wondering whether she would ever perform again. i've been diagnosed with a very rare neurological disorder. i came to meet celine in las vegas, where she's been recovering, and she described how her vocal problems began on tour. my voice needed to...was struggling. i was starting to push a little bit. for just an example... she sings: # the whispers in the morning... _ i was more doing... more forced: # the whispers in the morning... _ you're forcing it to me. you're pushing. despite the warning signs, she had tried to keep the show on the road. these shows were sold out for a year and a half, going around the globe and... i'm going to say to people, "excuse me about my spasm." the condition stiff person syndrome is an autoimmune disease that causes muscles to spasm.

but it can be managed. celine says she made this documentary to show fans why she's had to take time away from the stage. i miss it so much. the people. if i can't run, i'll walk. if i can't walk, i'll crawl. what are your hopes for performing again? i will have to be rehabilitated vocally. but you'll be back on stage again doing shows? absolutely. celine dion is synonymous with las vegas. her residencies here lasted 16 years and were the best—selling series of vegas concerts of all time. and it's here where she says she's determined to make her return. i'll be on stage. i don't know when exactly. but trust me, i will. i will scream it out loud. the timing is unclear, but she's determined that audiences will hear her distinctive

and much—loved voice again. emma vardy, bbc news, las vegas. celine dion's extended interview with emma vardy can be seen on bbc iplayerfrom midnight. this is bbc news, the headlines. labour launch their manifesto — as sir keir starmer says — economic growth, is at the heart, of his party's plan for government. an aide to the prime minister tells us he's sorry over betting on a july election — reportedly three days before it was called. world leaders at the g7 summit agree a plan to raise billions more dollars for ukraine using interest from seized russian assets. time now to digest the day's election campaigning in newscast — with adam fleming and the team. jo and laura, i've got an important

announcement to make about newscast. 0h. ooh. that's the reaction i was hoping for. more specifically... it'd better be good. laughter. oh, no, no. no, it is actually pretty good. i am actually quite pleased to reveal this. it's what our plans are for election night itself on the night of the 4th ofjuly. we are going to open up the radio theatre at bbc broadcasting house in west london. we're going to turn it into a giant living room and invite loads of people, newscasters and others to come and watch the election results flood in. food and drink? well, we're going to have a modest food and drink, but a giant telly. a giant telly? how big? i mean, how big is big? well, you know, it's going to be pretty big. it's going to be pretty big. and it's we definitely know it's going to last for a long time because we'll be there from like ten at night when laura we'll see you unveiling the exit poll with clive. that's quite exciting. right through to breakfast. although actually i have to say i've got a massive problem with this because you're inviting

all of our lovely newscasters to a big party, and i know i can't come. oh, yeah. but, laura... you're the star attraction. laura, you'll be doing the only thing that you find more fun than socialising, which is talking about politics for 14 hours. yeah. that is your partying. on a point of principle, i want it on the record. i am deeply, deeply unhappy about a big newscast party being planned... maybe you shouldn't have announced it. ..and i'm not invited. you've planned the party. well, you are invited. i'm not invited. you're otherwise engaged. you knew that when you planned it. this is outrageous. oh, this is like an election annoucment that you think is going to be really popular and it back—fires. yes, let's get on with this episode of newscast. i haven't been invited. jo, you're invited all the time. let's get on with this episode of newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello. it's adam in the studio. and it'sjo in the studio. and it's laura in another studio. still not invited.

you're invited here, you're here. that's the definition of being invite... anyway, right. journalists were invited, seamless link, to greater manchester on thursday morning to see keir starmer and the shadow cabinet unveil labour's manifesto. and this was, laura, the weird thing about this is, i mean, the manifesto was finalised a few days ago at that clause five meeting they have with the unions and other stakeholders. but actually a lot of it they've been discussing for years. yes, and the important thing to understand is that this is part of keir starmer's very carefully worked outflow chart of sort out win the leadership election, sort out the party, start to make the public arguments, get the public hopefully to trust you, spell out his priorities through the missions for government, start giving more of the detail, then culminate in a manifesto and then hopefully wins the election. right. so we're about whatever is that stage five or six of his very, very,

very carefully worked out flow chart that he drew with his close staff really some years ago. and very deliberately, this is not a moment of, "oh, my god, what fireworks. "i can't imagine that they've come up with this huge tax cut or this huge tax rise to pay for this amazing thing," or, "wow, they've really grasped the nettle and they're going to ban smartphones for under—165," which we know some parents want, but politicians have got reservations about and some parents don't want at all. so we knew that this was actually going to have at its heart, one really simple thing — "we're not at risk." "we're not a risk." "we told you everything we're going to do." "this is it." but what's interesting to me is that it went kind of, actually, by clockwork, even the heckler is someone who could have been drafted in by labour. it was interesting, the heckler actually, laura, because it was about young people, wasn't it? "do more for youth." and i sort of thought it was a proper protester in that sense. you're absolutely right.

it sort of felt part of almost the unveiling, if you like. there was something that did slightly surprise me, and that was richard walker appearing, the businessman. boss of iceland, son of malcolm. and of course, until last year, i think in the autumn, was a conservative and was standing as a prospective or wanted to stand, i should say, as a prospective candidate, but perhaps wasn't selected. and there he was as one of the warm—up acts for keir starmer, unveiling that very glossy, full of pictures manifesto with sleeves rolled up and ready to get to work. and it underlined that whole image change that you've just talked about, the whole process, the flow chart, the plan. "we're changed." "we're a changed party." "and we are not the party ofjeremy corbyn," his predecessor. and it looks different. "we're pro—business and we're ready to go." and wealth creation... oh, yeah. ..has got to be at the heart. he said the wealth word a lot, laura. well, this is one of the things

that is on my list of why this is a topsy—turvy election. so you've got the tories chucking out lots and lots and lots and lots of policies in the way that opposition parties often do and saying, it'll all be paid for by tax avoidance, which is something that opposition parties often also do. then you've got the labour party... or clamping down on tax avoidance, not doing it. laughter. freudian slip. that really would be a different story! "we're going to pay for the health service by avoiding tax." be quite refreshing. well spotted. get more money, probably. yes, and this sort of topsy—turvy election when you've had it's the tories with this longer and longer kind of shopping list of asks paid for by clamping down on tax avoidance. and you've got labour saying, oh yes, wealth creation is at the top of our list. and that is kind of topsy—turvy, right? and you've got labour saying we are steady as she goes, which again is the kind of thing that you would expect an opposition, i'm sorry, it's the kind of thing

you would expect a government to say. "don't risk it, don't risk it." which is also what the tories are saying about labour. but there are a lot of things that are quite upside down about this election. the other thing that's interesting about this election to me, is beforehand, you know, whisper it, there were quite a lot of people around the place who'd say, what was very cruelly put to me once as, it would be a contest between dull and duller, which is very, very mean. i felt at the time, and i still feel right now. but actually, even though the campaign has been heavily scripted, as they always are, even though neither keir starmer nor rishi sunak kind of go in for fireworks, actually, there have been some wild stories in this campaign, you know, not just sunak leaving d—day early, but also the story about sunak's pp, not just sunak leaving d—day early, but also the story about sunak's pps, his close parliamentary aide putting a bet on the date of the election and then basically being nobbled for it, which, newscasters, is against the rules

if you have inside information. and there have been a lot of surprising things that have happened during this campaign, even though as labour's launch was today, it was absolutely scripted, every kind of single second with those very moving introductions by people who had a personal story of why they're supporting the labour party. an introduction from angela rayner. keir starmer then stands up, jacket off, sleeves rolled up. i mean it's been absolutely scripted from their point of view because their number one thing is do not make a mistake. and let's hear keir starmer, the labour leader, delivering some of that script. we have a plan in this manifesto, a total change of direction, - laser—focused on our cause — stability, growth, _ investment and reform. a government back in- the service of your family, ready to change britain. so i make no apologies - for being careful with working

people's money and no - apologies for ruling out tax rises on working people. so let me spell it out. we will not raise income tax. we will not raise . national insurance. we will not raise vat. that is a manifesto commitment. applause. so that's how it looked and sounded just in terms of some of the numbers, there's the costings chart. yes, very detailed. yeah, and so i'lljust read it out. i've got a screengrab of it here. so revenue from closing further, non—dom tax loopholes — so that's people who live in the uk but make earnings abroad and don't pay the same amount of tax on it as everyone else — and also reducing tax avoidance, as laura was saying. labour reckon that would raise 5.2 billion. then applying vat to private school fees and changing vat for how private schools work, that's one and a half billion. then carried interest, which is a type of interest that kind of financial services people make, if they close that loophole that raises half a billion. and then a change to some stamp duty for non—uk residents, that's another a0 million. so the total increase in taxes,

not necessarily tax increases because tax avoidance is some of the tax... some of them are revenue raising. yes, revenue raisers is 7.3 billion. well, what struck me about that is it reminded me, not that i look at balance sheets or spreadsheets very often, but it really was costed in such a detailed way to back up their repeated claims that, "we haven't got any unfunded or uncosted policies." but on politics live today, i was just interested to find out when it comes to the economy in general and their plan for growth, that they would have in their minds what they'd like that growth rate to be or what they think it needs to be in order to fund and pay for everything else. what assumption are they working on for everything they want to do? well, it turns out... they're not sure. well, luke pollard wasn't sure exactly, but broadly about 2.5%. but it was fascinating just to say, "the plan for growth is there,

we've got an industrial strategy." "we are going to grow the economy." and yet when i looked at the growth levels over the last sort of 14 years, it's been pretty rare to get above 2.5%. the pandemic is slightly different because obviously the economy sank like a stone and so there was a bounce back which was quite high. but generally it's been really quite difficult to get 2.5%. and if you're predicating the sort of success of labour and referring to labour back under tony blair and gordon brown, you're conjuring up images of a sustained growth rate of 2.5—3%. that isn't going to be that easy, if at all achievable to actually reach. there are two things that i think are interesting about that. one, jo, isjust made me think that what happens to governments if labour wins as just as happened to the tories actually they are so buffeted by events and really the futures and the sort of destinies of most governments are shaped in the end by what happens that is beyond their control. so even if they put all sorts of amazing measures in to get

the economy growing, if labour wins the election, actually so much of how fast it grows, whether it grows at all, is about what happens in the rest of the world and what happens with things that they can't control. as rishi sunak this week discovered, he can't say the economy's been growing any more because it rained a lot in april, and growth that had happened ended up not happening at all. and that's a problem for him this week because it means he can't make that argument based on the recent figures. the other thing it made me think ofjust you were talking about that moment with luke pollard. actually, there've been quite a few tricky little moments for labour spokespeople out and about doing tv and radio interviews where they haven't quite been able to answer the question in ways that labour hq might want. but because of the big, bold primary colours way that a campaign works and because partly of rishi sunak's d—day disaster having such a kind of long hangover and also the big events like the debates, there hasn't been that much pick—up of some of the slight kind of awkward missteps or not that great

handling of interviews. like, for example. emily thornberry. emily thornberry talking about private schools at the weekend and saying, well, yeah, actually, class sizes might be it might be bigger if labour goes on with it goes forward with its vat plan, which could result in parents hoisting their kids out of private schools because they can't afford it any more. and there've been a few things where people just haven't quite known the answer. and if the campaign dynamic overall was different and the tory party was in a better place, then you might see that opposition spokespeople's — and i don't want to say gaffes because i don't have been i don't think there's been huge labour gaffes — but it's certainly been moments. so luke pollard, i think today in different times, there might have been a story running quite hard today saying, "shadow cabinet minister couldn't even say how much the economy would grow under

a labour government." you know, just the overall dynamics of a campaign of course have an impact on where attention gets captured. but, you know some people have been saying to me in the last few days, that's evidence that they're actually not that good. and if they do win and they'll get in and actually it might be a disaster because they don't really know what they're doing. i think that i don't think it necessarily proves that at all. but it'sjust interesting. underthe radar, there have been things going on where labour spokespeople haven't or as very often happens in in a campaign, frankly. well, the scrutiny is just so much greater, isn't it. and also you're being asked about a level of detail that isn't necessarily your particular area of expertise. i mean, it was interesting and i thought quite telling, the emily thornberry response, about perhaps there will be some larger classrooms in state schools. well, there's a logic to that, i suppose. while she was thinking it through in real time in the interview. absolutely. and you can really see that with people when they're coming onto the programmes,

and i am forever grateful that they do, because they are thinking through these things in realtime. you can see the cogs whirring. you can, you absolutely can. and we've thought of the questions and how to sort of ask them and get different sort of responses. but also what you're reminded of is in those arenas where labour is facing tory, of course, you know, they're the parties that are going to be in government, one or other of them. and then you've got the other parties like the liberal democrats and the snp and the greens are getting a bit more exposure, too. they're getting pressure coming from the other direction, too. so in labour's case you've got the left of their party, their left flank, if you like, saying "yes, we would like a labour government, but it's not ambitious enough." "we can't tell the difference between labour and the conservatives." and so you see all the spokespeople trying to deal with the conservatives here and trying to deal with the criticism out on the left too, as they're in the middle ofa campaign. and there's also a big

brewing brouhaha between keir starmer and jeremy corbyn. brewing brouha ha. so keir starmer said, oh, the tory manifesto is like the jeremy corbyn manifesto, almost sort of dripping with contempt for that. remember, newscasters, keir starmer signed up to not one, but two jeremy corbyn manifestos. and in the last couple of hours jeremy corbyn has had a pop back at keir starmer and saying, "well, i think it's sort of very regrettable," and paraphrasing, but you know, "he was in the room when it was signed off, ot's a bit regrettable that he's gone out and said that." so as you say, jo, he is getting it from the left. of course, when you talk to starmer troopers, you know, their evidence is that they're miles ahead in the polls. they're on course for a very clear victory as things stand. and if people on the left are unhappy, well, so be it. and they took a strategic decision a long time ago that upsetting the left was worth it, which is why you always hear keir starmer say, "country before party, country before party, country before party."

and it reminds me of you know, it was a question when i think it was conference 2021 and i asked him what was more important, unity orwinning, because in his first phase of the leadership, he was still trying to sort of say, "oh, look, i want to be friends with everybody in the labour party. i was part of the corbyn project. my policies are still kind of corbyn—friendly. " and i thought it would be a really interesting question to ask him because actually it was, you know, it was a difficulty for him to try to keep the party together. and i said, well, what's more important untiy or winning? and quick as a flash, he almost interrupted me before i got to the end of the question, and yelled, "winning." and that is very, very obvious. they made that decision a long time ago. so grumbles from the left today. yes. if you talk to keir starmer, as you know, his close allies, it's a whatever and actually they turn it to their advantage. and your question about unity

orwinning, i mean, to some extent that was underlined by that question in the programme, the sky programme about jeremy corbyn and keir starmer saying he would make a great prime minister. "why did you say that? "did you believe that at the time in 2019?" and keir starmer said, "well, i knew we were going to lose." "i was certain we were going to lose." and this sort of you're left with that feeling or that sort of taste of, oh, our politicians slightly unclear about their loyalties and commitment. and looking this manifesto answer no, it doesn't say no. i wasn't telling. it doesn't say i was telling the truth or it doesn't say i wasn't telling the truth. i mean, it's not a great answer. and i think he's going to be he didn't have a clear answer to that. and i'm sure he's going to be asked that again. and also reading the document, it is very long and there's a lot of detail in there. and if you're providing a lot

of and some of the measures might be quite small potatoes things to people or quite technocratic tweaks to the planning system that sound really quite dul,l but maybe could mean a datacentres built somewhere. but as soon as you start laying out that level of detail, you provide fodder for your enemies tojump on things. and, ok, the conservative party might not be having an amazing election campaign in terms of the optics and the polls. and the prime minister's performance and people disagreeing with each other. but they do have pretty good researchers who go through these things with a magnifying glass and find things that could be potentially exploited as weaknesses. well, hostage to fortune, of course. i mean, that's what manifestos quite often are and what to party say, "well, events have happened. we've had to change course." we've heard it endlessly from keir starmer in terms of the platform he stood on to become leader of the party and a lot of water has gone under the bridge. but you're right, of course people will go through it with a fine tooth comb and they have been careful in a lot of the content of that manifesto, and they have gone over it and they've no doubt focus grouped quite a lot of it. they will be so relieved if they win the election, that they are there,

let's, you know, we can wait to talk about the size of majority if they do win and so on, to use the language of the conservatives that all of that can be worked out at a later stage. and laura, rishi sunak was reacting to the labour manifesto today, saying that it was a blank cheque that labour were asking for from the country, and it would also mean the highest taxes in history. and i'm sure economists would quibble over their definition of that. but also the interesting thing, laura, was that rishi sunak was having to say that from italy, where he's representing the uk at the g7 summits, like pm business continues. yeah, that's right. and he has another opportunity in the next couple of days to look statesman—like and hang outwith, hobnob with world leaders. and also the labour manifesto, even though they've been so careful about it, does give the tories room to say, "a—ha, look, tax will go up and a—ha," importantly, "they're not ruling out putting out other taxes like capital gains tax." so that question of division between the two parties and the potential for the tories to attack the labour party

over taxes is absolutely still there and i'm sure we're going to hear that again and again and again and again and again. and again and again and again and again. and again and again... yeah, i'll stop there. we'll hear it again. laura, i know you've got to go in a second, butjust a big a big philosophical question because now that we've had we had the lib dem manifesto on monday, we had the tory manifesto on tuesday, we had the green party manifesto on wednesday. we had the plaid manifesto today. reform will do theirs and the snp will do theirs at the start of next week. once the manifestos are out there and in black and white and everyone's printed them out and gone through them with highlighters. you have? yes. and many other people in this building, to be clear, does that mean the campaign is kind of over? no, it doesn't, because things could still go wrong. things can still go right. all sorts of things could happen. all sorts of blunders could yet be made. there are lots more debates and interviews and all sorts of things. so no, it's not over, not in any way.

but i think in terms of the actual deliberately... choreographed. choreographed, the deliberate moments are sort of over. they move, you know, i think as we said at the beginning, or did i say this on the tv version, i can't remember. let me say it. and then you can decide if you want. so i think you have mood manifesto message. we're now into the message moment where we're going to hear the campaign messages again and again. and to that point where actually when you're interviewing politicians, it becomes harder and harderand harderand harder and harder to think of ways to try to knock them off their script because they all become so practised with crow barring the things that they want to get across into every single answer that you can sort of play. it's not like playing bingo, it's almost like pressing play on the script. so it's a real challenge. i mean, you know, very important and a big piece of work. but as interviewers and journalists, it becomes harder and harder to try to get them really to engage in the substance of a conversation

about what they'd do in power rather thanjust press press f7, and here you go. here's the slogan. and i'm sure our viewers, viewers and listeners can probably already recite it. you know, stability, has changed, a clear plan for bold action for a secure, long term future. you know, these are well, maybe that'sjust me. well, f7, don't you mean ctrl—v. can ijust ask how? before you malfunction. yes, i've got to go. just quickly, do we think as i suspect and maybe you guys know that if labour win the election, that they will go longer into the summer? be a shorter break. and we may come back earlier in.

well, we can't come back earlier because i think we were coming back early anyway. but you know what i mean. will they want to say we're hard, we're going to get down to work a bit like the rolled up sleeves on the manifesto? yes. i'm glad you mentioned that, because i forgot to mention it and i did write it. the story today in my newsletter, which you can subscribe to all good bbc news websites. yes, several sources have told me this is the plan. there's no concrete decision but the plan as it stands because keir starmer wants so much to get on with everything. is that they are giving very, very serious consideration to keeping parliament open for longer and therefore having a shorter summer holiday. who knows, though? there might be so knackered that they actually change their minds. so yes, that is the case, as i understand it, but with no final decision. as i've said before, in yourfirst 100 days, you do not want 43 of them to be holidays. really? like all opposition leaders, he hates being in opposition, right? he wants to win in order to do things and to do things at a summer election and then hang around and then have three weeks when parliament then shuts three weeks later. it's a bit odd. anyway, i really do have to go, so,

bye! no—one thinks of the journalists though, do they? i mean, i'm sure they all still have 43 days all day. jo, thank you. you're welcome. pleasure. newscast from the bbc. hello there. just starting off with confirmation of probably what you already know. so far this month, it has been cold, temperatures running about two degrees celsius below average. and i suppose on thursday, a case in point, we had a lot of cloud around outbreaks of rain and quite widely temperatures of around four or five degrees below average for the time of year. one exception, northern scotland, where we had some sunny skies and also temperatures were a bit above average, but otherwise it was a disappointing day on thursday, thanks to this area of cloud and rain, an area of low pressure. an area of low pressure that you're going to get really quite bored with over the next few days because it will still be on our charts through friday, through saturday, through sunday, and it's still there even into monday. so we're looking at a stuck weather pattern with loads of showers around. now, looking at the weather picture friday morning, we start off on a mild note, probably a bit of sunshine for eastern areas to start off with and drier weather. showers get going from the west from the word go and the showers become really extensive

through the day, some of them heavy with hail and thunder. more general outbreaks of rain for northern scotland, particularly in the morning, where it's also going to be windy and cold, temperatures around 12 or 13 degrees here. otherwise, temperatures staying well below average, in any case, around 15 to 18 degrees for most of us. now through friday evening, there will be some further showers coming and going, particularly across western areas. might have some more general outbreaks of rain here by the end of friday night and the start of saturday morning. saturday, the same area of low pressure is with us, probably something a bit brighter for a time across western scotland, but some heavy rain for eastern scotland. the winds picking up across southern counties of england with gusts running into the 45 miles an hour. that's going to make it feel a little on the cool side as well. and if that weren't enough through the afternoon, there'll be loads of showers around again, some of them heavy with hail and thunder. across the board our temperatures below average forjune. little change really through sunday. this time, though, it looks like we could see some heavier bursts of rain working across northern ireland into northern england and scotland. thundery showers developing elsewhere with some sunny spells in between so it won't be raining all day across the midlands, wales,

east anglia, southern england. but the temperatures for most areas continue to run a little below average for the time of year. however, for a couple of days next week, it looks like temperatures will get closer to average, but it doesn't last long. it turns cooler later in the week. showers never far away.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore. the headlines... the us and ukraine sign a ten year security agreement following the g7�*s approval of a plan to use profits from seized russia assets to fund kyiv�*s war efforts. a victory for pro—choice activists — us supreme court rejects a challenge to the use of the abortion drug, mifepristone. and... she's one of the world's best known singers, but had to cancel a raft of tour dates because of an autoimmune disease. celine dion tells us she's determined to perform again.

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