10/02/2018 The Papers

the road is it? Just drive!

Calm

down.

And at 11:45pm

in the Film Review, Mark Kermode

joins Jane Hill to talk

about Black Panther.

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Anne Ashworth,

Associate Editor

of the Times and Bonnie Greer,

Playwright and Writer

for the New European.

Lovely to see you both, we'll be

having a chat in a moment.

Most of tomorrow's

front pages are in now.

The Observer leads with Labour's

attack on the privatised water

industry, calling the amount

in dividends paid to shareholders

scandalous.

The Mail on Sunday's front page

says that Brendan Cox,

husband of murdered MP Jo Cox,

was accused of sexual abuse.

His lawyers say he vehemently

denies the allegations.

The Sunday Telegraph

reports on concerns

from some EU countries that Chief

Brexit Negotiator Michel Barnier's

conduct could lead to the UK walking

away from Brexit talks.

The Sunday Express

previews a speech from

the Prime Minster, saying

she will set out plans to make

the UK a truly global,

free trading nation.

The Sunday Times has

more allegations

concerning the conduct of aid

workers, suggesting that more

than 120 people working for leading

charities have been accused

of sexual abuse in the past year.

A mixture of front pages there.

Thank you both for joining us

tonight, let's pick up

on some of those stories.

We had a good chat in the 10:30

p.m., as we were saying, some great

pages.

Very strong front pages of a

diverse range of stories and some

very concerning. People waking up to

some of this stuff about Oxfam

tomorrow morning will be very

dismayed by what they're reading.

What was the Observer wasp slime?

Allegations of staff involvement

with prostitution allegations. --

Observer's line. This kind of thing

is old. There were problems with the

UN at the beginning of the century.

It's an old story but what's mostly

horrific is that it is Oxfam. In

your mind and in your heart that's

not what Oxfam is meant to be

involved with, Oxfam has a feeling

about it, all of them shouldn't be,

though but this is especially

shocking and it makes me more angry

because I want them to clean this

up. Part of this is about plain old

oppression. It's the way you relate

to people the way the majority

cultural elites to people in

developing countries. This is not

unusual. -- majority culture

relates.

The thing that most

concerns me about these stories is

we have been led to believe, or

perhaps we assumed, that the

problems with Oxfam has been related

to its conduct of its officials

while in Haiti during the problems

there. The Observer is reporting

that the use of prostitutes in Chad,

with many of these same individuals

that were implicated in the Haitian

thing, and it seems as if there has

been a cover-up. I know that sounds

like a cliche.

That's the only way

you can assume it can be.

Maybe

Oxfam has not told people as much as

they needed to know. We do hold

charities to account. We want them

to comply with really high moral

standards and also of openness.

Because of their appeal to us.

We're

talking about Oxfam here. You've

hinted that it's charities. The

Observer does say," a former staffer

saying that this is a sector wide

problem and this is how it's

reflected on the front of the Sunday

Times -- does say that a former

staffer.

They may have been

infiltration of the sector by

paedophiles with 120 accused of

sexual abuse, which is very

concerning.

Concern because Priti

Patel is quoted as saying the former

International Development Secretary

warned predatory paedophiles have

been allowed to exploit the aid

sector. Wasn't she in charge of this

sector? Hello! Am I wrong? She's not

like anybody. Suddenly she comes and

warns us and tells us about it, why

didn't we know before? The

implication is she had some kind of

inkling, why didn't she say

anything?

It seems the current

minister, Penny Worden, is trying to

take action and questioning the

government's significant lengths.

That's great but I want to know why

Priti Patel didn't say anything.

We

will leave it there on Priti Patel

but the other thing is the problem

is these charities possibly losing a

lot of their funding, that's the big

concern for the next few days.

Yesterday when the Times broke this

story about the Haitian incidents, I

read the comments underneath the

story, sometimes those comments are

meaningless but other times they say

something about the public mood and

people were horrified wondering

where their money was being used,

their contributions and taxpayer

funded donations were going because

we contribute in various different

ways.

This is a discussion in the

sense of what these charities need

to do is get this cleaned up, that's

the first order of business, we need

to regulate and clean things up.

To

wrap this up, some of the people

have been saying that the

safeguarding measures that are in

place are the ones that will decide

who continues with their funding and

lots of people are saying if you

don't co-operate, you will lose your

money, and this is charity wide, not

just about Oxfam. Let's move on.

We're going to go back to the

Observer and nationalisation. The

thing I love is John McDonnell is

saying it is cost free

renationalisation but what does that

mean?

That could never be so because

shareholders would need to be

compensated for the value of their

holdings and remember, that's not

just a few guys in the city, it's

all of us, we hold shares in the

privatised utilities through our

ISAs and pensions. There is

considerable disquiet in the city

about the way some of these water

companies have been run,

particularly Thames water. The

companies are trying to put

everything in order. They've closed

down the Cayman Islands subsidiaries

it had. But the accusation still

stands that these utilities were

starved of maintenance money and

therefore we are having burst water

mains.

This is the other interesting

part to me, the press reports John

McDonnell as if he is crazy. But

they were all over him at Davos.

These people are hard-nosed business

people, if they think he's nuts

they're not going to be there for

him so he's getting lots of

attention not just because they

might think Labour is going to win

the next election but they are

paying attention to him. We need

deeper analysis, I don't understand

how he will make this work on the

surface, but people in the City

think he can because they're

listening to him and that's what we

need to talk about with deeper

reporting.

Let's turn to our

favourite subject... The Telegraph.

Two Brexit stories, starting with

the Telegraph. Excuse me, winter

flu. Barnier is risking a UK

walkout.

The Telegraph group goes on the

bogey man theory of Brexit, if you

can't make any sense, let's find the

bad guy. I read this story and I

don't see anybody on the record here

so I'm wondering who these officials

are. It sounds like a lot of gossip,

the sort of stuff you get in a tea

room, it would be great if the

Telegraph told us what countries,

Nordic countries, which ones?

What

the Sunday Telegraph is trying to

say is Barnier is out of step with

other officials and the rest of the.

He's been too aggressive in his

approach.

They say other people have

said it, that's my point, who are

they? There's nobody on the record.

In a nutshell your assessment of the

front page of the Express?

It's a

very, very big headline. Roadmaps...

Always roadmaps, it's become one of

the great cliches of our age,

anything that sets out terms and

conditions of anything in a clear

fashion is a roadmap but apparently

Mrs May will deliver one of the key

talks at Chequers.

I thought she

already had them last week, wasn't

there talks at Chequers?

There will

be new talks and a series of

speeches which will culminate in the

speech she needs to deliver to bring

the different factions together.

But

they can't figure out what the

Conservative Party, the governing

party, is how they're going to

deliver Brexit.

That's interesting

that she mentions the pound has gone

through the floor. None of these

have anything to do with the stock

market.

Very interesting.

And rising

interest rates, which I would have

thought would have been interesting.

The Bank of England is talking about

raising interest rates in April and

if you don't have a fixed mortgage!

Let's move on to the Independent,

what did you make of Kim Jong-un's

sister, or the message?

I'm

fascinated by this woman. She has

this Western Gloucester because she

was educated in Switzerland and she

looks tremendously unlike her

brother -- gloss. She is a poised

slightly girlish figure in nice

tailoring but we do not know what

lies beneath and whether she may be

the power behind things.

I think

it's very interesting because of

course they are completely playing

Donald Trump because Donald Trump is

one of these people, he a one off,

let's put it that way, who needs an

enemy. -- he's. They are shaking

hands, she's never been there

before, look at these two, they are

telling Donald Trump to take a walk

and he will have to do something to

get the focus back on him.

Mike

Pence saying that we are tight,

Japan, the US, South Korea, we are

tight.

How funny, and then they

carry on with TTIP without the US so

who cares.

They are both Koreans but

the North Korean and South Korean

languages are totally different.

Instead of labelling here the

sister, I am going to give her her

proper name, Kim Yo-jong. Quickly,

we did the pensions earlier, I want

to skip ahead if possible to the

Eurotunnel.

You know, Doris has Nero

tendencies, he fascinates me --

Boris. Remember he had Boris

Ireland. Thank goodness this was

killed, the $50 million bridge of

flowers, that was his idea. --

Ireland. Now he wants to do a

tunnel. He is like Nero!

Link across

the macro channel that would bring

our country closer contact with

France once we leave the EU. --

Channel.

The deeper story with Boris

is about the building.

France is all

about big infrastructure projects

but the most interesting statistic

in this story is do we need

something? Apparently only 54% of

postal tunnel capacity is currently

used so there may be nobody...

Going

back to Boris and the Nero

tendencies.

Who's getting the money

to build these? All that kind of

stuff! We are going to go on and on

and on, not enough time!

Thank you, Bonnie and Anne.

Next on BBC News, the Film Review.