this is bbc news, the headlines. the head of the united nations agency for palestinian refugees says israel has told him it will no longer approve its food convoys to enter northern gaza. in a post on social media, philippe lazzarini described the move as outrageous and said the aim was to obstruct the delivery of life—saving assistance. president putin lights a candle for victims of the concert hall attack — where 137 people were killed. large numbers of russians lay flowers at a makeshift memorial as the country marks a day of official mourning. meanwhile the four suspected gunmen in the attack have appeared in court accused of committing terrorism. and simon harris has been elected the new leader of the irish governing party, fine gael. he's set to become the republic of ireland's youngest prime minister —

at the age of 37, after leo varadkar�*s surprise resignation. more on all of the stories of the bbc news website. now on bbc news, it's newscast. newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello. it's paddy in the studio. and laura in the studio. and henry at home. laura's had a scoop, so she got the chancellor to commit to the triple lock in the conservative manifesto. because you hinted this week that the triple lock, which guarantees pensioners�* income, keeps pace with inflation. you hinted that might be reviewed, but will the triple lock be in the tory manifesto this time round? well, i can confirm it will be, yes. and there's two very important things i would say about that. when we came to office in 2010, pensioners were more likely to be in poverty than other income groups. now, because of the triple

lock that we introduced, they are less likely to be in poverty. and i think that's a very important social change because, unlike adults of working age, pensioners can't work, they've retired. and so we need to respect that. they have done it into every election in the past, - a significant political moment, putting extra pressure on labour to do the same, - and the fact that he was able to acknowledge that - they will do that shows they are thinking - about what they will say in the general election i to different groups - of voters, and of course it is, because the election is round the corner, even if it is months away rather than weeks away. |

i also think about a conversation i had last week with somebody in government who said what number 10 is now becoming is, here is a ball they can lock into labour is caught, is now becoming is, here is a ball they can lock into labour's court, so the commitment, for example, the conservatives nibbled away at that. until eventually labour said, oh, yeah, 0k, we're not going to do it. this could be another one of those things, because it was only this week that keir starmersaid, oh, i'm not going to say i believe in it, but i'm not going to commit to it at this point in the cycle. lo and behold, three days later, the chancellor says yes, and in the manifesto and all the way through the next parliament. lib dems have said this is a shameless trick after—tax heights. just weeks after the hike taxes on every economic promise broken last manifested jeremy hunt is using the passion for granted and while they

may like the sound of it it is hugely expensive and we know a lot of younger generations feel real inequality in the deal they get from the political parties. and the polling shows that tory voters, when you can find them and you need a pair of binoculars at the moment they tend to be older. so, i mean, obviously jeremy hunt has done a lot for the childcare provision recently, the nursery care provision. so we're not trying to just criticise him, but voters who are older like this and older voters are more likely to be conservative. yes. and fewer people are voting conservative than 2019. that's an understatement. if you believe the polls. and those where they've retained their support are disproportionately older. i mean, i've been struck for a while how much the kind of questions of intergenerational fairness are rocketing up the political agenda in westminster

in a way that they haven't been in previous years. i think one of the battlegrounds in this general election is going to be housing. we know that the labour party talks a lot about planning. they talk about planning reform as a route to economic growth. but i think what it also is is a way of signalling from them to younger voters that they know that the housing market doesn't work for them, that younger people need a stake in society, need to find a way to get on the housing ladder. and i think a conversation about pensioners actually in some ways inflames those questions for younger groups as well. 0k. so i was just kind of sticking it a bit to the conservatives there. what about this? inflation's falling. interest rates are set to fall. this is one of the things i said i do, says rishi. in fact, it's one of two of the pledges of rishi sunak. so actually you had the chancellor on your sofa, partly because he did have a good news story to tell you. that's right. and inflation coming down is a big deal. and it is good news for most people who will be listening to this newscast, right? it does not, however, remember, mean, that prices are actually dropping. it means that the rate of prices going up is slowing down, although there are some individual

cases actually where the prices of things have dropped. however, the government does spot an opportunity here, maybe not immediately, to somehow miraculously close the huge yawning gap in the polls, but to try to turn the story, to try to turn the tone a little bit. but i was struck actually byjeremy hunt in his very jeremy hunt—ish kind of way sounding less excited about this than the prime minister who did an interview with faisal earlier this week saying saying that the economy is bouncing back. but we're not there yet and we need to stick to the course because we i need inflation to get down to 2%. the thing that will make the biggest | difference for families up and down| the country is when interest rates |fall and therefore their mortgage | rates start to fall. and that comes in prospect. it's a decision by the independent bank of england, but comes - in prospect when inflation is back down at m _ you know, jeremy hunt was much more kind of,

yes, i do think things are turning. and i know that people have had a hard time. oh, yes, when i said that £100,000 wasn't a huge salary, i was referring to my constituent, although actually he put that on twitter himself as well. so. but i don't know. henry, did you pick up on that sort of change in tone? well, not to sound too meta, but i think it's fascinating that jeremy hunt was on your programme just three weeks after he was last on it. i mean, chancellors are generally not used that often. submarines. exactly. maybe once before the budget, once before the autumn statement, perhaps one other time during the year, if there's a sort of economic moment or crisis or whatever. so the fact that jeremy hunt was back on your sofa so soon, i think was... maybe it's a chair. sorry. i wish i had a sofa. i wish i had one big sofa and everybodyjust piled on. but it is the chair. it's sort of shorthand, isn't it, for describing being sunday morning politics programme. so meta are you,

you've actually corrected me on our podcast by using the wrong piece of furniture. so i mean actually in terms of peak meta and victimising me you've got both. and i can say if people are listening to this rather than watching it, paddy is sitting on a sofa and i'm sitting on a chair. henry, what are you? are you sitting on a swiss bowl? i'm sitting on a chair. i think it would be slightly weird if i was speaking to you via... via zoom from a sofa. it'd be a bit louche. anyway, the point i was making was that i think the fact that they have jeremy hunt back out on the airwaves so soon after the budget shows that the government thinks that the conservative party thinks that their best story to tell in the run up to an election is economic. for all the talk about how this might be a small boats election or an immigration election or security election or whatever else you've seen in sunday papers over the months and years. clearly, the conservative party at least wants it to be an economic election in which they say, as rishi sunak did this week and asjeremy hunt did, as you say, slightly less boisterously today, the corner is being turned, and specifically that the corner

is being turned because of decisions they've made. i think that's absolutely right. i think that's exactly what they're doing. why he was back. important to say he would not commit to when, if or when they're going to give any money to the waspi women. nor would analisa dodds, who is the chair of the labour party, nor would she commit to the triple lock either, by the way. so i think that story is going to rumble on through in westminster through the week. but i suppose one of the political questions and it's a question to newscasters as well is, even if the economy is doing better, are you going to listen, after everything else that has happened in the last few crazy years? well, i can answer that because susan emailed newscast saying the figures on falling inflation should be viewed in the context of the disaster and huge spike which has happened from liz truss. i don't think average wage increases have come close to matching inflation over the same time period. i find it amazing that a government who oversaw this is boasting of any achievement whatsoever. and i asked jeremy hunt about susan's excellent question! well, what i would say to people like susan is we're certainly not,

what we're actually trying to do is things that help families up and down the country. so one of the things we did that helped the fall in inflation was the energy price guarantee, which paid for half of people's energy bills. but also because we have the energy price cap has meant that prices have not risen as fast as they might. but you talk about living standards — what has actually happened since 2010, they've gone up in real terms by about £1,700 for the average family. but, obviously, when you have a pandemic and an energy crisis, they are going to take a hit. what was encouraging was that the office for budget responsibility, completely independent from the government, said that we are going to recover to pre—pandemic living. next year, two years earlier than they originally thought. so, although we are not out of the woods yet, people are feeling a lot of pressure. we can see that now inflation has come down — living standards,

which the obr thought was actually going to fall last year, they've actually risen. i think also what you heard slightly in that clip and more generally injeremy hunt's interview was the challenge for the conservatives in making this argument that the corner has turned without sounding deaf to people's individual circumstances. and i think that's a particular political challenge for rishi sunak. because, let's be frank, one thing that almost everyone knows about rishi sunak is that he's extremely rich, and you hear the labour party insinuate his wealth in so many things that they say about him, even if they're not directly saying that he's rich. now, the risk, the political risk for rishi sunak, in sounding so positive about the economy, is that it actually reinforces the sense that he doesn't understand, doesn't face the same economic circumstances as so many voters across the country.

conversely, if he sounds, if he allows that to become too much in his head and is sort of overly gloomy about the economy, then he won't be talking about what he sees as the good work his government's done. but i do think that's a delicate political tightrope for him to walk. i think that's absolutely right. and i think that's why jeremy hunt's remark about £100,000 salary not being that huge has added to that. and i don't think the political opponents will forget that. now, his answer is, well, actually, in my part of the world in surrey, if you have a mortgage, actually, that's not that much money. but we looked up the average salary even in his part of the world in surrey, and it's still £42,000. so i'm not saying that if you have £100,000 and a mortgage and you want to buy a nice house in surrey, that that's going to get you everything you want. however, i think it adds to that political risk for the tories, which i know, we know it from our inboxes, don't we? and you know it when you talk to voters around the country, people think, well, it's all right for them. many people have that sentiment, and the prime minister's personal wealth is also part of that issue. and yet your colleague, andrea leadsom, a member of the government, said the cost

of living crisis has ended. and you yourself said this week that £100,000 was not a great salary. isn't there a danger that actually you sound like you're in a parallel universe? well, no, i said that because i was talking to a constituent of mine in godalming who was saying that even on what most people would think and she recognised that is what most people would consider is a very high salary, when you have house prices around £670,000, you're paying for childcare, it doesn't go as far as you think. and that's why under the conservatives, we say that we shouldn't take the higher level of tax that has been necessary to deal with the costs of the pandemic and the energy crisis as permanent. do we predict another economic event before _ do we predict another economic event before the _ do we predict another economic event before the next general election. could that include a tax cut? i think it's more likely than not

on the basis that i think a general election in october is more likely than not. and so that would suggest employees get back from their summer break. jeremy hunt holds a fiscal event very early in september, stretching the definition of autumn perhaps, but they'd call it an autumn statement, cut a tax or two, and then go to the country on that basis. it's a little bit like what happened in 1992, the great turnaround election from the point of view of conservatives in which norman lamont held, i think it was a budget rather than a fiscal statement, and then parliament was dissolved the next day, and that was the basis on which the conservatives fought the election campaign. i think it is possible, but not nailed on. so someone in the treasury sort of circles suggested to me a couple of weeks ago they thought actually there would not be because these big, massive legacy bills, infected blood compensation for that terrible scandal, the post office horizon compensation — that's even before you start thinking about any cash for waspi women. those add up to nearly £20 billion.

and, actually, if you had a fiscal event, to use the jargon, those payments that would have to be banked would remove any possible cash that they could throw around in an election campaign. and, therefore, they might not bother. but, i mean, i think he's likely, but i wouldn't bet more than a fiver on it, though. so we're going to bring this to an end part one by saying congratulations to laura kuenssberg — you've got a new line out of the chancellor. oh, thank you. which i didn't see anyone else get. and, you know, we do like to do when we get things wrong. we know you've got a scoop from the prime minister... from the chancellor. you've got a scoop from the chancellor. he's committed to the triple lock in the upcoming conservative manifesto. and on which basis your work is done, you can go home, lie down in a darkened room. i'd love to know, though, if people think that's a good thing or a bad thing, because not every... it sounds great. oh, yes. we're going to promise lots more money to pensioners forever more, actually. is that a good thing? if you are not of that age, you might not think it's a good thing.

or even if you're a taxpayer, you might think that's not a good thing because it costs loads of money. now, then, paddy, the prince and princess of wales on every front page, apart from the independent, which talks about the russia attack. and the observer which talks about migrant boats in france. oh, yes. that's a good story, actually. an interesting story that they had found. so the coverage is in really in two places, the constitutional, which is how the royalfamily in the uk is now a very thin blue line. the heir to the throne has got a cancer diagnosis for his father, the king and his wife, the princess of wales. very few heirs to the throne have been put in such a pressurised position, says simon heffer, for instance, in the sunday telegraph. and you talked about this in your paper review on broadcasting house this morning with the marvellous maria. never before in our history has an heir to the throne faced such a predicament. he says that, you know, we have to understand that this is a prince william has been in the public eye since he was 15,

marching behind his mother's coffin, who was killed tragically, he is now facing his father with a cancer diagnosis, his wife with a cancer diagnosis. he's in the public eye all the time. he's got three children to look after. there's quite a lot on his shoulders, not to mention all the conspiracy nonsense that goes with it. and simon heffer says, please, can we stop treating him and his family like a soap opera? henry, there's the personal side. we understand the princess of wales pushed by trolls online. and yet she was trying to toe the line with what do you tell your children? it's all come as a sort of tsunami into the sundays and onto the airwaves today. it has — people looking at the constitutional implications, the family implications, people talking about the health care situation for kate which, of course, we don't necessarily know that much about, and rightly so. most people would say, i think. i mean, i think what's fascinating about these past few weeks is that this is not one

of those tabloid royal scandals where the newspapers are accused of going further than the public wants them in drumming up details about what's going on behind the gilded doors of the royal family. now, let's be frank. the last few weeks have been prompted or have become especially fraught for the royal family because of what members of the public have been doing and saying and speculating online and offline, notjust here, but especially in america, where lots of supposedly serious sort of politicaljournalists and people like that who i followed on twitter or x for years were saying some of the strangest things imaginable. i don't think this is one of those cases where the public can say as sometimes they do and sometimes they're right to do, the press took it too far. it was the public who took it too far. and i think that's a really interesting new dynamic. it's typical of you to

make an interesting and new dynamic point. you know, you often do. and also, i did read something else. i'm not disagreeing with you, but i read sarah vine in the mail on sunday today saying, actually, you know what, i'd like to apologise. i'm a columnist and i think i went very far and fast in the photo fiasco, you know, and that was its own story, that did happen. it's possible in life for two things to happen at the same time. so i think it's interesting. everyone's doing a reset along the lines henry's mentioning. it's really interesting. and we also heard this morning from the editor of the sun who was on our show that catherine had decided two weeks ago that she was going to do a personal statement like this. so it's important, i think, for people to know they didn't make the decision for her to give the video statement because of all the crazy. they made that decision. then there was all the crazy during which time they're sitting there thinking, well,

we've made the decision to do this, but we're not going to be pushed into it. so that's part of the narrative is being, oh, they were hounded, so therefore she had to come clean. that's not what happened, as we understand it now. but it was also interesting, you know, we asked the editor of the sun, well, hang on a minute. you did a front page that said, lay off kate. but then you paid for footage of her going to the windsor farm shop. isn't that a double standard? slightly goes against my earlier point. you know, it's then all over the papers today, two days on from the only facts that we're going to get for some time, which was catherine's video statement. i think that's right. but it's interesting that you mentioned the sarah vine point. i think that we did see and i think people who've been close to this would say that you did see the mainstream media get into the coverage of the crazy coverage. and by dint of saying, oh, look at the crazy coverage, are you perpetuating it? are you giving it a megaphone when you shouldn't? and i think increasingly,

as the world online and real life blurs, this is something that is very, very difficult. and in this particular context, also, given that we're talking about people's health, which by its very nature is normally a private thing, it's really, really awkward and delicate. it's a reminder, you know, to everyone, wait, you know, don't just retweet things, try and wait. and also, you know, a lot of people realising that if you had waited 2a hours, you probably wouldn't have got into all of this business. and when they say when you feel when you're online. marianna springs very good about this. how does it make you feel? and anger is often something and jealousy and you know that can make you type something whereas if you waited and you were more rational about it, would you really have got up in the morning and said you thought it was a body double gone shopping in windsor? in a different regard, though, has this whole farrago prompted a question about the sort

of fragility of the monarchy? right? it's a smaller institution now, the slimmed down monarchy, to use the jargon, for terrible reasons of, you know, sad coincidences about illness among its two of its senior members. and, of course, sarah ferguson, of course, is also being treated for cancer. we asked patti harrison this morning, who used to be press secretary to william and to the now king. at one point he worked at buckingham palace and kensington palace for a long time. i asked him this morning whether he thought that the institution was actually more fragile because of everything that's going on. i wouldn't call it fragile. it'sjust different. i mean, when i worked there, we had the blessing of three. working generations. we had the queen and| the duke of edinburgh, and then we, of course, had the prince of wales, - my old boss, now king charles, and then we had william and harry. and so there was a lot of people who could contribute _ and all the sort of other members of the family _ we just have to come to terms with the new reality. _ there's fewer of them. and so everyone just needs to sort of understand - that, they will still be busy, they will get over this. -

i'm highly confident _ that the king, who i know well, is incredibly strong, i very resilient, a great spiritual person. so i know he'll get through it. and likewise with the princess, with kate. i i think once they're - through this sticky patch, i think we'll get back to normal. i think the nationjust needs- to adjust and the media and everyone who follows this to perhaps, well, to a smaller family, _ but still very busy doing - what they do in their own way. yes, well, of course, the late queen and late prince philip, the then prince of wales, prince charles and camilla. you had the now prince of wales, william and kate, princess of wales. all those are the three generations he's talking about, and princess anne. but at the moment, there's prince andrew's out of the picture. then the king is doing very reduced royal duties. he's still he's still doing his boxes, i think his red boxes. so, actually, that's the point that a lot of the papers are picking up on. this is a very, very restricted royal family than the one we saw just three years ago. so i think we say goodbye and thank you to anyone who's made it this far.

especially to you, henry. you're going off to play squash in the world's most hardest game or something like that. how did you get on at squash last week? did you win or did you lose? i don't want to talk about it. it's the end in every way. goodbye, everybody. goodbye. thank you for listening, henry. goodbye. hello there. many of us saw some spells of sunshine on sunday, and i think it was the sunshine that kind of offset the coolness of the air. now, there won't be as much sunshine around on monday — low pressure is moving in and not got much snow in the scottish mountains at the moment, but that is set to change over the next 2a hours. low pressure is developing to the west of the uk and this low pressure is going to be bringing outbreaks of rain widely over the next 2a hours.

the rain already with us in northern ireland will continue to spread northwards and eastwards over the next few hours, reaching across wales into western and central england, south—west scotland, too. northern scotland, one place where you are likely to see some frost, but at least it should be a bright start to the day here. otherwise, a lot of cloud and rain around on monday morning. probably little, if anything, reaching east anglia and south—east england, where it might actually brighten up for a time. temperatures about 10 to 12 degrees for most — that's near average for the time of year. but cold in scotland, atjust sixes and sevens. and then, on the big picture, we've got a feed of cold air coming down from greenland around an area of high pressure. that's running into northern scotland, bumping into our advancing weather front. now, through monday night, it looks like we'll see a spell of snow. it's going to be quite high up in the mountains of scotland, 10 to 20 centimetres on the way here, above 300 metres elevation. the snow could come down a little bit lower than that, perhaps to 200 metres elevation. what all that means is monday night and into tuesday, there's a risk of disruption over some of the higher level roads in scotland, maybe for some of the railway lines into tuesday

morning as well. if you live down at sea level, well, you're more likely to see rain or maybe a bit of sleet mixed in. it will be quite windy across the far north of scotland as well. elsewhere, a bit of rain trickling its way eastwards across east anglia and south—east england. the weather turning a bit brighter across the south—west of the uk. a cold day in scotland — temperatures really struggling here, particularly underneath that rain and hill snow. on into wednesday, we've got another area of low pressure forming. that's going to be bringing loads of showers across northern ireland, wales, southern and western parts of england. the showers, notjust frequent — they'll be heavy, with some hail and thunder mixed in as well, and temperatures just running a bit below average. these showery conditions last through the rest of this week and into the easter break beyond as well. that's your latest weather. bye for now.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore. the headlines... president putin lights a candle for the 137 victims of the concert hall attack — as the four suspected gunmen appear in court — charged with "commiting an act of terrorism". the head of the un agency for palestinian refugees says israel has told him it will no longer approve its food convoys to enter northern gaza. attacks by the houthis in the red sea — are becoming more deadly — we have a special report from on board a royal navy warship. as you can see, they are preparing to run the gauntlet with the

houthis. ireland is set to have its youngest— ever — prime minister