defence is being removed. russian defence minister sergei shoigu is being removed from his post and will become the new secretary of russia's security council. it comes as the commander of ukraine's armed forces says his troops are struggling to hold their positions in the northeastern region of kharkiv after russian troops launched a fresh assault last week. the israeli military says it's opened a new humanitarian crossing into the gaza strip, as it carries out more strikes on gaza and tells tens of thousands more palestinians to leave rafah. meanwhile, britain's foreign secretary david cameron says restricting arms supplies to israel would not be a wise move. and the best television programmes of 2023 have been honoured at the bafta tv awards in london. sarah lancashire from the bbc�*s police drama happy valley won best leading actress, while timothy spall won best leading actor for his role in the sixth commandment.

now it's time for today's sunday episode of newscast, with laura kuenssberg, paddy o'connell and henry zeffman. hello, it's laura in the studio. it's paddy in the studio, hello. and henry at home, hi. henry, did you watch eurovision? i didn't, sorry, which is probably not the answer you were hoping for. well, did you do something else nice instead? i had a very nice meal out, yeah. but i saw some tweets so i feel like i watched eurovision. so, here is a quiz for you, as a newshound. who won? name the country and artist. switzerland, and nemo. there you go. and here is nemo. congratulations on having the winning song. # i went to hell and back

# to find myself on track # i broke the code # whoa—oh—oh # like ammonites ijust gave it some time # now i found paradise. ..# i can tell you that paddy's toes and knees immediately started tapping and gyrating in a eurovision appropriate manner. a good final sentence, going back to switzerland where it all began, and a lot of people will say, go back to your roots in one way or another, oh, contest. get the innocence back. i was very disappointed it was abba visage, if that's what it's called, or abba voyage, the vr ai whatever pretendy amazing digital abba rather than the real abba. the abbatar. oh, i see what you did there! right, let's get on with it. yes. you had the scoop getter, gabriel pogrund, with an excellent story about the defector that we talked about on yesterday's podcast. what's the story?

natalie elphicke crossed the floor last week, and the paper reported through gabriel pogrund that in 2020 she had had a conversation with then justice secretary robert buckland asking him to intervene in the court case of her then husband charlie elphick facing sexual assault allegations of which he was convicted. and here's how gabriel pogrund summed it up. as i understand it, having spoken to two people - who were in the room, she said, number one, she said she did not think it was furtherl that it was being held - at southwark crown court, where it would get a lot. of publicity, the first to be held after lockdown, _ and she also felt that a very senior judge would throw the book at him, and she felt that, i am not sure i'm| allowed to say these words... you cannot use words out of context that are swearwords, but you can use words in context that are swearwords. well, with that, i'm going to say that she allegedly said - that she thought the judge, . ladyjustice whipple would be hard—arse and would be

unfair on her husband. i there is a word you don't hear often enough on radio 4. henry, remind us why these allegations are actually so serious, we have a sitting mp who had gone to go and speak to the lord chancellor at the time, the justice secretary, to basically say, can you make things a bit easier for my husband? let's just rewind a little further. if you have told me at the end of last week's podcast that we would this week be discussing the defection of natalie elphicke to the labour party, i'd have thought you off your rocker. i mean, what happened this week is completely extraordinary. i was sitting in the press gallery at pmqs on wednesday when keir starmer announced he was welcoing the new labour mp for dover, and everyone looked at each other and went, "what?", because nobody had noticed her cross the floor. you saw a ripple along the tory benches as they tried to work out what was going on. so firstly there's the question

that natalie elphicke is pretty right wing, although there are some nuances to that, but then very quickly the conversation moved onto the complicated circumstances in which she became an mp. she became an mp succeeding her husband, now ex—husband, charlie elphick in the constituency of dover after he had been charged and later convicted of charges of sexual assault. and that is what this brilliant story by gabriel in the sunday times is all about. it is about claims that she denies, she lobbied the then justice secretary robert buckland about how her husband was being tried, and separate claims that she will be someone else about how he was later being treated in prison. obviously that is a massive no—no for any mp, interfering in the course ofjustice, and it is a very serious set of claims, is why on both of your programmes you talk about it so and it leaves keir starmer

with a big problem. and that's why on both of your programmes, you talked about it so much this morning and it leaves party keir starmer with this big problem. so they thought labour, they had this great headline, right? because defections are a great headline. it gives the impression that the tories are alljumping ship. it gives that impression that labour's the one on the march and to boot she was the mp for dover. so you can talk about immigration. you can say this is proof that the conservatives plan on immigration is a disaster and da da da. except that 48 hours later, keir starmer is the one with awkward headlines about this. and when we talked to jonathan ashworth this morning, they're very clear for the labour party. well, she says it's nonsense, but it's really awkward. this is what he said. well, she says it's nonsense. it's not her— interpretation of events. i don't understand if why - the lord chancellor at the time did not raise this and why it's why he's raising it now. _

but she says it's notj her interpretation of the of that discussion. should it be investigated just to make sure that it was all absolutely above board because either she isn't telling the truth or robert buckland, who is a case and who was the justice secretary in lord chancellor, isn't telling the truth. well, look, she said - it is not her interpretation. she says it is nonsense. i wasn't there. you weren't there. i mean, look, if robert buckland has got more to say on that, _ perhaps he should come out and, you know, offer offer his opinions and his and his reflections on it. i wonder if she was still a tory mp. i wonder if she was still a tory mp, i think a lot of our viewers might think that the labour party would be shouting from the rooftops for an investigation. well, well, this didn't come out at the time | because robert buckland, . these tories, they didn't say anything about this at the time. now, because a lot of people in your party are not very happy that she is being welcomed in to begin with. and don't these allegations actually start to create a sense that maybe keir starmer and your labour leadership team have made an error of judgment? no, no, no, no, no. i think what natalie elphicke crossing of the floor- reveals is the extent - to which we are witnessing a disintegrating and decaying conservative government. i it's tricky for them, isn't it?

well, we spoke to rosie duffield, the labour mp in the neighbouring constituency. she says we a lot of our mps are furious. and she further said keir starmer needs to listen more to his mps and less to his advisers. which of course we had all that insight from keir starmer, former chief of staff, on the saturday newscast. yes, we're talking to sam white about it. and i think, you know, if people weren't lucky enough to hear yesterday's episode, which you can still download on bbc sounds, you know, the headline for keir starmer�*s team this week was brilliant. we've created this impression, we've got somebody across the floor, massive splash for us. if we've rumbled a few people on the left of the party and some of our mps are unhappy about it. so what? because we've got the story, you've got the sensation, big tick ubu all round. however, it does have a sense that it's sort of dragging into something a bit more complicated and who knows? you know, we had nadhim zahawi on our programme this morning, a former tory chair and zarah sultana, left wing labour mp and they both actually agreed,

you know, they probably agree on almost nothing, the two of them, and they both agreed that actually this is basically this is going to be a problem that won't go away quickly for keir starmer and david cameron sort of said, oh, well, ha—ha, she's not our problem any more. but that is kind of the point, isn't it? i mean, the fact that david cameron said when asked about whether the conservative party should have treated some of these allegations more seriously when she was a conservative mp. well, she's not our problem any more. it does speak to the sort of mutual hypocrisy here because as you said, john ashworth, if this story had come out a year ago, two years ago, a week ago, the labour party would have been calling for an urgent investigation, an independent investigation, the suspension of the whip, so on and so on. conversely, the labour clearly do have a point, which is where were all these conservative people with concerns about natalie elphicke when she was one of their colleagues? nowhere. and that doesn'tjust go for this set of claims. you had conservative mps queuing up to say how basically how disgracefully right wing she was. that was basically what they were saying on wednesday, thursday,

friday. well, but then they didn't seem to mind when she was in their whatsapp groups. it doesn't show westminster in a great light, this sort of circus of hypocrisy. well, and also when someone does get an interview with robert buckland, the question would be, why didn't you speak in 2020 if you were a government law officer? but then the other thing is, i did put it to gabriel polgreen, if you woman asked for something which she didn't get. yes. i mean, that's the system working, right? i mean, she's not meant to ask, but she's got a mouth and she's allowed to go into the room and she's opening her mouth and she's told no push off. i think, as henry says, actually, it doesn't show anybody in a good light at westminster. and i think it is one of these stories people go, oh, well, you're all at it, you're all at it, you're all dreadful. but ijust wonder that for keir starmer�*s team that the this defection scoops such as they had it has maybe had the shine taken off it a bit. and i suspect and i don't know,

and we should say again, she says these claims are nonsense, but i would bet iop at least that there might be more to come on this. i mean, my hunch would be and i haven't had a chance to speak to many people around keir starmer about this morning's stories. my hunch would be that they people around sir keir starmer still think that on balance it was worth it. the headlines they got on wednesday, you know, the things they're obsessed with, like commercial and music radio headlines where you maybe get three sentence descriptions of a story. the three sentences on wednesday afternoon were mp for dover obsessed with small boats quits the conservative party says keir starmer is better at handling small boats than rishi sunak. they would be delighted with that. everything else as they see it is noise. however, i think they did think that the everything else would be maybe a day's worth of labour mps quietly sort of harrumphing and actually it turned out to be several days and bled into more scrutiny of her ex—husband's case and how she handled that. and i think they probably didn't quite anticipate that.

i mean, all of this would be far more difficult for them if this defection had happened two years out from a general election or if she were intending to stand again at a general election. i think the sort of the fact that the clock is ticking so fast towards a general election and she said at the time that she defected that she wasn't going to try to stand as a labour candidate at the general election. i think those sort of slightly limit the political implications for keir starmer within his party, but the scale of private frustration among labour mps is pretty high. and i think, you know, in terms of how he manages the parliamentary labour party, you know, you pull that elastic and you pull that elastic and that's yourjob as the leader of the labour party to take me to places where they're not necessarily comfortable, but at some point and it might be in two months, but it more likely be in two years or four years when he's in difficulty, probably as prime minister, the elastic snaps and that is the concern for people around keir starmer is that this contributes to blowback that will come when keir starmer is in trouble. mps will remember things like this

and decide they don't want to come to his aid. we were talking this morning with sara sultana. it's put the spotlight back also onto labour mps who've been under investigation for ages and still haven't been let back in. and diane abbott, for example, there's a lot of people who think, well, hang on, what's going on with that? why is it taking new years to investigate it while also welcoming in these people? so i think this story has got further to run, not least because of the excellent scoop from gabriel pogrund who was with you this morning. meeting gabriel programme this morning, who was voted journalist of the year in 2023. he told me that he's got a lot of track record with the fix and there's been the newspaper and where you used to work and you probably know gabriel has done a lot of investigating before, so i wonder if you can lift the lid because we know newscasters like it newscasters like it — when natalie elphicke defected in the marmalade dropping

moment, do we think that's when gabriel polgrund picked up the phone to robert buckland after she defected? how do you think the anatomy of this scoop was revealed? well, gabriel did a lot of great investigative work a couple of years ago, actually, more than a couple of years ago, several years ago on charlie elphicke. and in fact, charlie elphicke unsuccessfully tried to sue the sunday times on the basis of some of gabriel's reporting. so i think one of the ways in which the labour party underestimated the potential political and journalistic fallout from this defection, i think they seemed to slightly not appreciate or they didn't really do enough of what in journalism is called a cut check on what had been written before about charlie elphicke and sometimes by association. natalie elphicke because, you know, gabriel's done loads of stuff that's in the public domain about that case. and so yeah, it does. i'm sure that the second she defected on wednesday, you know, he dusted down his elphicke

notebooks, which will be vast and full of stuff that he didn't manage to find a way to get. that's what i was going to say, because it's all the stuff that you don't manage to get across the line. but as i always say, no work is ever wasted. no work is ever wasted. sometimes the moment wasted... work is not ever. but it's true. often injournalism is part of hiving things away. right? sometimes it's not the moment to use things. sometimes you can't quite get a story over the line. and then at some point, further down the track, anotherjigsaw piece arrives and goes plop, and suddenly you can put the picture all together. and sometimes people change their minds on whether they want to talk. and if you're an mp who knows something or experienced something, what are the kinds of things that might change your mind about whether you want to talk? well, one of them might be if your colleague you were trying not to embarrass before suddenly joins the other political party. i'm going to get i'm getting i'm getting two thoughts in my mind. i'm picturing two newscasters. yeah.

the one who wants newscast to talk about votes in my home cost of living policies and the one that loves process. and i'm thinking in the interest of the both, we're going to have to stop talking about this, but we're going to it was amazing, but we're not going to keep going. we're going to change the subject. i think that's merciful for everybody. so the big other story this morning, which no offence to the labour party's defection strategists or no offence to natalie elphicke or robert buckland or gabriel grant, but there is a story of massive imports in it's big picture. that's what's been happening in gaza in the middle east. but on the specifics at the moment of whether or not the israelis are going to go into rafah in a big way, they've been saying for ages they're going to do it. their allies have been telling them very publicly for ages, saying do not do it. and this week, president biden went even further. he said, if you go into rafah, i will stop giving you weapons. i paraphrase slightly, but he spelt out almost that baldly.

i paraphrase slightly, but he spelt out almost that boldly. that then puts the uk in an interesting position. ally of israel, ally of america. what will we do? and i asked the foreign secretary, david cameron, that this morning. the principle in our case _ is that we have a very strict system based on legal advice i to the foreign secretary. and ourjob is not to publish that legal advice or comment - on the legal advice. it's to act consistently with it. and that's what we do. it's a rolling process that looks at what israel is doing, - looks at humanitarian aid, _ looks at the treatment of detainees, and crucially looks at the behaviour of the israeli defence forces - and asks that central- question is there a serious risk of a serious breach _ of international humanitarian law? and the answer to that is| the answer up to now has been that we've allowed the export licensing to continue, _ but that's a rolling process and we work on the basis i of the advice. so for now, the uk is not going as far as the americans in this. now we should say,

and the government tried to sort of use this as a defence, although i think a lot of our newscasters would think, you know what, it's a matter of principle, but what the government says is, look, it's a completely different situation. our export licences affect a tiny number of armaments, whereas the americans actually directly send arms government to government and it is the huge exporter of arms to israel. however, on the point of principle, i think you can see a really interesting chink here between the uk and the us position. they're trying to also manage different domestic political situations. so biden's got a lot of trouble on this in an election year. he has a lot of problems with democrats, and i think that is at least part of the reason why he started to modulate his language here. but it's interesting, david cameron said the uk is going to carry on. labour has moved its position though and is now saying that it shouldn't. here is jonathan ashworth. a full scale offensive into rafa will be will be _ a catastrophe beyond description. there's a million and a half people there. i there's 600,000 children there. and if that full scale l offensive goes ahead,

i do not want to see british—made weapons, _ components that are parts of weapons used in that offensive. so we also know that the government's ruling out the use of british troops taking aid onto the american pontoon from landing craft. and henry, can you can you tell us how much foreign policy is going to influence the general election? laura has told us it's influencing the presidential election in the united states. how much will gaza influence the uk general election? my hunch would be very little, but more than usual. i think in general, when people are polled on what's most important to them, foreign policy is way, way, way down the list. that's true in every election. perhaps some exceptions like when british troops were in action. so perhaps 2005, couple of years after the iraq war, it was a bit higher up the agenda than previously. but i don't think foreign policy is going to determine the uk election at all,

with the caveat that we saw a bit of a trend at the local elections and it's possible to overstate it. but in some specific areas there was a problem for the labour party with both in areas of high numbers of progressives basically, and young people and liberals you want to use, but also areas with a high concentration of muslim voters where they seem to lose some votes to the greens or to local independents in a general election that will affect labour's vote share. but it doesn't look likely to affect their seat share. if you look at where those votes are, they're basically the votes they lost in the council elections on that subject or potentially on that subject, they are generally in areas where sure, there's a ward here or a ward there, but they're in a constituency where labour have a sky high majority.

i completely agree with you on the likely impact of how overall what the political picture ends up being. however, i think we're already seeing that foreign policy and issues of air security and defence have been occupying the sort of political debate. it's been taking up a lot of oxygen, a lot of energy, a lot of effort, a lot of focus for our politicians. and i don't think we're going to see an end to that. and i wouldn't be at all surprised either if we see the tories quite soon trying to make that more of an issue. i think we should note, because we've discussed it a few times on this podcast, that was david cameron on your programme, laura. is that the second time he's done that since he became foreign secretary? second time, yeah. right. and there definitely were and i don't know if there still are, there were much earlier in his foreign secretary—ship if that's a word,

there were frustrations in parts of government that he wasn't doing enough of that sort of thing, that he was doing a brilliantjob of travelling the world and pressing the diplomatic case and all of that, but not necessarily doing as much as some at the centre of government at the centre of the conservative party would have wanted it being a communicator domestically for the government. and so ijust thought it was very striking that he was there on your programme this morning. i just want to put this on the record this morning. we also had nadhim zahawi. now newscasters are smart people, they will remember he got sacked by rishi sunak for not being transparent about his enormous amounts of money that he had to pay to the taxman as a penalty. he never admitted it, never talked about it. he announced this week he's standing down and this morning he came on the show and said, yes, i did have to pay a penalty. yes, i did have to pay a penalty, i am sorry for how i handled it. what he didn't, however, say he was sorry about was using the word smear aboutjournalists who had first reported the story, that he was being investigated

by the taxman, which i thought was very interesting, but there was a bit of a mea culpa. so ijust wanted to tell everybody that. let's see and hear him. the total payment was just shy of £5 million. i so that is what you paid, £5 million. and why did they get you to pay a penalty if it was just... because, as i said, . although it was found to be non deliberate careless, . there's still a a penalty attached to that which i accepted fully and i accepted it by the way, because i was chancellor- of the exchequer and even if i wanted to push back on this, - i think it would have been a total abuse of power if i had done. do you regret saying that journalists were smearing you when reporting first emerged that the tax man was looking at your affairs? no, because the smears were so wide. things like the national crime agency, which i never, - ever had any dealings with ever, or any investigations from. - but you are being investigated by hmrc and that was correct. and you said it was a smear. i said because it was linked - to national crime agency and sfo, which i've never had l an investigation from. so nadhim zahawi, theirformer cabinet minister, did all sorts of differentjobs,

is now standing down and now he's decided to stand down, he has decided to be transparent about what really happened with him and the taxman. so go back on the iplayer and see the whole interview if you wish. well, thanks for the plug. well, i'm here to serve. henry, we're going to leave you, but thank you forjoining us in your waspish top. yeah, i'm off to watch eurovision and i play for sound. well, who you can see on eurovision was the national treasure. that isjoanna lumley, and she sent us a little voice note. nobody does it better than you, sweden. i cheers, sweeties. thanks a lot. you are absolutely fabulous. this is me letting my hair down after eurovision, i which was quite extraordinary to have seen it from - the announcer, as it were, point of view is quite... i can't tell you how— complicated and how extreme the preparations are for this. i came in early this afternoon for a three hour rehearsal- because you have to get everybody in line. -

you have to send link up - all the countries, 36 countries, 25 countries of averages. you've got to get all. the presenters in place. you've got to go, how are you there in your special language? _ got to hold up a piece of paper- so that you can hear them say that. all that and then on your block and then come back. _ then you've got to do an afternoon show. . so the rehearsal was recorded. then we come on to the evening, you mustn't drink a drop- | because you're going to be speakingj and you're representing our country. it's been fascinating. and to see the love and the work and the detail of all these - performers going into it. i've loved it. i've talked to you - on your show, laura. look, we love you. we respect and love you. but your show is a bit dull. compared to the eurovision. when you're covering eurovision, did you never have a drop? oh, no, i drank frequently. and in fact i worked at first with terry wogan and i used to help carry his bottles of baileys for him. did you? yes, but that's a lovely thing to hear. she was brilliant, joanna. she was, of course. i mean, nigella was

brilliant when she did it. and then last year we had catherine tate. i remember she did a little video for us behind the scenes as well. she was extraordinary. this will all be edited out. you know, there won't be time for this and neither should there be. i think there should be. i want to hear more about you having bailey's with terry wogan. did he give you a sip of it or did he just make you carry them? oh, yes, of course he did. he was a generous man. and you said bottles. yes. so how many bottles of baileys? i remember us being burdened with many a document and the documents. obviously you have to carry them very carefully and you look, this is the end of newscast now and i'm saying goodbye, but it's onlyjust getting interesting. goodbye from us. goodbye and goodbye, everybody. adam will be here tomorrow with, who knows, maybe more fallout on natalie elphicke maybe more anecdotes about drinking baileys with terry wogan. i don't know. goodbye for now. newscast from the bbc.

low pressure taking charge of our weather through this week which will bring rain at times, not least across the south—west of england, wales, northern ireland, the rain arriving through the morning and sticking in place right through into the afternoon, could been afraid to give localised flooding and travel disruption and under the cloud and rain not feeling particularly impressive, 15 or 16 degrees but for a good part of scotland, central and eastern parts of england, sunshine

and warmth, for some north sea coasts it is likely to be warmer on monday afternoon of the weekend. we start this frontal system drive and outbreaks of rain, rain sitting across the south—east of england, east anglia, parts of the midlands, noble england, still some further rain to come across ireland and the rain to come across ireland and the rain pulling loafers across scotland, sunny spells and showers following onbehind, temperatures broadly 17 or 18 degrees but still a touch above average for the time of year, not as warm as it has been over the last few days. this is wednesdays forecast, still a weakening weather front likely to

bring rain for a time in northern england and then sunshine and showers and temperatures 17, may be 21 degrees. our area of low pressure will still be with us through the second half of the week but it will tend to loosen its grip, the centre below pulling away south was so while there will be sums showers, some spells of sunshine, it will dry for some of us as we head into the weekend and the temperature is a touch above normal for the time of year.

welcome to newsday. reporting live from singapore, i'm steve lai. the headlines. russia's long—serving defence minister sergei shoigu has been removed from his post. we'll examine the significance of the kremlin reshuffle. it comes as fighting intensifies in ukraine's northeast kharkiv region. we'll bring you a special report from the front line. this devastation — one man's house — was created by a russian glide bomb. jet roars nearby. and that's the sound of a jet somewhere. explosions. israel says it's opened a new humanitarian crossing into gaza as the us warns a full—scale invasion of rafah would be disastrous. and top boy, happy valley and the sixth commandment take the big prizes at the bafta television awards.