plan to trigger article 50 — the says she'll fire the starting gun on tuesday. the sunday telegraph's top story is what it calls a war in the cabinet over the budget — with ministers reportedly furious at the chancellor for not warning them that he was planning to break a manifesto promise with a rise in national insurance for self—employed workers. the front page of the sunday times has rugby hero danny care flying through the air as scores in england's victory against scotland in the six nations. and the sunday express reports on a potential new lead in the hunt for madeleine mccann. the paper says police have been given extra funding to follow it up. let's delve a little deeper. we start with the observer. i feel we need a drum roll. tuesdays when we are likely to see the prime minister triggering article 50. or thursday.

it is also triggering lots of accusations of, do we really know what we are doing? good question! what the papers are full of tonight isa what the papers are full of tonight is a foreign affairs select committee report which absolutely slams the government. it was chaired by tory crispin blunt. but he is broadly saying is that if we don't plan forfailure, broadly saying is that if we don't plan for failure, then that would be a dereliction of duty. that is what he is accusing the prime minister of. what has really got the gold of mps is they made the same kind of warning to david cameron, saying, you may want a referendum, you don't have a plan. where is the plan? they are saying this is similar. they think the negotiations may well fail. what are we doing for planning if they do fail? at the moment we

can't hear anything from the government. we are going to stay with this story. the mail on sunday, dereliction of his duty. savaging brexit minister david davis, suggesting there is no plan. as nigel said, they had already been very critical of david cameron, accusing the government of gross negligence, of never having a plan b for the result of the referendum, which resulted in a leave vote. to do it again would be absolutely appalling. they use this phrase, mutually assured damage, which is a throwback to mutually assured destruction, a cold war term used by russia and america. it is absolutely damning. it is chilling for the government. it is chilling to business. it is chilling to the country. if there is no deal, and theresa may has said we will walk

away because no deal is better than away because no deal is better than a bad deal, they have got this idea in their heads it is possible there is not a deal they can agree to. what is the plan? if she does trigger it on tuesday or thursday, they have two years to come up with something. politically, if there is a plan b that is being configured, they don't want to make too much of it because they wanted to succeed. what if it doesn't succeed? there needs to be a contingency plan. the chaos that gripped whitehall atherley referenda must because there was no plan for leaving in the first place. —— after the referendum. because we were caught out that time, the argument from mps is that we should be making plans for that. david davis tells us he has a plan a, plan b, plan see ——

plan capital see... you get the feeling they do not know what they are doing. do you get the impression the parliamentary committee are giving guidelines as to what they think the back—up should be? giving guidelines as to what they think the back-up should be? no, i don't think they are. they are saying it is a possibility, so you can't pretend it may not happen. it is an insurance. it is the duty of government. what they are saying is you can't be negligent. i think what they are saying is that obviously everybody involved is going into completely uncharted territory. probably the only people who have any idea of what it means and what the deal will be will be the many lawyers working through. nigel touches on what david davis is saying, and we make come on to that

ina bit, saying, and we make come on to that in a bit, because he has written an article in another sunday paper, but you can't talk this up because it may not be down to us in the end. it will be about what the other 27 countries are offering. hiding behind the claim that negotiations are not working. she wouldn't say anything to begin with. then she admitted we were going to be in the single market. other things are obvious, too. she must be more honest. the sunday times has a headline that suggests she is clear on some of the money payback. this sounds like a veryjolly good story, that we will be sitting on £9 billion coming our way. the argument seems to be that we have got 9 billion sitting in the european investment bank. our money. theresa may, when she finally gets to brussels to start the negotiations, will say, before we start, can we have the dosh back, please? the idea

seems to be to spike the european commission's guns about starched —— charging us £50 billion for leaving the eu. where they got this figure from seems to be a mystery. we're prattley oh a lot of pension contributions and so on. good luck to. —— we apparently owe a lot of pension contributions. this says that ministers are confident they can reduce the size of a brexit bill to something more politically palatable. this goes back to talking up. they may be confident but they don't know what the bill would be yet. if we're going to get his £9 billion back, allegedly, is the eu going to ask for money back that it has already for farming subsidies or other grants and things we benefit from. it is a bit like a moroccan bazaar, isn't it?! this is an ugly

divorce, isn't it? somebody will end up divorce, isn't it? somebody will end up in divorce, isn't it? somebody will end upina divorce, isn't it? somebody will end up in a cold, chilly park. before we get too depressed, take us onto the other story in the sunday times, a russian cyber threat to uk elections. this story has been running around. i have to confess i was taking the mickey out of nigel la st was taking the mickey out of nigel last time we were on talking about the spies in your cattle. —— kettle. now your tvs! people at gchq, the listening spying station, and what they are basically doing, they have got a story which is that gchq are offering and calling for a summit. they are calling on all political parties, the leaders of all political parties, because political parties hold an enormous amount of

personal information online about their members and things, and they are very concerned, gchq, lured the possible disruption to the next general election —— to the possible disruption. they have intervened and they have stopped apparently a cyber attack on the bbc election coverage. did you know that? i did not. by a gang of hackers known as the fancy bares. they sound rather fond! deliberately cuddly! because of what's happening, all the concerns about fake news and weather the russians were involved in the american election, it will fuel the thing that we don't want to go down the route of online voting. old—fashioned as it may be, the

paperand old—fashioned as it may be, the paper and pencil works. that is yea rs paper and pencil works. that is years away if it ever comes at all. it isa years away if it ever comes at all. it is a ramping up, telling people to take it seriously. we were mentioning the parallel with the states and that the russians somehow had a hand in the american presidential elections. the focus very much on russia? yes, they seem to be the ones doing it. we have the same discussions going on in france with the french elections. it does seem with the french elections. it does seem when you talk to people who know about these things in whitehall, it is always russia. china is pretty interested but they wa nt to china is pretty interested but they want to steal technology, really. the russians want to mess around with democracy. we are fearing that russians are actually doing this. it seems perfectly sensible. have a summit, swapped what you know, how you can protect yourself. the sunday telegraph. let's return to politics. this takes us back to the budget.

the suggestion that the cabinet is now at war over a shambolic decision by the chancellor. does this sound vaguely familiar, rows between the chancellor and mps?! that old one. this is a story that claims that philip hammond, the chancellor, failed to brief the cabinet on the fa ct failed to brief the cabinet on the fact that the introduction of the increase in national insurance for self—employed people was breaking the tory party manifesto before the la st the tory party manifesto before the last election. it does rather beg the question, if they were briefed on it, do they not remember what was in their manifesto? this is a blame game. clearly that was an absolute error. it is a bit like george osborne's pasty tax. it is a nonsense that somebody in the treasury should have worked out what was going to happen, there was gone to be this absolute uproar on the

very people who are just about managing, the self—employed, the entrepreneur ors. whether or not, reality is that all of those people would be affected, having the resolution foundation and the institute for fiscal studies, they actually say it will not affect people on the very low level. it is a way of levelling income tax and making it fair. if you are going to do it, why not go on the winter fuel allowa nce do it, why not go on the winter fuel allowance for wealthy pensioners, or bring prescription charges down? allowance for wealthy pensioners, or bring prescription charges down7m isa bring prescription charges down7m is a good job you are not on twitter because you would get lots of tweets about that. i know but don'tjust pick on one easily identifiable group. does seem a particularly daft decision. i was astonished when i heard in the budget. when you read the cabinet didn't notice it was

breaking a manifesto commitment, i found that hard to believe. one of the things we give the week before the things we give the week before the budget is we work out our predictions. this is one that had been around. the reason we threw it out was on the basis that, hang on, it isa out was on the basis that, hang on, it is a manifesto commitment, surely they won't break it? surely the cabinet know about it and if they don't, why not? let's return to the observer. tucked away down the side. you made reference to fake news, a very zeitgeist thing. this is the web creator himself, sir tim berners—lee, who says the internet is broken. perhaps he is going to unplug it! this is one of these stories were the headline looks as if it is an interesting story. when you look into it, there isn't actually a story. he is meant to be unveiling a plan. he has unveiled a

radical plan to combat fake news 28 years after he created the internet. but what happens is he has written an open letter to the observer talking about the chilling effect on free speech, internet blindspots that corrupt democratic process. but he says with public support he hopes to comp up with policy solutions. —— to comp up with policy solutions. —— to come. we want his solutions and then we will support it. did you come up with any solutions? not yet! give us in minutes! this is not on our list. but knowing that you are a fan and nigel not so much, let's pay a little tribute to england's victory in the six nations at twickenham. they have lovely pictures. we havejonathan

twickenham. they have lovely pictures. we have jonathan joseph, man of the match. got a hat—trick. the sunday times with danny care. it is fantastic. 18 wins in a row for the england team, which i think they are very close to beating new zealand's record. they have to play ireland next week. that will be a walk in the park. and this was the calcutta cup. after we finished this, you take nigel away and give him a briefing and we will question him a briefing and we will question him at 11:30pm! it is an exam now! very many thanks to nigel and to joe. we will be back with more at half past 11. coming next, it is time for reporters. welcome to reporters.

i'm philippa thomas. from here in the world's news room, we send our correspondents to bring you the best stories from across the globe. in this week's programme. inside north waziristan. owen bennett—jones finds the pakistan army back in control of the tribal area on the afghan border, after a huge military operation to clear out al-qaeda and the taliban. around one million people from north waziristan fled when the conflict was at its height, and the question now is will they come back? making china's skies blue again. carrie gracie investigates beijing's new measures against old polluting vehicles. the chinese economy is still fuelled by coal.