difficult decision... come with me as i lead britain. strengthen my hand as i fight for britain and stand with me as i deliver for britain. theresa may spells out a more statist conservatism — ditching dozens of her predecessors‘ policies from just two years ago. so what's her philosophy? when our political editor asked, she was reluctant to define one. there is no mayism. i know that you journalists like to write about it. one thing that's unchanged is the tory immigration target. the defence secretary tells us whether it will continue to be as functionally meaningless as it has been for the last two manifestos. it is an aim and we intend to continue to aim to reduce the level of immigration as we have set out. also tonight we are in blazing sunshine in hartlepool which binds itself on the tory target list for the first time in decades. can team theresa's narrative land them their first mps year for half a century?

i like their policies at the moment, i want to leave the european union and i think theresa may is the only person who will get us out of the european union with a reasonable deal. labour. i've always been labour. and our panel will tell us where theresa may sits on our map of the political terrain. hello. some of us remember the heydey of tv advertising. consumer brands — washing powders and the like — would constantly market themselves as new and improved. never mind that they were less than perfect before, as long as you now understood that they are better than ever. well, the conservative party is pitching itself as new and improved today as well.

a theresa may manifesto, with a pretty different emphasis to past efforts. a section entitled we believe in the good that government can do, for example. some will say it's just marketing, others will see it as substantive change. certainly, the emphasis on scaling back the relative generosity displayed to the elderly is a notable shift. the point of continuity is the immigration pledge — it'll come down to tens of thousands apparently. but we'll either look back on this day as a momentous one in the history of the tory party, or as a forgettable attempt to be everything to everyone. let's start with our political editor nick watt, who is in salford where there has been an itv leaders' debate. nick, what do you think we learned today? that's right, the itv leaders debate although sadly not with the two plausible candidates for prime minister. but we saw plenty of theresa may at the launch of the tory manifesto in halifax and it was interesting there because what you said earlier was that she made clear that she does not feel beholden to any of her predecessors. so she jumped some key elements of david cameron ‘s manifesto from 2015. out went the tax lock

so there's no pledge on rates of income tax and national insurance and in came a commitment that means that people will have to pay the cost of domiciliary home care. this is what one senior tory told me. theresa may's brand in focus groups is so resilient that it can withstand some radical moves that would have been suicidal two years ago. while you get your earpiece in, nick, one of the rationales for this election was brexit and making sure that she had a majority, in her view, to get through brexit. reading that manifesto what does it tell us about her plan for that? she has given herself an enormous amount of wriggle room on brexit. we see it on two fronts. on public finances, a senior tory told me, she is removing the landmines on tax that could be really difficult if we have a bumpy economic ride when those brexit negotiations are under way and a little noticed section in the manifesto indicated that the conservative party would be prepared

to settle its financial bill when it leaves the eu. and one tory i spoke to said to me, the prime minister in the last year has embraced ukip. she has embraced the tory right but what he is now showing is coming she gets a big mandate on june eight she is prepared to walk away from them and sign up to a deal that really would be quite unpalatable. so today we really were looking at how liberated theresa may would like to govern this country. it was all a bit reminiscent of the 1980s, tory prime minister ventures into labour territory with the inevitable and loud protests. the tightly controlled tory election campaign machine was briefly thrown off—course as the protesters greeted the arrival of theresa may.

naturally our strong and stable prime minister was not bothered as she took to the podium to tell the nation itjust who is the politician who was known as the submarine home secretary in her lastjob. is there a philosophy? one we will be talking about in decades to come? it is occasionally said that it's difficult to define what is meant by mayism but if you turn to page nine of your manifesto it says you reject the cult of softness individualism and you regard such selfish gradualism and you regard the dogma of it as dangerous. that seems like a rejection of thatcherism, are you rejecting personally the comparisons between you and mrs thatcher? there is no mayism. i know that you journalists like to write about it! there is good solid conservatism,

which puts the interest of the country and the interests of ordinary working people at the heart of everything that we do in government. the assembled cabinet ministers clubbed dutifully as they were put on notice to avoid any talk of an ism but there was plenty of what george bush senior memorably called the vision thing. sojoin me on thisjourney, come with me as i lead britain, strengthen my hand as i fight for britain and stand with me as i deliverfor britain. by inviting former sparring partner david davis to introduce the commission shows that she believes that brexit is the defining challenge of this generation.

our future prosperity, place in the world, standard of living, the opportunities we want for our children and children's children, each and everyone depends on having the strongest possible hand as we enter those negotiations to get the best brexit steel for families across this country. my prime ministerial dressing down shows that theresa may abhors what she described in her little blue book as the caricaturist idea of placing people on the left or the right. but it would be remiss not to identify the clear lessons we learned about her today. she believes she is the only party leader who truly understands the cry of anguish that drove the brexit vote. that means being fearless in challenging traditional tory thinking and breaking with the cameron legacy. manifestos, said churchill, should be a lighthouse, not a shop window. today's bright light showed the prime minister is prepared to confront the tory right by dropping david cameron ‘s pledge not to increase income tax and national

insurance, although she does rule out a rise in vat. pensioners, by downgrading the triple lock of a guaranteed 2.5% rise in the basic state pension to a less generous double lock. middle england, by saying they would be allowed to preserve no more than £100,000 of their assets to pay for social care. big business, by venturing into territory once claimed by ed miliband, with tougher rules on corporate pay. theresa may chose halifax for the launch of her manifesto to show that she is confident of recapturing a seat that has not elected tory mp since margaret thatcher's heyday in 1983. labour still enjoys support in the town although the prime minister does appear to be cutting through. have you always voted labour? have you decided how you will vote? what do you think of theresa may? i think she's doing a good job.

so far, yeah. she's doing fine. give her the mandate to do it. i was definitely the conservatives but this morning the manifesto that i heard, the pensioners, £200 of fuel allowance, she's going to knock that off to pay for the pensioners that are higher... i don't think that's right. i know what it is fair but i did not like the idea of it. from what i've heard of the labour party i like the manifesto, i must say. with protests ringing in her ears, theresa may set off to sell division with protests ringing in her ears, theress two parts of britain where the tories have been shunned the decades. complacency is would officially banned at tory hq but senior ministers are increasingly confident that the prime minister appears to

be on the verge of victory. nick watt reporting. let's speak to our policy editor chris cook. you have read all the manifestos of the main parties, chris, what did you make of this one. one quite striking thing about this is that it doesn't do well in one of the tests are set for the labour party when we talked about this on tuesday. i said one thing you want from a good manifesto is a sense of whether the people behind this have a good enough understanding of the issues, that they have done their homework so that they can credibly deliver. it doesn't mean it is a fully worked out timetable, it is showing a working, showing knowledge. and the odd thing about this one, especially after the labour and liberal manifestos which were very detailed, things to contest in all of them but very detailed, there is no working at all in this. it's actually slightly mysterious how much these social care changes will bring in, what these tax changes will do, all this stuff is completely asserted.

it's a booklet almost without numbers in it. they give you the answers without the calculations. thank you, chris. that's a good point to move on to the defence secretary sir michael fallon. his job today was not to defend the country, but the manifesto. i spoke to him this afternoon and asked if i had somehow missed the costings section of the document. well, what you missed are the wild promises we sought from labour, all that extraordinary, billions more to be borrowed and so on. what you have seen today our commitments to spend more in two areas, we are already spending more on the nhs, we are spending more on defence but today we announced £4 billion more for schools and we have made it clear where that is coming from and we have announced additional resources for social care, for the first time... i'm sorry, you have also announced additional resources for the industrial strategy and four and the spending. we have but the two big areas today schools and social care... the costings document that sets out

the costs and whether that will work, is that coming later ordered i miss it or is it online? you haven't missed it. some of these things will depend on the level, for example, we will consult on the level of the means test by which wealthier people will be asked to surrender the winter fuel allowance. so some of the detail is still to be consulted on as you would expect. on the immigration pledge to get immigration down, and you costed that one. as someone done some work and said this is how much it will cost the exchequer because my understanding is that the office for budget responsibility thinks cutting migration will cost the exchequer. have you guys costed that proposal? there has been various academic work done on the cost of immigration. we have made it clear that we accept that there is a cost and we want to make sure that british companies to contribute to the training of british workers when they want to fill that post... sorry to interrupt,

i know you have not got much time. how much is it going to cost the exchequer to get immigration down by two thirds from its current level? well, we haven't set out a formulation of how much it will reduce by each year, what we have set out as our ambition to continue to bear down... it is a policy to get immigration down to tens of thousands, is it not? it is our ambition... is it not a policy? it is an ambition and we've had it in previous manifestos. what's the difference between an ambition and a policy, you've had it in previous manifestos and have probably not delivered. i assumed by repeating it there is some meaning to it this time. it as our aim to bear down on immigration and for the first time it will become easier as we leave the eu, theyre will be no further

entitlement to freedom of movement, at the moment it is unlimited, anyone in bulgaria or lithuania can up sticks and come... even if we disregarded all the eu immigrants you are nowhere near it. is it something you are going to deliver? it is an aim and we will continue to aim to reduce the level of immigration that we have set out. sir michael, this is sounding a little weak. i thought your policy was to get immigration down to the tens of thousands, it sounds like this is not a policy at all. it is, it is our aim and we have said so. we will get it done. have you costed that proposal, that is my point. you blame labour for not costing theirs, have you costed yours because the obr says it will cost money. you need to cost proposals where you will spend billions of pounds... but this will cost billions. no, it won't.

how do you know if you haven't costed it. the obr doesn't say it will cost millions, with great respect. if you are going to nationalise an industry there will be an enormous cost to that. we are going to manage properly the number of people coming into this country. the obr models different migration scenarios and there are billions of pounds of differences that amounts to millions of pounds of exchequer differences between those assumptions. i put it to you again, have you costed the proposal to get immigration down by two thirds from its current level. we have not because we don't know specifically in what year we will reach that point of reducing it to tens of thousands but we set it out today, you keep interrupting me, we set out the additional charge we will impose on british companies when they are employing other workers, where british people could be taking those jobs so we will be ensuring that there is some payment towards those costs. it sounds like a pledge made in the morning has turned into a

vague aim which doesn't need costing by the afternoon. another area, the industrial strategy. the thing that will do thatis strategy. the thing that will do that is the industrial strategy. could you say what that is? a few pages on it. could you boil it down to what is at the centre of it? what do you see as the heart of the industrial strategy? we have set out our industrial strategy in other documents and we have been consulting on it. it is a policy of reviving our industries, particularly in regions outside london, and in ensuring we have the skills base and the focus on the new technologies that will strengthen our economy, and ensure we continue to earn our place in the world. in digital, and a revival

through our city deals... it covers everything from shipbuilding to investment in digital, and a revival through our city deals... the relationship between central government and the mayors in the regions. but what is the actual policy? you have outlined the objective and i understand that. what is the tool that is going to revive, without much money because you said there will not be much money, but what is that will deliver the new industrial strategy, or revive industries in those areas? one of the principal tools is the relationship, as i said, between central and local government, for the first time empowering particularly the mayors in their regions but also the cities of our country, empowering them with local budgets so they can prioritise in their own areas and make the choices needed between improving the infrastructure, improving the human capital and to decide which of the industries they wanted to see grow in their particular areas. and to focus on.

that work is already underway, we are consulting on the detail, but this is built around investment in the new technologies, a revival of manufacturing, and an unerring emphasis on skills. 55; l525? l235; i'iiéilléii'é siééiiw .. 7.... ,,... , and we have had to deal with the aftermath of the referendum result, and we need to get through implementing the referendum, i think most people looking back over the last couple of years would consider them the two most unstable years since the second world war in the history of this country, and i just wonder why we should believe you when you say you will be

strong and stable this time as opposed to the coalition of chaos or whatever your slogan is, when you use the same formulation or the two years ago before inaugurating two of the most unstable years anyone can remember? theresa may made clear today when she wants the manifesto that the challenge of negotiating a successful exit from the european union is one of the difficult things any government is doing in this country and has done since the second world war, and to do that you do need stable leadership, you do need strong government, back here at home, and that is why she is requesting this fresh mandate from the british and build a stronger and fairer britain that can earn in its place in the world. sir michael fallon, thank you very much indeed. has theresa may cracked britain's social care problem? the immediate problem

is that it is underfunded, the long term problem is that we haven't found a way of helping people who need care pay for it, other than suggesting they burn through the value of their house. chris cook has been looking at what it implies for pensioners. this year the conservative party is getting a lot of support from older voters, but it is watering down its support for them. a conservative government would not renew the so—called triple lock on the state pension when it expires in 2020. the pension will still rise with prices or earnings — whichever is higher — but they will no longer be a minimum rise of 2.5% per year. on current forecasts scrapping the triple lock does not make a great deal of difference at all in the coming years, but those forecasts can be wrong.

they were quite recently, and in past years the triple lock has cost quite a lot. and in the long term, even if the forecasts are right, the triple lock does add up to start costing quite a lot of money, so it is an important shift in that sense and it is also a really symbolic shift with billions of pounds still to come out which generations and which age groups the conservative party is appealing to. the most egg—catching erfi. ..-.. on english social care. at the moment, if you are you have to pay for it until you have £23,250 left in possessions, which is when state support kicks in. that calculation includes all your assets, including your house. people in this situation would be winners from these plans. everything stays the same for them, but the state takes over funding their care earlier,

when they hit £100,000 of assets, so their potential care bill is smaller. what we also see is those people worried that there are savings, that they have done the right thing and see through their lives and are worried their savings will dwindle to virtually nothing, we are quadrupling the threshold at which assets will be protected to that £100,000. if, though, you're receiving care at home, things are different. until they hit £20,250 when the state help starts. but houses are excluded from that sum, so people looked after in their homes have to run down their savings but get will be included in the means test, saw a lot of people in care at home, so—called domiciliary care,

would now be liable to pay much more. the tories have also promised, though, that payment of money from housing assets can be delayed until the care recipient dies. those elderly people who have been worried about how they pay for care in their home won't have to worry about that in the future. they will not have to pay while they are still alive, they will... nothing will be paid. they will not have to sell their home while they have been living in it. the plan is intended to get more cash out of pensioners while not demanding they leave home. a major objective for people like 97—year—old tony barsky. i have been offered the opportunity to go into a care home, but i would like to be here, to spend the rest of my life here, surrounded by my belongings and everything running on that basis. i don't want to be out of this place. the key things to celebrate about today's position on social care are bringing money

into the system, bringing assets into the table to pump much—needed cash into a social care system which is really struggling and underfunded. at the same time, providing more care to poorer pensioners and protecting more poorer pensioners‘ assets whether they live in a care home or residential home. previous proposals to reform social care have also identified a problem that these proposals simply do not touch. namely, the fact that if you are unlucky enough to have very poor health in your old age, you also get billed for it, so families, individual families, bear the financial risk of illness so this change puts more money into the existing care system, in the form of that housing wealth held by the 670,000 — the people in domiciliary care in england but it does not seek

to make life less capricious. the people who need most help will still be asked to pay the most. so we now have the tory manifesto and we can try to define what the party is all about under theresa may. and a good time to deploy our blackboard. you'll pick up the rules as we play the game. we have the left—right spectrum along here on the x axis this in terms of tory thinking. and then up the side, on the y axis, it goes from the outward, globalist position to nationalist, or protectionist. let's call that nationalist there. even though it says protectionist and we have three seasoned political commentators with us to place theresa may and other tory grandees on the scale. paul mason, who's off this scale on the left. we have iain dale, on the right, lbc presenter. and miranda green, a lib dem.

miranda, where would you put theresa may? i will put her down here, quite protectionist, and left of the tory party y axis. more up here. cani... we should not forget one of the extraordinary thing yessn i would definitslg'" ” ' ' and whether you want to call it red toryism, and i know she denied there was such a thing as may—ism... paul, how would you position this?

look, there are no unions left a smash, nothing left to privatise, so it is hard to be as right—wing as thatcher. protectionist, down there. she is an economic nationalist. there is one sentence in that manifesto that reveals that, her preparedness to walk away from europe without a deal. she could have left that out. i think the idea of literally declaring udi from europe, leaving ourselves and economy with no market, that is quite nationalised. i think until we know how this is costed, how big is the state going to be when they eventually get rid of the deficit in the mid 2020s, then we don't know really how the left and right it is and that is why it is a good question, what is the economic content... miranda put there on the left

presumably because of the economic measures, sending quite left—wing... intervening in markets, controlling executive pay. not the sort of free—market, liberal market toryism we are used in the last couple of decades. shouldn't you be here? no, it is a form of right toryism. and i did cover the rise of cameron, and he was a genuinely liberal conservative. this is antiliberal conservativism. what about you, iain? i will disagree with your positioning of david cameron because i actually think he is to the right ofjohn major. i would put him more up here as well. margaret thatcher i think is absolutely right. but you could make a good case for going further up. i want you to put theresa may on the map. if you had asked this question yesterday i would have put her somewhere around here. oh, really?

today i would put her somewhere around here, and the reason is if you are going to be a globalist, you don't penalised companies for bringing in skilled workers from overseas and that is what she has done today in this manifesto, a bizarre thing to do in my view. if you're going to be an outward looking country after brexit you want to recruit the strongest, the best... you are more of an economic liberal on things like immigration than she is? absolutely. thanks, iain. and you wrote a book on the history of tory manifesto is from 1900. i edited a collection of them. i would not say i wrote them. this general election is about her against corbyn, not about policy, in her view, and it is also not about brexit. it is strange there are only two pages in this manifesto about brexit.

a little similar to margaret thatcher's manifesto in '79 in the sense it is very vague and general but if you are tory canvasser going out tomorrow what is the standout policy in this document you go on sale on the doorstep? i'm afraid i can't think of one. that is right and there are some real risks in it. this idea of challenging older people who are sitting on a lot of assets, telling them they will have to pay for their own care, you would only do that and make that sort of proposition to the electorate if you were so secure of your victory and so secure of those older voters but it is a risk. i read something saying if you can't basically do some of this now you will not be able to do it, when you are 15% ahead in the polls. if she gets a big landslide it will be important for her to confront some of these issues early on. paul, you disagreed with she goes, telling us this left and right thing is not working in british

politics at the moment... in the space of a week both parties have effectively defacto changed fundamentally. labour is now a keynesian big state interventionist party like it was before and is anti—austerity, and an interesting thing about the conservatives, how often have you or i when i worked in the studio and spoke about austerity and about the sums adding up? that is gone. labour have substantiated the fiscal case behind their manifesto better than the conservatives. i want to say one thing. the attack on pensioners, on the taxpayer, so she will probably raise national insurance and income tax, it goes along side the inability any more to do what duncan—smith and cameron did, to attack those on welfare benefits. i think conservatives realise there is no further road to go down there. one thing i was taught

about the history of the conservative party, it was fantastically adaptable and would reinvent itself every few decades to suit the new mood, bring more people into its tent, and the world would be safe under the tories again. is this one of those big moments, do you think, miranda, or is itjust another manifesto that will be forgotten? or is it really decisive? it feels like a moment today because it feels as if theresa may and the good at, occupy the ground that has been abandoned, claim that labour territory which is all about sticking up for working families, in the parlance. we have yet to see if this audacious land grab works because a lot of it, as iain rightly said, the details are not there. for example, something i am interested in is the skills agenda. if you could solve the missing bits

of the educational programme in this country and create a decent educational... but can it? just to finish, iain, do you think this is a big moment in the history of the tory party, a reinvention of curling or not. i think we are in the middle of that. i think today is not that moment, june the 8th of may well be and it is about defining herself in opposition to cameron, if you like. but there are lots of individual policies in this and a festival like domestic violence policies that you would not have gotten a previous manifestos. liberal parts but they are almost obliterated by the ridiculous immigration pledge. we had better leave it there. thank you all very much. a big question in this election is what happens to people who voted ukip last time. many of them don't have a ukip candidate this time; many others are known to be switching away.

now in many labour seats there were enough ukip voters last time to put a tory into westminster this time, if they all wanted to. hartlepool is one of those constituencies, so the question is how the conservative party offer is going down with the folks there? is it enough to turn ukip voters into tories? emily's been there to find out. hartlepool washed in warm sunshine gives off an air of unreality, a sense that anything is possible. the town has earned its place in electoral history as much through mythology as through psephology. legend has it they hanged a shipwrecked monkey as a frenchman in napoleonic days, but the election of the self—styled monkey candidate for mayor — not once, but twice — is rooted firmly in fact. and it was here that the former mp peter mandelson was once accused of mistaking mushy peas for guacamole in a localfish and chip shop. he didn't, of course — it was a kinnickjoke, but it stuck because it played to a delicious cliche,

the southern metropolitan confusing his northern culture. mandelson surfed in here on the wave of new labour, a 17,000 majority in 1997. 20 years on, it's down to 3,000. ukip came second two years ago. this time the tories are hoping to hoover them up. but with the launch of today's manifesto, the mushy pea question still stands. can conservatives, long shunned in the industrial north—east, convince hartlepool they're on the side of — to coin today's phrase — ordinary working people across the land. mostly, i've only ever voted for one other party and that was last year when i voted for ukip. and what's bringing you back to conservative? ijust like what... i like the policies at the moment. i want to leave the european union and i think theresa may is the only person who's going to get us out of the european union with a reasonable deal. labour, i've always been labour

because it's the way i was brought up. right, so nothing will change your mind? no, not really. i think they're more for people who haven't got a lot of money, because what the conservatives have done recently, it's. .. there hasn't been a tory mp in this part of the world for over 50 years, but there is an audacity of approach this time. they've sent a big beast, david davis, here to stoke the campaign. over lunch, i ask him if he thinks it's an ambition too far. what we're seeing on the doorsteps is people who've never voted conservative in their lives before saying they're going to vote for theresa may because they think that she will deliver a better deal than jeremy corbyn. it is as simple as that. are you more of a mushy peas man or a guacamole man? being me and being so working class i'm mushy peas, i'm afraid.

in mandelson's seat it's a good question. do you mind if i leave you one of these? i'm your conservative candidate during the election. carljackson is hoping to win hartlepool for the conservatives. tea—time. he's currently a councillor in buckinghamshire, which he calls home. will that cost him? don't they say, what are you doing up here? well, i'm not going to pretend to have been born in hartlepool — i wasn't. it didn't seem to stop peter mandelson being mp here for 12 years. he was born in one of the poshest parts of london. but i have family from the north—east and this is an area i know, it is an area i care about, and it's an area which i can deliver a for. do you mind if i leave you with a leaflet just with a few points. no, no, not at all. it probably will be... probably will be theresa? yeah. he voted for brexit, as did 70% of hartlepool, so does that mean job done for ukip here? forfrom it, says phillip broughton, the only one of the candidates who stood last time, when he came second. i think the tories know that this is a ukip — labour battleground seat, and ukip or labour is going to win,

and people have got a very clear choice, emily, onjune 8th. if the vote conservative or they vote labour they will get a labour mp and nothing will change and it will be business as usual. and i've lived in the town for 18—odd years... mike hill suddenly found himself the prospective labour candidate when iain wright stepped down as the election was called. i was just listening to that at the moment, the government robbing people blind... motorbike licences — a reminder that even in this big week of manifestos most people arejust thinking about what matters to them. i'm sure it's going to be a hard fight to claw back for labour... because if the tories pick up that ukip vote this time around, you're done for, aren't you? we are hoping... the conversations i am having a very positive. i'm talking people around. i represent a fresh start for labour in this town and that's the message i'm getting across. i'm being very positive. the gleaming marina speaks to a hartlepool reborn, but the thousands ofjobs lost here when heavy industry shutdown may be harder to forgive. the conservatives have never really cared about hartlepool, and i don't think the leopard's going to change its spots. i think as soon as the media's gone,

they'll ravage hartlepool. labour... labour have had many many chances in hartlepool, both nationally and locally, and as i walk around the town and speak to people there are very despondent with what labour have done. there's an appetite with brexit for a fresh start here, but don't underestimate old loyalties. hartlepool‘s headland has seen the ebb and flow of centuries of maritime invasion. their defences may now prove too solid. emily in hartlepool. i am afraid the labels on the ukip and labour candidates were the wrong way round so the ukip guy was first and the labour guy was after him, i think that was obvious from some of the content. is this a momentous moment, the daily mail thinks so if you look at the headline, the tories, 84 page manifesto unveiling mayism, a word she hates, politics entered a new era. that's all we've got

time for this evening. kirsty will be here tomorrow. have a very good night. music: black hole sun by soundgarden # in my eyes, indisposed # in disguises no one knows # hides the face, lies the snake # the sun in my disgrace # boiling heat, summer stench # neath the black the sky looks dead # call my name through the cream and i hear you scream again # black hole sun, won't you come and wash away the rain # black hole sun, won't you come # won't you come #. good evening. the rain this

afternoon arrived for— five hours earlier than scheduled. a wet afternoon and evening in south—east england. a bit of a breeze. have it. elsewhere, glorious sunshine. overnight, chilly further north and west under clear skies. went across the south—east corner into east anglia and west lincolnshire. 9— 10 degrees. a touch of frost north and west. friday morning, a lovely start. showers never far away west. friday morning, a lovely start. showers neverfar away from the western isles. low cloud and mist for the northern isles. the

bulk of england, sunshine. a bright start variable cloud in the south of in wales. the midlands, a miserable start. cloudy. outbreaks of rain. rainbow in north along the coast. you can see the isobars are closer together. quite a wind across east anglia into the norfolk coast. that rain will go north into southern and eastern scotland into the afternoon. elsewhere, sunshine and showers through the day. some will be heavy with thunder mixed in. 18 degrees. a slow improvement on conditions in the south—east. saturday is looking better generally across the south—east. sunshine. this area of low pressure confined to the north of. elsewhere, showers. the odd thundery one. pleasant. for most

places, the mid—teens. saturday. this area of high pressure influencing weather. moving up from the south. actually, it is looking pretty good into sunday. a lot of dry weather. light winds. temperatures will respond. low 20s in the south—east. cloudier closer to this area of low pressure. the north—west of the uk, england, wales, a fine day. sunny spells. northern and western areas at outbreaks of rain and wind it. warm in the south—east. the mid—20s. not looking too bad. and that is your weather. this is newsday on bbc. i am rico

hizon in singapore. the us president donald trump lashes out at the decision to appoint a special counsel to investigate russian influence on his election. while i respect the move but the entire thing has been a witch—hunt and there is no collusion between, certainly myself in the campaign. one person dies as a vehicle hits a crowd of pedestrians in new york's times square. it is not thought to be linked to terrorism. and in london, china and the philippines hold their first talks the disputed south china sea later as they hope to ease