18/03/2018 The Papers

June Arsenal and Charlton, and

Sunderland versus Manchester city. I

am sure there would be more to add

to that later on in the day, but for

now it is time for the papers.

With me are the journalist

and broadcaster Rachel Shabi

and the Associate Editor

of the Times, Anne Ashworth.

Let's have a look then at this

mornings front pages.

The Observer has an interview

with a whistle-blower who alleges

that information from millions

of Facebook users may have been used

by a data company, during the 2016

US presidential election.

Both companies deny any wrongdoing.

The Mail On Sunday says Theresa May

is planning a crackdown

on what the paper calls

Putin's McMafia - associates

of the Russian President

with money in the UK.

The Sunday Times warns that

a Russian cyber-attack could turn

the lights out in Britain.

It reports that the

National Grid is on alert.

The Sunday Express has more

on Theresa May putting

pressure on Moscow -

with a possible travel ban

for 1,000 Russian tycoons.

The Sunday Telegraph

leads on the same story -

as well as a photograph of a smiling

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

at a St Patrick's Day parade

of the Irish Guards.

And the Sunday Mirror leads

on the sex abuse scandal in Telford,

quoting a police insider who says

it was 'too much trouble' to crack

down on grooming gangs.

The mail on Sunday lead on McMafia

millions. Is this the new stage

targeting the money?

It seems to be.

It does seem to be a sensible thing

to do when you think about that

their lots of Russian oligarchs in

the UK using the UK as a means of

laundering some money acquired. If

there are assets in their right to

be in the UK is copper mines, then

they will be irritated with Putin

for precipitating the situation.

Theresa May making it easier to

seize these... Ways to curb that.

These are all, I think, the right

approach, but it is interesting,

because this is exactly what Jeremy

Corbyn was suggesting that we do,

and when he did that, he was laughed

at, whereas now that she was

digesting it, she is being rightly

lauded. The Conservatives actually

sat down the Labour amendment, to

discuss... But also take it further

by leaking it to human rights

violators making it easier to go

after human rights violators. That

meeting was very quickly shut down

by the Conservative Government, it

was supposed to be a three-hour

hearing, and it was closed after

half an hour. Before any of this

happened, you had the Labour

amendment trying to bring these

measures through, and it was

completely shut down.

And what are

your thoughts on this? You think

that Theresa May needs to go

further?

I think the adjective

church alien -- Churchillian was

used yesterday. However, it is a

very, very tricky path that they are

trying to go down. Because, visas

you can make more difficult... The

situation is that we have already

got a great deal of Russian money

already invested in this country,

and it is very difficult to see how

we could make life so uncomfortable

for these oligarchs and that they

would turn on Putin, because many of

them are not necessarily friends of

Putin. Some of them are said to be

Putin's cronies. They are not all

Putin's cronies. What are these

emergency laws? Will we have sudden

tax rises? More tax on their

properties? It is not quite clear.

It is all in the round of rhetoric

at the moment, and there is not too

much that is concrete to hang up on.

You mention Jeremy Corbyn.

I think

that Theresa May has handled this

correctly. I wouldn't necessarily

say the same thing of some of her

ministers. I find some of their

rhetoric unhelpful, bordering on

childish and very and idiomatic,

when you look at the sort of thing

that Gavin Williamson and Boris

Johnson have been saying. But, this

whole week has been really appalling

in the way that the Leader of the

Opposition has been treated, I

understand that people don't like

him, and that is one thing, but some

people, I wish they could get past

that. And get a bit of accurate

reporting.

Plenty of his own

backbenchers were not happy with his

performance.

And do some accurate

reporting of

performance.

And do some accurate

reporting of what he actually said.

That was exactly the same as what

Theresa May said. All the evidence

base it highly likely that the

Russian state was either directly or

indirectly responsible for the

Salisbury

indirectly responsible for the

Salisbury attack. All that she is

asking for is international law. At

the moment, it isn't exactly at this

moment that we need to call ahead

and say, hang on, let's slow down,

let's follow due process. That is

all he did.

Beds have a quick look

at the Sunday Telegraph would also

spattered on this. A similar story,

really. Britain to punish Putin's

cronies, but they also took the

about the possibility, leader of the

Scottish Conservatives saying that

Britain should pull the plug on

Russia today.

It has got a tiny

number of viewers. What a terrible

crew that would be for Putin.

So you

think that would backfire?

I think

we need to be very measured, here.

Yes it would backfire. It is very

interesting that most of Corbyn's

backbenchers take a different view

of him. I think people would have

been horrified... Russian gangsters

and being transported to the British

Isles.

Rachel, the Sunday Times, I

suppose the threat that Russia might

intensify might

suppose the threat that Russia might

intensify might put it up another

notch.

This one is scary, isn't it?

Of course it is scary, I am not and

nine at one second, I am just saying

that it is exactly at this moment a

time of international crisis that

our values

time of international crisis that

our values and our commitment to

international law is tested, and if

these are things that we believe in,

then this is the moment to show that

we believe in them.

But this is a

suggestion that the Russians could

cut our power supplies.

That is

terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

But we know... Rusher is a malign

actor around the world with these

horrifying attacks. We look at their

support in Syria, we look at

potential invitations with

manipulating social media in order

to do distort potentially election

is both in the UK and in the US. We

know that it has capacity to engage

in this kind of cyber warfare, and

the National Grid, according to the

Sunday Times was put on alert this

week by our national cyber Security

Centre saying that you need to step

up the security in case there is

such an attack. And of course it is

terrifying.

It turns the Cold War

into a cyber war. How this war will

play out, we have got nothing to

judge this by. We have seen huge

amount of writing about the Cold

War, and the lessons that we learn

from that. But the lessons that we

learned from that will not

necessarily be useful in the ways in

which Russia can attack us, through

our electricity supplies. It is a

very, very interesting one. I am

sure that people have Origi started

to write books about this one.

What

about the rhetoric of some of the

politicians, you mentioned Boris

Johnson. He has got a piece saying

resisting a bully is risky, but it

is right. Ie Critical of the things

that he has been saying and what he

says he?

Yes, I am very critical. It

compares very starkly with what

Theresa May is saying, and I wonder

what she has to say about this. This

uses hyperbole and rhetoric.

Ratcheting up and inflaming a

situation. Look, we are dealing with

an authoritarian ruler of a country

with nuclear weapons. The last thing

we want is this kind of language

from our Foreign Secretary.

But he

is just calling it as it is. He is

saying it is reckless. It is.

But

assuming that he he doesn't know any

more than Theresa May knows at this

stage, all she is saying is that the

Russian state was highly likely to

be responsible for the nerve agent.

We don't know whether it is directly

or indirectly, yet. It is incredibly

reckless and dangerous and not

diplomatic to be ratcheting things

up.

Just while we talk about Boris

Johnson, we have just heard that he

has said in the last few minutes,

that experts will come to Britain on

Monday tomorrow, in fact, to test

samples of the nerve agent, so that

it quite interesting.

That is

exactly what Corbyn was calling for,

and was laughed at, so here we are.

Whatever you think of him, it is a

very beautifully well argued these,

and you know, you have got to bow.

He does it well.

His way with words.

You have got to... That will

resonate with a lot of Sun readers

this morning.

The Observer, they

have got a thing about Facebook,

that files were taken in a record

dated -- dated breach.

Never do an

online quiz. It is a way for them to

harvest your information so that it

is proved. These people that did a

psychological quiz, quite

innocently, hoping to find out more

about themselves, their details were

stolen, those of all their Facebook

friends were stolen, and then used

in programmes to... For the American

election by this company, Cambridge

analytics, in which they were

supposed to have reveals people's in

the demons in a way that... What we

use and what we say, and what we

write online, reveals more about

ourselves, and it was used in the

American election. I think this is

an extraordinary story which makes

you think, how much of this

information have we already given

away? And some of this information

is said to be still the sale on the

Web.

Rachel, are you careful what

you put on this the? Are you on

Facebook?

I try to be. This is an

incredible is the port. It is in the

Observer as well as the New York

Times. They both have is

whistle-blower, that is what makes

it so strong. He was one of the

founders of Cambridge analytics, and

at that time they were approached by

a tram supporter, Robert Mercer and

Stephen Bannon, who was trumped's --

Trump's key adviser at the time.

They had to devise this means

targeting people for political

campaigning online, using

psychological profiles, and they

didn't at that time have that model,

and that is when they decided to

exploit Facebook quote, to harvest

50 million profiles. They will use

without those people knowing that

that was going to happen. I do

think... Facebook of course there's

that this was not really a breach,

because the researchers to open the

floodgates in this way did so "In a

legitimate way and in the proper

channels"...

Would anybody's

information whose was used in this

way regarded as through the proper

channels. We have gotten very tough

data protection rules in this

country which are being toughened up

again. It seems that silicon valley

people seem to operate outside that

key regulation. I have got lots of

younger friends who are coming off

Facebook because they want to retain

some privacy. I just wonder whether

this would be the moment... The

access changes, and we start to

become distrustful of social media,

rather than happy to commit to it,

all our innermost secrets,

financial, personal and otherwise.

I

think that is right.

There is a lot

of good faith, here. Facebook has

suspended its links with the cable

company. Although it is said that

they knew about it two years ago.

OK, all right. Great front-page

story, but am afraid we have run out

of time. Good to have you both with

us. That is it for the Sunday papers

this 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 -

seven days a week at bbc dot co uk

Thank you Rachel Shabi

and Anne Ashworth.

Goodbye.