Press Preview: New Year’s Day front pages
Hello there you’re watching the Press preview a first look at what is on the front pages this New Year’s Eve uh in the next half hour then we’ll see what’s making the headlines with Henry Hill Deputy editor of conservative home and Zoe grenal political correspondent at the independent welcome and thank you
For coming in not sure you’re both sacrificing your evening but we’ll see um so to the front pages then let’s kick off with the telegraph the defense secretary Grant shaps has been writing in the and says the UK military is prepared to attack houy Rebels from Yemen who’ve been targeting shipping in
The Red Sea the express leads with news that a fifth of people who managed to get an appointment with their GP are now getting just five minutes to consult over their illness the guardian meanwhile says doctors at one London Hospital are being told to consider air pollution as a possible cause of
People’s sickness the Del mirror carries a poll in which More than 70% of people people say they want a change in the law to legalize assisted dying a new plan for so-called frictionless travel using face recognition will mean passengers arriving in the UK will soon no longer need passports that’s according to the
Times the I claims an exclusive with a story that police forces which increasingly use lie detectors in criminal investigations may be breaking the law and laying themselves open to Legal challenge the mail leads with news of moves to close what it says is a legal loophole which allows people to
Change their gender in official documents and The star looks at the current spell of Stormy Weather and reckons there’s no chance of a dry January quite the opposite in fact uh don’t forget by scanning the QR code that you’ll see on screen during the program that you can check out the front
Pages for yourself while you listen to our guests so let’s head straight to Henry and tooi welcome to both of you um and Henry why did you kick off then with the daily telegram this is grant shabs writing in the telegraph about the threat in areas like the Red Sea yeah so
The the houthi movement is a rebellion in Yemen that’s been rolling for some years now their islamists are backed by Iran and in the aftermath of October 7th and Israel’s invasion of Gaza they’ve been launching a increased series of attacks on International Shipping in the Red Sea forcing a huge amount of
Shipping to have to be diverted around Africa that raises costs causes huge disruption what’s this says is that the United Kingdom the United States are on the brink of issuing a joint declaration to the houthis says if they don’t cease attacks on international shipping uh America Britain and the Coalition of
Other countries are prepared to actually start attacking them in Yemen now obviously Britain’s involvement is not very big it’s one ship as far as I can see HMS Diamond it’ll be America doing most of the heavy lifting it usually is but that’s still a significant new deployment and the Yemen issue as you
Say it’s been going on for years there’s a proxy war as we know and the whole problem of the Gaza question is the contagion point of it and Iran backing the houthi rebels is where we start to see that that sort of growing contagion again yeah absolutely as we know this
Conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine was likely to extend to other parts and this is just another example of it um so it really is about the Prime Minister and Grant chaps the defense secretary setting up Britain’s position in the world where its defenses lie how it will follow on
From America and how it will support its allies in the Middle East and the question now is you know who continues to support Israel’s war in Gaza you know we’ve seen finally a sort of cear progress through the United Nations security C Council which had been blocked by the UN even though they
Didn’t choose to vote this time again but what happens next I mean do we need to start looking now and as we welcome in the New Year about how this ends and what happens afterwards well that’s the question that’s been on everyone’s Minds from day one right it’s it’s fairly
Obvious that Israel does not have a clear end goal in mind none of the options are good it doesn’t want to occupy Gaza it doesn’t want to withdraw or leave Gaza in the hands of Hamas those are really the only two options on the table at the moment negotiated
Ceasefire hasn’t gone anywhere and the longer it goes on as you say there is a danger that there are more and more of these conflicts that start igniting so far we haven’t seen groups like Hezbollah attack Israel but if the US and the UK and other countries get drawn
Into Yemen and then maybe something happens in Lebanon and international forces potentially get drawn into Lebanon there’s Iranian proxies in Syria the potential for this to spread and just not by anyone’s plan but just by sucking people in step by step is underappreciated and it could Define
2024 yes and as you were speaking actually um it reminded me of a piece of w copy from Reuters uh you know an hour or two ago suggesting that one of the senior figures in uh Benjamin NY who’s right-wing Coalition this is the Finance Minister bezalel smotri has now said
That Palestinian residents should leave Gaza making way for Israelis who could make the Desert Bloom so you know it’s part you know it’s part of the picture obviously isn’t it um you going to say something oh no no no it’s just absolutely extraordinary that that’s where we are right I mean given that
Where we started the idea you said at the beginning Israel is going to actively suggest depopulating Gaza that would have been a slur right that would have been seemed like a slur on the Israeli government and yet that’s not an Israel government position but you do have increasing number of people in the
Government Coalition suggesting it as an option yeah okay moving to the Daily Express and in fact I suppose a similar story in the uh in the guardian um D Express though this is about pressure once again on the NHS Zoe yeah absolutely all we hear when we when we
See headlines about the NHS now are just more and more shocking statistics about the state ofth heal infrastructure in this country so now the express is saying that patients who are fortunate enough to get a doctor’s appointment find they are in and out of the GP surgery in less than five minutes and
This is in a fifth of consultations in England last year I mean well it’s only a fifth so you would assume the rest are are seen for longer but five minutes is an extraordinary amount of time it’s so short if you have a genuine complex health problem trying to explain that to
A doctor with your medical history is is really difficult and that’s on top of the fact that it’s extremely difficult to get a GP appointment in the first place so imagine you get one and it takes you weeks to be seen and then you are seen and you’re in and out again in
Within minutes it’s you know really does tell you about the shortage of GPS the lack of um support that patients get and the the state of the NHS and how it really is under a lot of pressure and will continue to be under a lot of pressure until resourcing is sorted out
Until there’s more funding and and until there’s sort of the integral reform that it requires yes and and a Critical Strike coming up midweek next week as well you know why does the government just not really just get rid of all the strikes in the NHS now give the ambition
Is to try to you know reduce the size of the backlog which runs into you know well over 7 million well I mean the the government’s answer I suppose would be that they they consider the the pay demands to be excessive and of course unlike a oneoff payment which is what
The government’s offered so far if you concede a substantial pay increase you are permanently locking in higher costs Forever on the NHS right because you’re not going to get that down again and that makes it potentially harder for the government to pay for any SP staff increases or at least more expensive so
That’s the challenge ultimately there are limits to the amount of money available for the NHS right it’s already consuming a vast amount of government spending taxes are very high you can maybe find more but you can never find enough yeah isn’t it more than 40% of of government spending yeah precisely and
And that will only go up yes um The Guardian meanwhile suggests that doctors are being told to consider air pollution when actually taking a look at Patients yeah so this is at Great orry and it’s the part of a new pilot scheme uh which would basically um mean that doctors are
Looking at the uh annual air pollution rates in the patients postcode areas and to understand how they might impact patients and their health and this is all kind of in response to um deaths that have happened in London in the greater London area to do with air
Pollution um I think this is a really good initiative in that we know that there are many environmental factors that are impacting People’s Health and currently we’re seeing a load of environmental measures be introduced by especially in London we saw this with ules um but there’s arguments over the
Evidence-based there how helpful these will be a scheme like this where it can actually be measured doctors can can uh look at how these things are impacting the patient is it is going to be really good for showing where the evidence base is and if these kind of schemes are
Actually helpful um and making the case to the public about their use well let’s cheer ourselves up given it’s New Year’s Eve um story in the times and the telegraph about the fact that Britain’s there we go it’s the right hand column there Britains are the world’s best at
Eating their greens this is very important as we think about New Year resolutions of course um but after a week of overindulge the paper tells us many of us would be under pressure to swap the chocolates for some steamed veg um they suggest a study by the organization for economic cooperation
And development the oecd to the rest of us showed that 33% of those in the UK and Ireland ate five daily portions of fruit and vegetables which is actually quite High isn’t it uh yeah according to this is this is the thing you read it you’re likein how well you read it
You’re like oh we’re at the top how and you read 33% and then you see how low all the other numbers are um cuz some of them are about 15% and that includes Mediterranean countries and so on and so forth he will be indulging in fresh vegetables
Seasonally in the summer I mean France France apparently only eats uh only 20% of French people hit hit five well I was going to say that’s just Testament I guess to the power of coffee and cigarettes uh in your nation’s profile but yeah I mean it is you know
The number could be higher but nonetheless it does seem that all of those years of drilling in the five a day thing at schools GP surgeries and everything else has had a tangible impact there you go the Simplicity of the message also despite Britain’s Couch Potato reputation the report also shows
The UK doing better than most for its activity levels in total 61% of us spend at least 150 minutes a week keeping active 61% you think anyway who knows um let’s go back to politics shall we this is the guardian anger over the prime minister’s secret meetings with Dominic Cummings
Who wants to start on this one well well I just think it shows an extraordinary lack of judgment from sunak the idea that you could have a meeting with Dominick Cummings and he would keep it under wraps is just I don’t know where he got that from um we’ve all we’ve been
Seeing from Dominick Cummings for the last few years is is comment after comment of things that I’m sure former Prime Ministers would rather e kept to himself um but I think it also shows a level of desperation from Downing Street to bring this man back in who is now
Seen as almost a bit of a joke to some people in the general public you know he not only helped to bring down a prime minister he stabbed a number of people in the back doing it um he now continues to talk about them on social media on
His blog well you might say all of that as successful if those were his Ambitions to well true and and but then to bring him back into the tent and to expect that that might give them some kind of electoral Victory I think is is quite extraordinary but but but over
Brexit you know effectively accessing three million people who didn’t vote you know changing the brexit vote I mean what what what does he offer what what is there that’s special about him well I think that’s the slightly baffling question really because vote leave was a very very effective campaign uh and
Dominick Cummings did play an important role in that but he wasn’t the only one right and Isaac lovo has also run a very very effective campaign in 2019 so what would he have brought apparently their discussion was about you know Dominick Cummings was like I’m gonna insist on
Having control over things that matter to me which is kind of like deep guts of government stuff which is not stuff that animates voters nuclear pic plan it’s not unimportant but it’s not there’s an election in 12 months Dom we need you to focus on the nation’s priority
And at the same time richy sunak was thinking oh we’ll have to keep this a secret like nothing about this was a good idea and if he had brought him back just think about it like Richie sunak managed to not be terribly damaged by the co inquiry he performed well himself
He wasn’t Boris Johnson like he managed to put a bit of distance between himself and the party Gate scandal if he brought Mr Barnard Castle back into Downing Street and then we’d had the co inquiry like it would have just been extraordinary and on top of that Dominick keeps saying how much
He hates Tor MPS and most of them hate him so this would have been a disaster I don’t know why the meeting happened I think Zoe is probably right it’s just the polls haven’t moved the prime minister’s a year out or less from a general election he needs something he
Thought Dominick Cummings might be it yeah it would suck them both back wouldn’t it I suppose um fascinating anyway lots more still to come including looking ahead to news Eve obviously and also landlords face a loone shock as long-term fixed deals come to an end in 2024 that’s on the front of the
Telegraph but what are the implications Back Well welcome back you’re watching the Press preview with me once again Henry Hill Deputy editor of conservative home and Zoe grald political correspondent at the independent and Zoe let’s go to the uh independent which is talking about police rejecting requests for background checks on potential abusers and the
Numbers are staggering yes so this is a exclusive from the Independent saying that police had rejected 10,000 requests for background checks on potential abusers in just 6 months this year um and this comes on the back of something called cla’s law which is a law that basically means people can uh request
Information about people who might be um on the register for domestic violence and they’re basically saying you know it’s AOS code Lottery if you try and request this information some forces just aren’t able to give you it and whether that be Manpower whether that be
The cost of it whether it just be policy or interest by that local police force um it means that women aren’t getting access to this this level of Justice that they need and you know if you think about the what it’s like to be a woman
Today in the UK you know if you are a victim of rape you’ve got less than a 1% chance of getting that rape um rapist convicted there’s a about twoyear wait for cases to go to court uh two women in the UK are killed a week by a partner or
An ex partner I mean it really is shocking and to hear that the police forces are just failing in their duties here I think is going to really um disappoint many female campaigners many uh domestic violence campaigners and women across the country yes I mean it
Feels a sense of the Poli running ahead of the logistics and delivery of this doesn’t it when we know the criminal justice system itself is hugely under pressure with its own set of backlogs well it is absolutely I think it would be interesting to know why this is
Because it’s not as if these background checks involve sending someone to go and look into this person or follow them or anything it’s literally putting but putting their name into a database right like it’s it’s as as things some do you do need someone to do it but it it is
Remarkable that that many you can’t do that many database lookups like that’s a real problem but it’s interesting because cla’s law does give people this right but I think what this story illustrates is that there’s an increasing tendency in British politics to like legislate for rights statutory
Deadlines and so on and so forth but if the material resources aren’t there to get it done you can legislate for all of the nice things that you want they still won’t happen and I think this is a really good example of how cla’s law perfectly good law but if you don’t
Follow it up with resourcing and a actual strategy it’s not worth the vment written on um onto landlords and um the end of their fixed rates effectively and what the impact Zoe of that might be so the telegraph is saying that almost 150,000 bolet landlords are going to see
Their monthly mortgage payments Jump by hundreds of pounds and obviously this means that either we’re going to see a number of landlords sell their properties or we’re going to see them pass on the the mortgage rate Rises to their tenants either way this is terrible news for tenants who are
Already facing skyrocketing rents both in the capital and across the country um and who were hoping that there might be a bit more peace this year but actually we knew this was going to happen mortgage rates were a ticking Time Bomb more people are going to have to remortgage next year and unfortunately
That’s going to be passed down to renters who are already stretching themselves very much so just to have a place to live yeah onto the times uh the idea of frictionless borders which feels hilarious for anyone who’s traveled recently to be fair but anyway um Henry what’s the suggestion here in the time
In in the times basically the idea is that they’re going to try and get the British digital border up to the standard it is in some other countries where you can use facial recognition software to get through automatically currently even the eates are very cumbersome you have to put them in and
Then they scan your face and I think your face is still actually manually approved by someone so it’s still a person um it’s just that they’re not having to manually stamp your passort you can’t take children through so families are still queuing precisely you
Know it sort of moves up and yeah so the idea is it’ll all be done automatically you won’t actually need to show your passport uh it will have data on you already it will scan you and it’ll get you through if it works great like short to cues to get into the country
Fantastic but obviously that’s a big capital investment and the technology would actually have to work and we we’ll see if that happens yeah absolutely and and yet people from the UK will still queue and they arrive in Europe weren’t they Zoe that’s something that is also
On the list of things to do eventually absolutely I mean there isn’t a single bit of Transport in this country that doesn’t currently seem to be tinged with just disappointment an obstruction for the British people I mean you look at trains you look at flights anyone who’s
Tried to get anywhere in this country or out of it seems to be uh struggling at the minute and yeah hopefully they can get it up to scratch but I I wouldn’t hold my breath right pretty pictures now let’s have a look show front page of the Times Obviously uh they’ve got syney
Harbor not surprisingly this is the double page spread in the times as well look look at the color it’s lovely isn’t it anyway can’t wait for what’s the time an hour and seven minutes till we see it here in the UK but anyway it’s been lovely so far hasn’t it Henry yeah well
We we’re getting a good the great thing about going at our point in the sort of spin of the globe is we get to see the competition right so you’ve probably got someone in L desperately adding Rockets to a pile because they’ve seen the Sydney is particularly impressive so
They’re definitely trying to improve it but it is is great to see how uh it happens in different parts of the world and you know it’s some of these displays are absolutely phenomenal and you know we made it through another year which is always nice yeah and we’re anticipating
Obviously um 2300 11: p.m. which will be Berlin and Rome for our coverage as well uh so we’ll wait to see that let’s just have a look and see the latest live picture shall we uh oh what’s that one is that that’s Bina they gone early anyways that’s maybe that’s maybe not
The official for that might just be some party on a roof cut the budget if that’s room doesn’t it let’s just look at the next one again they’ve gone early well I suppose they have it’s five it’s 6 Minutes to Midnight is it not um so we
Will obviously stand by and take a look at the coverage there but as you can see a a little bit of OD the odd party going on privately for people um I know you’re staying with us um through the midnight hours well so we can enjoy watching the
Fireworks together that was quite a loud one wasn’t it um and uh hopefully both of you will be going out after uh I will be yeah uh no I’m boring 50/50 isn’t it it’s always the way um thank you both very much indeed
We take a look at what’s making the first front pages of 2024 with the deputy editor of ConservativeHome, Henry Hill, and the Independent’s political correspondent Zoe Grunewald.
All the front pages: https://news.sky.com/story/mondays-national-newspaper-front-pages-12427754
#presspreview #skynews
SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel for more videos: http://www.youtube.com/skynews
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/skynews
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skynews
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skynews
Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@skynews
For more content go to http://news.sky.com and download our apps: Apple https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/sky-news/id316391924?mt=8 Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bskyb.skynews.android&hl=en_GB
Sky News Daily podcast is available for free here: https://podfollow.com/skynewsdaily/
Sky News videos are now available in Spanish here/Los video de Sky News están disponibles en español aquí: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzG5BnqHO8oNlrPDW9CYJog
To enquire about licensing Sky News content, you can find more information here: https://news.sky.com/info/library-sales