this is bbc news. the headlines: british police have released a new cctv image of the manchester suicide bomber, salman abedi, on the night he carried out his suicide attack. 11 people connected to him have now been arrested. meanwhile, the authorities have lowered the threat level of a terrorist attack from critical to severe. british airways says it's aiming to operate a near—normal schedule at gatwick airport and most services from heathrow on sunday. tens of thousands have been stranded around the world because of a computer failure. trade unions say the problems were a result of making it staff redundant last year. world leaders have left the g7 summit in italy without agreeing a joint statement on climate change. president donald trump refused to recommit the united states to the paris climate accord, even though the other leaders did. mr trump said he would make a decision next week. now on bbc news, it's dateline london. hello and welcome

to dateline london. i'm jane hill. a warm welcome after a difficult week for many. we will of course be discussing the aftermath of the manchester suicide bombing. we'll assess president trump's first overseas trip. and we look at the state of the general election campaign here in the uk, with less than two weeks to go to polling day. to discuss all of this with me today iain martin, a times columnist, the american broadcaster jeffrey kofman, thomas kielinger of die welt, and nisreen malik, the sudanese writer. a warm welcome to all of you. and in manchester, on monday night, a pop concert by an american singer

popular with young girls ended in carnage when a 22—year—old man born in the city blew himself up, in the foyer of the concert arena. children as young as eight were killed, and scores of people remain in hospital. the hunt is continuing for the people who supported salman abedi. many people have been arrested here in the uk. and in libya, abedi's father and one of his brothers are under arrest. let's talk about that libyan connection. nisreen, may i start with you? it is the question that's been asked for days and days, how a young man born in the uk becomes radicalised. talk to us more about the libyan connection, details of which are becoming a little bit clearer. well, the most important thing to point out is it's not one thing or the other. it is very tempting for people to try and figure out what is the one element that radicalised him. the libyan angle is one of the most informative. it tells you and exposes a family in flux, a family that has not found

a stable footing either in libya or in manchester. so his father was an exile, a political exile, in opposition to gadaffi who, as everyone knows, has maltreated and resulted in hundreds of thousands if not millions of libyans leaving the country during his tenure. the fact they were here in the first place is a reflection of the fact that there was a dictator presiding over the population in libya, number one. so the angle that concerns an oppressive, dictatorial environment in the arab world and larger parts of the middle east is a very important one in understanding the roots of islamic disaffection orfundamentalism. so they were here in the first place because of libya. and he returned, his father, and they themselves returned to fight with the militias that fought against gadaffi after the arab spring, and they kind of made it back. they were back and forth

between manchester and libya. so it shows that this was a family a little bit torn. abedi himself spent a couple of years there and came back, and there was a stigma around him and his siblings and that whole libyan community in manchester, in the sense they were considered cultural half—breeds — not really libyan and not really british. so that is the context he thrived in, if that makes sense. in terms of his ideological radicalisation. a final point, very interesting that no—one has picked out — when they were arrested in libya, his father and brother, they were not picked up by any official police force. libya is a state in complete anarchy. they were picked up by a local militia. so they don't have an official intelligence system that can coordinate with the british and americans, in order to pick up these people. so that's the firmament within which the entire abedi family grew. that is the context, as we can understand it.

it's surprising, as you said, that libya's almost a failed state, or it is a failed state. yes, it is. there was a militia force that could apprehend him off their own bat, or because they have contacts with foreign intelligence, what have you. it is quite astonishing to me that in this country, which falls apart before our eyes every day, that there is some order, police and militia, that can say, on foreign instigation, get hold of these two people. we need them in our investigation about the manchester bombing. that is almost an encouraging development that you have two more witnesses. and it's been said, by the way, you spoke of the disenfranchisement of libyans in england, but did we hear the story of the father helping to radicalise his son? even though he publicly denied it having happened. there must have been some family connection from the days when he fought colonel gadaffi. he implanted the simple

idea in his son's mind. this is a father who took his son during a school holiday to take part in the libyan civil war. i understand that it is complex. but a lot of people will see it in really quite simple terms. that this is a family that was given shelter by britain, refugee status, welcomed, his education was obviously paid for by the british taxpayer. a family that then decides to shuttle backwards and forwards between the libyan civil war and manchester. a father that then leaves two boys who are clearly a risk and known by the family to be a risk, and leaves them at home alone. and i think people's gut reaction to it will be to accept that there is complexity, but that something has happened here which will shock a lot of british people, and people will feel that hospitality has been abused. i think it's fair to come

to that conclusion. i covered the libyan civil war, the arab spring in libya, in 2011 and it would be wrong to assume that people who went back to fight with the rebels were extremists. a lot of them were, in fact, liberals from europe and elsewhere who wanted to liberate the country from an oppressive dictator. i don't think that adds up. but i do think that this notion of a failed state is coming back to bite us terribly. the consequence of the arab spring, with all that optimism, has been abject failure and the country, as you know, there is no central government. you look at this place, it has got a map, it's a country on the map, it's got an ambassador at the united nations, but beyond that... where is the responsibility for that, then?

it's interesting. it's tempting to blame nato and david cameron for that campaign. i was in libya during that period. we really believed we were on the cusp of a massacre by gadaffi. i have to say, in the naval campaign that allowed the rebels to ultimately triumph, it seemed at the time, in fairness, to have been a sensible one. we were going to seem another rwanda, if something hadn't happened. i think it was a fair assumption to think that. —— see. the problem was that there was no after—plan that was effective. yes, the rebels took hold in a country that really had no infrastructure, that was run by mafias. regional militias. and here's where we are. the problem is that... very briefly. the problem is vacuums. there are several problems, but what he's trying to say is that when there's a vacuum of authority — whether it's in iraq after the war or in libya after colonel gadaffi collapses, or in yemen now after the conflict with the saudis — once there is a vacuum of authority, you have the potential to get

all these fragments that then align themselves with al-qaeda or isis, and that is the soil in which all of it grows. that's right, and isis has moved in. but in terms of criticising the west, it can't always be the west's fault. we're accused in some circumstances of intervening too much and in others of not intervening at all. i don't think anyone was saying that. we could be discussing this for a long time to come. thank you. let's just turn our attentions as well to president trump, because he of course just carried out his first overseas trip this week. visiting the middle east, the vatican, the nato summit in brussels. and as the time of speaking, he is at the g7 summit in sicily. now, contrary to expectations, it appears to be a case, broadly, of so far so good. jeffrey — your take. a little smile on your face as i said all of that. i would take issue with that. i think if you're a fox—watching, breitbart—reading alt—righter, you might think that.

but i think what's interesting is we've watched in this reality tv episode of ‘trump goes to europe and the middle east', we've watched two trumps. there was the trump who was lavished and banquited in saudi arabia and who seemed very much at home, who managed to endear himself and avoid the issue of human rights, in a country whose values really are absolutely contrary to america, never touched those issues, not even a nod. goes off to israel, welcomed with literally a bear hug. never mentions the settlements. then he comes to europe, to the closest friends america has, the g7, and scolds them. and so you see this contradiction. in many ways, he's the friendly guy in those countries and the ugly american here. so i don't think... it's true there hasn't been a massive blunder. there are lots of great memes of him pushing the president of macedonia, is it? yes, macedonia. and his own wife,

at one stage, i think. yeah. er, montenegro, was it macedonia? i think it was montenegro. montenegro, yes. but, yeah, and great to watch his wife slapping him away. really, it's just another instalment in the trump reality show. but he's yet again demonstrated, in telling the israelis that he's back from the middle east, that he has no depth whatsoever. he is who we think he is. but who had depth about the middle east, i ask you? nobody has any recipe for how to solve it. so he comes and makes those easy statements which have no consequence. unlike you, i would be prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. we have all critiqued him in your fashion, but he is a work in progress, hopefully. i think he is a work in progress. and he is learning. and he made a good speech after the manchester bombing when he referred to these jihadists as 'losers'. that was a very happy — felicitous, almost — phrase to make. you could say that is part and parcel of his own show... well, it's interesting because lots of people

said the word 'loser‘, that's not presidential, you can't use the word when you're the us president. i think it illustrates that he's an effective communicator. i'm no fan of trump. i'm extremely distressed by his existence. poor man! however, i think that the trip went really quite well, actually. yes. you notice that he... maybe he didn't have data roaming on his phone, so there were almost no tweets. there were no tweets. is this the key to it? there were no tweets. it was almost like a work in progress. as though someone around him, presumably very concerned about what's going on back in washington with the fbi and kushner and all the rest of it, was trying to just normalise him and try and manage this trip in a conventional way and it kind of worked. he tried to behave himself, because there was that elephant in the room that was kushner and all those problems, so he didn't want to add to his problems by making gaffes. i think we're suffering from a huge collective lowering of standards

when it comes to donald trump. the fact that he didn't smear himself on a daily basis doesn't mean that the trip went well. itjust meant that he had enough handlers and was so uncomfortably out of place that he couldn't behave in a disgraceful way. these trips are hugely well coordinated, hundreds of handlers on the saudi side, if you watch the footage. this man was very closely managed. and even then, he made blunders on body language, he strayed off—script a couple of times, on a couple of speeches. he cosied up to dictators and scolded democratically—elected leaders. and i think there is a really dangerous trend, actually, where everyone expects him to behave completely scandalously and horrifically the whole time, that when there is a day when he is micromanaged so well that he cannot put a foot out of place, people then draw these conclusions and say, oh, i think he's a work in progress. i think he's learned a couple of lessons. and this is a man who keeps telling

us he's a good deal—maker, but we all know that deals are about relationships and the ability to say, hey, angela, let's do something here. when you see the european leaders and the canadian leader avoiding him, they are holding their noses, grinding their teeth, you can see it. aren't we offended sitting here in london because he is more interested in speaking to the saudis than the european people? he is following the american agenda, he wants to create more jobs. he doesn't talk about human rights in saudi arabia, we can critique that, but in the eyes of some, he did and said the right thing. talking of lowering of standards, we must be grateful for small mercies. if there are some things where we hope he can learn, that's all to the good... also, that was a really interesting pivot on foreign policy towards saudi and the gulf states. a piece of positioning the gulf states have looked for for the past ten years. they hated the obama years and he was essentially siding with them against iran. you can argue whether that is right

or wrong, but it is geopolitically a very significant moment. a really serious move. as was the criticism of nato allies, who are not doing theirjob. completely justified. increasing the defence spend. one of the things when you talk about learning on the job, he seemes to pull back a little on his opposition to the climate accord and that is, i suppose, when you talk about lowering the standard, he finally understands that maybe climate change is real. we also have short—term memory loss. over the past three months, how many times has trump done something and people say, oh, i think he has caught on now. now he's presidential. every time after that, he disappoints. it is early days. with him, it is this immaculate sense of amnesia. it is always early days. what you said earlier is important, let's see what happens when he returns to washington. he's got some serious problems when he returns to washington. 0k, well, an excellent

topic for a future week. thanks very much on that. let's return to the uk. there was a pause in the general election campaign here in the wake of the manchester attack. now the campaign is resuming, with less than two weeks to polling day. iain, i must start with you. i hesitate already because on opinion polls, there are always caveats, however, it has been so striking, the change in a very short space of time. yes, every time this happens, the british say we'll never trust opinion polls again, and everyone gets massively overexcited. but opinion polls are very good at telling you what is happening with broad trends and the trend is really clear. that is that the conservatives went into this campaign with a lead of somewhere around 20 points and were heading for a massive landslide. labour has run a better campaign than anticipated, it has been fleet of foot. theresa may has run a very bad

campaign, including a declaration called the dementia tax, which has worried a lot of core conservative voters. her manifesto backfired and that lead has narrowed — according to the poll in this week's times by yougov — to only five points. its eems that narrowing is being fuelled by a lot of young voters, and this is what the conservatives are relying on. young voters are flocking to corbyn, on the basis he wants to make university education free and renationalise the railways and produce a magic money tree and give money away. and domestic pointers that people have welcomed. that it does resonate with. what we know from elections is that young voters very often get very excited and don't turn out in the same way. maybe not even registered. so the tory lead among older voters, where turnout is much higher, remains strong.

but not as strong as it was, because theresa may chose this audacious strategy of declaring war on her own voters — pushing into labour territory, showing they could punish wealthier voters, taking on their own base in an attempt to get that majority. thinking the majority is going to be fantastic. we will find out in two weeks' time. you get the sense that almost anybody but jeremy corbyn could win this election for the labour party. precisely. if labour had a leader who was not a supporter or sympathiser with the ira and had such strange views on foreign policy, then i think labour would really be in with a shout. just to remind you, we had almost four million ukip voters in 2015. that is a strong card for her. they will come into her campaign, which would dampen the hope for labour to come out on top. but i agree with you.

my problem as i report on this to my home audience is that there is one question mark after another standing behind the brand gb. brexit is one. this onslaught and terrorist attack in manchester is another. how will the political leader of this country, theresa may, cope with the uncertainty of the future? will she stand tall in this moment of crisis, that she is the one to trust in the leadership when there is an emergency like this in manchester? will she be the one, with all the troubles and recent experience, to stand tall vis—a—vis the europeans? the uncertainty of the british future in the long term makes it very difficult to predict how this all will pan out. something very strange has happened in the campaign. she went into the campaign branding herself as 'strong and stable‘ and voters loved that

and she was hugely popular, but it was a mile wide and an inch deep. because of this missteps, that strength has turned into a lot of voters wondering if she is a bit mean and brittle. i think that is actually the most important point, that this shift has been more about the dementia tax etc, but the public perception of may and jeremy corbyn, that she has come across as very strong and capable and has conducted a very closely managed campaign. she is never caught off the cuff or doing something spontaneous. she's not good in those situations. great at pmqs, great when she's rehearsed, but you can't run a campaign without being asked questions that you're not ready for. and she has come across as brittle and hollow when unrehearsed. there is a complaint that she is not meeting real voters, however you define that. exavtly, and not talking to journalists and not giving

spontaneous interviews. i think in the interviews she has given, even closely managed ones in bbc studios, she has come across as brittle, hollow and incompetent, i think. did not give across this strong and stable vibe. and jeremy corbyn, last—minute rally over the past couple of weeks, and with the last bbc interviews with the heads of parties, he came across as authentic and comfortable in his own skin. and these things make a huge difference in the last ten days before an election. despite corbyn being corbyn, he is speaking to the hardship people are enduring. people are looking for someone to ease that hardship, whether it is access to universities for students. the changes the tories made have closed off options for a lot of people and corbyn is resonating. it is just incredible to watch these three leaders, all so flawed in different ways, as people agonise over how to choose.

there are also these public swings of mood that happen. we had a swing towards right—wing, surprising elections, for brexit and for trump, but there might be a swing back towards the harsher, more isolationist view of the world. i want to be careful not to run too far ahead of myself. when the chips are down, despite the domestic problems she has clearly, the country will soon need strong and stable leadership vis—a—vis the europeans and strong and stable leadership to cope with the terrorism threat in your midst. despite her domestic warblings, and i think come june 8th, the debate we are having will be immaterial to the question that people in the election booths will ask themselves. who is going to be the leader in those troubling times

we are heading into? it's a binary choice. the question is, does she comes across as more strong and stable than jeremy corbyn? there are only two options, and a lot of voters do not engage until the last 48 or 72 hours. at the start of the campaign, it was all about brexit. a few of us sat here a few weeks ago saying, this is a boring election campaign. it was all about brexit. does the death of 22 innocent people change that? not wishing to politicise that horror, but does that not traditionally play to whoever is in number ten at the time? that is theresa may's leadership, to confront the ills we are dealing with. i'm not sure she has demonstrated that raising the terror level, that she has a solution. i'm not sure anybody has a solution. i am not sure her response has made people feel more confident. difficult tojudge that

because it is early. comejune 8th, she will have tried to make herself appear to be in charge, as it were, and bring the country forward and contain the threat. whether she succeeds or not, but she will use that argument that she is the one in the leadership position. and, trust me. i will not make reductions around this table... not again! not after hillary clinton! but it is hard to imagine. it feels to me like we're talking about how big her plurality or majority is, not a question of if she is going to win, but by how much? that is also a prediction! 0k, what is the impact of that? she went into this expecting very big things in that regard, what if it's diminished? a huge amount of unease in the tory tribe and among tory mps and ministers about what is happening. if after all of this,

the majority ends up being not much more than she had at the moment, what was the point? what was it all for? it gives her a mandate to move forward. it is quite convenient. it does, but a month ago, the conservative party was convinced it was going to have a majority of maybe even 150, if it comes back at something like 20 or 25 and labour are seen to have won the election campaign, there will be the most extraordinary tory punch—up. there is concern even in brussels about the prime minister not being as strong as she made herself out to be. what kind of leader is she going to be? is she going to be as strong as brussels is hoping to have? a strong and stable leadership to negotiate these issues coming up. they are not interested in seeing her diminished, like she appears to be at the moment. no, but i think everyone has a lot to be nervous about because we have seen things shift very dramatically over the past six days, not even a week.

12 days is a long time in politics. it is a long time these days in particular. with the unfortunate bombings in manchester, with her falling apart, with increasing media scrutiny, 12 days is a long time. 0k, we will all be discussing this in two weeks from now. thank you so much to all of you. do join me again next week, if you can — same time, same place. thanks very much for watching, goodbye for now. hello. after a 30 dramatic with the

debuts of the least on saturday, sunday starts in a quieter vein and fairly cool in southern counties. single figures, mist and fog, a dull start in western scotland, the rain pushing up to be confined in the northern isles, murky fare here and fine weather following on variable cloud and the cloud filling in in the south—west with the odd rumble of thunder to finish. thursday, in the east, dry enough with sunshine. through the evening and overnight we pushed the rain belt further to the north, following on behind with muqqy north, following on behind with muggy airand north, following on behind with muggy air and temperatures never lower than 15 or 16. thunderstorms overnight. on monday we will push the rain belt to the northern high of the british isles to the east, all that muggy air could go bang again, 25 or26 all that muggy air could go bang again, 25 or 26 is distinctly possible, slightly quieter towards the west. bye—bye. this is bbc news. i'm lebo diseko. our top stories:

moments before he killed, the manchester suicide bomber caught on cctv. tens of thousands of passengers stranded around the world, but british airways says it will get services running again on sunday. no commitment on climate change. president trump refuses to say whether he'll cut carbon emissions. police investigating the terror attack in manchester have released cctv images of salman abeidi, the man who carried out the bombing, on the night of the attack.