and it's been a successful night at the baftas for oppenheimer, now it's time for newscast. newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello. it's laura, in the studio, up from the basement where we broadcast on television. paddy, in the studio, up from the third floor. you get daylight! a bit. and henry at home with lots of daylight. well, this morning, the government minister who had the lucky ticket of coming on after an absolute thumping at the by elections in kingswood and also in wellingborough, which we talked about yesterday, was michael tomlinson, the immigration minister.

now, henry, do you think it tells us anything that michael tomlinson, no offence, who doesn't have a hugely high profile, is the person who had the lucky ticket this morning? it definitely tells us a couple of things. one is that the government does want michael tomlinson to be one of the faces of its immigration policy. that might sound a bit sw1, but it definitely matters. he's done quite a lot of broadcast rounds since he got thatjob. and worth remembering, he got that job in a very frantic few hours after robert jenrick — up until that point, one of rishi sunak's closest friends in politics — suddenly resigned and tore into rishi sunak's immigration policy. so it's not like when robertjenrick used to appear on your programme and you knew that he was speaking for sunakism as well as the government, which is quite an important distinction.

but the other thing i think it tells us, after a — i think it's fair to say — terrible week for the conservative party in electoral terms is that they believe that immigration, highlighting that issue, highlighting what they think they're doing to fix it, is one of the crucial ways they might be able to turn things around. so one of our questions this morning was, after this absolute thumping, whether the tories are actually going to change anything. right? because you've seen it after elections, sometimes parties go, "ah, yes, we have listened, we will learn..." we will do... oxbridge. right, exactly. we went spoke to loads of punters in oxbridge and after that, the tories did really change tack on rishi sunak�*s rhetoric around the environment. however much he actually changed in policy, that's a big debate, although he did change some things. but this time actually michael tomlinson this morning came up with that phrase that we've already heard again and again and again and again and again. stick with the plan, stick with the plan.

stick with the plan. please don't vote for reform because what you'll do is let labour in. there's no doubt that these byelections were set - against a very difficult backdrop. i was in kingswood - myself a few weeks ago. i saw the excellent candidate - and the campaign on the ground. but actually if you look at it, if you look at, for example, i reform's vote, which people have been talking about this week, - what comes across to me is it's very clear that a vote for reform - is actually a vote to let labour in. and that is a very clear message that i've taken away. _ | one of the clear messages that i've| taken away from these by elections. the clear message is that voters don't like what rishi sunak is offering them. and it's notjust the last week. there's been somerton and frome in the south—west, selby in the north, tamworth in the midlands, mid bedfordshire in the south—east. this is a long line of kickings since rishi sunak has been in. voters don't want what he's offering. well, as i said, these have been very difficult circumstances - and a difficult backdrop — . you mentioned by elections, governments don't traditionally win by elections. _ that is absolutely right. we saw the turnout in the by elections, i very different from the sort of turnout that you get - at a general election. we're in the 305 or thereabouts

for the by elections, _ much higher, likely to be the 605 or hopefully towards the 705 - in a general election. but it has been a very difficult backdrop. - henry, can you just address our newscasterjenny walton? "this is the umpteenth minister i've heard saying that a vote for reform will let keir starmer into downing street. why don't they address why so many people have turned to reform?" jenny adds, "i'm not one of them and will never be." but in other words, it's no good just saying, don't do this thing that voters want. well, i guess the conservatives would say, "that's why michael tomlinson was talking primarily about immigration today." and it is certainly true that it remains the view, the hope, whatever you want to call it, the strategy in conservative high command, that if a plane takes off for rwanda, shows that that policy can operate, let alone that it might be effective, which would be the subsequent question, that will show members of the public,

former conservative voters who might be wavering, who are frustrated by the number of small boat crossings and the illegal immigration system, that the government is doing something. that remains not a sort of magic bullet in the conservative mind, but definitely a big part of these things. they think that is a big reason voters are going to reform. i mean, i have to say, i was in wellingborough on friday and immigration only came up at the end of sort of long rants, long conversations from that i was having with voters about all the things that were annoying them. it wasjust one thing as part of a sort of broader piece, local as well as national. and i found that really interesting because i don't think it's like in 2019, early 2019, when the conservatives looked like they were in a very bad way. but it was quite clear that if they could just solve brexit, then loads of voters would flock to them. it seems like immigration is seen by many voters as just one symptom of a country that's not working on many levels. i think that's really dangerous

for the conservatives. and if you look at the opinion polling, or as we did a few weeks ago with britain in a room, and we talked to a lot of different focus groups, immigration for former conservative voters or conservative voters tends to come near the top. it's sometimes the number one issue. but if you look across the piece, the issues nearly always are cost of living, far out at the front, then the nhs, then for some people, immigration hovering around the same place, actually, as climate change for a lot of people. so, look, don't shoot me, newscasters, there are lots and lots of different kinds of polling. but consistently, if you look across the whole population, immigration is not number one, but the conservatives believe it's number one for many of the voters that they're trying to get back, who were blue before and they want to keep blue now. it's been a chapter in politics this week because of the by elections. what's curious for me is that labour should be projecting power, shouldn't it, should be projecting victory?

but there's been this kind of "what do they mean in rochdale?" and did you get into that with david lammy? yes. so david lammy, who wants to be the foreign secretary in the next labour government if they win the election, he spoke to us this morning from the munich security conference, which every year is a big gathering of bigwigs, leaders from around the world. but it has a new kind of urgency this year, given what's happened with alexei navalny. we did ask him about labour's handling of anti—semitism. he said keir starmer made the right decision about that candidate in rochdale in the end, but he did use the s—word. i'm sorry that the initialjudgment was that he'd made an apology, l the candidate made an apology, and we could move forward. - more came to light, and it was right that keir acted decisively, _ i'm afraid, to suspend him - and to withdraw our support to him as the labour candidate. it does mean that the people - of rochdale will not have a labour candidate on the ticket and i am | very sorry that they will not be i able to vote labour. but i absolutely stand by that - decision not to support a candidate that had come up with a whole series

of anti—semitic tropes. _ so i thought that was interesting because we had not heard that from the leadership team around keir starmer. so far, wejust had, "oh, it was a tough decision. we took it, we looked at the facts, more emerged. it was a tough decision." so david lammy, intentionally or not, did apologise for the sort of mess of that. i think they've got another mess to look ahead to this week, because there's going to be a vote in common in the commons on whether or not there should be a ceasefire in gaza. last time that happened, more than 50 labour mps voted for there to be an immediate ceasefire. keir starmer did not, he did not want the labour party to do that. and yesterday, awkwardly, scottish labour backed the notion of that at their conference in glasgow. and you had anas sarwar on your programme this morning, the scottish labour leader? yes, and he repeated that, basically speaking, "call it what you like. "there needs to be an immediate stop of hostilities, of killings and everything."

so, henry, do you think this is a big issue in the week ahead for labour? the snp's called this ceasefire motion. labour has a different position in westminster than it appears to have in scotland. i think it's certainly a big issue. i think it's probably less of a big issue than last time this came up for a few different reasons. one of them is that labour's position, indeed the uk's position generally, across parties, has changed a little bit since then. labour do now use the ceasefire word, although they preface it with sustainable ceasefire, which is their way of emphasising that it is notjust israel fighting here, israel is also having rockets into its territory and so on daily. so there's that element, which is that the labour party is now much closer to the position being espoused in this snap motion than it was last time around. the other thing is that those labour shadow frontbenchers who might resign over this have

basically already resigned. you had the big rebellion last time round. so that sort ofjeopardy with certain people who were on keir starmer's front bench who feel incredibly strongly, well, they have already displayed their strong feelings by going to the backbenches. so that sort of constrains the front bench rebellion somewhat. and then finally, one of the big arguments last time this was being debated internally within the labour party was that it could really harm, some people said, really harm, the labour party nationally with the voters. and i think the view of keir starmer and his team is, "look at the opinion polls — they've barely budged. look at these two by elections this week," where labour won on historically large swings, specifically in wellingborough, it hasn't budged the national opinion polling. so they're not denying that there's

problems for specific mp5 in a few specific seats. but i think on the politics of how labour is responding to this, they basically feel vindicated. it's really interesting you say that, and i think like you, i think they might have a bumpy couple of days over it. but i think a lot of the boil on this has been lanced, partly because people who are going to get up and go have got up and gone from the front bench. and also we have seen, as henry was saying, the government's position has shifted a bit to be a bit tougher in its language towards israel. labour's language has shifted to become a bit tougher towards israel too. but of course, like so many other leaders of democracies around the world, our politicians say serious, they hope tough—sounding things, trying to stop israel from going further or going into rafah, for example, and yet it doesn't appear to any of them that benjamin netanyahu is actually listening to the calls that they make. so, yes, there is an interesting kind of dynamic in how it's being handled in westminster and the sort of intrigue and the division between scottish labour and uk labour, but actually the bigger context of this — most of our mainstream politicians are kind

of on the same page on this stuff, so it doesn't tend to be, as henry was suggesting, a big rallying flag for a majority of voters. it's not to say it doesn't matter. and there are pockets where it's incredibly important. but in most places, it's not the kind of thing that influences an electoral contest right now. ok, so there we are — the by elections that were, with one more coming on the 29th of february. laura, we were both, i think, moved to be with marina litvinenko on the newscast on saturday. i mean, you've. .. i thought you were visibly moved. i know what i felt. yeah, without question. i mean, she speaks so powerfully about the terrible thing that happened to her, her husband killed at the hands of putin's henchmen. are you all right? how are you? i'm fine. and i said, because whatl happened to my husband, it was in uk, it was not easy process l to getjustice, but i knew i will have a proper investigation. alexei navalny was poisoned

in russia and russia always. deny of doing this. now, he's killed in russia and it. would be always denied they did it. and this is a very- difficult process to prove. and we have to understand, russia| state is now not a law—based state. but what's also so moving is her determination that this situation must not be allowed to stand. and she's not the only person who has that view. and she talked, i thought, so movingly about this community of people outside russia for whom it's no longer safe to live inside russia. but as they watch on with the rest of the world, what can they do to try to press the rest of the world into action of some sort, to try to hold putin to account? so, alexei navalny deliberately went back to russia. and that's. .. i think when i look at my emails and twitter feeds, that's what everyone understands. he was trying... he knew the risks and he was trying to get democracy on the map in russia, and he's now dead. so one of those who's been talking to his widow

was our guest this morning. she's sviatlana tsikhanouskaya, and she ran against putin's key ally in belarus. in fact, her husband, sergei, is currently in prison for running against the president, alexander lukashenko, in 2020. and she said that she'd had a shared experience with yulia navalny. i wonder about your life day to day. in this way, i can understand yulia and her family as well. they've had the news they fear. bluntly, can i ask you, do you fear that sergei is dead? you know, yesterday when i talk to yulia,| she still hoped that this news i about your husband was gossip. because we all want to believe that our beloved are alive. - i want to believe that my husband is alive because he is strong person. l his morality is high. but these gulags, you know, . these prisons are killing people. last year, he escaped incommunicado.

—— last year, he is. kept incommunicado. it means that lawyer is not allowed to visit him, - letters are not delivered. so actually, i don't know if he's alive. i i tried to put to her what we've heard on the newscast from voters on the streets. "it makes no difference. "our politicians are all rubbish. "it's all awful. "everything's awful." i said, "do we need to educate ourselves in the uk? actually, democracy is a fabulous thing." and she said, yes, you know, you can criticise your leaders, you can change them. and i don't know whether or not you think it's a bit pompous of me to put it that way round, because one of the big themes on the newscast is voters telling us it's all rubbish. yeah. and we have the power to make that change. and when you hearfrom her and you hear from people like marina or evgeny, who is a similar situation, we spoke to her this morning and again, her husband's in captivity. he's been recently moved. she fears for his life in the same

way as we just heard there. she told me she'd been sleeping with her phone beside herfor years. what goes through your mind when it rings? with all of that that's happening, i cannot afford breaking down. i cannot afford being afraid. i cannot afford just the normal human feeling of fear. - i have to always fight that and step lover it and say, "yes, i am afraid, | but that is not - important right now." continuing the fight is important. telling the stories of those people who are suffering . from the regime is important. |today, people are getting arrestedj for laying flowers to the memorials of our victims of repression, - so that situation is deteriorating, it seems, by the day. where does this story go now, do you think, henry? is it something that...?

david cameron's been saying there must be consequences, but there are sanctions, aren't there, on key russians? so i'm not sure what the british government can do. that's the thing, isn't it? you know, the uk government and the west more broadly now does have a very aggressive posture towards russia. so ways in which that might be tightened a little, i'm sure they'll be looking for those. but to my mind, where does this story go now is really the question of the us presidential election, because if donald trump becomes president, he almost certainly will have a fairly different attitude to russia to the one that the us administration ofjoe biden has, and what that means for the sort of broader western front, the nato's front, essentially, against russia, it will be fascinating. and so i think, really, the question of whether the west moves further against putin,

solidifies further against putin as a result of this, is really one that's going to be answered in november in places like minnesota and wisconsin and michigan. and before then, perhaps, there may finally be a resolution of whether congress ever signs the check for the latest tranche of weapons to go to ukraine. and still stories that have been emerging over recent months, with literally people saying they've run out of munitions while american politicians argue over whether or not they should keep funding the ukrainian war effort. so that is a story that we will be keeping an eye on, of course, across the bbc. but tomorrow, i think there will be a statement in parliament either from the prime minister or from the foreign secretary, but of course he would have to do that in the house of lords, but about what, if anything, the uk might say as a consequence to putin for what's happened to alexei navalny. ok, so can i go to something which is not really on the news

agenda, but it's been on henry zeffman�*s agenda? and he didn't complete the thought last week because i've been obsessed with david cameron's role. i brought that up before and last week, henry said, subplot. david cameron hasn't really been wheeled out. so can we have the subplot, henry, about david cameron? are you implying that he's actually been held back? no, no, no, not at all. ijust think it's very striking that when i was having conversations with people in government in the immediate aftermath of them bringing david cameron back, they said there's two great prizes for them. one is you get a former prime minister with extensive experience in foreign affairs to be the foreign secretary. and clearly that's the great prize for rishi sunak administratively. and he's been doing... i think no—one could say he's been anything other than massively energetic on the world stage. he's been travelling a lot. he's travelling right now. he's in the falkland islands at the moment. but the other thing that people said is, he'll also be a very powerful voice arguing for government policy on the airwaves across the piece. that's the thing that i don't think has happened very much.

he's made one appearance on sunday with laura kuenssberg, but generally he has confined himself to very controlled moments, where he will only be speaking about the admittedly extremely important business of his being foreign secretary. but we haven't heard him, for example, responding to by election defeats in the way... i can imagine how that call would have gone. "yes, call me dave, dave. "do you fancy going on to defend the bill, one of the worst ever performances in the wellingborough by election? "i'm in the falklands." yeah, but because... you two are the boffins. i thought i've been saying on this newscast, watch for him being wheeled out in this role, like the deputy prime

minister in all but name. but you see, i think in this subplot, and i think it's very interesting that you're obsessed with it in this subplot, i think there was a difference, and i am speculating on the basis of conversations that i had around the time. i think there was a bit of a maybe not a disagreement, but a difference in understanding, because people around david cameron's expectation was that they would perhaps do media when he was abroad around the issues that he was focusing on and that he was not going to be a committed, useful rent—a—gob to defend a government that is in difficulty. however, i think there is a suggestion that when it comes to an election campaign, he will be a very useful, polished gob—on—stick in the view of tory ho. whether voters accept that, of course, is a different question. however, we have a discorder... it's something from thomas the tank engine. today at 1038, they message,

"finally newscasters, and there's a few here in the falklands..." dante's in the falklands. this is amazing. "we get to be in the news from a positive point of view. lord cameron's dropping in to see the penguins pay his respects at the liberation memorial. i wonder if he'll do a selfie with maggie's bust and chat to us and the falkland islands government. it's going to be an interesting week ahead." well, dante, tell us after the visit what you made of it and whether or not the penguins welcomed him with open wings. i want a picture of of the penguins. i want a picture of dante with a penguin. i've never in my life had an email from the falklands. that's a first, isn't it? yeah. so i've just got to go back to this. you know how you're saying david cameron can be wheeled out in the election campaign? yeah. do we think, henry, first that you could see labour wheeling out tony blair, peter mandelson, do we think that there's going to be a campaign when it's back to the future? it's a really good question. i mean, peter mandelson actually does a fair bit of sort of media, not as a sort of official surrogate,

as they'd call them in america, of labour. but he is a vocal voice in favour of the direction the labour party is going in. tony blair, i suspect probably not. i can see a world in which he'll do one intervention on the today programme or something, sort of during the campaign, but probably not. i mean, it's the interesting balance that keir starmer has to strike, which is making himself the centre of the labour campaign, because it will be him that would become prime minister if labour win, while also trying to show that he has a strong team around him. and i think he'll probably want to prioritise his shadow cabinet rather than voices from the past. talking of which, douglas alexander, former cabinet minister, is standing again as an mp and he was on the show this morning. somebody wanted to come back to politics after having, you know, whatever it is, ten years away from being an mp. anyway, there we are. so there will be some retreads, as they're called, at the election, which will give us nerds another set of statistics to look at with glee. how many retreads will there be?

how many people will there be standing down? tonnes and tonnes and tonnes and tonnes. oh, what statistical fun we have to look forward. perhaps that should be the end of today's newscast. what do you think? well, i wanted to say that i have another old retreaded view, which is we, the british voters... yes. ..seem to love politicians when they leave... oh, yeah. because we suddenly go, "oh, yes. "they weren't that bad." it's a trait in us. there's nothing quite like someone who goes, "you know what? i've done my best and now i'm going to go and play cricket, whatever." or go into thejungle or go on strictly. or any of those other things. no, i think you're absolutely right. i've been wrong. i'm probably wrong. i think you're absolutely right, paddy. well, our dedicated newscasters, our friends, thank you for being with us on sunday. goodbye.

newscast from the bbc. hello there. sunday started the day on quite a wet note for large areas of england, but it was tibenham in norfolk that was the wettest place in the country with 31 millimetres of rain. once that cleared, most of the uk had some decent spells of sunshine and it was an exceptionally mild day. the highest temperature, in hampshire's gosport, was 17 celsius. that's eight degrees celsius above average for this time of the year. it'll stay pretty mild as well as we go through the next few hours. a band of rain crosses scotland and northern ireland. the rain heavy for a time, but it won't last very long. eventually, we'll start to see that rain encroaching in across parts of northern england and wales as we start off monday morning. a mild and frost—free start to the day, temperatures typically around 7 or 8 degrees. now, through the rest of monday, this band of rain reaches east anglia, south—east england, but very weak. just another patch of rain left over and a stripe of cloud. further north—westwards, a ridge of high pressure follows. so for most of the uk, again, we're looking at some fairly lengthy spells of sunshine, a few showers for western scotland. it'll turn a bit cloudier in northern ireland,

but i suspect the clouds going to be quite high through the afternoon, so still staying dry and bright. now, for the middle part of the week, we've got further weather systems coming in off the atlantic, so it will be quite wet and windy at times. tuesday, the wettest weather through the morning will be across scotland and northern ireland. again, a weatherfront here bringing some fairly heavy rain, but again, not lasting too long. the weather front moves its way southwards and eastwards whilst weakening, with a mixture of sunshine and showers following to scotland and northern ireland through the afternoon, so that's probably why we'll see some of the best of the sunshine. there'll be some bright weather, though, for central and eastern england and it will be another very mild day. it then turns a lot windier through wednesday, gusts of wind reaching 50 or 60 miles an hour for northern scotland. quite windy for wales and western england, some heavy rain here as well. over the hills of wales and western england, we could see around 50—odd millimetres of rain, and that will be enough to bring some renewed concerns that we could see some further localised surface water flooding. it stays mild again, but the mild weather won't last much longer because we swap those mild south—westerly winds for cooler north—westerly winds through thursday and into friday, and that will really drop

the temperatures back close to average for the time of year. so thursday, some wet weather moves its way eastwards. quite a windy day. as the rain clears, we'll see lots of showers moving in, and in the colder air, some of those showers will start to fall as snow across the hills in the north, particularly above 300 metres elevation, although you could see a bit of sleet or hail lower down.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm mariko oi. the headlines. a member of israel's war cabinet says unless hamas releases all hostages in gaza by the tenth of march, israel will launch a ground offensive into rafah. we came back to no electricity, no food for today. we report on people like tala, and her brother yazid — whose journey we've been following — and who've been waiting in desperation to get out. a british woman is arrested on suspicion of murder following the deaths of three children in bristol.

and the bathtub goes to... oppenheimer. —— bafta. and it's oppenheimer�*s night at the baftas — it led the pack with seven gongs. welcome to bbc news — broadcasting to viewers in the uk and around the world. we start in the middle east, where a member of israel's war cabinet has said the military will move into the overcrowded city of rafah unless hamas releases all hostages by the 10th of march. speaking at a conference injerusalem, benny gantz said "the world must know, and hamas leaders must know — if by ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, to include the rafah

area.