0:00:15 > 0:00:20Hello and welcome to our look ahead to what the the papers will be
0:00:20 > 0:00:21bringing us tomorrow.
0:00:21 > 0:00:23With me are Martin Bentham, Home Affairs Editor
0:00:23 > 0:00:26at the London Evening Standard and Jason Beattie, Head of Politics
0:00:26 > 0:00:31at the Daily Mirror.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35Good to have you with us. Let's bring you up to date on what the
0:00:35 > 0:00:37front pages are already saying.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40The Telegraph claims the nerve agent used to poison Sergei Skripal
0:00:40 > 0:00:42and his daughter Yulia may have been planted
0:00:42 > 0:00:44in her suitcase.
0:00:44 > 0:00:46Excuse me.
0:00:46 > 0:00:51It pictures a British nuclear-powered submarine,
0:00:51 > 0:00:53deployed in the Arctic.
0:00:53 > 0:00:56The Metro has the headline Putin the Pariah after Britain gained
0:00:56 > 0:00:59the support of the US, France and Germany for blaming
0:00:59 > 0:01:00Russia on the poisoning of the former double agent
0:01:00 > 0:01:02and his daughter.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05The FT also has that story - it pictures Theresa May
0:01:05 > 0:01:13who today visited the scene of the poisoning in Salisbury.
0:01:13 > 0:01:17The Express looks at the World Cup in Russia, questions being faced of
0:01:17 > 0:01:32a mass boycott. The Guardian his talking about Jeremy Corbyn,
0:01:32 > 0:01:40fielding an article saying at his own MPs are rushing ahead of the
0:01:40 > 0:01:47evidence over the poisoning. The Mirror's front page has a picture of
0:01:47 > 0:01:50Poppi Worthington, the terrible case of a young child who died of a
0:01:50 > 0:01:56six-year. -- of asphyxiation.
0:01:56 > 0:02:03Let's begin with The Metro. I am trying to work out if it is terrible
0:02:03 > 0:02:07make-up on Vladimir Putin, and I presume he is not singing?Serious
0:02:07 > 0:02:13story, but this is almost comical. It is almost like a flippant attempt
0:02:13 > 0:02:20to hit back by printing pictures of this notoriously vein, unpleasant
0:02:20 > 0:02:25character, but very vein, looking ridiculous. He's giving a election
0:02:25 > 0:02:29rally, he will win because he has no competition. It looks like he is
0:02:29 > 0:02:33singing, but the serious story on the front, and elsewhere in the
0:02:33 > 0:02:38papers, is the joint declaration by Britain, France, America and the
0:02:38 > 0:02:45Germans, in opposition, denouncing him for the nerve agent attack in
0:02:45 > 0:02:51Salisbury.The Financial Times expands this by saying that Nato
0:02:51 > 0:02:58powers are also lining up. The secretary-general of Nato giving
0:02:58 > 0:03:05strong support for Theresa May and their position. How deep does this
0:03:05 > 0:03:14consensus go, reacting to Russia? Is everybody going to hold the line?
0:03:14 > 0:03:18What we have got is better than what we were expecting, France overnight,
0:03:18 > 0:03:23an agent phone call this morning between Theresa May and Emmanuel
0:03:23 > 0:03:30Macron. They have the words of solidarity. They got the fact that
0:03:30 > 0:03:35they are agreeing that Russia is culpable and this is an act on
0:03:35 > 0:03:41sovereign soil. This is important. What we haven't got, and what was
0:03:41 > 0:03:46partly missing from Theresa May's statement, is what we are going to
0:03:46 > 0:03:52do about it. They can condemn, but is that as far as it goes? The show
0:03:52 > 0:03:59of solidarity is going to be welcome. Even though we have a
0:03:59 > 0:04:02difficult relationship with the United States, even though we are
0:04:02 > 0:04:07leaving the European Union, we still have these international ties. Do we
0:04:07 > 0:04:12need to go further in terms of can we get sanctions, allies in Europe,
0:04:12 > 0:04:23very important'sI mean, for the next year we have to do this, he is
0:04:23 > 0:04:27still the foreign policy organ of which we are part?It is, to an
0:04:27 > 0:04:36extent, although we also have Nato and the Americans. Previously, the
0:04:36 > 0:04:40Litvinenko killing, there was reluctance among some of European
0:04:40 > 0:04:45partners to take action. Since then, we have had the Crimea and Ukraine,
0:04:45 > 0:04:49much more vigorous action is being taken. The story today, the
0:04:49 > 0:04:51Americans have unveiled fresh sanctions relating to interference
0:04:51 > 0:04:56in their election. There is already quite a lot of sanctions in place
0:04:56 > 0:05:03against Russians. I think the first problem is to identify exactly who
0:05:03 > 0:05:06to add to any sanctions list, and the second problem is, after you
0:05:06 > 0:05:14have done that, to identify whether those people then have international
0:05:14 > 0:05:17consensus to support that. That will potentially take a little bit of
0:05:17 > 0:05:21time, because it is not a straightforward thing. We have got
0:05:21 > 0:05:25to operate reasonably, within the rule of law, and find a proper
0:05:25 > 0:05:29justification for imposing sanctions.The justification could
0:05:29 > 0:05:33well come out of the sort of stories that the Daily Telegraph has on the
0:05:33 > 0:05:38front page, the nerve agent planted in the daughter's suitcase? She had
0:05:38 > 0:05:45come to visit dad from her home in Russia. What do you make of that?I
0:05:45 > 0:05:53problem is that I am not a professor of chemicals, and not an expert. I
0:05:53 > 0:05:58am not up on the dark arts of assassination. I don't know how this
0:05:58 > 0:06:05would work. This is a highly toxic agent that they have used, Novichok.
0:06:05 > 0:06:12Visit transportable? So, you plant it in the suitcase. That is it
0:06:12 > 0:06:17transportable. Possibly you put it in a cosmetic, did then know she was
0:06:17 > 0:06:21going to go to this location, Coogee open it earlier? Anybody could be
0:06:21 > 0:06:25harmed by that. It seems a very imprecise way of trying to take out
0:06:25 > 0:06:30or attempt to take out your attempted target. It does not stack
0:06:30 > 0:06:34up for me. There are all sorts of theories we could speculate on.
0:06:34 > 0:06:39Maybe this is the one the Telegraph has chosen to go with.The truth is
0:06:39 > 0:06:43that we don't know and there has been a wall of silence from the
0:06:43 > 0:06:49police and intelligence agency sources about the detailed
0:06:49 > 0:06:53investigation in this particular circumstance. Part of that is
0:06:53 > 0:06:55understandable because they want to identify exactly who the culprits
0:06:55 > 0:06:58are. They don't want publicity necessarily getting in the way of
0:06:58 > 0:07:04it. It makes it difficult to stand up exactly what has happened. The
0:07:04 > 0:07:08Telegraph says intelligence agencies now believe, it seems to have senior
0:07:08 > 0:07:13sources telling it that, it may turn out to be correct or may not be.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16Does that, in some ways, just fired the apparent caution of Jeremy
0:07:16 > 0:07:21Corbyn, picked up on the front of the Guardian, and appears to have
0:07:21 > 0:07:26caused such pranksters among his MPs? Saying, yes, we can go for
0:07:26 > 0:07:33Russia, but we need to follow where the evidence leads? -- caused such
0:07:33 > 0:07:39consternation.There seems to be a contradiction at the heart of the
0:07:39 > 0:07:46article. As you said, the wounds within the Labour Party were quite
0:07:46 > 0:07:51dramatically reopened by the response. A lot of his MPs are on
0:07:51 > 0:07:54the same page in terms of domestic policies, but they have this big
0:07:54 > 0:07:58rupture with the leadership on foreign policy in particular. What
0:07:58 > 0:08:05he hasn't done is try to heal those wounds in any way. That is quite
0:08:05 > 0:08:12interesting.Pressure, even from his Defence Secretary, Shadow Defence
0:08:12 > 0:08:19Secretary, saying it was Russia and we have to follow...Yes, and the
0:08:19 > 0:08:23contradiction was that he was saying yes, it is right we expel diplomats,
0:08:23 > 0:08:26it is right we take tough action, but I'm still not convinced it was
0:08:26 > 0:08:38necessarily the Kremlin behind this. That is what is causing such an --
0:08:38 > 0:08:41angst. Distrust of the security sources, for understandable reasons
0:08:41 > 0:08:45because we got it wrong on Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction.
0:08:45 > 0:08:53Secondly, because it is, in terms of national security, is he being seen
0:08:53 > 0:08:56as weak on this? It could play badly with Labour supporters in
0:08:56 > 0:09:00traditional areas.I'm sure it will do. The difference between this
0:09:00 > 0:09:06article and the Daily Telegraph's claim about how it happened, the
0:09:06 > 0:09:09Porton down scientists have identified it as a particular nerve
0:09:09 > 0:09:12agent that was manufactured in Russia, could only have come from
0:09:12 > 0:09:15there, according to these people, they are not actually the
0:09:15 > 0:09:21intelligence agencies, they are something different. I think we got
0:09:21 > 0:09:24to have faith in what their conclusion is. If that is the case,
0:09:24 > 0:09:29there are two scenarios, but even the most generous one is that the
0:09:29 > 0:09:33Russians have lost control, and if not them, they are showing contempt,
0:09:33 > 0:09:39a lack of desire to cooperate and explain the circumstances.The nerve
0:09:39 > 0:09:43agent story takes up almost three quarters of the front page of the
0:09:43 > 0:09:48space available on the Guardian, we also have Theresa May receiving
0:09:48 > 0:09:52flowers in Salisbury. This other story, which might have got a bigger
0:09:52 > 0:09:58treatment from the Guardian, this is the HSBC, seeming to be the worst
0:09:58 > 0:10:03offender in terms of the gender pay gap?So far! It is quite a tough
0:10:03 > 0:10:09race at the moment. The BBC did quite good running, then we got ITN,
0:10:09 > 0:10:18even worse. And Trinity Mirror has come in, not as bad as ITN, and then
0:10:18 > 0:10:22HSBC seems to be determined to take the crown of the worst possible gap,
0:10:22 > 0:10:26quite remarkable, considering that banks probably had the money to do
0:10:26 > 0:10:32this.There should be able to do something to close the gap. This is
0:10:32 > 0:10:37an interesting story, if we go back to the FT. The Unilever moved to
0:10:37 > 0:10:43Rotterdam. It seemed an obvious one for pro and anti Brexit forces to
0:10:43 > 0:10:47lock horns over, but it's not as simple as that?The FT has had a go
0:10:47 > 0:10:54at it, Theresa May, Herb Brexit row of business as usual has been
0:10:54 > 0:10:58dented, they say. Unilever have said it is nothing to do with Brexit. It
0:10:58 > 0:11:04seems to be more to do with takeover rules and so on. Secondly, there
0:11:04 > 0:11:08were some fairly apocalyptic warnings from Unilever before the
0:11:08 > 0:11:10referendum about serious consequences if we voted to leave.
0:11:10 > 0:11:15In this case, although there is a significant thing happening, in that
0:11:15 > 0:11:20the headquarters is moving, the joint headquarters is moving to
0:11:20 > 0:11:24Rotterdam, at the same time...It is the managers and book-keepers but
0:11:24 > 0:11:28not the makers?The jobs are staying here, and Unilever says it is
0:11:28 > 0:11:34manufacturing two main things... Marmite still being made in Britain.
0:11:34 > 0:11:41You can have the same...You can't have both things on the same
0:11:41 > 0:11:48sandwich.Doesn't appear to be Brexit related.They start reporting
0:11:48 > 0:11:55about corporate taxes, going to the Netherlands instead of Britain. I
0:11:55 > 0:12:06think Brexit is a subsidiary factor. We will pass over the Google story,
0:12:06 > 0:12:08apparently they are spending tens of millions of pounds on think tanks
0:12:08 > 0:12:12that Baggott policies, not perhaps hugely surprising, that is what
0:12:12 > 0:12:17companies do. The most intriguing thing of all, it is a long time
0:12:17 > 0:12:24since I saw JFK on the front of a British newspaper, why?They have
0:12:24 > 0:12:27recreated a speech he would have given before he was shot with
0:12:27 > 0:12:34technology.This is where he was going when he was shot?They have
0:12:34 > 0:12:37managed, through combat engineering and so on, to analyse his speeches
0:12:37 > 0:12:44from before and recreate his work pattern, basically give this speech.
0:12:44 > 0:12:48This is a fascinating piece of historical re-enactment. You now
0:12:48 > 0:12:53have this ability to actually create a video of a politician, a serving
0:12:53 > 0:13:00politician, getting them to say whatever you want. The fake news,
0:13:00 > 0:13:05the disinformation...In elections. Misleading the public, you have
0:13:05 > 0:13:10these things go viral on the internet, it is very, very high. I
0:13:10 > 0:13:19can also see the downside, while I like this.On the upside, are there
0:13:19 > 0:13:23people that are recent enough, that there will be film and video of
0:13:23 > 0:13:28them, that you would like to hear speaking again?Yes, there will be,
0:13:28 > 0:13:34of course. That would be absolutely fascinating. I tend to agree with
0:13:34 > 0:13:39you, the dangers of it probably greater in the modern era of fake
0:13:39 > 0:13:45news spreading.First, the famous speech, the body of a man... That
0:13:45 > 0:13:54was actually written after she said it. All of my illusions are being
0:13:54 > 0:13:57shattered.Jason and Martin, thank you both very much. Pleasure to have
0:13:57 > 0:14:01you with us. That is all from the papers tonight. You can see the
0:14:01 > 0:14:05front pages online as soon as we get them on the BBC News website. It is
0:14:05 > 0:14:09all there for you, seven days a week. If you missed the programme,
0:14:09 > 0:14:13you can watch it later on BBC iPlayer.
0:14:13 > 0:14:15Thank you Martin Bentham and Jason Beattie.
0:14:15 > 0:14:16Goodbye.
0:14:18 > 0:14:19The