i don't want to rerun the debate. what i do want to say is, at the end of the week when we have seen an extraordinary diversity of polls in the way that we have not for two years or whatever, where would you put your number is now? if i come to you for maths, and i know you do this anyway as a hobby, you are going for a tory majority... yes, lam. theresa may has had a bad week, let nobody denies that. tonight she came out fighting. any floating voter who watched that will have been more impressed by theresa may than they thought they would be. in terms of numbers, at the start of this campaign i predicted a tory majority of 74. then i went through all of the constituencies on the basis of the opinion poll lead, i came out with a majority of 130,

that has role so much rolled back, it will not be that high. but i still expect a landslide. about 100? 80 to 100. i think iain is better as a detailed numbers, but the tories will win this. 50, 75, whatever it is. what is depressing for me is that neither theresa may nor jeremy corbyn were particularly strong. they both have big areas of weakness. stronger than tim farron! nick clegg is worried about his seat tonight, is that right? people said that sheffield hallam was going to be lost, but nick won with a substantial majority. is it conceivable that the lib dems could go backwards this time? at elections, anything is conceivable. people pledged to eat their hats and look like idiots, or run down the street naked! of course, anything is plausible. like my promise in 2010! all that i can do is leave the range of polls, the maximum that theresa may is going to get is ten extra seats, i would have thought. seriously?!

i hope there is money on this afterwards! paul, in corbyn hq, can ijust ask you, are they preparing for the possibility of a hung parliament or a win? they are preparing for a possibility of a hung parliament or a win. people were talking about the northern irish, welsh and scottish governments on brexit. they were not at the beginning of this, right? absolutely not. go back and look at the polls. the range is from a small tory majority through to a hung parliament through to a minority... they are ahead, aren't they? i spent the whole of the 2015 election campaign preparing for it hung parliament. wishing it is going to happen doesn't actually make it happen! you are believing the polls that you want to believe, not the majority. labour very concerned about the turnout. on a high turnout of young people... and you have to get young people out, young people to put their money where their mouth is.

if they don't vote labour, it is £9,000 on your university fees from september. he is also saying that students who have already gone through the university going to have their money refunded, this is fantasy politics. this feels like a personality race. the more people have seen ofjeremy corbyn, it seems the more they have warmed to him. the more they have seen of theresa may the less they have warmed. i think you should apologise to what you said, the trump playbook. your side is calling my leader a terrorist. we have questioned... would you like to apologise for that?

it is out of the trump playbook. she is terrified of debating. it is legitimate to ask, where is she? you questioned her health, you should be ashamed of yourself. do you think any of this cuts through? some of it does. reinforcing what we heard earlier, they all still feel the same. the policies are incredibly diverging in this election in the way that they haven't been recently. but you still get the sense that all of the politicians are kind of mediocre. who do you think has played dirty? 0h, everybody. do you? the future of the country is at stake. the other side is actually saying that labour and the millions of people who support it or in some ways tainted by terrorism... absolutely. jeremy corbyn has supported the ira. you are digging the grave of consensus politics in this country. labour supports the rule of law, anti—terrorist... i'm so sorry, we need to get to steve smith, he is on his bus. we need to go on.

finally... we will come back to diane abbott next week. imagine the scene: a snap election is called, the newsnight office gathers to discuss ideas. from this creative huddle, a germ — in fact, lots of germs, but we'll leave those aside. a vision of red: a bus, a battle bus, with stephen smith on board, visiting constituencies that have been craving some election glamour — whether they know it or not. tonight we bring you the last excursion. here's stephen smith. welcome to our popular and acclaimed general election series, battle busted. and if you can see this, it means we've had a second film commissioned. let me refresh your memory about our high—quality format. we're attempting to sprinkle some election razzmatazz on the places the party leaders don't touch. too rock—solid for them to rock up to in their wheels.

and so we're bringing our own. we've come to the great city of liverpool on our magical mystery tour, to another constituency that doesn't tend to see a lot in the way of political beatlemania. # he's got a ticket to ride # and he don't care #. liverpool's fab four constituencies are considered to be among labour's safest seats. we're in walton, where the party romped home at the last election with an 81% share of the vote. this constituency is so red that the conservative candidate lost their deposit last time. walton's only a few square miles in size — all too easy for our chara banc to stray across the constituency borders. looks like this bus is not for turning. so why is it that election fun

and games generally pass walton by? if only there was a numbers—savvy prodigy to give this vehicle some editorial ballast. hello, stephen! but who's this, everyone?! it's only newsnight‘s chris cook, the kitt to our knight rider, harley to our red dwarf. liverpool walton, it's fair to say, is a i—party labour seat. it's one of only five constituencies in britain where the second—place party got no more than 10% of the vote. if the other parties last time around had been interested in fighting here, they could each have spent £12,000 just on liverpool walton. but, in practice, the conservatives, ukip and the liberal democrats all together combined spent only £3000 on their campaign here. it's really not a seat where the result is in question. enjoy merseyside, stephen. 0h, thanks, chris.

after all these years, some facts in one of my investigative reports. who'd have thunk it?! so, do the folk here feel they've been taken for granted? where better to take our bus to meet voters than the colourful bus stops of the constituency? why did no one think of this before? hello, folks. how are you enjoying the election so far? rubbish! exactly, yeah. good afternoon, ladies. how are you? all right. are you excited about the election? no! no? they're all the same. how many of these battle buses have you seen so far? this is the first one. they only come when they really need you, don't they? even the labour. it's pretty rock—solid, this seat, isn't it? maybe that's the problem? if that is the problem, once they know they've got a safe

seat, they don't bother. do you think it would help if you saw more of the party leaders round here? yeah. what do you think of our bus? we don't see buses round here! you don't, do you? bye — bye. bring it back! bye! i sometimes feel like my mps aren't always visible enough in the community. you sound like you take quite an interest in it, is that right? yeah, definitely. because, i mean, it's affecting our future. we've had such a turbulent year for politics, haven't we, or a turbulent five years even. thank you so much for talking to us. i hope your real bus comes along soon! yeah, so do i. you wait all newsnight for a bus, and then two come along at once. oh, it's one of those natty convertible numbers. enough to give a fellow bus envy. would you swap your liverpool tour bus for our newsnight battlebus? not really, no! newsnight battlebus, come and have a chat about the election! no? please yourselves! which bus do you prefer? that one! this is steven smith with the number

one tour bus in liverpool. not that one, this one. yes, that the bus you want to be on! that's all we have time for tonight. evan's back on monday. he is in bristol with a full programme then. have a good weekend. goodnight. good evening. thank you forjoining me. a rather dramatic end to the day across east anglia and the south—east to say the least, a lot of thunderstorms bring up. something quieter for the weekend. sunshine and showers just about do it. obviously then comes a multiple of sins. then the remnants

of friday's rain, some murky conditions from the north—east of england, drifting northwards with time to come wetter across scotland. joined by showers coming in from the west, wet in northern ireland, a couple in western england. underneath the murkiness, about 13. fresher than lately. a decent day, despite the fact that i will pick out some showers in scotland and northern ireland, cloud in the south—western quarter, the odd burst of rain here later in the afternoon. a fresh feel, 19 or 20. a lot of decent weather through the course of the weekend. a word to the wise about monday. unusually for this time of year, the first week in june, areas of low pressure hammer in from the atlantic. it brings in a combination of wet and windy weather. how wet? in some places i am sure, especially the west, 50

millimetres of rain. a couple of inches. we could see some wind in excess inches. we could see some wind in excess of 50 mph. bring in the atlantic, a long way to run, detail is vague at the moment, now if you plan into the start of next week, keep up—to—date with the forecast over the course of the weekend but at the weekend itself, it isn't too bad at all. hope you can enjoy, goodbye. this is bbc world news. these are the headlines. president trump's income is fighting in defence of his solution to dump the paris climate change deal. voices across a wide spectrum of bondage points. the president made a thoughtful and important decision. —— advantage points. in other news, with the uk general election less than a week

away the british prime minister and the man who seeks to replace her have been facing in a live tv audience.