Transcript of What's on Sunday's front pages? | Sky News Press Preview | Saturday 22 February

Hello there. You're watching the press preview of first look at what's on the front pages as they arrive. In the next half hour, we'll see what's making the headlines with journalist and author, Christina Patterson, and the executive director of the Youth Endowment Fund, John Yates. Let's take a quick look now at what is on some of those front pages while the Observer leads with Ukraine. And news that Prime Minister, secure Starmer, has told the US, ahead of his visit there next week, that Ukraine must must be at the heart of any negotiations on a peace deal with Russia. Meanwhile, the Sunday Telegraph says he'll also tell Donald Trump that the UK is planning to boost its own defense spending faster than originally planned. The Sunday Times There is a warning from the Defense Secretary that what he calls an insecure peace for Ukraine will only lead to more war. The Sunday Mirror reports that a new breed of dangerous dog, known as the bully kuta from Asia, is becoming popular in the UK. The Mail on Sunday claims an exclusive with a report of how two police officers were apparently sent to interview a grandmother after she criticized labor politicians on Facebook.

The headline, Come Out, it's the thought police. The Sunday Express, too, is an exclusive, an interview with former Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who says his country won't ditch the monarchy while William and Kate are alive because they're so popular. Another exclusive in the The People, meanwhile, were a lawyer for victims of the Jeffrey Epstein case has reportedly asked the King to help them get justice by getting Prince Andrew to reveal everything he knows about what happened. The Prince himself has always firmly denied any involvement. The Sun on Sunday carries fresh allegations about the behavior of TV chef Gino D'Acampo, made by a TV producer. Finally, the star has bad news for men. Wives and girlfriends apparently think dogs are more reliable and smell better. I guess it depends on the dog and the man. We're joined tonight by Christina Patterson and John Yates. Thank you so much for joining us here for the press preview. Been quite a week, obviously, we've seen geopolitics, I guess as we knew it, slightly upended. Now we're looking ahead to this trip that Kier Starmer is making to the United States. A lot of the papers touching on that.

If we start with the Observer, their headline is about that the PM lays down Ukraine peace demand ahead of Trump talks. Apparently, according to this article, John, one of the key points will be that Ukraine has to be part of any negotiation.

Yeah, that's what's being briefed. I mean, this is a phenomenally difficult journey to Washington for the Prime Minister. I think it's probably the most significant journey since probably Tony Blair went over to meet George W Bush. It's a huge amount at stake. I mean, obviously, we've got an attacking rolling army from Russia being held in Ukraine, but backed up by the US defense commitment, which may be a question. We've got potential 20% tariffs allegedly coming down the line, and Starmer needs to be a Trump whisperer. It would appear. He's going to have the charm. We're looking at Pamela Anderson's face on the front page. He's going to get the charm of Pamela Anderson, I think, to try and pull something off here. He's not the obvious person to send in to charm Donald Trump. He's a man who's made his whole career, really, about being in defense of the law, an international law. Someone who's a left wing lawyer, as some people would call him. It's not the obvious person. So what can he do about it? I think what the story is saying is he's going to make a commitment to get to 2.

5% of GDP on defense. I think that's a pretty sensible thing to do. We're not that far off it. It's about five to £6 billion pounds extra a year, not small money, but I think it's a good start. But we're going to have to all, I think, cross our fingers and wish the Prime Minister good luck.

Absolutely. Because, of course, Trump wants 5%, which is probably unachievable. Even the US, of course. Even the US. Others are talking around three, three and a half. I mean, listen, who knows? John, you're saying that he's not the obvious person to send, but Donald Trump hasn't been too hostile to Sarkia Starmer. He did say he liked him.

Well, I think my understanding is that they had a conversation when they both talked about their brothers having died, and I think that was how they bonded. So as you say, John, lefty lawyer is not an obvious candidate. And of course, Musk has been incredibly incredibly negative and hostile to Keir Starmer, and essentially made it very clear he'd like to get rid of him. Of course, we don't know how far Trump and Musk's views echo and resonate with each other. But this has been a horrific week in geopolitics. Absolutely horrific. Many people have compared it to 1939, and I think that's accurate. I think we are absolutely at a pivot point globally. This is the first time that America has literally sided with our enemy and the enemy, the country that is meant to be its enemy, and has essentially it's upended the whole alliance of the West, the whole concept of the West, of Europe and America aligned on policy and the values it's meant to represent. That has been blown up. Actually, the whole thing is illogical because the idea that we need to build up massive defenses and hugely increase our spending, even though Putin is a pussy cat and a really nice guy and didn't start the war in Ukraine.

Well, clearly, there's a clash of logic there. If he's the bad guy, yes, of course, we do have to increase our spending. But the idea that Trump has sided with him and given away, as it seems, everything already, that he seems to be wanting to steal half of Ukraine's mineral wealth or more of it. And according to reports today, they are near to signing a deal. It's not clear exactly where those reports, well, those reports are coming from the White House, but they're certainly not coming from Ukraine.

He mentioned it at the CPAC conference, Trump himself a few hours ago, that a deal was close. We're hearing from other sources that Vladimir Zelensky does not want to agree as things stand. We'll see. It's not agreed yet, but certainly, Trump is pushing it. But we've been talking about defense. Let's just look at the front page of the Sunday Telegraph. John, you mentioned it earlier as well. Of course, this need to increase defense, and how that could be one of the things that Kirstarmer takes to Trump. What doesWhat does Sunday Telegraph say?

The Telegraph lays it out and lays out that, for example, the Chancellor says she's already committed, and there's a strong sense that this 2. 5% is going to happen. I think it also highlights just the cost of what we're talking about. This is £6 billion a year.

This is just going to 2. 5.

That's just to get to 2. 5%. Now, I think we're going to have to end up getting closer to 3%. Now, then we're talking about £20 billion a year. Just to put that in context, It's like a third of the money we spend on all our schools. That is quite serious money. It's not as though I can say, But don't worry, the economy is growing, or, But don't worry, there's quite a lot of fat left in public spending we can just cut because we haven't done that recently, or, Don't worry, we can always borrow more money. It's not really obvious where this money is going to come from. I think there's probably two choices or two obvious things they can do. One is they can put taxes up, but they have promised they will not do it. I think they can't cut public spending. I I don't think a labor government can go into austerity 2. 0. I think they're going to have to come up with some line that says, Look, this is an unusual moment. We're facing a significant military threat. We're going to do a temporary increase in borrowing, which is what was done during the Iraq war.

But then we're going to have to cross our fingers and hope the bond market doesn't take over the country rather than Vladimir Putin.

Or announced a defense levy of some kind, which obviously nobody would like. But it's one thing to promise not to raise taxes, and quite another for Trump break an 80-year-old alliance and say, Right, you're on your own, and Europe now has to defend itself, having given... I mean, yes, there were some warnings, but not to this degree, not the idea that he would blow up the whole alliance. I think we are going to have to. The world has changed. That whole idea of a glasnost and the Cold War having gone, No, this is not a Cold War, it's a hot war, and it's about to get much hotter.

Well, which is not exactly that, but what John Healey, the defense secretary, says in the Sunday Times, claims is that basically we should get ready because an insecure peace risks more war. So that basically there's ending the war and then winning the war when it comes to Ukraine. And Donald Trump seems keen on just ending it one way for another. What does John Healey say here?

I think the defense secretary is right. There's a danger. Trump promised when he was campaigning, I'm going to end this war on day one. I think that is a slight difference from '39, by the way, because I'd say Trump has made a big thing out of I want to bring peace. I don't necessarily love the way the man tries to do it, but I don't think he is a warmonger as such. The danger is he just runs off, and you're left with a peace that just leads to another battle, to another war, to another war.

He may want peace, but what he apparently wants that unbelievably as a Nobel Peace Prize. But I think pretty much everybody, apart from Putin, wants people not to be dying in Ukraine. But that's not really the issue. The issue is that if you appease an aggressor who has essentially imperial and colonial intentions and has made it very clear that he has designs on other countries. I mean, I would not want to be a Baltic nation if we get the peace that Trump is talking about.

And I won't defend a man who's trying to effectively turn a peace negotiation towards a gangster heist running off these mineral goods. But I am somewhat sympathetic to the Americans. They have been subsidizing our defense for a very long period of time.

That's what he's been saying, that now Europe should be responsible And I think they benefit from actually having a united force with the UK and the rest of Europe.

But at what price? I do think we need to spend more money on defense. I think that is fair.

I do as well, but you don't do it this way. I agree with that.

Christina, we're going to have to We're going to move on now. Coming up, police pay a visit to a grandmother calling labor counselors to resign over a WhatsApp scandal. More about that story on the front of the Mail coming up next. Sunday, the Premier League is exclusively on Peacock.

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Welcome back. You're watching the Let's preview with me now, journalist and author, Christina Patterson, and the executive director of the Youth Endowment Fund, John Yates. Let's go straight to the Mail on Sunday now. Their splash has come out. It's the Thought Police. This is about police officers paying a visit to her grandmother because she had made some comments, I think, about labor counselors. Christina, if you can start on this.

Yes, it's pretty sketchy on the detail, this one. We don't know. They've said that no crime was committed. We have to In that case, it's a bit baffling. I'm not sure why you would knock on someone's door for... It seems slightly unlikely that the police would go around just because she had criticized labor counselors. We all criticize people in public.

You should ask for the resignation of local councilors.

Well, I've never heard of police knocking on someone's door because someone has asked for their resignation. So I think we would need more detail on this. But certainly, the general principle of how people conduct themselves on social media and what qualifies as a crime and what warrants a visit from the police is a very interesting one and a complex one. There have been some ridiculous examples of people being hauled in for what seemed like really minor criticisms, and particularly in relation to the whole trans area, where people essentially get accused of transphobia simply for expressing a view that has been held throughout most of human history. But this one is sketchy on the detail. But I'm not anti. We do have a law against hate speech, and I have myself got somebody, a prosecution under the Malicious Communications Act for their behavior towards me online, and I think some of it does cross a line.

So It sounds like-I think that's where this world becomes very difficult. This is technically a non-crime hate incident. I think most of us are like, Oh, for God's sake, can't the police just fix some proper problems? But we have laws in this country, for example, against stalking or harassment. Harassment And the harassment is continuously pestering someone. And so how does the police know when you've crossed the line? But they have to record all the things up to the point you get to the line, which are non-crime aid incidents. The more stuff there is in social media, the more stuff that is like this. I think it's really tricky. I I don't really want the police involved in any of this, but at the same time, I don't want people to be harassed. I don't know how to resolve that. This looks like madness, but we don't really know what this woman actually posted.

We'll see. But there's another story that is linked to it. Sunday staff, not linked to it, but the same theme or similar theme, Labour's AI tool will monitor social media amid free speech fears. This is AI that, I guess, will start snooping around your social media to find out if you've said anything that you shouldn't have.

Yeah. Well, AI is snooping around absolutely everything that's written on the internet, so no great surprise there. But this is about a particular contract that has been awarded to faculty AI to build monitoring software which can search for foreign interference, detect deepfakes, and analyze social media narratives. Now, the ostensible point of it is to analyze threats, threats from foreign countries. That, it seems to me, completely fair enough. We We still are not clear about whether, for example, Russia did interfere in the Brexit vote or not. It certainly looked like it, but the results were not definitive. That sounds perfectly sensible. I think in the midst of all of this, we have to remember that actually all of the people who own the platforms, whether that's Zuckerberg, Musk, or whoever, they've got access to all this information anyway. It's really just a way for trawling through it, and it's like a Google search.

John, totally different story to end this chat on. Again, Sunday Telegraph. About food, public sector urge to serve British-grown food in meals. And so, yes, schools, hospitals, and prisons to buy more British food makes sense.

I have a slight period of my history where I was a special adviser to a cabinet minister, and this is the answer you give when they say, What can I do for free to make farmers like us again? How about we make all the schools have to buy lots of food from them? The trouble is this is actually illegal what they're hinting they're going to do. It's against the WTO, like trade rules. People may want them to be able to say, you can't say you can only buy British food. What they'll end up saying is some weak guidance that you should be encouraged to look at food that is prepared with high welfare standards, which will include food from across the European... It's a good story. It's a good story. It's everyone who like it who reads the Telegraph, and that's absolutely super. I suspect it will make absolutely no difference at all.

On that note, we're going to have to leave it. John Yates, Christina Patterson, thank you so much. I'll see you again in the next hour. Coming up next on Sky News at 11, we'll bring you the latest on the Pope. As the Vatican says, he's in a critical condition tonight after he suffered what's described as a long asthmatic respiratory crisis. We'll bring you more at the top of the hour.