now it is time for our news review. aaron's here. the independent leads with the iraqi army who have recaptured mosul‘s airport, as they continue their attack on the so—called islamic state. iraqi officials say their troops have gained ground rapidly in outlying areas to the south of the city. the telegraph reports on comments made by us treasury secretary, steve mnuchin, who said us economic growth should double thanks to radical tax cuts and deregulation backed by president trump. the irish times leads with irish premier enda kenny who has insisted on a clause in the brexit deal to allow northern ireland the provision to rejoin the european union as part of a united ireland. the ft says more romanians and bulgarians are coming to work in the uk while an increasing number of polish workers are leaving. net migration to britain has fallen to lowest level for more than two years. also in the ft, electric car makers are scrambling to secure supplies of key battery material cobalt. the move comes has hedge funds stockpile supplies of the scarce metal.

everybody wants a bit of cobalt. and finally, trouble could be on the horizon for the ubiquitous grey squirrel. the prince of wales is supporting plans to sterilise the squirrels so that native red squirrel populations can begin to recover. wow! i have a feeling which will be the most divisive story today. joining us is dr stephanie hare, who's an independent political risk analyst. thank you forjoining us. good morning. let us start with this reca ptu re morning. let us start with this recapture of the airport in mosul by iraqi government forces. a big step forward. but, of course, they still have work cut out for them. they have work cut out for them. they have to take the western western city and secure it from the militant. absolutely. this is one of the points the article brought out.

it is important that the government in iraq is eight shia government. the test and significant of these is that mosul is sunni. they want to ca ptu re that mosul is sunni. they want to capture the city and drive out islamic state fighters without alienating the population. and the key thing will be securing any gains they have made to stop any militants from islamic state or indeed any sympathetic to them coming back in and rolling it back. and with a humanitarian crisis, a city under siege, running out of resources, this is a long struggle. how are they going to secure this gains and ta ke they going to secure this gains and take it forward 7 they going to secure this gains and take it forward? the daily telegraph. the business section. your favourite subject, steph, president trump! he is american, by the way, just to explain. is steve mnuchin right? could the tax cuts, the deregulation, could double

america's economic growth? right now we don't have enough economic detailed to critique these plans. it isa detailed to critique these plans. it is a great claim. the credit agency says it looks like 2.5% by the end of 2018, and he is claiming 3%. so, maybe. we need more detail. the fed says there is steam in the economy because they have been talking about rate rises. their concern is that the economy may be in danger of overheating. unemployment is at 3.1, the target. we are at full employment. president trump likes to say he has inherited this disaster ofan say he has inherited this disaster of an economy and he needs to fix it and change it, on the other hand, people are working and we have predictions of growth that are fantastic et cetera. and investors are happy. wall street keeps hitting re cord are happy. wall street keeps hitting record after record. and wall

street... sorry, the fed, they are talking about is rate rise in march. on the one hand, donald trump inherited a great economic situation but the race always room for improvement. before we move on, we we re improvement. before we move on, we were talking earlier on about the president meeting with the big bosses of corporate america. he was telling them, you know, he wants to bring people back into factories and all of that, blah, blah, blah. but what was interesting was you did not see any bosses pushing back on it. it was all polite with clapping. do you remember when president trump met with the tech ceos? injanuary? they all met with him. they all listened to what he had to say. they took it on board. they wanted to find common ground. that is not the occasion in the first meeting to say this is rubbish. that is right. good

point. they do not want to do that. we will be talking about donald trump for some time to come, and brexit as well. that is one of the lead stories in the irish times. talk of giving northern ireland the opportunity of rejoining the eu as pa rt opportunity of rejoining the eu as part of whatever the brexit deal is when it is reached by the uk. this is one of the real sticking points, isn't it? i mean, potentially, given the situation in northern ireland at the situation in northern ireland at the moment, very fragile, this is crucial to get this right. especially because northern ireland voted to remain in the brexit referendum back in june. voted to remain in the brexit referendum back injune. that is the difficulty of this entire decision with scotland and northern ireland voting to remain and wales and england voting to leave. and then 9098, that need to be enforced going forward no matter what happens with

brexit because we need peace with ireland. —— 1998. brexit because we need peace with ireland. “1998. in a way, this is a continuation of what was agreed. moving on, because we want to get to the last story. the financial times. romanians and bob kerrey and is coming in and the police going back home. —— bulgarians. or going home to germany. is this surprising? there was a referendum which made people feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. this is one of the beauties of the eu, you can work in any of the member states. for some of them to go to a different member state with a better economy, that makes sense. doesn't surprise me some people pile in to the uk to stay here and build lives, because we have not decided what happens to eu citizens yet. there will be some interesting ebbs and flows back and forth as we discussed that. and i guess the key thing is the age of the people. if these are economically active people contributing to the system, germany

will then benefit to the detriment of the uk. exactly. polish workers have contributed a lot to the uk economy. if they go to germany, because germany has a demographic crisis, they need them to prop up their economic model. the polish will be replaced with old aryans and romanians, perhaps. —— bulgarians. they are hard workers, hard workers, more than us. and cobalt. we did a story last week about this. a lot of investors. many people are jumping into cobalt which is used obviously for batteries, which are used in these cars, these electric cars. it isa no no these cars, these electric cars. it is a no no poop sherlock. what was that? is that a technical term? laughter. what is that expression?

it is further down the article. umm... the point here is, you know, we are looking at a really exciting evolution in cars, electric cars and automobiles. we are looking at tesla and securing everything in the supply chain that is needed, and cobalt is obviously part of that story. it is interesting to look at it economically, but i am not sure how that relates to sherlock. well, there is a little expression... umm, grey squirrels. do you like them in comparison to the red lines?|j grey squirrels. do you like them in comparison to the red lines? i like the red lines. —— ones. comparison to the red lines? i like the red lines. -- ones. grey squirrels are american. they came over and killed all the little british red squirrels. how do you feel about that? we should have a referendum. clearly we are holding

you responsible. should we kill them? it is always a little scary for humans to take a control over evolution. look what happened in australia with rabbits. they decimated half the landscape after being introduced. why can't they all live together? anyway, let us wrap it up. thank you very much, steph. that is all for the paper review. brea kfast that is all for the paper review. breakfast is coming up at six o'clock. we will be back shortly. goodbye. thursday was a very wild day across the uk. storm doris packed quite a punch, bringing all sorts of weather — heavy rain, some heavy snow and the damaging gales. you can see a real squeeze on the isobars across the uk moving off into the north sea into the low countries and denmark as we reached friday. a ridge of high pressure building in. it means that the winds continue to turn light overnight, but with clear skies a new hazard will appear

and that's ice across the northern areas. especially where wintry showers continue, so bear that in mind if you are heading out first thing. it will be a much colder night up and down the uk than what we have been used to over the last few nights. it means, however, that into friday things will be fine, thanks to the ridge of high—pressure. it should see plenty of sunshine through the day but it will not stay calm for all areas because later on in the day the next area of low pressure will bring wet and windy weather into northern ireland and then into scotland. but for much of england and wales it will be chilly. the wind is picking up again across the north of ireland and western scotland. rain becomes heavy and persistent but not reaching the east of scotland until after dark so here you should enjoy the sunshine. rain getting in towards the north—western parts of wales. certainly getting cloudier. the midlands, eastwards, it remains fine. lots of sunshine around. a lovely day with light winds. on the cool side, with temperatures in single figures for most. wet and windy weather across the north—west quarter of the uk. that spreads easterly

during friday night, so the wind picks up everywhere. some of the rain will turn to snow over the high ground, we'll see it move across scotland. maybe the far north of england. turning back to rain, as the temperatures begin to rise from the south—west. so a less cold night on friday night than what we will see on thursday. so this weekend it looks like it will be milder. south—westerlies back and it will be windy, certainly across the north and west of the uk. close to the high pressure it should stay largely dry. you can see the isobars across the uk tightly packed again for saturday. weather fronts crossing the uk. the north—west corner of the country will see the most unsettled weather. wet and windy here through the weekend, whereas the midlands, south—east england, brightness and not a lot of cloud. temperatures in the double figures so back into milder air. on sunday it looks like the south in the east will see the best of any brightness.

across the north and west, windy with outbreaks of rain. hello. this is breakfast with charlie stayt and steph mcgovern. an historic by—election win for the conservatives as they gain copeland from labour. harrison trudy lim, 13,748. in the first by—election win by a governing party for more than 30 years, trudy harrison takes the cumbrian constituancy with a majority of more than 2,000. in stoke, labour keep their seat. ukip leader paul nuttall coming a distant second. we're live in both constituencies this morning and we have the latest reaction from the parties involved. good morning.