01/03/2018 The Papers

Coming up in a moment, The Papers.

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Rachel Cunliffe,

Comment and Features Editor

of CityAM, and Henry Zeffman,

Political Correspondent

at the Times.

Many of tomorrow's front pages

are already in, let's

take a look at them.

Starting with The Express,

which carries the warning

from the National Grid over gas

supplies as Storm Emma sweeps in.

A picture of a farmer

leading his pregnant ewes

to shelter is on the front

of the Telegraph while the i reports

that Britain is encountering

the coldest temperatures

for 27 years.

The Metro has a satellite images

from Nasa apparently showing

the snow that swept

across the UK today

on its front page, and sticking

with the severe weather,

the Sun dubs the arrival

of Storm Emma as EMMA-GEDDON.

While The Times warns that

worse could follow -

with the Environment Agency

issuing six flood warnings.

Concerns over Russia's nuclear

weapon capability leads the FT -

following the Russian President's

annual state of the nation address

earlier today, and The Mirror

tell their readers that a man

who lost both his arms in a bomb

attack in Iraq 15 years,

and who the Mirror brought

to the UK, has become a father.

So the weather leads the majority

of the front pages tomorrow -

with more to come over

the next few days.

The's dip into those with both of

you, you will have to become weather

experts. Rachel, take us to the

Telegraph, Winter in control.

It is

called! I do not think I realised

quite how cold and how much affect

it was having on their is part of

the country until I read this glory.

It is very comprehensive, 1000

schools have closed, the cold Spring

on record, coldest temperature in 27

years, and if you want that figures

on this, in terms of car accidents,

in three days, it has already done

£10 million worth of damage and 8000

car accidents. Pappas in context. We

have all been whether crazy over the

last couple of days but you can see

why, it is consumed everything, and

you have got sheep there as well!

Henry, by all means add further

facts and figures to back!

There is

this amazing disconnect between the

amazing photos, not just on

newspaper front pages, but seems we

have seen from our windows of snow

carpeting the country, but it is

actually quite serious. I know you

mentioned on the times' front page

the Environment Agency has put out a

series of coastal flood warnings. We

have seen how serious in the West

Country, which is where some of

these warnings are, floods have been

before. All sorts of disruption on

the roads, most train services,

warning of disruption, or

cross-border trains between England

and Scotland suspended. There is a

disconnect between the fun of snow

days as it is for the kids who

schools have been called off and the

kind of serious effects.

There is a

line at the end there, yesterday

expected to set a record for the

UK's coldest spring day. It is the

first day of spring today, which

would greet the previous record low

of -4.6 degrees in Sunderland in

March 2000 and one. We have not had

confirmation of that but it could

be.

It could be. The Met Office have

said, winter is clinging on, giving

us a right old kicking, it is still

in control. That is the official

view!

On the front of the Metro,

they have taken the satellite image,

a Nasa satellite image, showing us

how it looks from up in space.

Rather amazing. I am very far from

being a meteorological expert. It

appears to be carpeting the North

Sea here as well so I wonder whether

some of the whitest cloud. It is a

really striking image. It does show

this combination of the beast from

the east and Emma is quite

devastating.

One more of this before

we move on, this is the express.

This is the reference to what might

be happening all though we are told

this is not affecting domestic

supplies but there is a warrior of

the gas.

Last night, we were warned

that the spike in demand might lead

to gas shortages. I read since then

it is mostly industrial businesses,

factories have been asked to close

and they think now, having looked at

it, it will not threaten national

supply, but we are British, we love

to moan about the weather, this is

different, we do not normally run

out of gas during cold months so

this is something spectacular.

There

is an interesting point here about

British reliance on foreign gas. In

2004, Britain was entirely

self-sufficient in gas from the

North Sea but now imports 60% of it

so there is also a problem of supply

from the Netherlands and Norway. It

is not just Emma and the beast from

the East but something to do with

Britain's gas supply which might

need sorting out. Norway is not in

the EU, anyway.

Let's move onto

other matters because you just

mentioned Brexit. Henry, take us

back to the Telegraph because this

is where Theresa May's speech

tomorrow is featuring. Made's five

tests to make Brexit a success.

This

is not disconnected from the weather

either because the speech was meant

to be taking place in Newcastle and

either because she could not get

there or get back it is now taking

place in Mansion house in central

London. The five tests are quite

interesting. They are to respect the

result of the referendum that any

deal must ensure, protect jobs, be

consistent with a modern outward

looking Britain and strengthen the

union of the UK. They failed the

test of reversing any of those

tests, I do not think anyone would

expect's to strike a deal which does

not respect the referendum will does

not insure and so on, but the

government wants this to be a

moment, this is the third of one of

her major Brexit speeches.

Certainly, the government wants it

to be a moment but the question is

whether she can find a way to set

out a vision which is satisfactory

both to Jacob Rees-Mogg and Anna

Subaru.

What does this reveal?

Very

little. We have a series of Brexit

road map speeches. We have had one

from Boris Johnson and David Davis

and now have this in the brisk set.

-- her vision for Brexit. They were

quite bit woolly concepts. This is

not telling us anything new and from

what we have here it does not set

out anything practical. There is a

line in the way she says, it is

achievable because it is an EU's

interest as well as ours.

You think

that is true?

Logically, yes, it is

true, ball we have seen over the

last week, particularly with the EU

draft of the Northern Ireland border

is that the EU is perfectly happy to

play very dangerous games with

something like the border. They are

happy to play dangerous games with

trade and tariffs. They are not

playing fair and I think it is naive

the Theresa May to assume they will

do so in the future.

I agree

entirely with that. I think the EU

would hit back by saying, well,

Theresa May or the UK has made its

mind up what it thinks its own

interest is as well. There is a line

here that there was a special

meeting of the Cabinet today to sign

of the speech, they all had their

phones taken away and were locked in

a room in given half an hour to read

the speech. They then had a big row

about it. David Davis and some other

Brexiteers had a line taken out of

the speech which was a commitment to

a binding commitment to match EU

rules on various different sectors

going forward. They got that watered

down. The EU might say, if on the

eve of this major speech you cannot

even decide with your Brexit

secretary what you want how can you

tell us what is in our interest?

But

if not a tendency for us to see a

public face of it on both sides and

privately behind-the-scenes rather

different?

Maybe things are going

better than they look, that is an

optimistic way of looking at it.

There is a tendency in this country

particularly with former Remainers

to look at what EU does and assume

they are acting in a neutral way.

And the way you succeed in

negotiation is to play hardball and

perhaps to ask for more than you

think you can achieve. Are we doing

that is effectively?

Probably not.

Certainly on Northern Ireland, we

should not see the EU is

dispassionately taking a view on

what is best for Northern Ireland

although they may well think that

staying in the customs union is

right. They are leveraging a very

complicated constitutional question,

which has been live for a matter

centuries. And they are leveraging

it to try to force a political

crisis in the UK which brings the

UK's vision of Brexit closer to the

UK's vision of Brexit.

Let's Pulkrab

trait in a different context. The FT

talking about trade war fears

mounting because what Donald Trump

said about steel water tariffs.

He

has been incredibly provocative

towards China in particular, 25%

Paris on steel and 10% on aluminium,

this is at the heart of American

first protectionist policy. There

are two things interesting about

this. One is that China... It has

been aimed at China and trumpet has

been saying to play fair when it

comes to steel dumping, but most of

the US steel imports are not from

China anyway, they are from the US's

allied country including the EU and

Canada, so this will not hit the

country that Trump seems to want it

to. The second thing I think is

interesting is that this is the same

week that he has made statements

about government control -- gun

control, and starting a trade war is

not in line with traditional

Republican values so Trump is

unpredictable and volatile. Who

knew?

I think Rachel is right to

point out that this is something

Donald Trump has been talking about

city was in the campaign trail. His

base support is very much not a

traditional Republican base of

support. There are states he won

like Pennsylvania which have voted

for Democratic presidential

candidates over a series of

elections but have large mining

communities, blue-collar workers and

perhaps will not enamoured by

Hillary Clinton and like Donald

Trump's rhetoric on trade in China.

There is an interesting line here

that says the pro-trade forces and

the White House thereby Trump

adviser who used to run Goldman

Sachs would argue against this were

as economic nationalists in Trump's

administration were arguing for

this. That is a central tension

between having Donald Trump is

having a Republican party president.

Let's conclude as talking reasonably

briefly about Vladimir Putin, if

only because the photograph at the

front of the is quite arresting.

This comes from his state of the

nation address and is taken from the

back of the press room I am assuming

as he was speaking with him on the

big screen. It is quite a haunting

image, isn't it?

It is a very

threatening image and that is

exactly what he's intending. You

have got to see this in the context

of he's running for election for

another six-year term. If it gets,

which honestly he will, he will have

run across a quarter of the century

by the end of it. And Putin's

popularity is based on the idea he

is strong and standing up for

Russia, and the entire speech was

basically a threat. He said, I hope

all we said today will sober up any

potential aggressor.

And the FT

mentions a new arms race.

There is a

note of caution in the piece,

defence analyst saying they are

sceptical about Putin's developing a

new nuclear power missile. But I

think the Chinese premier has

signalled his intentions to run

China for life this week, and Donald

Trump meanwhile sparking trade wars.

On that uplifting note, thank you

both very much indeed for that. But

is it that it. You can see the front

pages of the papers online. That is

on the BBC News website, seven a

week. And if you mist the programme

on any evening, you can watch it

later on the BBC iPlayer. Thank you

to Rachel and Henry, and goodbye.