05/03/2018 The Papers

for you, it is the Papers. Have a

good one.

Hello, and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Randeep Ramesh,

Chief Leader Writer at the Guardian

and Martin Bentham, Home Editor

at the London Evening Standard.

Many of tomorrow's front

pages are already in...

Let's take a look...

Red Spy in UK Poison Terror is how

the Sun described the Russian man

hospitalised in Salisbury

after being exposed

to an unknown substance.

That story also the lead for The i,

which comments on how similarities

maybe drawn between this case

and that of Alexander

Litvinenko in 2006.

The events in Salisbury also

the lead for the Telegraph,

but the paper also reports on plans

by Saudi Arabia to strengthen

intelligence sharing with Britain.

The Metro takes a closer look

at some of the big winners at last

night's Academy Awards.

The top story in the Financial Times

is how UK airlines' transatlantic

routes may be cut after Brexit.

The Guardian carries a large

image of Sergei Skripal -

the Russian man believed to be

in hospital in Salisbury.

The Financial Times bucks the trend

and leads on how UK airlines'

transatlantic routes maybe

negatively affected after Brexit.

One story, unsurprisingly

dominates most of the front

pages tonight of course -

the possible poisoning

of a Russian spy.

And Bill Turnbull, BBC Breakfast

presenter, opens up with his battle

for cancer. Misses take a look at

the Russian spy story and we will go

with the sun. The sun having a lot

of fun with this, but it is not a

fun story. They have got a man

cleaning up their innate biohazard

suit. It is a story that does have

echoes of Litvinenko, back in 2006.

Yes, it plays into the idea that we

are in a sort of proxy war with

Russia, and he is President Putin

apparently taking out one of his

traitorous enemies, so the papers

have viewed it, and this unfortunate

chap is a must buy at -- retired spy

Colonel, Sergei Skripal, found

slumped outside a bench in

Salisbury, of all places. Apparently

poisoned by a mysterious substance.

Following on from Litvinenko, if

this is proved to be poison, and it

does seem to have been perpetrated

by someone with connections to

Moscow, then the question is how can

this be allowed to have happened

again, after what happened with

Alexander Litvinenko?

There are a

lot of ifs, and clearly it may turn

out to be none of those things, but

on the other hand if it does, I

suppose the reality is it is not

absolutely possible to stop somebody

who is determined to do this, and of

course we have been at loggerheads

really with the Russians ever since

then. Our diplomatic relations have

never recovered and this will

certainly prevent any restoration of

diplomatic links with them, and

ultimately the Russians, if they

wanted to do this type of thing, if

they wanted to do it, I suppose they

are powerful enough potentially to

be altered do it. However good our

policing, counterterrorism operation

is, which is pretty good, it is not

fail-safe. They have plenty of other

things to be looking at as well. I

think that is probably the reality.

This is another story where people

think about the papers if they

wanted to make up a story can you

could not make up a story of this

extraordinary nurse. It goes back to

Litvinenko, there have been one or

two others, Boris Berezovsky, who

subsequently died as well, a

businessman in Surrey, who also died

in circumstances which some people

think of mysterious. So there have

been a succession. Any Russian who

dies in order circumstances, the

immediate conclusion that people

want to leap to, it may or may not

turn out to be correct but certainly

an extraordinary concert.

The i

going with it as well. What is

interesting about this man is that

he was deemed a traitor by the

Russians in 2006, and he ended up in

the UK as a result of a spy swap.

With the famous Anna Chapman, was

part of a sleeper cell in the United

States. Somehow he was viewed as an

essential asset, and some of the

papers are reporting he was the

second most important after the

other Russian defector. It was

obviously worth something, and he

provided various details of various

Russian espionage activities. I

suppose coming back to the point is

how do we stop any of this. You

can't really, because they only have

to be right once, and we have to be

right all the time. That is the

problem when you are dealing with

it. We would probably want to say to

the Russians, two can play at this

game but I am not sure whether that

is really a British response was top

we want to go around bumping people

off Moscow? Probably not.

I say

probably for stop we had a very

robust response after it was

established that Litvinenko had been

poisoned on the orders of the

Kremlin, ultimately, as the inquest

established. We couldn't really have

done a great deal more. It has come

in the context of some overt

statements about the overt

aggressive intent of Russia towards

this country. So it is not as if we

have been soft with them. The amount

of blacklisting of Russian

nationals, where their money goes,

where their assets are, there is a

series of sanctions we can impose,

but we are not going to get to the

stage and we are playing John Le

Carre novels out on the streets of

Moscow.

No, but it does sound like

that on the front page of the

Telegraph 's top Russian spy fights

for life after poisoning double

agent who sold secrets to Britain

found collapsed on bench in

Salisbury. The big worry is what

kind of chemical, as with

Litvinenko, was potentially used to

poison this man and his companion.

Apparently a restaurant,

late-breaking news this evening, a

restaurant in Salisbury has been

closed as a precaution because of

all this.

They are obviously

concerned as to what the substances.

Obviously we haven't had any

information as to what the substance

is and whether they have established

that not. It took some time with the

Litvinenko thing to establish

exactly what would have been used.

So it may be the case here. It is

clear from all the pictures you can

see, and the areas that had been

cordoned off, that there is a great

keel of concern about this.

A major

incident launched at the hospital

where these people are being

treated. Sticking with the front

page of the Telegraph, Trump softens

stance on Paris. Suggestions that he

will properly and formally announce

a trade walk something he believes

he can win.

It is an odd thing to

start a walk even for Donald Trump,

but on the issue of trade, if you

were to clap tariffs on, that would

hit US consumers. Politics is about

perception, and for him, his base

has viewed itself as one of the

losers of globalisation, that they

have pay the price well is others

have got cheaper goods. He is

probably trying to speak to that

base was that we know there has been

a row in the White House between

globalists on the one hand and

economic nationalists on the other,

and economic nationalists have won.

There has been some background to

Trump's outburst, but he has

ploughed this furrow for some time,

and it did with him rust belt's

vote. So I don't think he is being,

he is not reversing.

He is also

doing that old-fashioned thing of

making a promise of an election and

following through.

That is a

shocker, isn't it?

I suppose we

can't blame him for doing that,

whether it turns out to be

counter-productive or not, that is

another issue.

I suppose the eye

given should be, should he have made

it a promise in the first place? We

are talking about global GDP growth

rising. Anything from 1.5%, 2%,

perhaps even more by the end of the

year. The major economist Saul, it

seems convincing, in terms of moving

upwards. This is the kind of thing

that could hit them.

I suppose if

it's partly because of that he can

get away with it. Possibly.

There is

a public concern about goods which

are made cheaper through labour

standards and environmental

standards being low. And for

Americans that is a valid public

concern. For too long, politicians

haven't. In some respect, give him

credit. It may be economic nonsense.

It may benefit.

Absolutely. Onto the

Huffington Post, Martin. A story

that has been bubbling throughout

the day, Theresa May's housing

announcement gives no guarantee of

more homes. This is the verdict of

the Huff Post. Theresa May and the

government have been saying, look,

if you are a developer and you get

land and you get planning

permission, build a house on it,

rather than sit on it, waiting for

the land prices to go up. Umaga yes,

there is a lot of intent from the

government. I suppose the question

is, and there have been lots of

statement of intent from various

governments over quite a long period

now I think. Some of them have not

come to deliver a great deal in the

way of large and as an extra houses.

That is obviously the allegation

here. The point you make there that

taking back houses, land, that has

not been built on, some of the

developers have questioned this and

have said there is not undeveloped

land they are just sitting on. On

the other hand it is clearly

potentially a problem, so that could

help. I think the other thing that

is always missing from this debate

personally is if you are talking

about house prices, which is often

what is talked about, and

affordability, just building more

homes on its own does not address

the full scale of things, because

you have advice led investment,

foreign investment coming in, there

is a great money flying at housing

in general and that gets overlooked.

You can build an awful lot more

houses but it won't necessarily

bring houses prices down.

Clearly

the Huff Post is a cynical beasts. A

lot of people would say this

government, the last government

before that, the government before

that, they have all talked about

building more houses and all of them

have done nothing about it.

There is

an easy way of building houses,

councils and old houses, you borrow

to invest. This government has

refused to do that, which means it

all sounds very radical but it is

just a tweaking of this system that

is not working.

Sticking plaster.

People understand that they will

probably be penalised despite the

good intentions.

OK, briefly, the

front page of the FT, Italy said for

EU clash after winning four

populists. No suggestion that Italy

wants to leave the European Union,

but there could be a feud dates

there. Let's go straight to the back

page of the metro finally. Exclusive

interview with the BBC, Dan Roan,

our sports editor. And Mr begins

making it clear that he is not a

cheat.

This is very unsatisfactory

all-round. Sir Bradley Wiggins is

saying that he didn't cheat, he

absolutely didn't do what the

Commons committee has alleged, which

was preaching the ethical

boundaries, not actually breaking

the rules, per se, because the rules

allowed what took place, these

therapeutic aids that he had. He is

insisting he has been thrown under

the line, but it doesn't look great

good. You would like to think

sportsmen and women can win without

any sort of assistance, and it does

appear at it too much that this has

happened.

He was a shining light for

British sport. It has dimmed

somewhat as a result of all of this.

You would like to win in a way that

everyone thinks you deserve to win.

Clean. And of course he maintains

his innocence. Absolutely. Good to

see you both, many thanks for that.

That is it for the papers tonight,

don't forget you can see all of them

on the BBC news website. If you've

missed the papers any evening, you

know how to log into iPlayer by now

I sincerely hope. Thanks again.