16/02/2018 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

A bit early, even with the winter

Olympics on! That's OK, we were

ready, poised, waiting. Look at

them.

With me are Kevin Schofield,

editor of Politics Home

and Katie Martin,

the head of Fast FT.

Many of tomorrow's front

pages are already in.

Brexit leads the front

of the FT this weekend -

with a picture of Theresa May

and Angela Merkel meeting

in Berlin in the run up

to a security summit this weekend.

The I says Mrs May warned

lives will be put at risk

unless there is a Brexit

security deal.

The Express

leads with Brexit too -

the paper quotes a prominent remain

campaigner who it claims said

Britain should stay in the EU

because older people who backed

Brexit will "die off".

The Telegraph have an

interview with a former

Czech spy who claims Jeremy Corbyn

was a cold war source.

The Labour Leader denies those

allegations in The Mail

The Labour Leader denies those

allegations in The Mail.

The Times headlines news

that the government has blocked

Oxfam from applying for any more

government funding until they've

got their house in order

after the sex scandal.

A delighted Dom Parsons

is on the front of the Guardian

as he picks up Bronze for Britain

in the skeleton.

The Mirror leads with the story

of a transgender jockey hoping

to become the first person to win

a race as both a man and a woman.

So Brexit

and Oxfam makes several

of the front pages,

as do

Mr Corbyn's meetings

with a Czech official.

Let's take a look at the FT and all

the stories coming out of the US

throughout the evening, about

Russians who have been charged with

interfering in US elections after

Mueller investigation. 13 Russian

individuals and three Russian

organisations.

This story dropped

late this afternoon, it's a pretty

explosive story. This is one of the

results effectively of the

long-running investigation into

potential interference. Donald Trump

has said in a number of times is

fake news, it's nothing, nothing to

see here. Today the FBI comes along

and indicts 13 individuals and three

groups, saying we have strong

reasons to believe they may have

been interfering in our election,

defrauding the US effectively. One

of the people they are looking

closely at is someone who is

described as Putin's chef. A

long-time associate of the Russian

president, he is the chap who runs

the online troll factory outside St

Petersburg. There is a lot of focus

on what extent did this kind of

online interference have any impact?

Internet research agency, I think it

is...

The troll factory, everyone

calls it! Obviously Trump has come

out with a tweet, because this is

Donald Trump, saying there is

nothing to see, no collusion. This

is the FBI, they don't muck about

and check out indictments on a

Friday afternoon for no good reason.

This looks awkward.

At the moment it

doesn't look like there is any

actual American involved,

implicated, as far as we can tell

from what we've been told so far?

Robert Mueller was making maps

pretty clear there is no Americans,

wittingly or unwittingly, anyway, no

evidence to suggest anyone knew, any

Americans knew, this was going on.

Interesting Donald Trump has an

immediate response to say, I'm in

the clear, rather than this is

pretty concerning. As President, you

would think you would be at least a

little concerned about the fact the

US election could be at risk of

being spun in one way or another by

a foreign country. Without

suggesting that anything Donald

Trump knew anything about it, you

only have to look at who was

benefiting from these activities

allegedly, activities were targeted

at Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, opponents

of Donald Trump, and also Hillary

Clinton. Support of Bernie Sanders

when he was a candidate, and in

support of Donald Trump. It lends

weight to the theory that the

Russians were upset at the prospect

of Donald Trump becoming president.

This is the latest stage in this

investigation. It's interesting that

it's not over any time soon, they

are feeling their way. There has

also been a plea bargain and a

separate charge connected to Russian

activities.

The scale of this

investigation is just enormous.

Again, the timing of this indictment

that has come do today is awkward

for the White House because there

are other reports in the US press

that there are dozens, maybe

hundreds of people working in the

White House who don't have proper

security clearance yet, the checks

that should go through quickly have

not gone through really quickly for

this administration. It builds up a

picture that is pretty concerning.

Let's stay with the FT but a

different story. Number ten games

for alignment with the EU to retain

city access after Brexit. -- aims

for alignment. Michel Barnier not to

be convinced yet there will be any

special plea there?

He's been at

pains to stress there can be no

special arrangements for the UK,

given Theresa May has made clear

Britain will be leaving the single

market and Customs union. He said

there are enough but don't expect

any special favours from us if

that's the case. The city has been

lobbying hard to the government to

make the case for, they can't have

trade barriers or substantial trade

barriers imposed that would hamper

their activities. The Financial

Times have a good story tonight,

which Parker, the political editor,

always a trustworthy source, he says

basically Britain is now looking at

a system of mutual recognition

whereby the EU and Britain would

agree on areas on which they can see

eye to eye and recognise each

other's standards and regulations

and how that would be policed by an

independent body. The picture there

of Theresa May and Angela Merkel in

Munich earlier today, Angela Merkel

has the same thing this afternoon,

what they want is more clarity from

the government. What exactly we are

looking for with Brexit. This slowly

surely would suggest the government

is coming up with some type of

vision they can present to Europe.

I

don't like to correct but I think

they were in Berlin.

They were in

Berlin? Beg your pardon, they are in

Munich tomorrow.

It's always about

the geography with me. Curious,

though. Wasn't that a dubious word

for the German Chancellor to use,

that she is curious about what

Britain intends.

Well, yes. That

sort of harks back to the

conversation that Theresa May and

Angela Merkel had last month in

Davos where there was this whole

report that she said, make us a

deal. Merkel is like, you are the

ones that are leaving. It doesn't

work this way. This idea of how to

retain a city access has been

kicking around for quite awhile, it

has been the preferred option for a

lot of lobby groups on both sides of

the fence for quite a long time

because it is in nobody 's interest

that the city. Art. It's a huge tax

generator for the UK and we don't

want to have any financial

instability, either in the UK or in

the EU as a result of the

inevitable, what will happen when we

leave. This is a way to try and, I'm

going to say slightly fudge it, so

we agree on principles. But we might

differ on how to achieve those aims.

It's a lot of fudging. It's a very

public a dead. Let's look at the i,

another Brexit story. -- it's a very

complicated. Inevitably there will

have to be sharing of information,

intelligence. Surely that is in

everyone's interest.

Of course. This

is a story you can read however you

want depending on where you stand on

the backs debate, you could see this

as may saying, if you don't give us

a deal, lives will be at risk. It's

almost like she is saying, this is

what is at stake, you must bend to

our way of thinking. But underlying

the story, the security chiefs from

the UK Germany and France came

together today, not politicians,

security pointy heads, who said a

rare and unprecedented warning that

said listen, politicians, you will

do what you will do, we have to keep

working together. This is super

important for all of us. It's good

to see they are at least trying to

figure out how to make this work.

It's the language the Prime Minister

is using in this speech tomorrow,

she talks about ideology and the EU

should not be ideological opposed to

having a security arrangement with a

non-EU member state which they don't

have at the moment and times of

anything remotely as close as

Britain enjoys at the moment as part

of the EU. That will get quite a few

backs up because all in Brussels

will say, hang on, surely an

ideology is coming from London in

terms of wanting to leave the single

market and Customs union. For the

Prime Minister to accuse the EU of

behaving ideological rather than

pragmatically is quite punchy.

And

then Theresa May must just point to

the US. We have always had a close

relationship of intelligence sharing

with America.

We have close

relationships with Australia, with

the US, lots of countries. There are

certain legal mechanisms within the

EU over arrest warrants a kind of

thing. They are contingent on being

part of the EU. We must either

replace or adjust that legal

framework so that carries on

working. It's not impossible but

it's the kind of nitty-gritty legal

stuff and security stuff that must

get done.

Let's look at the mail.

Kobin the collaborator in quotation

marks. Labour leader denies claim by

checks by he was paid to pass

information to the Soviets. --

Corbyn the collaborator. At the

height of the Cold War he was

formerly in contact with this spy.

This was initially broken by the Son

a couple of days ago, was at

yesterday? News that moves so fast

these days. I think it was

yesterday. They had unearthed these

documents in the Czech Republic,

dating back to the Cold War. Which

showed that, or indicated, that the

cheque secret police attempted to

make contact with Jeremy Corbyn who

at that time was a Labour

backbencher. To maybe see if he

would be interested in being some

kind of asset for them. As you say,

have two stress Jeremy Corbyn has

completely said this is untrue, it's

a ridiculous Samir, entirely false.

However the agent in question who

Jeremy Corbyn met has come out and

he knew exactly what he was doing,

he knew I was a spy, and I know he

has questions to answer. Quite a

good line from Jeremy Corbyn's

office today basically saying this

has more holes in it many bad Bond

movie.

The quote in the paper here

is, his aides described the latest

claims as a ridiculous Samir and

entirely. All sorts of other

allegations during the run-up to the

last allegation were made about

Jeremy Corbyn's connections to

militant groups, the IRA, has

Balaam. It did not affect his

popularity.

His ideological

opponents through the book, then

another book, then they went to the

library and got more books. Alleging

links to the IRA. Links to Hamas,

God knows what. It did not work, it

did not affect his popularity.

It

increased his popularity I think

among young voters. The Cold War is

ancient history to anyone who is

under 30.

They have not lived

through the troubles.

Absolutely, it

has zero cut through. Unless there

is a smoking gun, some

incontrovertible evidence, then I

don't see this going anywhere.

Even

then I'm not sure it would move the

dial.

The times, no more money for

Oxfam. The charity not able to bid

for government funds until it gets

its house in order.

If you can think

of a more depressing story than this

over the past few days then you are

doing better than I am. A strong

week for depressing stories but this

is right up there. The government

gave Oxfam over £30 million last

year, it's been a regular donor,

presumably one of its biggest

donors. It has for obvious reasons

given the allegations made against

certain individuals employed by

Oxfam, said you will not get more

money now. Oxfam is bending over

backwards to say we are terribly

sorry about what happened and we

will do whatever it takes to sort

this out. Nonetheless the government

has reasonably said that's fine, but

for now, we will not move forward

with any more funding. One of the

things that sticks out in this

story, echoed in the story in the

Guardian, is that the chief

executive of the charity, Mark

Goldring, making some comments I

think my to haunt him about the

nature of the allegations made

against his former staff, saying

critics are gunning for the charity.

It's not as if anyone now babies in

their cots. That might live with

him. -- it's not as if anyone

murdered babies in their cots.

He

has either had bad advice or ignored

the advice given to him by his PR.

Talk about pouring petrol on flames,

those type of comments. They will

come back to haunt him.

Let's move

on to the Telegraph. Student fees

could be cut and review of

university funding. Also interest

rates, that student loans have to be

paid back at, to be looked at as

well. The Conservatives trying to

manoeuvre into position, into an

area that did well for Jeremy Corbyn

Naseer, bearing in mind he did not

win.

You are right.

-- did well for

Jeremy Corbyn last year.

There will

be a review of higher education

funding. At the moment, tuition fees

are £9,250 a year. Every year, the

university tries to charge as much

as they can. In a general election,

Labour say they will get rid of

tuition fees completely. That

obviously went down well with young

voters, this is the Conservatives

attempt to address those concerns. I

think unless you are going to match

that commitments, you are still

going to look meaner than Labour.

The suggestion is they would be

reduced from £9,250 to £6,000 a

year, but that is still £6,000 more

than Labour are saying. Even if you

will reduce interest rates on

student loans again, I don't think

that will... It's on every that the

Tories would be wise not to stray

into unless they can come up with

something that matches Labour's

offer. -- it's an area the Tories.

What ever they will come up with

will look mean in comparison to what

Labour are suggesting.

Grants might

be looked at again as well?

They are

obviously looking at the big package

of measures. We were talking about

how young people these days don't

remember the troubles in Ireland or

the Cold War. Our generation, we

have no idea, these kids are leaving

university with just a massive

amounts of debt, interest rates that

balloon on them. It's terrifying.

Certainly I didn't leave university

with anything like that sort of

weight on my shoulders.

Now, I had

£100 overdraft and even that raised

eyebrows in the Cox all household.

Dad, if you are watching, you

remember the conversation just as I

do. Finally, the Guardian. This is

Dom Parsons, if you had never heard

of him, you will know him now. He

has a bronze in the skeleton. The

scariest of scary Olympic Games.

It

is pretty scary, you lie on a thing

and barrel down a hill really fast

with a helmet on. It sounds like

this was... He was always going to

be in contention for this but sounds

like the chap who was just in front

of him made a mess of his last run

and hey presto, the Brits finally

have a medal in the Winter Olympics.

Would you give it a try?

I certainly

would not. A sledge, on a very not

steep slope is more my speed. Going

down an essentially a tea tray, it's

remarkable.

We could try it on your

way out. The first or headfirst.

Either way, congratulations to Dom

Parsons. Robert who is the voice in

my ear tonight was very loyal to

stay up and watch all of that

happen. Very impressive.

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 dot co uk

forward slash papers -

and if you miss the programme any

evening you can watch it

later on BBC iPlayer.

Thank you to my guests.

Katie and Kevin. Just to show I

remember who they were.

Goodbye.