Monday 5th March, 2018



A huge happy birthday to my Pops





Good morning,







Brief overview: The Guardian scrutinises the government's handling of Carillion today - EY emerges in a positive light.

Despite a late night phone call with the President, Theresa May has been unable at this point to secure any special deal over his proposed steel tariffs. The Times and Financial Times report in detail.





Outside of the headlines: Italy is on course for a hung parliament after voters turned out and supported populist far-right parties including the Five Star Movement and League ( BBC

Cardinal George Pell has returned to an Australian court for a hearing that will determine whether he stands trial on sexual assault charges. ( BBC

Tesco has completed its $5.5 billion takeover of Booker​ ( Reuters





The Daily Mail

Editor: Paul Dacre



Political leaning: Right / far right



Daily circulation: circa 1,490,000





Today’s leading headline: Millions told to ration water



Following the freezing temperatures of last week, thousands of water pipes have burst, consequently leaving 'up to 13 million' people across the United Kingdom without water.

The Mail reports that there are 'tens of thousands of homes without water or with low pressure' which have been warned by their suppliers not to run the taps 'for anything that isn't essential'.













The Daily Telegraph

Editor: Chris Evans



Political leaning: Right



Daily circulation: circa. 393,000





Today’s leading headline: Iraq inquiry detectives blew whistle over 'fraud'



The Telegraph continues its spotted coverage of the allegations facing British military personal who served during the Iraq war. The paper casts doubt on many of the accusations as it today reveals 'senior police officers repeatedly warned bosses of the risk of false abuse claims made against Iraq war veterans – but were ignored for years'.



Highlighting possible shady activity, the paper reveals through its investigation that: 'the ex-detectives on the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat) also flagged up suspected fraudulent payments made to Iraqis working for a now discredited British lawyer, four years before the £60 million inquiry was eventually shut down.'



The Times

Editor: John Witherow



Political leaning: Centre right



Daily circulation: circa. 446,000





Today’s leading headline: May tells Trump not to launch trade war



During another tweeting spree over the weekend President Trump announced that America would be imposing a steel tariff.







The announcement was met with disdain across the international circuit. The Times quotes Theresa May's spokesperson who explained that during a phone call with Trump yesterday “the prime minister raised our deep concern at the president’s forthcoming announcement on steel and aluminium tariffs, noting that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity in all parties’ interests.”

The Whitehouse is expected to lay out more detailed plans on the matter next week.





The Guardian

Editor: Katharine Viner



Political leaning: Left



Daily circulation: circa. 161,000





Today’s leading headline: Carillion: lost chance to salvage millions



The Guardian attacks the government for its mishandling of Carillion today. The paper reports that "the government knew of a plan that could have retrieved more than £360m from Carillion, limiting the cost of its collapse to taxpayers and sparing pension scheme members from cuts to their retirement payouts, but did not encourage directors to pursue it."



EY are praised throughout the article for a plan which 'would have involved breaking up the company, selling the profitable parts and placing the rest into liquidation, avoiding an involuntary collapse. The accounting firm believed this would generate £364m, of which £218m could be injected into the firm’s 13 pension schemes, estimated to have a deficit of close to £1bn.'

The i



Editor: Oliver Duff



Political leaning: Centre



Daily circulation: circa. 257,000





Today’s leading headline: American pie: push to sell US 'Cornish pasties' in UK



Another trade war is taking place on the front page of the i, this time involving food names. American lobbying groups are applying pressure and greasing up the right hands in a bid to make the government drop protected status for geographically named products like 'Scotch Whiskey' and 'Cumberland sausages'.

The American companies will then flood the market with their worse versions of the product.



Financial Times



Editor: Lionel Barber



Political leaning: Centre



Daily circulation: circa. 193,200



Today’s leading headline: No exemption from steel tariffs, Trump's top trade aide warns



One of President Trump's top trade assistants has warned governments that there will be no exemption or preferential treatment when it comes to the new American steel tariffs. Peter Navarro told CNN yesterday: "As soon as you start exempting countries you have to raise the tariff on everybody else ... and it's a slippery slope'.



Strengthening America's tariffs in a bid to protect domestic industries was an early pillar of the Trump campaign - despite this, the announcement still took many world leaders off guard.

The Sun



Editor: Tony Gallagher



Political leaning: Right / far right



Daily circulation: circa. 1,611,464





Today’s leading headline: Wiggo doping shock



Sir Bradley Wigans has ascended to the level of every international cyclist. The gold medal winner has been accused of doping.











Top trending stories from across right and left wing sites A quick roundup of the blogs that help influence and generate the online political discussion.





Guido Fawkes Political leaning: Right/far right. The insider bible for Westminster gossip.

Views: 100-250 thousand views per day.

Top article: Pesto asks Sturgeon if she backs Maggie statue ( link )





: Right/far right. The insider bible for Westminster gossip.100-250 thousand views per day.Pesto asks Sturgeon if she backs Maggie statue The Canary Political leaning: Left/far left. Very pro Corbyn. Clickbait.

Views: circa 93,000 a views per day.

Top article: Twitter users roast the Lib Dems on the party’s 30th birthday (link)







ConservativeHome

Political leaning: Right wing. Extremely influential among Conservative circles.

Top article: David Jones: Brexit. Why we must all now ready ourselves for no deal – and WTO terms (link)







SKWAWKBOX

Political leaning: Left/far left. Very pro Corbyn. Clickbait.

Top article: The threat to children's centres (link)







Westmonster

Political leaning: Right/far right. Clickbait.

Top article: Teacher tried to create army of children to wage jihad around London (link)









Novara Media

Political leaning: Left/Pro Corbyn. Becoming more established.

Top article: What kind of party should Labour be? (link)













Social Media chatter

On the left: Talk of erecting Margret Thatcher statues brought angry Tweets in droves from the left over the weekend. Owen Jones was not pleased:

Elsewhere there were the usual complaints over BBC bias during the Sunday politics shows. This was a particularly notable effort.









On the right: Smattering of anger over May's speech last week.









And finally...

Article of the day: Would you hack your own body? (BBC)



Follow me on Twitter @sproggar to keep up to date with the latest nonsense being circulated online.



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