of pay, the extremes of

pay and lack of pay in this country

continue.

He brought down his pay

because he was awarded, when he came

into the post, he was awarded far

more than his predecessor who was a

woman. It actually leads on to The

Telegraph and this splash they have

about women at the BBC facing

threats over pay.

I don't know.

Originally I come - my family cops

from Egypt and Egypt is a developing

country, and since the 60s, men and

women have had equal pay, so I come

from a place where I don't

understand how in the developed

world, in Britain, and in other

western countries this situation

could exist where a woman is paid

less than a man doing the same job.

I know that there could be other

subjective factors into it like

years of experience or different

backgrounds and what not. But this

seems to be larger than the BBC,

it's systemic. Private sector and

public sector alike, it's a mindset.

For me, I cannot wrap my head around

this mindset, I don't understand how

you can justify it.

David, you were

at the BBC back in the day.

A long,

long time ago.

Perhaps you

understand a little bit of how the

BBC operates and you also understand

how the outside world operates.

I

do. Those of us who were around in,

dare I say it, the 1970s and 80s at

the BBC, do find it remarkable how

these disparities have been created.

I do get that there are many issues

about how do you reward, how do you

evaluate experience? But however

it's been allowed to happen, why is

this very prevalent at the moment,

this story, yes, because of Carrie

Gracie and China, and how she's

spoken out, but also because the

director general of the BBC is to

appear before a Select Committee, I

think it's tomorrow, and he will -

we are told he is going to say some

presenters' pay has been got wrong,

but that pay is largely fair in the

BBC. So there is going to be a

defence of it. But there is no doubt

that somewhere along the lines

something has gone radically wrong.

When those outside the BBC have this

light shone on what's going on

inside the BBC, when people are

told, as our media editor in his

reporting at the BBC, saying

presenters' salaries are capped over

£300,000, how does that play, that's

still a lot of money.

There is also

this perception now that with people

have huge salaries and is it right

at this time of financial crisis,

2008 financial crisis, the freeze on

wages throughout the country for so

many sectors and so many people, is

it right that people who have high

profile jobs get this amount of

money? There is a perception, there

are those people out there who say

no, as a public broadcaster perhaps

people shouldn't be paid these huge

salaries and it is a bit ridiculous.

Is there a market out there, David?

Well, that is the question. Most

certainly. Sometimes, the BBC is in

the unfortunate position of its

competitors are widely perceived to

be Sky and ITV and the rest, and the

truth is they don't make salaries

public and people do get offered

more and yet the BBC is widely seen

as no more, no less than somewhat

related to civil servants.

Let's

wind up with someone who doesn't

have a pay ceiling, one would

suspect, David Beckham. His

unveiling of a new team. Had

fantastic for

S David, for four

years this is what he has wanted to

do. He stuck at it, when they

couldn't find the right area of

Miami, and the mayor here and there

said you can't come, not in my

backyard.

Now he has a football

team. He has thelands.

Soccer is for

men and women, is unbelievably

popular in Florida.

I remember going

to games in the United States where

it was just packed. And big money

maker. Thank you both very much

indeed. Rekind of you to come in.

That's it for the papers tonight.

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.

If you missed the programme any

evening you can watch it later on

the BBC iPlayer.

Thank you, Dina and David.

Goodbye.