13/02/2018 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are the Telegraph's Brexit

commissioning editor Asa Bennett

and the poltical commentator Daisy

McAndrew.

Good evening to both of you.

Many of tomorrow's front

pages are already in.

Let's take a look. Good news for

house-buyers.

The Metro leads with the news

that the number of people getting

on the property ladder

is at an 11-year-high.

Housing also makes front

page of The Express,

which reports that average house

prices have climbed by £1,000

a month in the last year.

The Financial Times features

South Africa's ruling ANC party

asking President Jacob

Zuma to stand down.

The i's front page

focuses on Boris Johnson.

It looks set to a key speech the

Foreign Secretary will make

tomorrow.

The Daily Telegraph

front page also reports actress

Minnie Driver has resigned

as an Oxfam ambassador

following allegations over

aid workers' conduct.

And The Daily Mirror carries

allegations that drunk students

groped women at an

Oxford University club.

Let's look at the Telegraph first.

What you think you will hear?

It

depends which newspapers forward

coverage of this speech to believe,

whether this is Boris Johnson, as

the Telegraph is saying, laying down

the law, saying that EU laws are

intolerable, that for us to continue

do have them, and sort of wagging

his finger at Theresa May and other

papers say this is a very consensual

speech that Boris Johnson will make.

Making it tomorrow we will find out.

We understand there are two versions

he has presented to Downing Street

and he will get one of them out at

the time depending on how the mood

takes him but there will be nervous

at Downing Street because we all

know what Boris Johnson's other

agenda will be, promoting Boris

Johnson!

Two versions of the speech,

that really is...

Keeping us

guessing.

Quite a head game.

He is a

showman after all so maybe he is

starting the Brexit extravaganza of

speeches from all the ministers who

are relevant on this and for the

Foreign Secretary, because yes, some

papers like the sun have spun it as

a rebuke or a warning shot to the PM

to say it is intolerable and under

democratic that we are still tied

into the EU after Brexit but I

interpret it that he's not wagging

his finger at the Prime Minister but

people like limits -- people who

supported remain around the Cabinet

table like Phillip Hammond, because

the way day at Chequers the

ministers are meant to be having in

the next week, where finally, after

hours of debate, they will decide

what they want from their future

relationship with EU so he's trying

to put his argument with some brio.

And heading off anyone thinking

about a second referendum?

Yes,

saying that would be entirely

undemocratic, taking potshots at

people who have said that under

Prime Minister herself as an

important meeting on Friday with

Angela Merkel. -- and the Prime

Minister. You can imagine how she is

feeling, Boris on his feet tomorrow,

what will he say? Will he make life

harder for her and her important

meeting on Friday or make it easier?

It will keep us amused but you

wonder every single day, some

speech, something on the grid of

Downing Street, pushing Brexit, you

think that people would like a bit

of a break from it!

Let us take a

Brexit break for a moment but

another story that is sitting on the

grid in South Africa is what on

earth is happening with President

Jacob Zuma? Day after day, we hear

the ANC kind of saying, "It is time

to go". The Financial Times focusing

on this.

They have really gone big

on this and you can understand why

because the ANC had turned on

President Zuma, calling on him to

resign but it is not as simple as

that because yes, there are causes

for this and it has been nine years

of stagnant popularity, stagnant

economy and the poll ratings have

gone down. But at the same time,

with corruption scandals also

polluting the reputation, they don't

have legally binding powers on him

so he may well stay put and this

whole thing may drag on even longer.

Do you see anything in the story

that is new or is it the same one we

were talking about last night?

What

is new is that they are saying

there's a deadline for him to go but

they are not saying what it is. We

know, having seen certainly Jacob

Zuma refusing to go anywhere that I

would put my money on him pushing

the deadline as far as it goes. Of

course the insinuation or the

assumption is that so much of that

is to do with the alleged corruption

against him, that he wants to get

his ducks in a row and probably,

mixing my knowledge is but

feathering his own net and his ducks

in a row before he is prepared to

walk away. That is the suspicion.

He's obviously a canny and cunning

politician, Jacob Zuma would not be

without a plan to protect himself.

At the least, you knows his back is

against the wall but they don't

necessarily have power except for

political pressure to apply on him

so he has survived for years through

these kind of things so this is why

he knows he can survive yet again.

Daisy, staying with the Financial

Times, interesting football pricing

story.

Very interesting because what

we are used do is watching the

Premier League sell its TV rights

for more and more eye watering sums

of money every year. Last year we

saw the new player, Beattie sport,

entering the market, bidding and the

competition between Sky and Beattie

sport entered the market and pushed

it up astonishingly. -- BT Sport.

December just gone, Sky and BT Sport

formed a truce and we are wondering

what it would do to prices and it

has had the reaction we thought it

would which is that prices have come

down for the first time. They are

still I watering, the amounts the

Premier League clubs will get from

selling their TV rights but it is

the first time they have ever gone

down. Interestingly not all of the

auctions have happened yet and Sky

can only bid on one more but it will

be interesting to see what impact it

might have on the future of the

Premier League. The other thing is,

they are still amazing money and I

think the rest of the British

economy could learn lessons from how

these clubs revive their own

fortunes and actually create a lot

of money within the economy and I

think the wider lessons should be

learned.

Anything to add?

It's a

sign of how competitive sport is,

given there are other outlets that

you can watch it online and media

outlets like that so this is the

squeeze on the price they can demand

but it is still big-ticket stuff.

Looking at the Metro, the first of

our property stories for the night.

This is an interesting one about

first-time buyers, you first, any

surprises in this story?

I think it

is what has led to this, it is not

suddenly it has become more

affordable, it is not landlords

dumping properties.

I was interested

in that as well, it is a selling

story really.

But there are knock-on

effects and benefits and lots of

supply suddenly and this is how we

have seen the record come through.

Interestingly, they are saying they

are new results, this is from 2016 -

17, so there's a bit of a lag in the

stats which is to be expected, but

first-time buyers, I think it was 36

quite recently so that is a

significant drop, and their earnings

are 41,000 which is still a lot more

than your average buyer. But it is

heartening to see however, I think

what happened with the December

figures, they went down again so

predictions are that this was a

little spike and that they will go

down and it will continue to go down

again but it shows that reforming

the tax system which is what led to

this, reforming the rental tax

system, does have beneficial effects

of the rest of it. People say you

tinker with the tax system and it

does not make much difference but in

this case, it did. It might be a

blip but it made a difference.

And

the other house prices story,

perhaps less of a blip, perhaps

quite serious, long-term rises in

prices.

A reminder that the supply

shortage is still there and the

government, despite its warm words

on getting house-building going, it

is failing to do it because house

prices are soaring by £1000 per

month and I'm sorry to hark back to

Brexit but given we were told that

after the vote, suddenly the prices

would not be so high...

That is what

the express is saying, it says,

despite what people say, this is the

boom after the Brexit vote.

There is

a subtlety that they are missing out

from, it was not they would fall, it

was that they wouldn't increase by

so much so if anything, the express

maybe even more excited if they had

voted remain because it would be

bigger price increases.

I think the

figures show a big north-south

divide, Scottish house prices have

gone up much more than London which

you would expect because London

prices are so high already, they

have gone up by less but in Scotland

I think it is more than 7% which is

really significant.

Indeed. Staying

with the express, the nice picture

of the Queen and Prince Charles but

the story, good Prince Charles miss

out on head of the Commonwealth? --

good Prince Charles. What is the

express saying?

It is one of those

questions to which the answer is

almost certainly no, however there

was a big was the secret meeting of

the Commonwealth great and good at

Marlborough house today and a lot of

the discussion was clouded in

secrecy and the BBC I think has seen

the notes of the meeting and one of

the questions to be answered was,

what does happen when the Queen

dies? Prince Charles will be

automatically keen, but he will not

automatically be head of the

Commonwealth. -- be king. But who

else is going to be? The Queen is

head of state for 15 or 16 of the 53

states of the Commonwealth which is

far more contentious than whether he

becomes Commonwealth head but I

think it might be... Would you want

to be head of the Commonwealth?

Apparently he does.

He's done a lot

for it.

Clearly and he wants to be.

Running out of time, I want to get

in this lovely Shetland pony, back

in the Metro, a very nice picture,

we have Meghan Markle in Edinburgh

at the castle almost wearing the

same as the saddle blanket, it is

like they coordinated their

wardrobe.

They thought ahead. This

little Shetland pony was a bit of a

nipper, trying to bite Harry's hand.

I don't think it was a royalist and

it did a massive coup as they

approached which the picture editors

have ended out.

And a quick nice

story on the Telegraph front page,

your paper, Cupid leading the way to

a patter of tiny feet, what are they

on about?

Stats on the NHS show that

on Valentines week is the time when

people have a go at trying to

conceive and have a baby.

And

succeed.

Very much but it amuses me

that there is a lag, a fortnight

afterwards, people relent on their

amorous efforts.

Stopped oppressing

us!

Strike while the iron is hot.

By

the end of February, all romance is

dead by the beginning of March.

That

the rest of the year but those two

weeks...

A baby boom to be expected.

Thank you for joining us.

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.

And if you miss the programme any

evening you can watch it

later on BBC iPlayer

Thank you Asa Bennett

and Daisy McAndrew.

Goodbye.