several buildings near al—ahram studio in the city's giza district were also evacuated as the fire spread to them. as the first ship bringing aid to gaza unloads its supplies, the us and un renew warnings about an israeli offensive in rafah, saying a ground assault would be a humanitarian catastrophe. vandalism arrests in russia as voters spoil their ballots on day two of the country's presidential elections. vladimir putin is almost certain to win a further six years — his only serious rivals are dead, in prison or in exile. now on bbc news — it's newscast. chris, one of the biggest mysteries of british politics in 2024 is getting a little bit closer to being solved. it is, and it's the question that

keeps rearing its head. when will the general election be? and it's not going to be on the 2nd of may because in an interview with itv in the west country on thursday night, rishi sunak said there will not be a general election on the same day as the local mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections, which are happening that day. now, whether you love or hate speculation about the general election campaign, the fact that there is so much and the way it's been going, actually, it is quite revealing about what's happening in politics. so we will kick off with that on this episode of newscast. newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello, it's adam in the studio. and it is chris in cardiff today, because there's a splash of democracy and voting going on here, with a new labour leader being elected on saturday who will become the new first minister next week. and talking of other stories that have occurred today, michael gove, the levelling up

and communities secretary, unveiled the government's new definition of extremism. and he popped into the newscast studio earlier to explain what it all means and i asked him a few other things as well, so we will come to that shortly. but, chris, first of all, people who aren't at westminster and aren't on political social media the whole time might not have realised just quite the frenzy that was building about the fact that maybe the general election was going to be called for the 2nd of may, which means it was going to be called very soon. yeah, so there's been two waves of frenzy about this, both of them predictable, let's put it bluntly, excuse my mild splash of world weariness about this sort of stuff. 0h, he's had a long day! so, over christmas, there was a blast of all of this stuff and you had various folk, particularly labour folk, coming out and saying — the greatest secret in westminster that no—one dare talk about is the election is going to be in...may. i think emily thornberry of labour did a fair old amount

of this, amongst others. then we had the prime minister, in an interview with, i think it was the itv east midlands region, saying that the working assumption was that the election would be in the second half of the year. he said that in the first couple of days of january. he didn't quite rule out an election in the first six months but the suggestion was it would be the second half, in the autumn, which is where a lot of the smart money had been for some while. that then calmed down the, ooh, is the election going to be soon thing for a bit, until the calming down went away and the hullabaloo came back in the last ten days or so. why? because we were approaching the deadline at the tail end of this month which, had it been passed without a dissolution of parliament, you couldn't have an election at the beginning of may because there wouldn't be enough time left. so all the hullabaloo started again.

a lot of it coming from people who would love an election in may and/or love to be able to say the government has bottled it if it doesn't happen in may — in other words, lots of folk within labour and indeed other opposition parties. so we arrive at today, with the prime minister offering a bit more clarification. well, let's clarify some of the theories, then, that have been driving this frenzy of speculation. it was becoming quite frenzious. first of all, labour's strategy here of why it was in their interests and there is a few reasons, isn't there, to tout around this idea of an earlier election than planned 7 yes, frenzious, that's a good word. frenzious — it's not even a real word but it will be now. it will be now and you'll know what it means when someone says it, so i think that counts, that means it should do. it should its place in the firmament of vocabulary. so from labour's perspective, why would you want to talk up in election now? well, firstly, if you were labour, you would want an election now. why? because you are a million miles ahead in the opinion polls and the conservatives look like, on the face of it, they're in a pretty bleak position. secondly, you want to demand one now because opposition parties always do all of the time anyway. thirdly, because there's a fair

chance the prime minister is not going to call a one now, for all of the reasons set out already, and therefore you can say when he doesn't that he is a scaredy cat, that he is squatting in downing street, all that kind of stuff. conservatives would make the argument that constitutionally, they were elected for a five year parliament and that doesn't expire untiljanuary of next year. so that's why you have folk, principally in the opposition parties, who have been making that argument. one or two conservatives privately have been exploring the idea that maybe going earlier is better than going late, the idea being that things might get worse from their perspective. the vast majority of folk i speak to on the government benches, on the conservative benches, quite a lot of labour folk privately as well, have always worked on the assumption that it was much, much more likely to be in the autumn because why if you were a prime minister would you volunteer to go early, when the prospect of winning looks like something of a long shot and therefore you might be throwing away precious governing months that you would otherwise be entitled to?

then one of the other theories is that actually, it's allies of rishi sunak who were promoting the idea of an earlier election as a way to scare tory mps into being more disciplined and less critical of him. yes, and there's also the theory that says labour talking up the prospect of an early election also ensures that they and their rank and file are disciplined, because there's a prospect of an election soon. no keener way to try and instill a certain amount of discipline than suggesting that your political battle with your real opponents in other political parties is imminent. in other words, sort of hang together. so, yeah, there are lots of forces that would tempt people and have been tempting people, my goodness, over the last few weeks to talk up this prospect. even if its likelihood was always relatively slim and now, as far as that particular date, has been ruled out by the prime minister. cue the next wave of speculation

about who knows, potential dates later in may orjune orjuly and then we can restart the whole thing about the autumn and whether it's october or does he announce that he's going to go and see the king from the conference stage or blah, blah, blah? so we have seen two waves of this so far in 2024 and there'll be more to come. basically, you're saying we're going to get one night off from this? and this is how we are spending it! yeah, pretty much that. it will kick the can of speculation a little bit further down the road and then that can will start fizzing again when there's the prospect of another deadline approaching that would rule out a date in month x, month y, month z. speculation is the waft of politics, isn't it? it is there the whole time but we should always be... you know, sceptical about why it's happening or at least open—minded

about why people might be in the business of talking up something that may or may not be any more likely to happen as a result of that talking up. also, there'sjust not a huge amount happening in parliament at the moment, so lots of people have got time on their hands to speculate about this and politicians love nothing more than guessing about when the election�*s going to be. either because they think it's really fun or because they're really worried about losing their jobs. also, my kind of game theory thing about this, and this is me thinking two or three steps ahead, is because keir starmer is desperate for points of difference from the government and also any kind of opportunity to attack them, i wonder... will he end up in a situation where he makes some kind of commitment about when he would be calling the election if it was prime minister keir starmer? and, actually, do we have then something on the record from the labour leader that can be then he can be held to if he is in downing street so we don't go through this rigmarole ever again? yeah... but it's also hard to see a prime minister giving up one of the biggest trump cards they've

got, which is calling an election whenever they want. totally, and then just to spin back to the here and now in terms of the motivations for talking up an election. if you're an opposition party, it helps to know when the election isn't going to be because, you know, the flip side of the point you're making is that it is a trump card for a prime minister. you can start to back time things to where you are putting most of your chips in private. whereas your opponents have to do the chips around the range of possible dates, including, realistically, stacking quite a lot on the most imminent date in case the government goes early. and that takes money and energy and mental bandwidth, which the governing party, even if it's not actually decided, because why would you necessarily 100% decide potentially a long way out? you can mentally stack your chips in a particular place and the opposition parties can't do that. so flushing out anything approaching clarity orjust more information, which as a result of this wave

of speculation they've managed to do, you can then plan around what you then know. certainly, when i speak to folk in government, they do lean again back on that remark, that formulation from january about the working assumption being the second half of the year, which means sort ofjuly onwards, if you take that at the sort of letter of each and every syllable. right, let's look at something that did actually happen today, rather than something that isn't happening. the government unveiled its new definition of extremism. this is the definition the government will use for itself when it comes to their dealings with individuals and groups and campaigners. there's a bit of politics here. the government says it's as a response to the increase in extremism and concern around all sorts of issues since the hamas attack on israel on the 7th of october.

so they feel that they can sort of own that a bit, or at least own the response to that a bit. but, of course, this has come in the week where a big conservative donor has been accused of making some off—colour comments that maybe some people would say are quite extreme in themselves. so it's never simple. and the person who was holding the pen for this new definition of extremism is the levelling up secretary, michael gove, because the other part of his department is communities and local government, and he came into the newscast studio to explain what's been going on. michael gove, welcome back to newscast. hi. we were talking about flats and rent last time, weren't we? so you get all the, all the thorny issues of our era. yes. the the department for levelling up, housing and communities is, you know, it's a — sprawling is perhaps the wrong word, but it covers a lot of ground. so everything from leasehold and renters to helping communities to fight extremism, with a big dollop of local government spending in the middle.

although, some people would say the dollop�*s not big enough for some councils, but that's another, that's another episode. another episode. right, let's talk about extremism, then. so we've got this new definition. i will take a bit of time to actually read it out, just so that we're all on the same page. so extremism is: "the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance that aims to, one, negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others, ortwo, undermine, overturn or replace the uk's system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights. or three, intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in one or two." why did we need a new version? because the old version was a bit loose and it was more honoured in the breach than the observance. so we had a definition that was arrived at in 2011 and refreshed in 2015. and it's important to stress that this definition is there to help government, to guide government in the organisations that we should engage with and that we should fund. and recent reporting by the media, but also recent reporting by the independent reviewer of prevent, william shawcross, showed that there have been

occasions where government unwittingly had entertained or given support to organisations that were extremist. so the old version talked about british values. was the problem just that those values kind of weren't defined enough and so what you've done is you've used actual words here to do that? yes, we've sought to be more rigorous. and, of course, you know, you can have a useful debate about british values and it was a it was a useful definition in certain respects. but this definition is more precise, and it's drawn from a variety of different conversations with people across the piece. and it's been tested, of course, by lawyers as well, so that we can feel more confident that it will be, across government, a better guide to whom we should engage with. i'm always intrigued about the options that you had to reject or the things that you had to compromise on. are there other other words and things you thought about putting in here but then you didn't? no, i mean, we had obviouslya big debate within and across government about what we should do and how we could take appropriate steps. and also, once we had a definition, how we would make sure that certain

organisations were covered by it and others were excluded. but that was a debate about means — everyone recognised that the end of making sure that we had a better way of policing government contact with organisations was the right thing to do. and when you say government is that government at all levels, does that stretch down to like my local library which is run by the council? no, it is purely about national government. right, ok. it is the case, once we've said that we think that an organisation crosses the line here, that that information and the reasoning behind it can be shared and then people can be held to account for their own decisions. but a local council can of course make its own decision about who it might rent out space to or whom it might invite to, you know, give evidence to a local council, sort of external relations committee or whatever it might be. but we think that it is helpful to have that definition and also helpful to have an informed debate about some of the ideologies that are of concern.

right, point three, which is this idea of people who intentionally create a permissive environment for people who say the other the other points. what is a permissive environment? well, it's those who are facilitating, egging on, providing support for the promulgation of hate and actions and words that undermine our democracy. and again, it allows us to apply these limbs in a way which make sure that we can be legally confident that when we make a decision about government funding or about government engagement, that we have the robustness of something that has been through the legal mill to underpin that. and, yeah, you're going to have this centre of excellence in your department which will be monitoring all these people and individuals and working out whether they meet these criteria to be described as extremist. exactly. will people who find themselves on that list be able to appeal it? well, again, any decision

by government about whether or not to engage can always be subject tojudicial review. but what we propose to do, of course, is to gather evidence and then in some cases that evidence may be put to organisations to give them an opportunity to comment on it. it may well be the case that an organisation will say, look, ourteam in charge are completely changed. oh, so you won'tjust do it unilaterally, you'll engage with them potentially? well, it's, again, a case by case situation, but we will of course make sure that we exercise appropriate due diligence, gather evidence and if necessary, put particular concerns to organisations in order to allow them to inform us as to whether or not that is still their approach. i was watching you update mps in parliament about this at lunchtime on thursday. i noticed you mentioned a few organisations that you think might fall into this category. why is it ok to name particular organisations before you've done the due diligence? because, again, i think it's important for parliamentarians and it was important to do it

in parliament, to have an understanding of the sorts of organisations that may be in scope. and also at the same time for me to specify the sorts of organisations and the sorts of campaigns that would not be in scope. and again, one of the things about this debate, and i had the opportunity to explain this on the bbc earlier on thursday and also in the house of commons, is there's a particular challenge when it comes to defining islamism. people sometimes mix it up with islam, the religion. and it's very important to draw a distinction between islam, which is a noble faith, a religion of peace, which inspires people to good deeds, to compassion and kindness, and islamism, which is a very specific ideology linked to the muslim brotherhood and its founder, hassan al—banna, and its principal ideologue. one of the other things you said on the airwaves this morning was that this is in part a reaction to people's concerns after the 7th of october attacks on israel. i mean, the things that people

are worried about happening in britain as a result of that are horrible posts on social media and protests that seem to be getting a bit out of hand. what does this do to address those two things? well, it's only part of the story. in order to address those sorts of things, we need to work with organisations on the ground. we need to build bottom up grassroots organisations and civil society groups that are bringing people together. one of the problems has been that government has funded work like that in the past and sometimes that funding has found its way into the hands of organisations and individuals who are extremist. so, at the very least, we need to make sure that the people who we engage with are people who are sincere and committed to doing the right thing. we need to choose our friends wisely. the second thing is also, by being clear about the ideology that animates some organisations that traffic in anti—semitism or foment anti—muslim hatred, we're all, i hope, better informed as part of that debate about what we should be looking out

for and what it is legitimate to challenge as well. and there's going to be more stuff about countering extremism from the government... absolutely. ..in the next few weeks. so dame sara khan, who's our independent advisor on social cohesion, has a report which we'll be publishing and responding to. john woodcock, lord walney, former labour mp, has done a report on countering political violence. again, that will be published with a response. so there is much more to come, yes. you talked about the people and the causes that aren't in scope for this and you said, so it was things like gender critical views, trans rights, environmental campaigners, christian groups. just picking the environment. so if you're an environmentalist or an environmental group, and you say, "climate change is such a massive threat to society, "we need a dictatorship so that we can introduce "all the measures we need to get to net zero and save the climate." is that extremist, then, or are you covered because you're an environmental group and you can't be an extremist? well, again, if it was the case that there were active steps that were being taken in order to undermine our democracy, that might be one thing.

but simply having a strong and passionate commitment to the environment of the kind that you mentioned, that wouldn't be a problem. oh, so calling for a climate dictatorship would be fine. just if you you acted on it. again... something to get there? yes. and if it was part of a sustained ideology which led to the vilification of others and acts which would undermine our democracy. but again, one would have to look at it, because there are examples, there have been examples in the past of extremist organisations sometimes trying to hijack other, more popular causes. so everything would need to be looked at in context. i'm not a fan ofjust stop oil or extinction rebellion, but they have a right to their views and to state them. and the way to take them on is to engage in debate. has it been tricky for you launching all of this with the shadow of the tory donations thing hanging over you with frank hester? well, i think whatever announcement

by any government minister was going to be made in this week, following on from that report and those comments, it would always be difficult. any government minister is understandably going to be asked about it. and, you know, the comments are racist and therefore having to respond to them means that you're dealing with something which is deeply regrettable. and, of course, there are some people who've tried to conflate the two. i think it's important to draw a distinction, but i can completely understand why people in the course of an interview about extremism would raise this case. so the first reports came out in the guardian on monday afternoon. number 10 put out a statement in the prime minister's name saying that they were racist. at what point did you conclude that these reported comments were racist? well, it seemed to me pretty clear. i didn't read the whole guardian report. ijust heard the bbc's reporting of it. but yes, and as i mentioned, and as i think some listeners might know, the particular reference

to shooting had an effect on me because i was targeted by someone who wanted to kill me and who subsequently killed my friend and colleague david amess. and so when you hear language of that sort, then it inevitably, particularly given the specific racist element to it, it does have a very disturbing effect. but how soon after you saw the reports did you say, "yeah, this is racist"? because, you know what i'm getting at, you're a former political journalist as well. i was getting at the fact that it took number 10 ages and other people in your party came out and said it much more quickly. yeah, i absolutely take that on board because i think that one of the things that is also important is, as well as being clear, is also being forgiving. so it can sometimes be the case that there will be people who will say and do very foolish things who, on reflection,

realise that they've done something very wrong. and i think it's important that people should be allowed an element of contrition. now, last week, mel stride was sat in that seat, and he was explaining to me and chris the concept of the "dead bat" in the political interview, and now you're going to dead bat these next two questions. oh, right. bloomberg, the news agency, are reporting today that some cabinet ministers have had conversations about replacing rishi sunak as prime minister before the election. have you had a conversation like that? no. have you heard rumours of conversations like that? not involving cabinet ministers, no. 0k. have you got tickets to go to glastonbury? i've never been to the glastonbury festival. i've visited the town, but i have never been to the festival. and is thatjust because you've never got a ticket or because it just doesn't seem like you're a thing? i've never got a ticket. i understand they're quite pricey. if the bbc wanted to invite me as their guest...

you and zoe ball. i mean, i'd tune into that. completely. i would love, love to do the sort of sunday night commentary with zoe ball or whoever. would love to. i mean, the big names this year, cos they've just announced the line up today... dua lipa. yes, are you a dua lipa fan? yes. shania twain. oh, that does impress me. very good! and of course, coldplay. but they seem to be there every year. yes. — i'm not a great coldplay fan. but dua lipa, i think, is brilliant. and my acquaintance with dua lipa is mainly due to my daughter. but shania twain, i think i'm probably more her target demographic. you and chris mason both. well, michael gove, thank you very much. not at all. i'm glad that we're singing from the same sheet. no, we're not! i'm completely impartial. i'm asking the questions. the questions are on the sheet. your answers are on a separate sheet. thank you. thank you for this duet. that's better. i can live with that one. now, chris, we learnt something there from michael gove. well, you always learn more than one thing from michael gove,

but the main thing i learned was that you and he are both great fans of shania twain. oh, well, i mean, michael has great taste in music, that's all i can say. you know, "giddy up!" even though it's more than a year old now, that song, still one of the best songs of the last 12, 11; months, i think, let alone all the big hits. "man, i feel like a woman." oh, it's brilliant that shania twain's at glastonbury. this is like radio 2 now rather than a news podcast. the thing about glastonbury, though, is that there is always a bit of a political angle and for me the best one of the last few years was when tom watson was labour deputy leader and it was the day after the brexit referendum. and was he spotted at a silent disco at glasto? yeah, a silent disco. i think at about 3am in the morning. there was a photo. i can picture an image. i can't remember if it was a moving image or a still image. i'm sure it was moving, with those kind of big headphones on, that you wear at a silent disco. i must admit i'm not a aficionado on such things. and he's doing his thing in the middle of the night

at this huge moment, notjust in british politics, but in kind of contemporary british history. and then was he sort of pictured, sort of sheepish, and not looking fresh... at the train station the next day! yes, the railway station about four hours later, trying to work out what on earth it meant for the labour party, a massive headache for the party, and who knows, maybe for him that morning, literally, as well. yeah, exactly. right, chris, safe travels back from wales and see you soon. cheers, bye. and thank you very much for tuning in to this episode of newscast. we will be back with another one very soon. bye. newscast from the bbc. tomorrow is going

to be a warmer day. today felt a lot chillier across south—eastern parts of the country, but we have all seen the cloud increasing and there has been some rain and drizzle in the air as well. low pressure is staying probably out to the west, but well ahead of it, this cloud is getting thrown our way, and these weather fronts will bring the wetter weather and that is pushing east. it will clear away from northern areas overnight, but across england and wales, coming up from the south—west, we will see rain developing more widely by the early hours. not welcome rain by any means. eight or nine celsius, but where the cloud breaks later in northern scotland, temperatures down to three or four celsius. unlike today, tomorrow is going to be an improving picture, where we will see the rain clearing, sunshine coming through and that could lead to a few showers here and there. the rain should not last too long in wales, but you can expect a wet start in the midlands first thing.

the cloud will then break, sunny spells will develop, leading to a few showers, mainly for the northern half of the uk. the winds will be quite light and it will be a warmer day. compared with today temperatures will be three orfour degrees higher. in the milder air on sunday night, a couple of weakening weather fronts moving in from the west. they won't bring much rain at all. that's the extent of any cloud and rain early on monday. that moves away, and we will see some sunshine coming through. then the next weather system arrives out in the west, northern ireland, strengthening the winds through the irish sea and into western most parts of scotland. it is a southerly wind, hence those higher than normal temperatures, peaking at 15 or 16 celsius. the wind is coming from a long way south, hence those higher temperatures. but the potentialfor more rain. this area of low pressure is going to track north and it will take the rain overnight across the northern half of the uk, and then clear away

north on tuesday. following that there will be a few showers, but then it will dry up with some sunshine. still some rain hanging on in the south and south—west. those temperatures not changing much, 13—16 c. live from london — this is bbc news. the brother of diana, princess of wales, tells the bbc about how he and his sister were punished violently as children by one of their nannies. i don't think we realised that that was wrong. we knew it was painful and we knew

it was something we wanted to avoid, but i think children don't know morality necessarily at that stage. as russians head to the polls, officials accuse ukraine of upping attacks on its territory to intimidate voters. vaughan gething is elected as welsh labour leader and first minister of wales — making him the first black leader of any european country. and one of the oldest and most prestigious film studios in the arab world has been destroyed by a fire in cairo. hello, richard preston. welcome to programme. we start with some breaking news. princess diana's brother, charles spencer, has told the bbc that press attention suffered by his sister was "more dangerous" than the attention online surrounding the current princess of wales. but speaking in an interview to be broadcast on the bbc's

sunday with laura kuenssberg tomorrow, he said,