11/03/2018 The Papers

firmly in his sights.

Hello and welcome to our look

at the stories in the Sunday Papers

with me are the Political

Commentator James

Millar and James Rampton,

Features Writer at The Independent.

Let's take a look at this

mornings front pages.

And the Sunday Express leads

on the theory that the ex-Russian

spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter

Yulia may have been poisoned

by the contents of a parcel that

went undetected in the post.

The Sunday Telegraph says senior

government figures are leading

a plan to ban Russian officials

involved in corruption and human

right abuses from entering the UK.

The Sunday Times claims

that since becoming

Prime Minister, Theresa May has

received over £800,000

worth of donations

from Russian oligarchs.

The Sunday People leads

on an interview with a Russian

defector who says Vladimir Putin

is planning eight more

attacks in the UK.

Of course, it's worth a reminder

that Russia has not yet

been found responsible

for the Salisbury attack.

The Observer reveals government

figures that show men

earn almost four timemore than women

in Britian's highest paid jobs.

And finally, the Mail

on Sunday headlines

allegations of bullying

against a former executive

of the One charity,

which was founded by Bono.

The allegations have been denied

by the individual involved.

So plenty to look at

this morning with many

of the papers leading on Russia.

Who wants to go first?

This is stuff

that if you read in a novel you

might think is too far-fetched but

then you dig into the details of the

story and it keeps spiralling out

more and more details emerging. The

story in the Telegraph is about the

so-called act which they hope to

bring into force which will bring

sanctions against Russian nationals

accused of gross violations of human

rights and they hope to ban them

from coming to this country and

freezing the assets.

It is named

after a man who died in a Russian

prison cell after being beaten and

in the United States they had the

original act.

Yes, it exists on our

statute books and David Cameron has

said in the past he was regretful he

did not enacted more forcefully.

There are many things he regrets in

life and that is one of them!

Extraordinary the way this is

spinning out in all directions. 250

security service officers in

Salisbury, this is just the

beginning of the story, not the end.

You know what happens, the editor

says find something on this. The

papers have responded, they have

been able to find all sorts of

different lines. The Sunday

Telegraph is amazing, this act,

because it's against people who are

gross violators of human rights

whose crimes include torture and

extrajudicial killings. These bands

and assets freezes, should these

people not be in jail?

The Sunday

Times have got a political line.

Yeah, another line about the

connection between the Tories and

the Russians and this goes to the

heart of the matter perhaps in terms

of response because there are claims

its billions of Russian cash kicking

around in the country, can we afford

to stand up to them if they did

this? It's not a huge amount of

money, £820,000...

I would not mind

it!

Well, comparatively speaking

it's not a huge amount but it's not

a good look, taking money from

Russians.

They are under pressure to

give it back.

Which will only

increase. The wife of a former

Vladimir Putin Minister paid £30,000

last month to have dinner with Gavin

Williamson the Defence Secretary,

that is not a good look! That is how

much...

It is underline how eyebrow

raising, I will not risk any more

legal questions, also paid £60,000

to play tennis with David Cameron. I

would want to be paid that amount to

play tennis with David Cameron but

it indicates the extent to which

there is an impression being created

that certain people are attempting

to buy influence. They have donated,

Russian billionaires and lobbyists

donating £3 billion to the Tories

since their return to government in

2010 and it's not a good look. We

don't know the exact allegations but

we know the impression it creates

and PR is everything in the modern

world.

Going inside the Sunday

Times, perhaps as a result of these

difficult questions, a story about

Cabinet divisions.

You can tell this

is a big story because there's not a

huge amount of leaks in terms of the

details of what happened at the

nerve agent might be but come to the

Cabinet, the Sunday Times can find a

way to find out what is going on.

It's a remarkable story because

apparently Theresa May has slapped

down Boris Johnson for suggesting we

need to be hard against the

Russians. Of all the things Theresa

May might have told Boris Johnson to

shut up about in recent years she

chooses this? I think most people

would back him and say yes we need

to stand up to the Russians.

It is

puzzling on the face of it, does the

story illuminates why she might do

that?

It seems to be indicated that

a lot of ministers are briefing that

they are proceeding Theresa May as

being weak and lacking leadership

and it plays into the idea she has

been limp, to use their word in the

past, apparently she may well thwart

a full enquiry into the death of

Alexander Litvinenko who was

allegedly murdered by Kremlin

foursomes in 2006. Nerve agents

don't come off the shelf and puts

this says. There are only a handful

of agencies in the world capable of

creating this agent which has left

traces apparently in a restaurant,

maybe even in graves and ambulances,

an extraordinarily powerful agent

and you do not get it in Boots

another great coat is that we cannot

have people in the middle of England

threatened by Silent assassins as if

it's OK on the borders of England!

Not in Salisbury!

That's not fair.

The serious point behind that is the

public are really going to start

putting pressure on?

Totally, I

think this is outrageous. In a way,

I think the fact it is Salisbury

brings my bridge as it is because

it's a cliche but it's a very

beautiful, historic city and the

cliche would be you would not

expected to happen there. Dreaming

spires, William Golding wrote a

story about the warranty expired...

Is there not some John Le Carre

action down there?

There is no. GCHQ

is not too far away. However, it is

a terrible cliche but it's the last

place you'd expect it to happen,

walking through a shopping centre,

something we all do with great

frequency and it happened,

apparently and its impacted on many

people. The poor policeman who says

he does not seems up as a hero

rushed to help them, one of his

relatives said he ran towards the

danger Ancelotti admire that person.

He was seriously ill in hospital and

we will hear the diplomatic

ramifications I hope. Just see where

it spends next.

Is there anything

the papers have failed to get to?

Whodunnit is the obvious one.

Everyone is suggesting it is Russia

but we don't know. It seems it's so

obvious it's them but then why have

we not find the smoking gun?

I was

on a press trip with some Russians

when the Malaysian airliner full of

Dutch people were shot down over

Ukraine and we heard in this country

it was definitely Russian backed

forces in Ukraine and the Russian

journalists said of course the CIA

did it. It may be an Russia they are

seeing it as the CIA doing it to

smear us and add to the idea of

anti-Russian sentiment in the West

which has a lot of traction in

Russia.

Were to leave that there

are, there are other stories in the

paper. The crunch some numbers from

HMRC on highly paid men and frankly

less highly paid women.

It's a good

Sunday story I think because this

will be huge in the next few weeks.

Big companies have to report their

gender pay gap so this will really

kick off in the next few weeks. The

Observer have got ahead of the game

with this one. It's a fairly blunt

instrument I would suggest, figures

on how many people earn more than

£100,000, 681,000 men. Those earning

over £1 million 7000 the maximum

10,000 men.

Further down the story is the more

interesting stat that male taxpayers

had a median income of 25,000 and

the few milk and butter 20,000. That

is a shocking gap at the average

level, a £5,000 gap at quite a

low-level and that makes your eyes

pop out, you think how is that

happening?

And that does not include

people who do not pay tax and that

tends to be women because they have

all law paid work. Have they

reported this story or have they

just got ahold of numbers, I don't

see many exciting quotes?

It runs

out of steam fairly quickly and the

continuation but...

Will this do?

It

is a big story, it's shocking, the

question is when we get these

figures in the next few weeks what

will be done about it because it is

undoubtedly going to show huge pay

gaps and of the ones we have had so

far, the bosses tend to say that is

because women work part-time and

work on the shop floor, not the head

office not understanding that the

problem.

Or they are pushed out for

demanding pay rises.

Do I hear a

reference to someone's book coming

up?

In October, yes.

Let's move on,

going to the express.

Yes, they're

what you call it, the budget? The

mini budget? It will get some sort

of strange shorthand I am sure when

it happens. We are a told it's going

to be a fairly minor event, it's not

going to be a big budget yet the

Chancellor is doing around in TV

studios and telling it fairly

heavily with this suggestion that

gross forecasts will be up and there

might be an end to austerity. We

have heard this before suggesting

public servants will get a higher

pay rise and then it hasn't happened

so I don't know what he's up to if

it really is going to happen or if

he will disappoint people again in

which case you might find himself in

a spot of bother.

This is one of the

Chancellor who said there were no

unemployed people in the country

which makes me suspicious. It

reflects that every single story has

to be viewed through the prism of

Brexit because he might say there is

light at the end of the tunnel today

but who knows what will happen in

March next year and beyond when the

economy could fall off a cliff if

certain hard Brexiteers get their

way that's going to happen.

That

would be contested by them.

Guess

they may well but if some were

contending we go to WTO rules I

think all the experts and I know we

don't believe in experts any more,

passing the economy would suffer.

Some people say it will be brilliant

and we will have billions! Kill Max

Orrin a! Take your pick of the

the Mail On Sunday.

I saw an Irish

comedian the other day and he said

if there was a referendum in Ireland

90% of Irish people would vote to

leave Bono. He is deeply unpopular,

something to do with the order of

sanctimony he radiates while there

are still possible questions over

some of his tax arrangements in

Holland. There is just a whiff of

hypocrisy.

This is more off the

charity story.

It gives it more heft

that they can put his picture and he

can be in the headline but the meat

of the story is shocking because

there are allegations and executive

of his charity in inverted commas

pimped out an employee to an MP or

attempted to. To try to get some

leveraged.

That is a truly shocking

allegation.

Bono is not technically

involved but you can stick his name

on it, it feeds into this whole

charity shame and bullying and

sexual harassment and everything but

it's absolutely horrific, some of

the stuff, if it is true it is

terrible. There is also a racial

element because its people based in

South Africa and the suggestion is

this would not have happened in

London or Washington but the bosses

when they are just Africans. So that

another layer of horror.

After Oxfam

and Save the Children and Unicef, is

this the end of this story?

I hope

so because I lament the fact people

have used it, particularly the right

wing, as a stick to bash charities.

Tories talking about lefties

involving charities and everything

charities do particularly in the

developing world is and if matters

certain right-wing people and this

is just another way of seeing

do-gooders do not know what they are

doing and they are messing up but

no, most of them are doing a

fantastic job and helping people

less fortunate which has got to be

supported. We cannot suddenly say we

want nothing to do with it.

But they

had to live bar use. Talking of

that, Mother's Day or do we call it

something else?

I don't really

understand it because my mum is the

best so why is everyone else...

THEY

TALK OVER EACH OTHER

I don't

understand that. Let me rip into

this one, Mother's Day card school

gender neutral. According to the

introduction of this retailers are

introducing the use of the M word to

make the day more transgender

exclusive but there is nothing in

the story to back that up. What they

are doing is introducing new cards,

two mums are better than one, happy

you day, making it more inclusive

which is a nice and good thing.

One

of the messages is bad, thank for

being the most amazing mum. That's

an extraordinary development, even

ten years ago let alone 30 years

ago, that would never have happened.

The fact that is being done by

mainstream companies I think is

brilliant.

Happy story to end on, I

will let you go and celebrate your

mothers, your father is, your youth,

whatever way you want to put it.

Thank you both for coming in.

That's it for The Papers

this Sunday morning.

Don't forget you can see the front

pages of the papers online

on the BBC News website.

It's all there for you -

7 days a week at bbc.co.uk/papers -

and if you miss the programme any

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later on BBC iPlayer

Thank you to my guests.

From us all.

Goodbye.