wildfires in southern and central chile are now known to have killed at least 11 people and left several thousand others homeless. firefighters and volunteers are tackling more than 100 separate fires, half of which are still out of control. now it's dateline london. hello and welcome to dateline london. how "special" is britain's so—called "special relationship" with the united states? and how wise is it for a british prime minister to try to get close to an american president and end up with a picture showing them holding hands? my guests today are: alex deane, who is a conservative commentator, agnes poirier of france's marianne,

mustapha karkouti of gulf news and jef mcallister, an american writer and broadcaster. a british ambassador to washington once told me as we awaited the first meeting between the then british prime minister and a new american president that they were "fated to get on wonderfully well." he meant that whatever the personal chemistry — or lack of it — the totality of the relationship between the uk and us was so important that it had to work out. but how well does that work with theresa may and donald trump? it seems to me the most interesting thing about it is that it took place within the first few days? yes, i think it's good that we were the first foreign head to be in to see the american president. i think the quote from your former ambassador friend is right. president obama, who is not as well disposed to the british interest as the now president seems to be.

i suppose my point is this — whether you agreed with brexit or not, that is now the directional travel that our country is on. president obama and his preferred successor hillary clinton set themselves square against that. so even if you voted against brexit and are an ardent remainer, you should now be happy that we have a president who looks optimistic and positively at the path that we are set on. you may dislike donald trump or many other reasons and those reasons may be valid, but on this it is good fry country that it happened and went the way that we did. do you see this, as some british press sees it, as a danger that a prime minister gets too close to an american president? to take another example, it was said that tony blair got too close to george bush and that lead us into the mess of iraq? when i watch the press conference, i thought the prime minister came out of that exceptionally well. and if you think about anyone whose policy positions changed, it was trump, not may. one week ago he was saying that nato was obsolete, with encouragement of theresa may

it is now 100% relevant and he supports it. and maybe general matias too. yes, but what he did was say that he would step back, and support the general‘s position. in the same way that he seems to be rowing back on torture as well. the point being that he does seem to be biddable and the other one is ukraine. where theresa made straight that our country and there is has a significant position of difference and she didn't back down one bit. what did you make of it? well, i wish i could share your enthusiasm, of course he is the president of the united states. there's no use denying it, we have to work with the man. on the other hand as a friend britain, i felt, i was shivering, just seeing them holding hands — which the british media made so much of it.

it is on every single newspaper. it was a temporary safety measure, i believe, they were walking downstairs. he was being polite. but ijust don't see angela merkel being led the way that she was. i thought it was a bit embarrassing for britain. and also, that press conference, the ft said that there was considerable warmth between the two. what i saw was considerable awkwardness. she was walking on eggshells of course and she managed to get him to say, at least not on camera, that he was backing nato 100%. that is a victory in itself. but otherwise, she was going there, for few words from the president about the trade deal, but article 50 has not been triggered yet so she's not actually cable or starting at entry negotiations. you can have talks of course but he didn't say anything

that trade deal apart from brexit was the most wonderful thing. to pick up on alex's point, wasn't the most interesting thing about yesterday that whatever one may say about donald trump and a lot has been said all over the place about him, he appears to be pragmatic enough to listen to people who actually know what they talk about. if he listened to mattis, for example, he is somebody with a long career in defence, it is very clear that he doesn't think that torture is a good idea. i know, but you can't actually ignore the fact that an american president says that personally he thinks torture works. it is difficult to ignore. but you cannot ignore the fact that he said even if he thinks that he will defer to someone else. i thought it was an interesting point. yeah, well, it's still democracy until it becomes a dictatorship. what do you make of it? i think theresa may left washington saying to herself,

i cannot trust this man. i don't think she will trust this man. because he is a man who changes his mind every day. and he is a loner in a way. when he stands up in the press conference and says, look, iam rich, very, very rich. as if he's saying, i don't need this job, i don't need this money, so i'm doing you a favour to be here in this position. you cannot trust this man in a way. yes, of course he said i'm with you 100% over nato, but give him two or three months, is he going to stick to his position? i doubt it. and i'm sure theresa may doubts it. that is interesting. you've seen lots of presidents come and go when you were at house. it has been quite an extraordinary week for donald trump? and for america.

it is such a blizzard of things you can hardly even remember how it began. the speech at the cia, where he is standing in front of the wall of the fallen and uses it as a long talk about his own wonderfulness. where he says that the news media made up his differences with the intelligence agencies, which was a lie. to people for whom not lying actually matters because that is theirjobs, trying to figure out things. and to say that of course there was tremendous voter fraud and that was the only reason why i didn't get the popular vote. that was another lie and he said that to them. that was seven days ago. a long week. and the executive order that was in favour of torture, which has now been rescinded. but there is a law against it anyway so the executive order is irrelevant and james mattis was against it. theresa may, i think it is important for the president and the prime minister

tried to get on, yes, there is a little bit of the supplicant trying to rush in, but it's fine. this is an important relationship. if it goes well for the us it is a force multiplier for britain. i would point to the relationship that blair and bush had in the days after september the 11th, in which it actually worked really well. blair would go to washington, he at the second highest approval rating of any public figure in the united states and he would come back to europe and all of the european prime ministers would line up to have dinner with him because they wanted to understand what bush was saying and he was kind of the ambassador. it all went wrong when he became too supplicantory over iraq and he didn't pull back. so that is a danger of being a democrat in a conservative thing. you can get eaten. i think the worrying thing about this visit is it looks like a normal visit, but trump is not a normal president. he does not believe in the liberal international order.

he believes in himself, in getting attention for himself. if you look at all of his biographers, they say he has never had any friends. he doesn't have any long—term friends, he discards his wives when they are not useful to him. he doesn't believe in alliances and long—term building. he believes in transactions and beating the other guy in a deal. here we have britain and it's given away its european home and is looking for deals. are you saying that these are two leaders who have got no mates? the british don't get on with the european friends and donald trump doesn't get on with anybody? but there is also a system in which they used to operate. i think if vladimir putin now takes advantage of say, lessening some sanctions, i don't think trump is going to opposing like obama did. meddling in the elections and doing things that are strategically very

concerning, i think this desire for britain to be paying all of this attention to trade deals within individual countries, and the smallness of its ambitions it is going to feel like it is the wrong choice but it is going to fit in with trump's. there is false in a lot of what you say. i agree with trump speaking front of the wall and it was crass. but i disagree with you, in exception with results. i'm not saying you particularly, but the left often says that the result we have had is so bad that it transcends normal systems. well, in democracy sometimes you get results that you don't like and each side has to live with that result. but i'm so angry that this can't be normal, and therefore the result whether it be voting to leave the european union or donald trump being president must somehow be invalid. i don't think it is invalid,

i think it is worrisome it creates risks, and risks of the dissolution of the international order that has triggered peace and security for so many years is a risk. both playing as not isolationists, a "i'm most important" sandbox. i think it is a new world altogether, a new political environment, i think everybody is trying to find his or her place. like theresa may. how to deal with this man. it's a very worrying thing to do, because listening to his speeches, the day before, in philadelphia, the mere fact that she was, repeating the fact of... the two great nations, the historic background and reminding... the other point that i wanted

to make, i'm very interested in your country's politics, we all are, but in the end i'm british. so i'm most interested in how britain fares. our prime minister didn't choose this hand, she neither voted to leave the european union nor did she have any say on trump being president. but she's dealing with the hand she is being dealt and i'm very proud of the way that she is conducting herself actually. one of the things i have wanted to bring up, it has been many years since i have read the art of the deal, donald trump says, or his ghost writer says, something like you make a better deal when the person you're dealing with is desperate to make a deal with you. jeff was talking about tony blair and bush, blair missed an historical opportunity at the time, because he did have leverage over bush and he was close

to him and he could have done something, which he didn't do, and that was a historical mistake in many ways. he could have actuallyjust before the invasion of iraq he would have been able to tell bush, look, this was a mistake. but he and powell could have had a senior conversation. but britain is very important on the chessboard and can make a real difference, but what i saw yesterday in washington was a british prime minister who of course needs to do what she has to do, but there was an element desperation...

i'm a tory and i love blaming tony blair for anything, on that one it is the job of the new prime minister to make sure that we are close to our closest ally. i want to point out that some of the basis for the cooperation is intelligence and defence. many things are part of this, regardless of who the prime minister is. but british spending on its own defence has decreased, the number of aircraft carriers and planes on aircraft carriers, the number of submarines, the size of the army. actually it's getting to the point where britain is not gain to be able to make the kind of contributions should there be a gulf of land war. and i think that is important for the future. it's not that theresa may does not have as many cards in her hand. a lot has been made on this side of the atlantic about these executive orders. i'm tempted to ask, so what? didn't obama sign an executive order eight years ago this month?

and whatever happened to that? what i'm trying to get at is the totality of the relationships between britain and the united states also involves theresa may, or whoever the pm is, talking to the republican party, that went down very well. it is notjust about the president, and whatever you say about trump, his freedom for movement is more limited than people think. i think that is fair if you look at the executive orders, they are mostly public relations statements, they are intended to throw red meat to the base and signal a directional travel but they are not legally valid because they contradict legislation or because they are easily revokable or because there are conditions easily revokable or because there are conditions that haven't come to pass, or they say things that are already law but people don't remember that obama has already done about immigration policy for instance. this is a common tactic of new presidents, to issue a flurry of executive orders.

i think we have to get used to, trump doesn't care as much about the substance. obama was a constitutional law expert who cares about doing the right thing. what trump always cares about is being at the centre of the news and getting adulation for it and if it takes executive orders that don't add up, or end up in the heap on the floor he doesn't care. how is he viewed in the middle east in particular in the gulf. i was talking to a gulf specialist and they say do you know what, there is a fair wind behind trump in gulf nations partly because he recognises the threat as they see it from iran and that is a big story in the gulf? that is true, i think it would please the gulf. people in general. of his stance on iran. if he does what he says, they will certainly be relieved, no doubt about that.

this is only one point. but you need to think of stability in the long term, in the entire region, not only, assuming he launches a war if you like or attacks, hitting the nuclear facilities or whatever. that is what he's talking about. will it be limited to that part only? would it threaten the entire region itself? they are worried, a lot more than iran, about extremism, fundamentalism in the region itself. this is probably the first priority as far as politics in the region. is trump prepared to do anything about that? he did say a few things about muslims just a few days ago

yesterday. and also his team started talking about building a database of muslims inside the us. and barring people from certain countries like syria where you are from. exactly. and that made a person like madeline albright threaten to convert to islam if he does that. is that a bit of froth? i don't think it is froth, we should listen to people around the world. on the other hand, he is far less interested in intervening around the world, it will be not very interesting to liberal interventionists but it would be much more agreeable to people who don't want interventions from superpowers. on the other hand, obama dropped hundreds of thousands of bombs,

on muslims, and was widely regarded by the foreign affairs lobby as a hero. donald trump wants to restrict travel, and he is 'xenophobic'. there is a difference between these two things, would i find it more difficult to get a visa in the united states or get a bomb dropped on me? trump is not stopping the drone programme. how do you know that? he hasn't told me, but it is essentially inevitable, that is what the entire establishment has been looking to do. and there are not very alternatives if you want to be a tough guy and if you want to do things from washington. the danger is, let's say that he makes the deal with russia, sanctions gone in return for cooperation.

the problem with russia as a ally against terrorism is, they have created a lot of people from chechnya who go to syria because of the tactics they have used. they kill eight times as many people in their bombing as american strikes, and if you look at trump's executive order banning muslims, it is from countries, none of which sent any of the 9/11 bombers, the most it affects is iran. as one iranian foreign policy official said, americans have created more people going to isis than iran has. they have to create this notion that you are actually increasing radicalism if you team up with the russians. your point about the orders and restricting travel is reasonable, the venn diagram between countries that have sent citizen behind 9/11 and the countries who are banned, do not overlap one bit. saudi arabia is of course the largest single one. and i wanted to return to your russia point, because on the one hand as they showed in syria, the russians, brutal and effective,

argued only on their narrow interpretation of what you think should happen. the americans and indeed the rest of us. well meant and well—intentioned and utterly ineffectual. you have got to pick your preferred option. doing peace with russia, i think there are many people who will look at that and would say that i would rather that russia got on better with united states. if you listen to theresa may before she talked to trump, she was already showing signs that we should have a different attitude to russia. perhaps we will keep sanctions on the ukraine but there is room for improvement. this is happening, if france's fillon is elected french president, he is for the moment best placed to be the french president,

there will be a complete other side to french foreign policy. it will be a new era of franco russian friendship. and indeed in other countries in europe, i think we are going there because we know, obama didn't do much. in the sense that, the us has retreated on the international scene, and with trump it is going to continue being isolationist. so basically there is so much room in part of the world in the middle east for russia to play its card and the one nobody is going to stop vladimir putin. so this is where, slowly we are slowly getting there. just to return to the torture point. it now seems to have been shelved but one of the fundamental worries about that, apart from the inhumanity of torture, is that if you torture one person, you may create a thousand others who take the same view. it seems to be a very headline grabbing way of saying something, to talk to his base but something that will offend, notjust many people but make many people much more likely to be anti—american?

i think that is right, i think torture is always morally wrong, the question now is whether it is effective or not is secondary. i also wonder to what extent these are deliberate ploy to demonstrate a toughness, that is meant for your political audience rather than for your wider international audience. i have no doubt that the signals from the trump campaign on that went down well with its domestic audience, and if your primary aim is to get elected, if you remove morale at you from the question, is to get elected, if you remove morality from the question, that is a sensible thing to do. even if it alienates people who are not american citizens outside your country. one question i wonder about, jeff, is the question of congress and the republicans in congress, the democrats are in a mess

in various ways but if you are a republican in congress facing the election in two years which is the entire house of representatives, how close would you be to donald trump? would you say, i would better get very close because he's the president and he has mandate. or would you say, this could come seriously unstuck? so far all of the indications are that the republicans have made their bed unhappily or not. however bizarre his pronouncements or offensive about grabbing the private parts of women. theyjust basically rolled over. their base, the people that voted for them and that they are scared of, to unseat congressman, they cannot afford to get out of the way. foreign policy, it probably won't matter a lot, it is obama care that is perhaps going to matter.

obviously the republicans are now showing concern, they have said repeated so many times and now they are actually responsible for its becoming trumpca re. a lot of the initial proposals would end up on insuring 20 million people who would have terrible sob stories, and against them. now they are starting to feel the pressure. but trump too, who is not actually really a republican, he is a deal—maker, will be glad to come up with a compromise and i think there is room for him to work with the republicans. and all of this stuff about impeachment and all of the horrible things that he is doing, all of these impossible things that he keeps doing, they will not get in his way. foreign policy is what is worrying as far as the middle east is concerned. because foreign policy is bottom of the list, no doubt about that. that would give the russians freedom to do whatever they want in the region. in fact, they are now running

the peace conference in kazakhstan. and they are the arbiter but they are also, the attackers at the same time. that is how they are perceived in the region. that is it for dateline london for this extremely busy week, we are back the same time next week, you can of course comment on twitter. goodbye. the weekend's weather continues on

its mixed theme. many of us saw cloud and rain on saturday. sunday will see more rain working in from the south—west pushing eastwards cold start to the day. watch out for ice in the morning. in the afternoon still sunshine across scotland north—east of england as well but elsewhere across the across the country it looks cloudy and damp but milder than it has been, especially towards the south—west. in sunday evening we will lose the wet weather towards the east. still cold and clear for many northern and north—eastern parts of a country where we are likely to see, again, some frost and icy conditions. fog 01’ some frost and icy conditions. fog or freezing fog likely to be a problem as move into monday morning. to start the new working week it is pretty grey, foggy, drizzly as well and then through the day we will see pulses of rain working their way west to east across the country. the north—east is dry and clear and temperatures around six and 11 degrees. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america

and around the globe. my name is tom donkin. our top stories: protests in the united states after donald trump signs an executive order, banning migrants and refugees from several muslim countries. in a setback for the new us president, a federaljudge issues an emergency stay order that temporarily blocks the government from deporting people who land with valid visas. when president trump enacts laws or executive orders that are unconstitutional and illegal, the courts are there to defend everybody‘s writes. the british prime minister and the turkish president have