15/03/2018 The Papers

Hello and welcome to our look ahead

to what the the papers will be

bringing us tomorrow.

With me are Martin Bentham,

Home Affairs Editor

at the London Evening Standard

and Jason Beattie, Head of Politics

at the Daily Mirror.

Good to have you with us. Let's

bring you up to date on what the

front pages are already saying.

The Telegraph claims the nerve agent

used to poison Sergei Skripal

and his daughter Yulia

may have been planted

in her suitcase.

Excuse me.

It pictures a British

nuclear-powered submarine,

deployed in the Arctic.

The Metro has the headline Putin

the Pariah after Britain gained

the support of the US,

France and Germany for blaming

Russia on the poisoning

of the former double agent

and his daughter.

The FT also has that story -

it pictures Theresa May

who today visited the scene

of the poisoning in Salisbury.

The Express looks at the World Cup

in Russia, questions being faced of

a mass boycott. The Guardian his

talking about Jeremy Corbyn,

fielding an article saying at his

own MPs are rushing ahead of the

evidence over the poisoning. The

Mirror's front page has a picture of

Poppi Worthington, the terrible case

of a young child who died of a

six-year. -- of asphyxiation.

Let's begin with The Metro. I am

trying to work out if it is terrible

make-up on Vladimir Putin, and I

presume he is not singing?

Serious

story, but this is almost comical.

It is almost like a flippant attempt

to hit back by printing pictures of

this notoriously vein, unpleasant

character, but very vein, looking

ridiculous. He's giving a election

rally, he will win because he has no

competition. It looks like he is

singing, but the serious story on

the front, and elsewhere in the

papers, is the joint declaration by

Britain, France, America and the

Germans, in opposition, denouncing

him for the nerve agent attack in

Salisbury.

The Financial Times

expands this by saying that Nato

powers are also lining up. The

secretary-general of Nato giving

strong support for Theresa May and

their position. How deep does this

consensus go, reacting to Russia? Is

everybody going to hold the line?

What we have got is better than what

we were expecting, France overnight,

an agent phone call this morning

between Theresa May and Emmanuel

Macron. They have the words of

solidarity. They got the fact that

they are agreeing that Russia is

culpable and this is an act on

sovereign soil. This is important.

What we haven't got, and what was

partly missing from Theresa May's

statement, is what we are going to

do about it. They can condemn, but

is that as far as it goes? The show

of solidarity is going to be

welcome. Even though we have a

difficult relationship with the

United States, even though we are

leaving the European Union, we still

have these international ties. Do we

need to go further in terms of can

we get sanctions, allies in Europe,

very important's

I mean, for the

next year we have to do this, he is

still the foreign policy organ of

which we are part?

It is, to an

extent, although we also have Nato

and the Americans. Previously, the

Litvinenko killing, there was

reluctance among some of European

partners to take action. Since then,

we have had the Crimea and Ukraine,

much more vigorous action is being

taken. The story today, the

Americans have unveiled fresh

sanctions relating to interference

in their election. There is already

quite a lot of sanctions in place

against Russians. I think the first

problem is to identify exactly who

to add to any sanctions list, and

the second problem is, after you

have done that, to identify whether

those people then have international

consensus to support that. That will

potentially take a little bit of

time, because it is not a

straightforward thing. We have got

to operate reasonably, within the

rule of law, and find a proper

justification for imposing

sanctions.

The justification could

well come out of the sort of stories

that the Daily Telegraph has on the

front page, the nerve agent planted

in the daughter's suitcase? She had

come to visit dad from her home in

Russia. What do you make of that?

I

problem is that I am not a professor

of chemicals, and not an expert. I

am not up on the dark arts of

assassination. I don't know how this

would work. This is a highly toxic

agent that they have used, Novichok.

Visit transportable? So, you plant

it in the suitcase. That is it

transportable. Possibly you put it

in a cosmetic, did then know she was

going to go to this location, Coogee

open it earlier? Anybody could be

harmed by that. It seems a very

imprecise way of trying to take out

or attempt to take out your

attempted target. It does not stack

up for me. There are all sorts of

theories we could speculate on.

Maybe this is the one the Telegraph

has chosen to go with.

The truth is

that we don't know and there has

been a wall of silence from the

police and intelligence agency

sources about the detailed

investigation in this particular

circumstance. Part of that is

understandable because they want to

identify exactly who the culprits

are. They don't want publicity

necessarily getting in the way of

it. It makes it difficult to stand

up exactly what has happened. The

Telegraph says intelligence agencies

now believe, it seems to have senior

sources telling it that, it may turn

out to be correct or may not be.

Does that, in some ways, just fired

the apparent caution of Jeremy

Corbyn, picked up on the front of

the Guardian, and appears to have

caused such pranksters among his

MPs? Saying, yes, we can go for

Russia, but we need to follow where

the evidence leads? -- caused such

consternation.

There seems to be a

contradiction at the heart of the

article. As you said, the wounds

within the Labour Party were quite

dramatically reopened by the

response. A lot of his MPs are on

the same page in terms of domestic

policies, but they have this big

rupture with the leadership on

foreign policy in particular. What

he hasn't done is try to heal those

wounds in any way. That is quite

interesting.

Pressure, even from his

Defence Secretary, Shadow Defence

Secretary, saying it was Russia and

we have to follow...

Yes, and the

contradiction was that he was saying

yes, it is right we expel diplomats,

it is right we take tough action,

but I'm still not convinced it was

necessarily the Kremlin behind this.

That is what is causing such an --

angst. Distrust of the security

sources, for understandable reasons

because we got it wrong on Iraq and

the weapons of mass destruction.

Secondly, because it is, in terms of

national security, is he being seen

as weak on this? It could play badly

with Labour supporters in

traditional areas.

I'm sure it will

do. The difference between this

article and the Daily Telegraph's

claim about how it happened, the

Porton down scientists have

identified it as a particular nerve

agent that was manufactured in

Russia, could only have come from

there, according to these people,

they are not actually the

intelligence agencies, they are

something different. I think we got

to have faith in what their

conclusion is. If that is the case,

there are two scenarios, but even

the most generous one is that the

Russians have lost control, and if

not them, they are showing contempt,

a lack of desire to cooperate and

explain the circumstances.

The nerve

agent story takes up almost three

quarters of the front page of the

space available on the Guardian, we

also have Theresa May receiving

flowers in Salisbury. This other

story, which might have got a bigger

treatment from the Guardian, this is

the HSBC, seeming to be the worst

offender in terms of the gender pay

gap?

So far! It is quite a tough

race at the moment. The BBC did

quite good running, then we got ITN,

even worse. And Trinity Mirror has

come in, not as bad as ITN, and then

HSBC seems to be determined to take

the crown of the worst possible gap,

quite remarkable, considering that

banks probably had the money to do

this.

There should be able to do

something to close the gap. This is

an interesting story, if we go back

to the FT. The Unilever moved to

Rotterdam. It seemed an obvious one

for pro and anti Brexit forces to

lock horns over, but it's not as

simple as that?

The FT has had a go

at it, Theresa May, Herb Brexit row

of business as usual has been

dented, they say. Unilever have said

it is nothing to do with Brexit. It

seems to be more to do with takeover

rules and so on. Secondly, there

were some fairly apocalyptic

warnings from Unilever before the

referendum about serious

consequences if we voted to leave.

In this case, although there is a

significant thing happening, in that

the headquarters is moving, the

joint headquarters is moving to

Rotterdam, at the same time...

It is

the managers and book-keepers but

not the makers?

The jobs are staying

here, and Unilever says it is

manufacturing two main things...

Marmite still being made in Britain.

You can have the same...

You can't

have both things on the same

sandwich.

Doesn't appear to be

Brexit related.

They start reporting

about corporate taxes, going to the

Netherlands instead of Britain. I

think Brexit is a subsidiary factor.

We will pass over the Google story,

apparently they are spending tens of

millions of pounds on think tanks

that Baggott policies, not perhaps

hugely surprising, that is what

companies do. The most intriguing

thing of all, it is a long time

since I saw JFK on the front of a

British newspaper, why?

They have

recreated a speech he would have

given before he was shot with

technology.

This is where he was

going when he was shot?

They have

managed, through combat engineering

and so on, to analyse his speeches

from before and recreate his work

pattern, basically give this speech.

This is a fascinating piece of

historical re-enactment. You now

have this ability to actually create

a video of a politician, a serving

politician, getting them to say

whatever you want. The fake news,

the disinformation...

In elections.

Misleading the public, you have

these things go viral on the

internet, it is very, very high. I

can also see the downside, while I

like this.

On the upside, are there

people that are recent enough, that

there will be film and video of

them, that you would like to hear

speaking again?

Yes, there will be,

of course. That would be absolutely

fascinating. I tend to agree with

you, the dangers of it probably

greater in the modern era of fake

news spreading.

First, the famous

speech, the body of a man... That

was actually written after she said

it. All of my illusions are being

shattered.

Jason and Martin, thank

you both very much. Pleasure to have

you with us. That is all from the

papers tonight. You can see the

front pages online as soon as we get

them on the BBC News website. It is

all there for you, seven days a

week. If you missed the programme,

you can watch it later on BBC

iPlayer.

Thank you Martin Bentham

and Jason Beattie.

Goodbye.

The