chris, before we started recording, i was ear wigging you and alex talking about what you did over the weekend. and i know that your weekend involved a lot of chasing up the the betting story. where we are is we can report with confidence that the investigation that's going on conducted by the industry regulator, the gambling commission, is wider than just the names that are publicly known. we should be transparent about how those names have come about. they've come about through journalistic inquiry, basically speaking to all sorts of people, being tipped off about things and all that kind of stuff. they have not come from kind of official sources. the gambling commission themselves have not confirmed or denied any names, nor said how many people that they are looking into. but from all the conversations i've had, i can say that there are more people being looked into than the names that we currently are aware of and have broadcast. i'm trying to see if i can find out any more names that

i'm able to bring you. that is a process that takes some time. so that's where we are at the moment. i think it's fair to say, as things stand, the story has eased off a bit. it's not as dominant and sort of headline—making as it was at the tail end of last week. that's not to say it might not flare up again. prime minister has said today, he's been in edinburgh launching the conservative scottish manifesto with douglas ross, the outgoing leader of the scottish conservatives, that he's not aware of any of the conservative candidates who are being looked into. it's intriguing that because i'm not sure it'd be absolutely certain he would necessarily know, potentially. and of course, there's lots of people in and around politics who may or may not be candidates. so, yeah, that's kind of where we are now. it hasn't gone away. it may not go away, but as things stand it has eased in the nosiness of about i think would be a reasonable summary as we record at what 5.10pm on monday.

although i would say from listening to rishi sunak today, he's sort of upgraded his response a bit because the original response was, "this is up to the authorities to look into. "it's a gambling commission thing. "i can't get involved as leader of the political party that this is alleged to have happened in". but today, he says the conservative party is going to do its own inquiry�*s, make its own inquiries. and you can see that it's maybe a way of answering that, that criticism about, "well, hang on, the gambling commission might take a few months to get to the bottom of this if there's anything to get to the bottom of, whereas actually polling day is in ten days�* time, so the two timelines don't add up. "whereas now if there's an internal conservative party thing that could have a shorter timeline". yeah, it could do potentially. i mean, the one thing that he could have chosen to do and has not chosen to do is to sort of disown particularly the two people who are conservative candidates. you know, their name will be on the ballot paper and it'll say conservative next to their name because we're past the point where anything can change on that front. but he could have chosen, as other parties in this election,

and plenty of others have in previous elections, to sort of disown a candidate, to publicly say that whilst they have there, you know, the conservative name on the ballot paper, they don't have the party support. they have pointedly chosen not to do that. and the argument that's made is that they are innocent until proven otherwise and that this other inquiry from the gambling commission is ongoing. but yeah, a reference there from mr sunak states that sense that the party itself is looking into them, but no substantial movement in terms of his position, certainly around that central question of whether or not he would still endorse them. it's interesting. andrea leadsom, cabinet minister, was on politics live talking tojoe coe at lunchtime, saying she believed in the idea of innocent until proven otherwise, but also said that she wouldn't be willing to go out and campaign with those that are conservative candidates. you can see there, if you like, an element of the internal tension within the party playing out publicly. and of course you had tobias ellwood, conservative party member, who was saying that he thought they should have been suspended.

the first one, i think, to actually vocalize that sentiment, although i would say i have spoken to people privately that might have liked rishi sunak to take that course of action, because even though they might agree with the andrea leadsom sentiment about innocent until proven otherwise, at this point in an election campaign, you've had days of people consistently being asked about it, and that may have at the very least given them an answer, as it were. and then there's all these questions about leadership, etc. so i think that's where i've picked up a little bit of chatter, and it isn't across the board. but, you know, there are some people saying perhaps that would have made the conversations around this, the questions around this which are still kicking around... yeah. i think there's a difference here, you know, ten days out from a general election between a process involving a regulator and what a political leader chooses to or not to do. those two things, one would not necessarily interfere with the other. and if you're a political leader, you have the scope to do stuff or not to do stuff.

right. i'm now going to do something that's totally tenuous, but bear with. so a candidate got in touch and sent me a picture of a hustings they were doing that was in a school hall, but where i think the school is doing a production of high school musical. so it looked like an american high school and it had all that high school musical we're all in this together banners. so i'm now going to channel my inner cheerleader and say, give me an i. give me an f. both: f. give me an s. both: s. ifs, institute for fiscal studies. yeah, see, it was tenuous, but we got in the end. i didn't see that coming. and we are all in this together. i was slow to that. i think you clocked that by the first letter i reckon, alex, until we got to the s, i was like, "oh, i see. i have had my head in the ifs zone for quite a lot of the day. alex, put people out their misery. why are we talking about the ifs? so the institute for fiscal studies, of course, an economic think tank which is widely respected, has kind of given their verdict on the party's manifestos.

and i think it's fair to say it's a pretty damning verdict, actually. it's not necessarily new news. we talk about that quite a lot of the time, don't we? is this new is the first time we've been hearing it? i'd say probably no, because there have been warnings from the if about this already. from the ifs about this already. but it's the way now they've gone through the manifestos and come up with their conclusion is pretty stark. and what they effectively say is, and this is my words, not theirs, but i'm paraphrasing the sentiment, is we don't think any of the parties are being really upfront about the choices, the hard choices and the trade offs that are coming down the track when it comes to things like taxation, spending on public services, borrowing, effectively what they're going to be able to afford to do and how they're going to pay for it. and this is not them saying, i mean, they do go into some detail about manifestos specifically, but what they're more saying is that the parties, labour and the conservatives — and they do have some criticism of some measures in other party manifestos as well — but what they're effectively saying, labour and the conservatives, the two parties, one of which is likely to form the next government,

are not being upfront enough about the fact that there's some really tough stuff hurtling down the track. and actually, you know, the arguments that are being made around tax cuts or growth or spending don't recognise the bigger picture or take into account the bigger picture. i think they call it, do they call it, alex, a trilemma? atrilemma... talking about spending and they're talking about taxing and they're talking about borrowing. effectively saying if things just bump along economically in the way they are and the growth that parties say they seek doesn't materialise, then they're going to have to do one of three things that will present a trilemma, and that's either raise your taxes, cut spending, or borrow more money. so that's the trilemma they outline. and what they accuse the parties of is a conspiracy of silence around it, which is a phrase they've used before. but repeating it doesn't make it any less damning. and there's another point, isn't there, here, which i've been struck by over the last couple of weeks. we've talked about it on newscast a bit, actually, which is that if we rewind like five or six weeks from where we are now — in other words to pre the election being called —

and think of some of the stories that we were all reporting on and talking about on newscast. i'lljust pick for one one example of many — just because it happened just before the election was called — was the whole issue about prison capacity and the whole business about releasing people from prison early. just take that one example, which in the grand scheme of things is pretty specific, but you just take that one example and then you can extrapolate to all the kind of stuff that you look into all the time, alex. the kind of bread and butter discussions that you have every week on any questions, for instance, and then you see the campaign and we've been in this slightly otherworldly kind of zone around accusations about tax and this party in that party saying it wouldn't raise income tax or national insurance or vat or whatever, all of that stuff. we've been in this sort of promises zone slash aren't the other lot scurrilous or terrible or whatever, you know, which is thrown around everywhere. and fast forward to two weeks from now because we'll be on a monday, the eighth of, is it the eighth, i think, ofjuly, two weeks today, but the day that new mps or returning msps come to westminster.

and before we know it, yes, there'll be hullabaloo and all of the stuff around that, but before you know it, we'll be talking about those prison places again and all the rest of it. in other words, we'll be back to the government, whatever its complexion, dealing with all those same problems and the stuff that the ifs talk about is at the core of it, the kind of economic fundamentals that we were talking about in march, april and may until we got into election time. i mean, i think i've been reading this ifs stuff all afternoon, and it takes a little while to get your head around it because it's very like wonky fiscal stuff. it's kind of not for the casual reader, but i think the thing that really hits home for me is that if you look at the spending pledges on the nhs in the labour or conservative manifesto, in one case it's less than i% of total nhs spending. so it makes you realise we're spending a lot of time talking about small potatoes. and actually we need to be spending as much time talking about the big potatoes. and the other really technical thing

that the ifs go on about quite a lot is this idea of baselines, which is like actually, if you're talking about spending increases or additional spending, you need to know what that's in addition to, and the parties, because they haven't been super clear about how much they'll spend per year in each government department. it's quite hard tojudge whether something is additional spending because you don't know what it's in addition to. and the example they give is the conservative pledge about defence spending, which adds up, the conservatives say, to £75 billion extra over six years. but that that's if you hold the defence budget kind of flat for those six years and add in that extra. but if you increase the defence budget in cash terms, that 75 billion extra suddenly becomes 2a billion extra, which obviously is a lot less. and then you can apply that to loads and loads and loads of different areas of spending. and i mean, that, ithink, speaks to the heart of the message behind the technicalities of the ifs report, which is their accusation

that there's just a lack of honesty in the debate around all of this stuff right now. i suppose the counter to that, and i have to give credit to this thought to henry zeman, our colleague, rather than not it's not an original of my own, but i thought he was on the money with it. is this kind of, you know, this idea that would you expect politicians to go into an election that they're trying to win, saying, "actually, it's all going to be rubbish, stick with us and we're going to have to cut staff and raise your taxes". you know what i mean? i guess it's for somebody who's running a political campaign, you've got to strike a balance between being honest and frank, because that's exactly what voters expect and deserve. but if you tell everybody, it's going to be really tough under us, are people are going to vote for you tonight? yeah, exactly. it's kind of acknowledging the human psychology amongst those who are seeking support. you know, i guess you've got to sound positive or at least relatively positive as you might see it, compared with your rivals. and i do just think that over the last, well, ever since the financial crisis, where, like, money has started

to really matter in government because economic growth has been quite slow and government debt has been quite big, and now we're in a world where interest rates have gone up. so the interest bill for government debt is getting ever bigger. then we become so fixated on numbers and spending totals. and actually sometimes this constant discussion of numbers and comparing that number with that number and typing it into this spreadsheet to show who's not being honest about what obscures a conversation about kind of values and kind of how a political party sees the world and what that might tell us about the decisions they'd make in future. so there's that. and then also just the fact that manifestos, we seem to be treating them like they're the whole bible rather than just the ten commandments. i totally agree with that. yeah, i mean, a manifesto. and i guess some of the parties would argue this. of course, it's a set of pledges and promises that they can be held to account to by the public, because that's effectively what they are. but, you know, it is the argument

that i've heard advance quite a lot, which is this isn't the budget for the next five years of a parliament. it's not every single thing we're going to do and every single thing we're not going to do. and when you read them and assess them, you need to do that with that kind of awareness in mind. and i think what's been quite interesting is the parties have pushed back quite hard on this stuff from the ifs because for example labour, you've heard them talk about the fact they're going to get the economy growing, they say, and the ways they think they can do that. and their argument is that you've got to factor that in, because if you get a bigger economy, then we'll have more money to spend on public services, whatever it might be. and equally, the conservatives are push back and say, we think if we cut taxes, then and we can save money from welfare that they've claimed they're going to be able to do. although the ifs has questioned whether or not all of that can be achieved. but the conservatives are pretty confident in that and say, "look, we've done something similar before". they say then of course we think the economy is going to be in a better place as well. so it's all contested. but i'd sort agree with what you're saying, adam. i guess if you're trying to read

between the lines of all this stuff, the manifestos, the promises, and the priorities that each party chooses to talk about probably give you a pretty good insight as to what they're going to do over their whole term if they get in. yeah, i mean and they're a sales pitch, aren't they, the manifestos? for me, what's intriguing about the manifestos is there's two things. one is what's not in them, ie quite a lot, some of which is because you can't predict the future and some of which is because you don't want to put it in a sales pitch. but there's also, i think, a truth that says of all of the kind of platforms and stages and documents that a political party produces in roughly a five year cycle, a manifesto does sit — i hope this doesn't sound sort of too naive — but does sit on a slight pedestal above most of the others because there is a process, and we were doing this just five or six weeks ago, whenever it was when parliament was dissolved, of going back to a party's manifesto, the party that's been in government and saying, "well, what in here was not achieved and what was"? there is a bit of kind of scorecard that goes on in there, equally to break a manifesto promise is for be a higher category of promised break in the political world than pretty much any other, i'd say.

right, chris, you've achieved a lot in this episode of newscast and i know you've got lots of other things to achieve elsewhere, so i'm going to let you go. torah. nice to see you. cheers. now, earlier on today, me and alex found out how the election is playing out in northern ireland. and we did that with our colleague in northern ireland, sarah garvin. hello. how are you? very well, thank you. my main memory of covering general elections in northern ireland is that the lamp posts are just covered in posters in a way that in england or scotland or wales you just do not see. yeah, we enjoy posters. we enjoy a flag. that's one thing you can say about northern ireland, and certainly when it comes to the general election. yeah. alex, i know you've done a few episodes of any questions in northern ireland over the last year or so. do you want to just sort of paint the big picture of party politics there for us? yeah, we have. we've been there a few times, although not been there on the ground through the general election campaign this time round. so i'm going to definitely hand over to sarah for the feel and vibe of it. but in terms of the big parties,

so for the westminster general election, there are 18 constituencies, 18 mp5 that will be elected in northern ireland. and if you take the results from last time round, which was in 2019, then you had the dup, the democratic unionist party, who won eight seats, you had sinn fein who won seven seats, you had the sdlp who won two seats, and the alliance party which won one seat. so the question, like in every part of the united kingdom, is who's going to win however many seats this time round? because we have got those 18 seats being contested. and how much of a shift is there, could there be in the number of seats each party holds? and what does that tell us about the state of play in northern ireland? and sarah, what would you say the general election in northern ireland is actually about this time? because obviously people in northern ireland have the same concerns about cost of living or the property market orjobs or health that everywhere in the uk people think about. but there are also specific northern ireland issues there, too. just give us your take on what's really at stake here. yeah, i think when you talk

about those specific and northern ireland issues, you know, if we do look big picture, it is definitely the cost of living. that's a massive issue here. the health service is a big one here because, actually, the waiting lists in northern ireland are the highest in the uk. but you see, we're not going to see those big kind of labour conservative battles in northern ireland that we see in other parts of the uk because it is all northern ireland parties standing for those 18 seats, it does all become a little bit local. i guess all politics is local, but it definitely does feel like that in northern ireland. and then you have the constitutional question, of course, come into play and that's whether northern ireland should stay as part of the united kingdom or leave and form a united ireland. and a lot of people do base their votes here on what the party's view is on that. so just give us a sense of how the unionist parties are playing it then. well, there are three, i guess, main unionist parties standing the up, the dup and the tuv. so three different flavours

of unionism, if you like. and they're all calling for the removal of what they say is the irish sea border. now after brexit, although obviously it impacted the entire of the uk in its entirety, of course it did. northern ireland was a little bit different, as we often are, because we're the only part of the uk that shares a land border with part of the eu, the republic of ireland. so there had to be, you knnow, a lot of toing and froing, a lot of organising about how goods were going to pass between northern ireland and gb. if we talked about how all that got settled, we would honestly be here for two or three days, but at the moment we have the windsor... yeah, we do. we have the windsor framework. you know there's been so many things, we have the northern ireland protocol, we do have the windsor framework. and that has left, unionists say, a border in the irish sea. they're not happy about that. they think that that sees northern ireland treated differently than the rest of the uk.

that erodes northern ireland's place in the united kingdom. of course, as unionists they don't want that, and they want to see it removed. and then what about the parties on the other side of the equation, the people who look towards ireland? yeah, the sdlp and sinn fein. we spoke about alliance there, but they don't actually have a position on the constitutional question. they don't describe themselves as unionists or nationalists. and one of the big stories — again, if we look kind of broad brush at the general election in northern ireland — will be about sinn fein. they're the biggest party in the northern ireland local government, in the councils. they're the biggest party in the assembly. michelle o'neill, the leader of sinn fein, is the first minister for the first time. so if they become... we're not expecting actually too much movement between the dup and sinn fein in terms of seats, but even if the dup lose a little bit of ground and sinn fein becomes the biggest party in northern ireland overall — a nationalist party who wants northern ireland to leave the uk —

if they become the biggest party for the first time, that's really the hugely symbolic. that will be really, really big. i mean that's what sinn fein is all about. they want a united ireland, and if they're the biggest party in northern ireland, well, it raises a lot of questions. i wasjust going to jump in so quickly. what's interesting, of course, is exactly as sarah says, that when sinn fein did become the biggest party in the assembly, and when sinn fein did become the biggest party in local government, that's exactly it was that both of them were seen as a sort of symbolic moment. and sinn fein, the party would suggest that that means that, of course, you know, do we then start to discuss this question about a border poll, which is a vote on the future of northern ireland, whether it remain part of the united kingdom or form a united ireland. so you can expect that if sinn fein — and obviously we don't know the outcome of this general election and we'd all be fools to predict it — but you know, if they did if they got that kind of electoral hat trick where they were the biggest party in local government,

in the assembly and in the general election, then you would expect that conversation to be ignited again. but just one other quick thought on the brexit thing. what is so interesting is that we've had a conversation on newscasts before, adam, about the fact that there's been a sort of criticism levelled at the main parties in gb, so labour and the conservatives in particular, that they've been quite quiet on the brexit question during the course of this election campaign. and if you think back to 2019, when it was right at the front and centre of the campaign, it was the biggest issue. this time round, it hasn't been. i mean, there are other smaller parties like for example, reform uk or the green party or the snp who want to talk about brexit. but there's been a sort of suggestion that the bigger parties don't, whereas in northern ireland it is still something that's so much an active part of the political debate in this campaign. and more broadly, it's a really interesting distinction. we've had a question from the newscaster called b, who says, "do you think sinn fein may abandon their abstention position if labour win" ? sara, i'll get you to theorise about that. and of course, when we're talking

about abstention, this position, that's the fact that sinn fein don't take up their seats at westminster. no, in a word. i don't think it matters whether it's a conservative government, whether it's a labour government, it's bigger than that for sinn fein. they are irish republicans. they don't recognise the sovereignty of westminster over northern ireland. that's why they're abstention, that's why they don't take their seats. so it's actually got nothing to do with whether it's a labour government or a conservative government or it's a hung parliament, whatever it is. they say no, they say they will not take their seats, and of course they are asked about this all the time. and recently, senior members of the party have been telling us, "look, when we're out in the doorsteps, the people who vote for us support that obstructionist policy," they say. and we've asked, "is it something that you would ever consider"? and theyjust sort of say, "look, no, it's not even something that's being discussed within the party". so i may live to eat my hat, but i would say a very strong no. it's interesting because i was actually, i was reading about one

of the leader debates that took place in northern ireland where this came up, because, of course, the argument from sinn fein, as sara says there, is that people know what they're voting for when they vote for sinn fein. you know, if you cast your vote for sinn fein, you know that sinn fein don't take their seats as sort of an established point of principle. but that doesn't stop the other parties from sort of using it as something that they raise a kind of criticism of sinn fein, you know, in this argument about if you want to make change, then you need to be in the room. and i noticed that that really came up in the course of the debate. you know, other parties saying to sinn fein, "look, you know, why would people vote for you if you don't take your seats" ? i guess their argument is that we still work hard and we still have conversations and we still represent constituents and they know the position that we take before. but it still seems to be, although not a debate within sinn fein, who've said that really clearly, that is something that other parties are keen to raise, should we say. and sara, when we talk about the two smaller parties, the alliance and the sdlp, do they feel squeezed by the bigger parties either side of the spectrum, or do they see an opportunity to hoover up lots of people

in the middle who maybe feel less strongly about lots of the constitutional issues? yeah, look, it's interesting. you know, i think both of them would target younger voters who may be, you know, that constitutional issue isn't the be all and end all of them. they're looking at education, health, climate change, all of that. for the sdlp, they have two mps at the moment. they'll be really looking to hold on to those. for alliance, they have one. we've heard from naomi long over the past few days. she has described her party as the underdog, even in that seat that they hold. they are hoping to actually increase that number there, you know, in a good place in a couple of other constituencies. but the alliance message would be very much that, you know, they are, as i say, they don't identify as unionists or nationalists. and their big sell actually in their manifesto was about institutional reform. if you look at the devolved government in northern ireland, it hasn't sat for five out of the last seven years. it's been collapsed by the dup and sinn fein. they say, "look, that can

continue no longer". speaking to the sdlp, they would say calum eastwood had a 17,000 majority in foyle in 2019. anywhere else in northern ireland, that would be seen as a really, really safe seat. he doesn't believe that that's the case. he's confident he will retain it, but he believes that was a brexit vote back in 2019 and those numbers may not stack up just the same way this time. but if the alliance can hold on to one, maybe do a little bit better, if sdlp can hold their two, then that'll be a really successful election for both of them. and sara, just for that, you get back to the campaign trail. how do people in northern ireland feel when, say, rishi sunak or keir starmer turns up and sort of tells them what they're planning to do, but actually not standing any candidates in the constituencies in northern ireland. yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? how should i say this, that you can broadcast it? i think it was interesting when rishi sunak came, when he did that kind of whistle stop tour of the uk. he went to the titanic quarter

of obviously famous for the boat. the puns, the electoral and political punss wrote themselves there. i think there is, you know, i think that you summed it up really, really well. there is a sense that the bigger parties, the bigger politicians only come to northern ireland when there is a problem. that they don't really get this place. they don't understand the local issues, they don't understand the people here. and how northern ireland is represented at westminster can be a bit of a difficult feeling for people in northern ireland. so yeah, it's an interesting one. i think those emotions, those feelings are quite complex there. and also just to put the counterargument about the titanic quarter, a, it's quite a cool bit of belfast, so it's not like. i love it. it's a gorgeous part. exactly, exactly. so there's that and also that point, that was the titanic�*s

most successful bit. like belfast to liverpool, to southampton. that was when it was good. i know. and, you know, there's a really appropriate inappropriate analogy that people always use and they say, "well, it was fine when it was left belfast". but, you know, at the time, obviously, it was a massive feat of engineering. and it's that, you know, it's in a whole part of the city named after it. i'veust spent the morning down there, you know, i've just spent the morning down there, you know, you have the titanic exhibition centre. the place is teeming with tourists from all over the world wanting to find out more about the titanic. and that can only be good for belfast, right? and also, alex, a part of the world you know well, southampton, where the titanic set sail from. when politicians go to southampton, they don't go, "oh, terrible choice. "you know, that's where the titanic set off and its ill fated maiden voyage". no, but then there's also a titanic museum in southampton. and i've got to say, i haven't seen that many politicians visit it. so, i mean, read into what you want from that, but maybe itjust hasn't got the kind of, i don't know, the status of the belfast. what next? a politician's seen with ice in their drink, and you know, "oh you know it was ice that sunk

the titanic — another terrible rishi suna k�*s staffers". ice—free drinks and no ships in sight. that's the way that you're going to get through an election campaign anyway. sarah, good luck getting through the next few days and the election campaign in northern ireland, and thanks for bringing us up to date. thank you. you too. newscast from the bbc.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm steve lai. the headlines... israel's defence minister, yoav gallant, is in washington for talks with us secretary of state antony blinken. a fire at a lithium battery factory near south korea's capital kills at least 22 people. king charles�* sister, princess anne, is in hospital with minor injuries and concussion after an incident on her estate. hope for those with severe epilepsy — as a boy becomes

the world's first person to have a skull implant fitted — to control seizures. live from our studio in singapore — welcome to the program. we're going to start this hour with the relationship between the us and israel, that has been strained in recent weeks. israel's claimed american shipments of arms have been delayed — while america has warned israel to ensure civliian lives are protected in gaza as the conflict continues. it's against this backdrop that israel's defence minister yoav gallant is in washington dc. he's met us secretary of state antony blinken. the two men did not hold a press conference after the meeting, but the state department mentions blinken and gallant talked about the risk of escalation to the wider region, as well as, the protection of humanitarian workers. for the latest on those

talks in washington, i spoke to our north america correspondent peter bowes.