21/02/2018 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Rachel Shabi, journalist

and broadcaster, and Laura Perrins,

co-editor of The Conservative

Woman website.

Many of tomorrow's front

pages are already in.

The Metro says police forces

could face fresh legal action

by victims of serious crime over

bungled investigations,

following the John Worboys ruling.

The i has the same story,

which is summed up in its headline:

"Landmark victory

for crime victims".

The Mirror claims Worboys

received £166,000 in legal

aid to defend his sex crimes.

The Telegraph reports that

Theresa May faces a backlash

because senior ministers claim

the Cabinet didn't sign off

on a Brexit strategy that

would limit free trade deals.

The Guardian carries a photo

of students marching in Florida,

calling for tighter gun control

after last week's school shooting.

More people should get pills

to combat depression,

is the lead in The Times.

The Financial Times claims

Unilever could move its HQ

from Britain to the Netherlands.

And finally, The Express

says an arctic storm

is heading for the UK.

So, the Worboys case, and pills

for depression share the headlines

on many of the front pages, so let's

look at them in more detail.

Let's start with the Warboys case,

in the metro, the headline, the Met

must pay for the failure to nail

Warboys. This is the case of the

black cab driver, John Warboys, won,

the two victims of his have won a

law case against the Metropolitan

Police after officers failed to take

action after they reported what

happened to them. Laura, if you can

kick as off, according to the metro,

landmark ruling opens door for other

crime victims to sue the police.

What are the implications?

They

could be significant, but I don't

think there will be a huge rush of

cases to begin with. It is a very

big case, the Supreme Court

upholding a decision by the High

Court that the police could be

liable under article three of the

Human Rights Act under the European

Convention of human rights, as

opposed to a negligence claim, which

traditionally they would lose. So

instead under article three if you

can show in cases of serious crime

that there was a failure of

investigation alone, and not just a

systematic failure, but you have to

have a serious failure, also where

the crime was sufficiently serious,

then that could lead to a

compensation claim. But I think the

test is quite high. You have to have

a serious crime, there has to be a

sufficiently serious breakdown in

the investigation for you to even

consider a compensation claim

against the police. In the case of

Warboys, they made significant

mistakes early on in the

investigation.

Has a serious crime

actually been defined yet? I don't

think it has, has it?

No, but in

this case you can see why these two

women were successful at the Supreme

Court, after the High Court ruled

they were entitled to compensation,

and that was taken to the Supreme

Court. Obviously something has gone

wrong when someone is thought to

have carried out over 100 such

attacks and is not caught. Obviously

something has gone wrong with the

investigation. So I do think that

this landmark ruling is to be

welcomed if it makes those

investigations more rigorous, and

means that less people have to go

through this before arrests and

proceedings are taken.

John Warboys

is also on the front of the Daily

Mirror. The headline says black cab

rapist given £166,000 in legal aid.

I presume he hasn't been given this

personally, this presumably is going

to his lawyers.

A headline designed

to in rage, but there is a legal aid

system in this country, and as the

decision by the parole board, which

is a different aspect of this

Warboys case, it has been judicially

reviewed not by the government but

by two of his victims who I believe

have had to crowdfund for their

legal fees. John Warboys was

entitled to legal representation in

that judicial review and somehow the

Mirror have calculated it at

166,000, which seems like a lot, but

it is not going to him personally,

it is going to his lawyers forced up

I would be interested to see how

they come up -- came upon that

number.

We shall see post of let's

move on to the Financial Times and

economic news, borrowing and

productivity figures spark double

windfall for the Treasury. This is

that government borrowing was less

than expected but there has been a

rise in productivity.

The FT is

reporting this as good news and a

windfall for the Treasury, though it

might not necessarily show up in the

forthcoming budget. They might

decide to stash it, you know, save

it for a rainy day. But they are

reporting productivity has increased

by 0.9%, which is the strongest six

months since before the crash.

Obviously that is great news but in

context it is not amazing. 0.9% is

not amazing. Britain's recovery is

still the slowest in the G-7 country

since 2008, and low productivity is

of course keeping wages down as

well. Productivity should be around

2%. During the 90s it was at 5%. So

it is not great news, and you might

also argue, and some economists do,

that the two things are linked, the

fact the government is not spending

is what is keeping our recovery so

slow and so slow, because you need

for the government needs to invest

in infrastructure, in major building

products, in order to stimulate the

economy and get it out of the slump

it is currently in, and that is

affecting semi people.

And Laura,

unemployment has gone up as well

hasn't it?

It has gone up slightly.

It is true that productivity is a

big issue in the economy first no

one can quite put their finger on

why it has been so stubbornly low.

Of course investing in

infrastructure is one way, but that

of course will mean further

borrowing, and public borrowing is

at least down. Of course another way

would be to cut taxes, and then

employers would invest in there and

please because it is the please

themselves, it is how much they can

produce, that is what drives

productivity. So that is the other

way of looking at it, if you cut

taxes, that can drive productivity.

Except it never does because

trickle-down economics is not a

thing. It doesn't work.

That's not

true, but anyway.

We will agree to

disagree, because I am sure we can

all agree on Brexit. The headline,

backlash at Theresa May's plan for

Brexit transition. This says

ministers claim cabinet never signed

off on the strategy that could limit

free trade deals. This was the

strategy I think that was leaked

earlier this morning and then

finally published about five o'clock

this afternoon. This is about

Theresa May's plan for transition

which some ministers are annoyed

about because they say they never

signed off on it. It is really hard

to figure out why this would have

happened. I mean, all this week, all

we have heard is about this road to

Brexit, you know, which has been...

Rocky.

Otherwise described as a road

to nowhere. We have had these big

speeches from the Brexit related

ministers, this much trumpeted big

meeting of Cabinet, tomorrow and

eight hour-long awayday in which

they finally, a year and a half

later, tell us what they actually

want from Brexit. And so maybe this

over the transition, maybe it just

got sort of lost in the detail,

maybe it fell down the back of the

sofa, maybe they just thought that

actually we don't need to agree

anything on a transition deal,

because by definition a transition

deal is static, nothing changes. If

it changes then you have another

deal that you have to renegotiate

for the transition period and what

will be the point of that. So it is

hard to figure out.

Unfortunately

they have to still agree on how long

the transition will be and how the

rights in that period will be

affected. For instance, a big

sticking point is whether free

movement would continue or whether

it would end, and also the second

issue after that would be canned the

European Court of Justice to

arbitrate on it? It is difficult to

come to an agreement on a transition

deal, it will be even more difficult

to come to an agreement on what

Brexit will actually look like.

There is no doubt there is clearly a

split within the party, and tomorrow

at Chequers seems to be the day that

Theresa May thinks she can sort of

nail Jell-o to the wall. That might

be quite difficult but Jacob

Rees-Mogg of course has a piece in

the Telegraph, quoted here, saying

the current document would lead to

Brexit in name only and was a

perversion of democracy. He says it

has been disowned by ministers as

not representing government policy.

He is the leading Brexiteer who

wants a much cleaner Brexit than

perhaps is on offer. I think things

will stay pretty difficult for

Theresa May at the moment.

The clock

is ticking so just want to make

mention of the photograph of the

Telegraph, which is the first lady

of farming, this is the first female

president of the National farmers

union in over 100 years.

Yes,

welcome to the 21st century,

comrades at the National farmers

union! This is a very pleasing

picture, I have to say, on this grey

day, this very green grass and blue

sky picture, it is a relief.

Ivan

know if that Segway is well or not

well at all into The Times. More

people should get pills to beat

depression. Laura, I think some

people could be surprised by this

headline, but doctors are told,

according to The Times, that

millions of sufferers would benefit.

They have run the study, I am in no

position to second-guess. A global

study led by researchers at Oxford

University, saying that some of

these prescriptions for

antidepressants are affected. And I

think the case might be that general

practitioners are still cautious, in

terms of prescribing

antidepressants, and there may well

be people who would benefit from it

who are currently not receiving that

prescription. If it helps them, and

the trials are there to back it up,

then this is something they should

be prescribed.

Rachel, you are

nodding.

Yes, what this report has

noted is that there is still an

ideological resistance, it describes

it as, to antidepressants. This idea

that you should not take medicine

for issues related to mental health,

which is a lingering stigma that

means that people are not

necessarily getting the treatment

that they need. Apparently only one

in six of those diagnosed with

depression are taking the

medication.

I am being screamed at

in my ever we have to leave it

there, which is a real shame because

eventually interesting talking to

you both. Thank you, you can see the

front pages of the papers on the BBC

news website. If you miss the

programme any evening you can watch

it later on the BBC iPlayer. Thank

you Rachel and Laura, sorry to cut

you short, always too much to talk

and never enough time.