14/03/2018 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Hugh Muir,

Associate Editor at

The Guardian and Steve Hawkes,

Deputy Political Editor at The Sun.

Many of tomorrow's front

pages are already in.

Tomorrow's front pages,

starting with...

The Financial Times,

which has a picture

of a smiling Stephen Hawking,

who has died at the age of 76 today.

The I has a special edition tomorrow

celebrating the life

of the mathematician,

who was hailed as 'The greatest

British thinker since Newton'.

The Metro turns its attentions to

events in Parliament with a rather

blunt interpretation of Theresa

May's expulsion of 23 Russian

diplomats.

'Push offski'.

The Guardian says they treated the

British deadline with sarcasm,

contempt and defiance.

The Sun says Jeremy Corbyn is

eating's puppet after he refused to

accept proof Moscow was behind the

attack.

The male says the Labour leader

disowned by his colleagues for

failing to back Theresa May's tough

stance against Russia.

Meanwhile, the Daily Express claims

that a Russian businessman found

dead at his London home earlier this

week was on Putin's 'hit-list'.

The Telegraph has a warning from the

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson

that Britain cannot sit back as he

unveils measures to tackle can call

and biological warfare.

So, Stephen Hawking and the Prime

Minister's sanctions sharing the

front pages. Let's start with the

Metro and that stop headline Push

Offski. 23 spies to be rejected,

talking about a boycott of the World

Cup. The headline is Theresa May,

what she said, will make a

difference?

It sounds robust and

they are trying to the impact in not

any one single measure but a

complete package of measures. The

ejection of what they call

undeclared agents. Spies, I think!

If they knew they were here, why not

fling them out before? The Royal

Family will be down about not going

to the World Cup. So the general

package is supposed to provide the

force here. But it is very difficult

because what she needs to do is to

looked off and make it look as if

she is responding in a robust way.

-- to look tough. But there is not

much you can do. The Russians have

given her no scope for any

meaningful action. She does not

really have allies to go to to put

together any real package to get

Moscow's attention. So to some

extent, I think it is bluster and

from the reaction from the Russians

today, they kind of know that.

That

is the big issue, how much

international support Theresa May

can get. She spoke to various

leaders and they sound supportive,

the question is whether it is more

than words.

We saw friends hedging

its bets today. And the US were very

strong that the Security Council

tonight -- two. It is the last thing

Theresa May needs, she is stuck with

Brexit and imploding Tory Party and

the West relations with Russia since

1985. I think the key thing is how

Russia retaliates and what it does

tomorrow. And as the Metro picks up,

the World Cup, we will send a team

and what happens to the fans who

have bought tickets, now thinking

about in three months' time, can we

be safe? What will happen in Moscow?

And they have to budget travel

advice nearer the time.

There was

travel advice to date saying be

aware of anti-British sentiment,

three months before the tournament

begins.

The second page of the

Guardian. What you are talking

about, Russia threatens retaliation.

Presumably, they will expel our

people from Moscow, that would be

expected. The fear is whether it

goes further. One Minister said

today, this is just the beginning,

not the end. The UK is expecting

some kind of retaliation.

A big

worry basing to be taking their

time. There is no particular

pressure. So the reaction today has

been pretty much, as Theresa May

said, sarcasm and defiance. We saw

them mocking her reaction to it so

far. Today at the United Nations,

they have been pretty jocular to

some extent about the way they have

reacted. If the hope was she would

get their attention, she does not

seem to have done that in the wake

she would have hoped.

And the other

hand, she does not have the option

to do nothing. She has to react. A

nerve agent used on British soil.

She has to say and do something and

a lot of MPs talking about this

Magnitsky Act that could get to

people they have not got to before

from Russia.

There is a limit, what

can you do to change the way Russia

behaves?

They have invaded Ukraine

and annexed Crimea and they tried to

assassinate, if you believe

everything, the President of

Montenegro. There is a limit to what

she can do. This is a good day for

Theresa May and what she does well,

we have seen her in environments

where she does not do well, but she

has studied the evidence, she goes

into the hand and -- house and

commands the stage and delivers. How

much will this change behaviour? She

is under threat with Brexit, how

does the world rally round to help?

I agree to some extent, but I think

have seen Theresa May on the set

piece occasions looking really

impressive. It is the delivery. You

have the sense there is a pattern of

her having a good day and in the

days that followed, everything

either not coming to fruition or

unravelling.

The Telegraph have a

different angle. Something we have

heard from different Conservative

MPs about bolstering defences, a lot

saying spending 2% of GDP on defence

is not enough and we have to do more

when it comes to things like cyber

attacks. Gavin Williamson the

Defence Secretary making a big

speech tomorrow where he will call

for exactly that.

This is about the

country want to be in the future, do

we spend more on defence or the NHS

which marked the Defence Secretary

with a big speech talking about more

preparation for chemical warfare.

Every soldier will be VAX --

vaccinated against anthrax. Gavin

Williamson again is speaking to the

Telegraph, the mainstay of the Tory

vote, suggesting more about his

plans for the future!

At a time of

apparent crisis, you have the

internal Tory agony is playing out.

Gavin Williamson making a speech as

part of his wider plan. The

Telegraph have merged this into

their story about what is happening

with Russia.

I guess it is the time

to strike when this is happening.

To

ask for more money. This was on the

grid, but interesting where it has

gone. To be fair to Gavin

Williamson, last month, he said,

Russia is a huge threat. Cyber plots

all the time. Everybody said, what

is he on?

But look what has

happened. It does add to the feeling

that as crises occur, what takes

precedence is the internal

machinations of the Conservative

Party.

The Daily Express, this is

the headline, the case of Nikolai

Glushkov, found dead in Kingston,

London, this week, so suggestion of

foul play. But talking to people

today, they say there is no evidence

of that, but the counterterrorism

police had been brought in to look

at it which is quite significant.

This goes to the idea of a hit list.

We will get onto this with Labour.

The idea of the evidence. The nerve

agent used as a calling card to say,

if you mess with us, Putin is

saying, if you betray Russia, you

will come to a grisly end. Now every

death of a Russian in England will

be perhaps linked to a hit list.

Do

you think people are getting

alarmed? This is directed at certain

people potentially, but the

public...

They will get alarmed

because these are not things they

can deploy precisely. As we see with

what happened in Salisbury, other

people were affected. Not least the

first police officer on the scene,

said people are alarmed and they

have a right to be so. The thing

that worries me, things do seem to

be spiralling out of control to some

extent, in that if what we see is

right, Russia appears to almost be

able to act with impunity. And we

don't seem able on our own to do

very much about that. I think that

speaks to the fact we don't have any

sort of international consensus on

what to do about Russia. It is

difficult to deal with this on our

own. We going to need allies and

that is something we are struggling

with.

And in theory, there are two

killers walking around Britain with

a bag of nerve agent.

Now, Putin's

poppet. A pretty big row in the

Labour Party today after Jeremy

Corbyn got up and did not

specifically blame Russia and a lot

of Labour MPs unhappy.

A huge story

tomorrow. Near Griffiths the Shadow

Defence Secretary has come out in a

scathing attack on Jeremy Corbyn and

Emily Thornberry made it very clear

she disagreed with the official

stance.

His quite important speech.

And this is going to run. We have

heard rumours of a resignation from

the Shadow Cabinet and Jeremy Corbyn

has said, this is a despicable act,

but he did not condemn Russia or

blame Russia.

He says there is not

enough evidence yet.

And his Chief

of Staff said, remember the WMD, it

was never proven, how can we prove

this? Corbyn is a pacifist but it

will cause so many ruptures in

labour.

We need to talk about

Stephen Hawking before we run out of

time, who died today and people talk

about him is possibly the most

famous scientist since Newton. It is

incredible. He had this populism

which not many scientists have.

He

is one of the National treasures,

the national treasure's National

treasure. He was so loved across the

country by people who probably did

not understand the first thing! --

we are amongst them. But he was much

loved. On personal grounds, we know

that when he was 21, he was

diagnosed with motor neurone disease

and was told he had to agree is, an

extraordinary thing to get to this

age. And there is his scientific

expertise which are extraordinary.

At the Guardian, we would claim him

in terms of the progressive things

he did, particularly his advocacy on

behalf of the NHS. Put that

together, and you have someone that

when they pass, you feel as a

newspaper that you really want to

pull out all the stops and to do

them justice, and I think you'll

find in all the papers tomorrow,

they do that.

Just quickly, another

story which caught our eye about the

Government saving the pennies after

a bit of a storm caused mainly by

you, Steve, that they were going to

scrap...

The fact we can talk about

one of the greatest scientist

honoured and we get to a row about

the pennies! This sums up the darker

side, the black hole of government

communications! One David Treasury

puts out a call for evidence of the

future of money which suggests one

and to be coins will be short for

the world and then, we never said

that! And the next day, Downing

Street says, we listen the public,

it it is not going to happen and

they are targeting a £50 note

because it is a bigger problem with

forgeries. I think there have been

four budget U-turns. This went in

less than 24 hours.

We will finish

with the cartoon. It says, the old

wishing well. And then it says, no

copper coins, contactless card

payment only. So that is the end of

pennies because nobody uses them any

more. Or not.

Do you like them? I

don't think many people use them but

it is another step in the erosion of

money.

One group is very happy,

amusement arcade operators, they are

over the moon.

That's true.

That's it for The Papers tonight.

Don't forget, you can see the front

pages of the papers online

on the BBC News website.

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Thank you very much. Good night.

Thank you very much. Good night.