opec, the oil producers' organisation, has been heavily criticised at the un climate summit negotiations in dubai. a letter has been leaked from the head of opec calling on members to resist any reference to phasing out fossilfuels. ukraine's first lady — olena zelenska — tells the bbc that ukrainians will be left to die if western countries don't continue their support for the country. now on bbc news, newscast. it's that time of year. chris mason gives his verdict on the official christmas tree in trafalgar square. how did i get into this last year? what was it? by using the word girth. that's how you got into it. yeah, i was sort of perhaps gently critical, wasn't i, ofjust kind of how stick thin the christmas tree was. that gift from norway that stands

in trafalgar square. i reckon this year's is better. feels a bit sort of plumper around the waist, which seems to be the more classic, conical christmas tree shape. anyway, that's about as much analysis as anyone wants on my christmas tree. the problem is, though, the mayor of london, sadiq khan, his visits are getting earlier every year. so you missed him last week. so, he's not here to hear that praise, which he'll be desperate to hear, no doubt. yeah. anyway, let's see what we've got in store on this episode of newscast. hello, it's adam in the studio. and it's chris in the studio. and keeping us company this week are ayesha hazarika from times radio and former labour adviser. hello. hello, hello. do you have a christmas tree? i do. is it girthy? it's plump and full of girth! glad to hear. and also here is will waldon, who's former director of communications for borisjohnson. hello again. hello, everyone. hi, adam? and also when boris was mayor of london.

so did you ever have to deal with the christmas tree? i didn't have to deal- with the christmas tree. i have difficulty enough dealing with my own christmas tree, i let alone one in trafalgar square! one is enough. a normal sized one is enough. right. we're going to talk about boris johnson being at the covid inquiry for a second day running. that's his evidence finished now. but first of all, actually, westminster was dominated by another big story today which kind of drew quite a lot of attention away from that in quite a surprising way. but also day two of the fallout from the rwanda plan. yeah. so just remind us where we've got to. so quick recap. this week, the government hoped prior to borisjohnson�*s appearance at the covid inquiry would be dominated politically by them resetting their approach to immigration. so monday, legal migration and their plans for that, and then tuesday, illegal migration and the whole question of this rwanda plan, the idea of sending some migrants to rwanda. home secretary went out to kigali. i went out as a reporter to report on it. there was that sense of and the vibe that was being given off was one of,

look, there was all that chaos and noise from the previous home secretary, suella braverman. now we're getting on with delivery and they had, to be fair to them, set out their policies on legal migration on the monday and then this treaty that they've signed with rwanda on tuesday. but then we see the resignation of robertjenrick, the immigration minister, and then this sort of hastily arranged news conference on thursday morning from the prime minister. this prime minister does not like doing news conferences. and why did he do it? because they kind of run out of better ideas. you've got to go out and sell an idea as prime minister, if nobody else is doing, particularly if you've got your former immigration minister saying it's a dud. so that's what he did to try and claim that he's found this really narrow path to trying to make this policy work. but the interesting thing is, even when you speak to people in government and on the conservative back benches who like the idea, they still say, hmm, but will this way actually make it work? because there's a bit when you look in this draught legislation that people will still be able to go to court over being sent to rwanda,

perhaps in very, very narrow circumstances and a lot narrower than they currently can. but it's still possible. it is still possible. and politically, the imperative is on trying to get people onto those planes before theelection, ie, very, very quickly in the framework of passing laws and potential legal challenges. so, yeah, that's kind of where we are. ayesha, as a former adviser, press conferences can be good, but hastily arranged ones are rarely good. quite. and also press conferences where you look very tetchy and sort of very, very frustrated and very frazzled as well are not ideal. you know what? let's let newscasters decide whether who's frazzled or tetchy or where he was on that scale. and here's a compilation of him being asked probing questions by chris mason and other editors. are you saying to your mps bluntly on all of this, back me or sack me? what i'm saying, notjust to my mps but to the entire country, _ is that i share their frustration. will next week's vote be treated as a vote

of confidence in your government? and will you throw conservative mps out of the party if they defy you? you don't know. but what this vote is about is about confidence in parliament. - you've lost control of your party and this has become a confidence issue, not in parliament, but in you. do you accept that and will you call an election if you lose these votes? what's happening here is we're delivering on what i said. - back to you, ayesha. there was a theme to the questions and the answers there, wasn't there? yeah. and i think what's really interesting is how rwanda hasjust become the absolute flashpoint for the conservative party. it was like a kind of quite out there idea which priti patel came up with back in the day. and it is fascinating how it has become this thing which has just totally dominated the conservative party and there's so many, for something which there is this obsession with, there are also so many unanswered questions like,

you know, when you dig into to the detail, there are questions like, you know, could we end up in this ridiculous, unintended consequence where rwanda could send us refugees before we've sent any, you know, migrants out there as well? because the treaty suggests that it's possible. yeah, and with all treaties, so much of this is about the fine print, right. and the idea that also in the treaty, you know, for all this bluster, for all this political capital, you're talking, if things go really, really well, 100 people. so ijust felt like this is something which just... do you remember that documentary about the fyre festival, which was this festival where everything went wrong and the organisers just kept going with it? people are, like, this is a disaster, there's no food, there's no water, there's no accommodation. they were like, fine, just crack on. i feel like this is turning into the sort of political equivalent of the fyre festival! and yes, i'm just thinking about the extreme things people did

to get water in that documentary. but let's not delve into that. yeah, will, i mean, how has rishi sunak ended up in this position? because basically, as ayesha was saying, the rwanda policy has sort of become the 2023 version of brexit. and brexit was about the fate of the entire country. yeah, i mean, declaration, i don't like the idea - of conservative governments tinkering with legal- frameworks, you know, period. but they're trying to do that. and i think he's only. got himself to blame. he's put the whole rwanda issuel and the small boats issue so front and centre that nothing is now, nothing else is talked about. i and if you care about immigration, but you don't care about it - in principle terms, you're more worried about cost of living, i you're going to be wonderingl what on earth are they doing? if you do care about immigration, what you're going to be _ looking at is thinking, _ well, the boats are still coming. he says they're down, l but they're still coming. and he hasn't sent anyone to rwanda and it doesn't look like he's— going to be able to. so he's created this mess, unfortunately, himself. i but what staggers me _ is that the conservative party used to be known for its pragmatism, and it'sjust gone, again. -

and we're facing this ridiculous prospect of potentially losing l a vote, which would presumably lead to an early general election, - or having another vote of confidence in a prime minister. _ it is becoming ridiculous- and in short order they've got to get their house together. otherwise, it'sjust curtains. well, let's be fair to rishi sunak, and we've given lots of airtime to criticisms of the rwanda policy, here's how he presented this as a win at the press conference today. i so the bill does include what arel known as notwithstanding clauses. these mean that our domestic courts i will no longer be able to use any. domestic or international law, - including the human rights act, to stop us removing illegal migrants. let me just go through the ways that individual illegal _ migrants try and stay. claiming asylum — i that's now blocked. abuse of our modern i slavery rules — blocked.

the idea that rwanda isn't safe — blocked. i the risk of being sent to some other country — blocked. - and spurious human rights claims — you'd better believe that _ we've blocked those, - too, because we're completely disapplying all the relevant - sections of the human rights act. some real crowd pleasers there! you'd better believe it! you're like, this is quite technical international law here. it's like a bad game show host, isn't it? blocked, blocked, blocked. i do, picking up on what will said, i think the thing that's extraordinary about this is when you look at an issue that ends up dominating a party like when theresa may became prime minister and of course, brexit became the dominant issue, she didn't choose to raise brexit and make it the dominant issue. it was sort of thrust upon her whether she wanted to or not. but rishi sunak, like a moth to the flame, just keeps coming back to rwanda. there's plenty of other things that he could be talking about. you could make an argument that jeremy hunt and he have actually

done some, you know, good work trying to turn the economy around. you know, the inflation is coming down. you know, they could talk a bit more about their industrial strategy, etc, etc. but all roads seem to lead back to rwanda. they did, i mean, in defence of rishi sunak, he did he did inherit the rwanda policy, didn't he? sojunking it would have come with a political cost to some because some would have said, "oh, you've surrendered this, this is an idea, we should see it through". but instead he put| it front and centre. and to be, let's be honest, chris, there are many ideas that he inherited which have just withered on the vine. social care was a big promise that he inherited. we hear nothing about social care now. hsz was a big thing he inherited and he'd said, right, 0k, it's clearly not working. i'm going tojunk it now. levelling up was something which was a great prize that he inherited. so what i can't understand is why he is willing tojust put so much, burn so much political capital on this. and the other thing, which i think is fascinating, given that he has made this centre stage, this big vote, which we think

is going to come on tuesday, he's now backing off this being a matter of confidence. he's saying to people, actually, if you vote against us, you won't lose the whip on this. and, you know, and i'm not going to make this an issue. we're not going to call a general election over this. so he's kind of leading everybody up, saying this is the biggest thing that matters to me, but i'm actually not going to make it about confidence in me. immigration is important but is it the defining issue in the next- and chris, when we listen to people like suella braverman, the former home secretary, on the today programme on thursday morning, and she's giving her criticism of this rwanda plan, and then denies it's about her wanting to be prime minister, should we not believe her? and then when we read robertjenrick�*s letter, where he criticises the rwanda plan but doesn't really come up with any alternatives that would work better, and actually he ends with a bit of a rhetorical flourish, it sounds like maybe he would quite like to be prime minister as well. should we should we not believe him? well, i think sort of both things can be true. i mean, i think from robertjenrick�*s perspective, he looked at this bill and just thought, can i authentically be the kind of face and voice for it and go out and take

all the questions about it whilst believing in it? and concluded that the answer to that was no, because when the critique would have been put to him, that says, yeah, but hang on a minute, it's still going to get gummed up in the courts so are you really going to get very many people, if any, on a plane before the election? he couldn't conceivably say yes with any conviction because he didn't believe it himself. so in the end, that's just kind of, you know, just a policy dispute. he and suella braverman would say, look, the prime minister has to be much more bold around the whole question of the european convention on human rights and all of that. those who make that argument do accept, though, to make the brexit parallel again, that kind of thing is brexit 2.0. that's a massive conversation that has all sorts of knock on consequences, both in this policy field and loads of others. you know, as is often said but it's worth saying, it's written into the good friday agreement, for instance. so it's incredibly kind of big and complicated. so i think from his perspective, given that he walked rather than was sacked like suella braverman, it was a point ofjust not

being able to push ahead with it. if there was to be a vote of confidence in rishi sunak, that's jumping a lot of hurdles, have they been writing letters to the committee?— been writing letters to the committee? ., ., committee? people are speculating about numbers _ committee? people are speculating about numbers and _ committee? people are speculating about numbers and nobody - committee? people are speculating about numbers and nobody knows, | about numbers and nobody knows, other than graeme brady. so, we are in that kind of world again where a lot of folk, both those who are not particularly keen on rishi sunak and those who are fear it happening almost by accident, because you go way of christmas or whatever, conservative mps ponder and moan, and you think, may be on balance i will put the lettering, you're not sure, you put it in, and blimey, it's the 53rd or whatever. i sure, you put it in, and blimey, it's the 53rd or whatever.- it's the 53rd or whatever. i love the fact that — it's the 53rd or whatever. i love the fact that graeme _ it's the 53rd or whatever. i love the fact that graeme brady -

it's the 53rd or whatever. i love | the fact that graeme brady says it's the 53rd or whatever. i love - the fact that graeme brady says his standing _ the fact that graeme brady says his standing down, but it's like one lastly. — standing down, but it's like one lastly, lastjob. standing down, but it's like one lastly. last job-— standing down, but it's like one lastly, last job. lastly, last 'ob. and they all go in b hand, lastly, last job. and they all go in by hand, because _ lastly, last job. and they all go in by hand, because it _ lastly, last job. and they all go in by hand, because it could - lastly, last job. and they all go in by hand, because it could be - lastly, last job. and they all go in by hand, because it could be a i lastly, last job. and they all go in i by hand, because it could be a very random day it all happens. right, let's talk about the other big story that people have been looking at on the second screen of their other phone or their other laptop, if you're lucky to have two laptops at westminster, some people do. borisjohnson doing his second day of evidence at the covid inquiry. will, you've spent a lot of time with borisjohnson over the years, we've spent a lot of time asking you about it. but was that a boris johnson that you recognised? like quite serious, quite emotional, quite contrite. ish! and i think that's... you made a very "ish" face there. yeah, i did, did didn't i? and i think that's the point. boris does do contrite, and i think, you know,| he nearly died from this virus, and you saw a very emotional boris johnson this afternoon. when he discussed that, - and i think all of that is genuine. well, let's watch it, and people can can see this emotional borisjohnson.

i haven't talked about this before in public. and it goes to to what you were saying earlier about... ..about elderly people. and what you would claim is my indifference to the pandemic. ijust want to remind you that i... when i went into itu, intensive care, i saw around me a lot of people who were not actually elderly, and, in fact, they were middle—aged men, and they were quite like me. and some of us were going to make it and some of us weren't. it was a tough watch, _ and that is the real borisjohnson. he can do contrition, understanding, emotion, empathy, sympathy. - but there's also another boris - johnson, and that was also on show, land that is the boris johnson that| never quite manages to apologise. so i wrote down a couple of things.

we always hear from him, "i didn't say it or i did but others were saying it too," _ or "i take responsibility, but. it wasn't as it's been reported." and that's the problem, is that there is a level of contrition, - and that boris johnson i is the real boris johnson, but so is the boris. johnson that i know will have said, "let it rip." there is a conflict - at the heart of boris, and this is the way that he operates. i so i think what we saw- over the last couple of days was he generally managed to keep it in check, - and i think that's very- much about the audience. it's not a bunch of mps| on a select committee, it is the families of the bereaved, and he was clearly well coached in that — who are sitting just there. and it would have been very hard i for them and very hard for him, | you know. — he absolutely respected that. but what you got throughout was the sense that - he wasn't quite owning the apology, and there were a couple of- really interesting things yesterday, when he talked about, _ "in margaret thatcher's government, if they had had whatsapp, _

it would have been just as fruity, any government would have acted the same." _ "and i know you've heard from all my advisers - slagging me off about my competence, but they were just stressed." _ and that'sjust hokum, it'sjust rubbish, - and boris knows it is, and he's come here - and he's almost pulled out, because he hasn't attacked anyone personally, - and he's kind of saying there was a failure, . and i take responsibility for that, _ but by the way, - it was a collective failure. and i think this is all. about resetting the dial on his own reputation. this is about pitch—rolling for the future, _ not for a political comeback or anything like that, - butjust him being able to say, "yes, i get it" _ the problem is, _ i think that the way that he talks sometimes betrays the fact that he both gets it - and he doesn't get it, . and that's the problem. what was it? "a disputatious culture is better than a quietly acquiescent one." which is quite a defence! isn't that our description on iplayer? from the same man who said . that there wasn't a toxic culture at the heart of number ten, and there clearly was, and he knows that. i and this is the problem, i all of this on boris's reputation.

was done way before this inquiry. it was the fact that he told i us none of the parties happened and then they did, and got himself. i in such a mess over that stuff, i which has canned his reputation. and so he's come here - and he's kind of said, you know, "oh, i liked challenge from them, and the only thing i could tell you| is that it was probably a bit male, but it definitely wasn't toxic." i the whole reason that it imploded was that boris chose people that he |couldn't control or wouldn't control| and wouldn't lean inl and lead and inquire, and that's why we're in the mess that he got himself into. - what i found quite strange watching it is that he is an alpha male, right? and this is going to get a bit of pop psychology now, but the whole time he was like almost like a bystander, based on his evidence, like, "oh, they were telling me this, and it was very hard to understand what they were saying, or they were arguing about it, or i wasn't giving enough options." is that what he's actually like in a situation where he's the decider and he's actually not an alpha male at all? yeah, so he always liked consensus

and to hear opposing views in that sort of thing, - and then he would make a decision. i i think that the boris johnson that i became prime minister was someone, yes, obviously buffeted by events, but also buffeted by people. i and boris's great - contradiction and problem is that he wants to i be liked by everybody. and you could see i a situation during covid where there'd be _ a conflicting piece of advice. and in boris's mind, it's like, "god, which way do i go?" i "who am i going to offend in this regard?" _ and that isjust not the way to run a response to a pandemic or to run a country. _ ayesha, what was your review? well, i mean, i have to say i think the covid inquiry has been really fascinating. i know a lot of people have been slagging it off saying, "oh, but it's sort of concentrated on the politics." well, of course it's concentrated on the politics. this is one of the most important political events that have happened in our lifetimes. it's a huge pandemic, and, of course, the politics is very important.

and i think for me, i feel like this covid inquiry is the sort of sequel to the privileges committee and willis correct... 0h, where they were investigating whether he'd misled parliament? yes, and i think if the privileges committee established that he did mislead parliament, ie, what many of us have thought about him for a long time, he's very elastic with the truth, a liar, the l word, i think what the covid inquiry has done is really shone a light on how his number ten operated and why those bad things happened. i can only describe it as sort of a human shambles in sort of downing street. and i think his argument and a lot of people make this argument saying, "yeah, but it was a very difficult time." "this was a massive crisis, you know. _ anybody would have behaved like that." i really disagree with that. i was very close with alistair darling. i'd say, you know, for this government, every government has an inflection point of crisis. for this government, it's the pandemic. for the government i was part of it,

it was the global financial crisis. and that was an incredibly difficult moment as well. when you had northern rock and the banking sector being hours away from completely melting down, you didn't see alistair darling, you didn't see number 11 and number ten at that time behaving like that, and i think if you did... well, except gordon brown's team unleashed a... but that was afterwards, that was after the sort of, you know, securing things, and then alistair darling did an interview saying things are going to get really tough, and then damian mcbride and others did lots of briefing. but, actually, if you look at how they conducted themselves, if you look at how ministers conducted themselves, you know, trust me, you know, they were not behaving like matt h... they weren't going around trying to get off with their advisers, for example. so i really push back against this idea that because you have a crisis, everybody loses their minds and suddenly this terrible behaviour comes to light. just very briefly, he provedj himself unsuited and unfit, but he could have been, right? there was no toxic culture at city hall, right? - in the people that _

he surrounded himself with. but if you choose the disrupter- in chief to help you run the country and you light the blue touch paper, you'll you shouldn't be _ surprised if it goes bang, - and that's exactly what happened. and i take ayesha's point that, from a leadership perspective, | you have to lead from the top. i think he could have led from the top, _ but he chose the wrong people around him. _ and he wouldn't confront them when it came down to it - after the election in 2019. and that was the point at which these people needed to go. i and the real borisjohnson, i the centrist one nation tory, you know, could have established i himself regardless of the pandemic. he dun-t, — and the country paid the price. will, did you ever advise him not to hire dominic cummings? i did. right. and a couple of other people. oh, really? yeah! for legal reasons, let's not get too long a list. but this is the problem. he'd wanted the job all his life, i but he was unprepared for doing it. there was no plan, i there was no ideology. and that's why he's come unstuck. and i was very clear with him that,

you know, there were good thingsl about what dominic could have done, if done in the right way. _ but it was never going to work on the basis . of allowing him that freedom. the prime minister is the prime minister. l he leads, he sets the tone, end of. i think the other thing from sitting in there and watching it, this goes back to the point ayesha was making earlier on around the criticisms that have been made by some about the inquiry, and has it obsessed too much on the politics or whatever, when you go in as a political journalist to report on it, of course you're reporting on the politics, that's why you're there, and that will dominate the news. that's not necessarily the same thing as some of the underlying things that the inquiry is looking at. the vast majority of the hearings political journalists are not there for, and that it's going to go on for ages, they could still be doing public hearings in 2026. now, there's going to be an interim report before then, but the scale of this as a piece of work is huge. now, some might think it's too big

and it should be much quicker and it shouldn't cost as much. but that's where it's trying to get to. the other thing psychologically, i find myself sitting in there thinking is the whole business of hindsight bias. and to be fair in the scrutiny, they've often asked witnesses to separate what they realised at the time had gone wrong and what they now recognise with hindsight they should have done differently. but it's so hard when you're sitting there knowing how things turned out to be able to truly detach yourself from that and sit yourself back in february 2020. there was interesting point about hindsight yesterday. | hugo keith picked him up i at the very beginning and said, "you've written in your statement that you're apologetic, _ you're sorry for what happened i and that the mistakes were made." "what were those mistakes?" the most extraordinary thing that happened yesterday i was boris couldn't bring himself to list those mistakes, - and he foundered around about... devolution! devolution, yeah. two minutes in. yeah, two minutes in. and to levelling up! and that goes to the heart i of the detail thing with boris. he's had months to prepare for this. now, he could have just been|

avoiding it because he doesn't want to admit he's made mistakes, but it could be that he'd never thought of it in that order. i it's a logical question, i and you would have thought he would have been able to answer it logically at the beginning. _ and then, chris, rishi sunak has got like a sort of comically stressful week next week, hasn't he? because he's going to the inquiry on monday, and then there's this rwanda vote on tuesday. as i sat in the press conference with the prime minister this morning, i was thinking, hang on a minute, just down the road at paddington in west london, borisjohnson's in the chair right now, facing questions from from the lawyers, and, yeah, rishi sunak will be there on monday. and, you know, of course, the scrutiny and the accountability of whether it be borisjohnson or matt hancock or loads of other folk matters, as well as the lessons learned, but to have the sitting prime minister in there, who was a senior figure in government, particularly with all those questions around eat out to help out, it will be quite be quite something. and then, as you say, just as he eases, you know, thinks, "ah, phew, done with all of that," along comes tuesday. and we will cover all of those momentous events on successive episodes of newscast, but thank you very much to everyone for being on this one. thanks, will. pleasure.

thanks, ayesha. thanks so much. and, yeah, i hope you've got lots of throat sweets for next week, chris. i think it's on the mend, just about. touch wood, touch wood! right, thanks for listening. cheers, bye. hello. well, so far it's been an awful day across many parts of the country. heavy rain, strong winds. and this is the outlook for the next few days. further spells of wind and rain with some quieter gaps in between. i think there will be at least a little bit of sunshine. here's the satellite picture. and you can see propelled by a powerfuljet stream is today's weather system that's actually storm elin moving across ireland and the uk and behind it is the next developing storm, storm fergus, which will impact ireland on sunday.

so here's the forecast then for the rest of the day. the bulk of the rain has cleared out into the north sea by this stage. but curling into the centre of the low is this area of rain across northern ireland, the irish sea, into northwestern parts of england, gales for many coastal areas and inland too. but i think the strongest of the winds will be around this part of the british isles. so 60/70 mile an hour winds, certainly some coasts of lancashire, cumbria, very, very, very windy here through the course of today and into the evening. but eventually the winds will die down as decaying by this stage, storm elin pulls away and then we're in between weather systems. actually, the winds are going to fall light. there could be some mist and murk forming. and then early in the morning, we've got this next weather front moving into northern ireland, wales, the southwest linked to storm fergus, which is centred here. so the strongest of the winds will actually be moving into western parts of ireland. so not too many impacts from the wind i think for us on sunday, but certainly some rain

spreading across the uk. and then actually you can see a clearance here with some brighter weather or clearer weather i think by this stage towards the end of the day. so sunday into monday, one low pressure moves away and guess what, into monday and tuesday, there'll be further lows heading our way and so far has already been a very wet december. so the ground is just so soaked at the moment. just further rain on the way. now monday's actually looking a little bit quieter. there will be some sunny spells on the way. temperatures between seven and around 12 degrees celsius. here's the outlook over the next few days. the weather sort of chopping and changing from bright weather to rain to cloudy skies. some sunshine again, a bit of everything really on the way. bye bye.

live from london. this is bbc news a senior un official warns half the population of gaza are now starving — and says conditions on the ground make the delivery of aid nearly impossible. israeli tanks are advancing slowly towards the centre of khan yunis, amid house to house fighting in southern gaza. the palestinian president, mahmoud abbas, accuses the united states of being complicit in war crimes — after it vetoed a un security council resolution calling

for an immediate ceasefire in gaza. also on the programme: ukraine s first lady — olena zelenska — appeals for further military support for her country — and warns russian aggression will �*spread like a virus' unless the west stops it opec comes under heavy criticism at the cop climate negotiations in dubai after calling on its members to resist plans to phase out fossil fuels. when i listen to the smaller islands in my ear and in my heart, and i hear about this opec letter, i'm deeply concerned about it. hello. a senior un official has warned that half of population of gaza are now starving, as israel continues its assault on the territory. the world food programme's deputy director, carl skau, says nine out of ten people are not

eating every day. israeli tanks are reported to be advancing slowly