18/02/2018 The Papers

On meet the author, my guest is the

bestselling thriller writer Mick

Heron.

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are the former

Conservative Adviser,

Giles Kenningham and Torcuil

Crichton, political editor

at The Daily Record.

Many of tomorrow's front

pages are already in.

The Financial Times is leading

with a story about Donald Trump

lashing out at the FBI

and his national security advisors

over the Russia investigation.

A Pensions boost for millions -

the Daily Express says pensions

experts are hailing a "perfect

cocktail" of conditions that have

boosted many company schemes.

The 'I' focusses on the new review

of university tuition fees saying

the reforms will be divisive.

Power dressing at the Baftas -

the Telegraph pictures British

actress Florence Pugh who joined

other celebrities dressing

in all black at tonight's

Bafta awards.

The Metro also leads on tuition fees

with a quote from the Prime Minister

saying "uni fees unfair

and poor value."

The Mirror shows a picture

of Keira Ball, who died in a car

crash, whose heart helped

save the life of a ten-year-old boy.

The Guardian also focusses

on tuition fees saying that

proposals to reduce charges

for cheaper courses is deemed

'unworkable' by critics.

I am speaking a bit slowly it's

because I can hear myself coming

back and its most discombobulated.

Happy if you could do something

about that, that would be

marvellous... VI is where we will

begin. Tuition fees, I feel like we

have been pre-empting this for days,

maybe I have just been a work quite

a lot. Tuition fee reforms would be

divisive.

It is not days or days,

it's just the government learning

how to manage news. In the old days

before Brexit the government would

make an announcement on Sunday, when

the speech on Monday and we would be

talking about it till Tuesday. Since

Brexit, we have talked about nothing

except Brexit will stop the most

stunning thing on this story is that

the issue has been around enough

since as long as University fees

came in, it's that it's a domestic

story running on a domestic agenda

on the front pages of Monday morning

News. Theresa May looks like she

will make a market intervention

here. She looks like she will force

universities to reduce fees for some

people and significantly she will

also start looking at bringing back

maintenance grants for poorer

students which is a key point.

She

has been saying it's making our

system of the most expensive in the

world for tuition, that Labour would

go further, they would get rid of

Jewish and fees altogether.

They

would but they have not been able to

cost it at all.

-- they would get

rid of tuition fees altogether.

There are some sensible things in

here. A bigger push towards two year

degrees with a stint in business. I

did a four year degree and could

have done other than too. I did

politics, sadly. I did a diploma in

nine months afterwards which I could

have done in three months easily.

Quite a lot of sense of kindness.

You pay according to market values,

a good sentiment but how do you

measure that will be a lot more

difficult in practice. You have

already had Justine Greening today

criticising that.

The Tories are

floundering when it comes to young

people and middle-aged people,

Corbyn is meant to be boosted in the

20 17th election with the youth

quake but it did not really happen.

But the under 25 and 45 state.

People are looking for the parties

to provide solutions. Massive

student debt everyone is carrying

around.

I have to say I was the last

year which did not pay tuition fees

and if I was going to uni now I

would think twice about doing it.

Fees are the one end of the horse,

it's about access. Why won't they

just put the money into getting more

kids from working class areas into

uni in the first place.

The former

universities minister says this is

irrelevant because you don't stop

paying upfront, you only pay after

the fact once you have earned a

certain amount of money.

It will

deter people because it is an eye

watering amount of money when you

are 18, racking up £20,000 in debt.

27 Justin fees. Then living costs...

Lichaj something like 6% so you

could be paying something like

£5,000 in interest on your debt. By

the time you leave uni. Thousands

more by the time you have paid it

off.

They took about a big push

towards vocational courses which I

think is great. University does not

suit everyone. Hopefully these

vocational courses will equip people

with skills which mean they can get

jobs quite quickly.

We are talking

about English universities, a

different thing in Scotland.

Tuition

fees don't exist in Scotland, that

doesn't mean accesses any better.

Scotland's medical schools take

fewer kids from working-class

backgrounds than England and Wales

medical schools. Something is wrong

with the system, it's not to do with

these, it's about getting kids from

working class areas into university

in the first place and that's the

other end of the horse, that early

intervention in primary school.

Hammond to drop all props for budget

light. We are not going to get all

of the usual accoutrements we're

used to seeing.

Hammond here, not

the most charismatic or eye-catching

of charts this, ditching the red box

for his so-called mini budget. He

has ditched the two budgets every

year. Apparent pain this year, the

so-called mini budget will be 15 to

20 minutes. There has been this

longer held view that you should

only have one budget a year. We are

the only country with an advanced

economy that has this.

It is Gordon

Brown's fault. Used to be the Autumn

Statement in December, then another

rabbit out of a hat in March at

budget time. The surprise and thing

is its Philip Hammond delivering the

budget. He seems in such disarray

around the Cabinet table that he was

in danger if few weeks ago of not

being.

At the time of Brexit when

you need to convey a climate of

certainty, give a vision for the

country, maybe there should be a

longer budgets are people actually

understand the economic road map.

Clearly they are going for short but

sweet.

People underestimate the

importance of symbolism and the

power of totems like that, that red

box, it means something.

Introduced

in 1860 by William Gladstone. Not

just no red box but no official

document or spending increases or

tax changes.

We will take the day

off.

Speculation anyway. We will

just have more time to fill. Let's

look at the Daily Express. Pensions

boost for millions, relief as

deficits in final salary schemes

halved in a month. How has that

happens, it's been causing lots of

concern on the sheer scale of

deficits?

Causing concern in some

places, not in my house.

Because you

don't have one, is that the case?

I

fail to see how this is news that

affects us the days. -- that affects

us today.

The pensions deficit has gone from

something like hundred and 40

billion hundred and 50 billion. Good

news for millions of employees who

are approaching retirement. That may

be an apt description of Daily

Express readers, but I just don't

see how this is a large story.

And

the stock market is quite volatile.

The problem is, when pension schemes

fail and there is not the money to

bail them out. We have seen out with

big companies recently with that

£900 million deficit. This will be

pleasing to some people in

particular, Ros Altmann who we are

used to seeing on paper review, she

has been talking about this for a

long time.

Confidence breeds

confidence. From that perspective

it's a good thing to see.

I am in

that section of the Daily Express

readership that switches off when I

see the word pension, I don't even

have to think about a pension, so.

We have not done very well with that

story. Where shall we move to? Let's

go to the Telegraph. The BAFTAs. We

have a picture here of Florence

Pugh, British actress, power

dressing and the BAFTAs with at

times bring on her finger. One of

many who turned up dressed in black

in support of not just the time is

up campaign against sexual

harassment but the Me Too campaign

as well which we have seen all over

social media. You were the odd one

out if you didn't wear black

tonight.

It feels like this campaign

is getting a lot of momentum, it

still has some way to go. At the

Golden Globes last month you had

Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep who

came out and were pretty vocal on

this issue. Obviously this whole

issue continues to rumble in the

press in many different sectors. It

feels like it's a story which has

some way to run.

It does keep it in

the public eye when you have this

public display of solidarity and

unity, at an awards ceremony. These

only have at certain times of the

year, it requires that cultural

change, day in day out, not just

amongst those who are on screen, on

stage, but those in the industry

behind it.

It is symbolic. The

message is getting through loud and

clear, Time's Up, that campaign

wants to change the culture that is

around that. As Sherborne said

earlier talking to you, the

decisions that are taken far earlier

in the storyboard when people sit

down to discuss character, narrative

and who will be in the movie, that's

when, who's going to direct movies

even, on who will buy them, that is

when we will see real change. -- or

who will write them.

The cultural bias is what's so

difficult to change, and you can't

legislate for.

The story is Three

Billboards, five BAFTAs, big British

success because it's a Channel 4

film.

Even though, to look at it, it

is totally American.

Completely

American. But there is Channel 4

money in that, it has taken 100

million, it will take a lot more

now. Another feather in the cap for

Channel 4. Something like 32 Oscars

since they started making movies? I

don't think they have reception on

the way in, that will feed into

that.

A lot of the films we have not

had a chance to see yet have all

picked up awards, that will really

boost box office.

Gary Oldman has

won for Darkest Hour.

And the ship

of water as well. Let's finish with

hidden calories fuelling obesity,

the average person eating too much.

How is it, portion control?

The

obesity crisis is being fuelled by

the average person eating 50% more

calories than they realise. They put

this down to two things, won his

portion control and second is people

eating more meals outside their

home.

A good old statistic. What's

happened is that the office for

National statistics asked people to

estimate how many calories they were

eating over a certain number of

days. Many estimated they were

eating 2000, in fact there were

eating well over 3000. -- men

estimated they were eating 2000.

Basically the story is that men are

kidding themselves. You kid

yourselves.

Men are worse than women

on this.

We kid ourselves we are

eating far less than actually are.

You have a sugar tax coming in,

long-awaited, in April. Which the

government estimates will get the

Treasury 520 million which will then

be invested in primary schools and

sport. That has been trialled for a

long time, it's been off and on. Add

to see if that changes behaviour.

It's on in Ireland, Ireland has

introduced one. Mexico has a sugar

tax, it has seen sales of soft

drinks full. The Scottish Government

has the same kind of thing, talking

about forcing restaurants and clubs

to control their portion size.

Smaller portions.

Smaller plates,

they reckon.

Not like in America

where you can get a second portion,

fourth portion, full three.

We all

know what we have to do, it's that

cultural, habitual thing of doing it

day in day out. That's it for the

papers this hour. We will be back at

11:30pm.

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