today we find out almost none of them do. so what credibility should we give the migration statistics? this new data undermines a lot of what we thought we knew about how many people come to live here. the hottest topic in british politics turns out to be the area in which we've been worst informed. we'll ask a leading brexiteer and a prominent remainer, if government policy has long been based on dodgy data. we've been to the border between norway and sweden. ministers here think it's a model for a future frictionless border between northern ireland and the republic. so how does it work for them? what you think about the customs here? i think it is completely clap, it takes a long time, it is not easy. hundreds of thousands of teenagers opened their gcse results this morning. do you know what a grade 4 in maths actually means? and what's the difference between a "good pass" and a "standard" one? we'll debate the merits of the new marking system. and, shameless cash grab,

or the greatest sporting show on earth. ufc champion conor mcgregor, and undefeated boxer floyd mayweather face off. good evening. on the surface, today's immigration figures look encouraging for the government. net migration has fallen to the lowest level for three years after a surge in the number of eu nationals leaving the uk since last june's brexit vote. net migration, the difference between those entering and leaving the uk, fell 81,000 to 246,000 in the year to march 2017. so far so good for theresa may, although it's still a long way from hitting her target to reduce net migration to under 100,000 a year. but the figures also reveal that the problem of non eu migrants overstaying their visas is simply not as big an issue as previously thought. far, far fewer international

students end up overstaying their visas than the home office has always claimed. here's our policy editor, chris cook. as home secretary, theresa may picked a fight with universities, in her determination to get net migration down to under 100,000 a year, students from outside the eu were a prime target. we welcome students coming to study, but the fact is, too many of them are not returning home as soon as their visa runs out. if they have a graduate job, that is fine, if not, they must return home. so i don't care what university lobbyists say, the rules must be enforced. students, yes, overstays, no. 0verstay as were a critical issue to her, how many of them were there? in migration, the most important data source is the international passenger survey, how we monitor net migration targets. it stations people at ports and airports with clipboard, asking travellers about their duration of stay in britain and why they came. it is the source of estimates

in migration into the country and emigration out of date. when theresa may gave her speech, the latest figures showed an hundred and 31,009 eu students arriving, but only 38,000 leaving. a gap of 93,000 people. lots of whom might be overstayers. there was a waiting reason to doubt these numbers, they did not match the sources of data we have, for example, the immigration records universities have two hold about former students. these former students also were not showing up in the national insurance data base. and they did not show up in surveys like the labour force survey, where were they? now we have quite a good answer, new border checks data suggests the international passenger survey is simply not very good. the reliability of the international

passenger survey depends upon whether people and set accurately to questions on why are you coming here and do you intend to stay for longer than one—year? for many people, especially students, the answers may not be correct, or indeed, may not be known to the person at the time they are asked the question. the new data shows up how bad ips has been, we know that 181,000 student visas expired, and 176,000 were known to have left. the number of overstayers, at most, 4600, 2.6%. a review of student migration has now been commissioned from the independent migration advisory committee. clearly, the ips has been considered as the best possible tool that we have got for determining this. i have argued for a long time, indeed before the migration advisory committee was established, that we needed something that was independent of government, that was verifiable in terms

of the evidential base. there was more to the students squeeze than overstaying, she wanted fewer students staying on legitimately, too, but overstayers got outsized importance and so this data matters politically. today's announcements tell us that government has really listened to the university sector, we very strongly welcome the way in which they are now trying to provide an evidence —based account of the role of international students, and we think what that will allow us to do is create a policy in cooperation with government, especially important after brexit. some people have suggested the right response to the student migration data problem is to remove students from the migration target, that does not really make sense. this student data problem, illustrates that one of two things is write about the remaining

international passenger survey: if it is making catastrophic errors about the total number of immigration into britain or there are other huge offsetting errors in other parts of the survey. the passenger survey makes for a pretty lousy migration measure, it should be replaced, the key question today, why the home office and theresa may put so much weight on it for so long. studio: chris cook there. so, if entire chunks of government policy have been crafted around migration figures which are simply inaccurate, as they appear to be, what are the wider ramifications for immigration targets and brexit? and why has the home office, as overseen by theresa may for 6 years, used data that may have painted a misleading picture? joining me now is the labour mp and spokesperson for open britain that is campaigning against a so called hard—brexit, neil coyle, and the tory mp and prominent leaver, peter bone.

good evening, both of you, peter, you are in a good mood... i will try not to... i will use facts, if i may, we will come to the bigger picture in a moment, as the film showed, the problem of non—eu migrants overstaying in the uk seems to have been widely overstated. what i want to understand is, how are we in a position where the home office has been using bogus data? i don't think you can say that, there is an enquiry to... they have called an enquiry, the fact that they have done that would point to a problem. it is good to look at it but today's... there must be a problem. we shall see if there is a problem, don't upset me, now(!)... the real point today about the figures is we have seen a huge drop in net migration by 80,000, lowest for three years. still a lot... i'm going to come to that point, i made that clear,

could you address my question, we are aware of the fact there will be an enquiry, you have said that, is it not concerning two—year and to the rest of the uk, that there has been misleading data that has been coming through the home office, a big part of theresa may's standing up and talking to people about these figures has been, that there is an issue, especially with students, they were used regularly, overstaying visas, we now know it is tiny, the figure is tiny. i don't know where you are saying everyone is talking about students, my constituents were not talking about students... your leader was. the issue in the country, however much the bbc wants to move away from this, it is a good news story... you don't seem to be able to answer my question, are you not concerned... i have never been concerned about students coming to this country, i cannot be concerned about things that i have never been concerned about. your leader has been, let me put a different question to you, home secretary for six years, good reputation in thatjob, and...

you does. that is not my own opinion, i'm... i'm not here to have views, you are here to answer questions, and i'm trying to ask these questions... these figures, and this position of review, do they not show that theresa may, she has been looked at in a damaging light. i don't know where you got the idea that there was a big issue about student numbers, it was not there in the country, i have been relaxed about it, it is right they are included in the figures because that is how... a figure that has now been shown to be misleading... which figure has been misleading? which particularfigure? tell me which particular figure. i will tell you... because, your party, your government, and some of the press that support you have been saying for many years that

about 100,000 people were unwelcome, overstaying, should not be here, and a problem. that has been exposed as an utter falsity, as has much of the campaign that you and others were part of to leave the european union, you should be ashamed and very worried that theresa may was so closely associated to something that has been proven to be utter rubbish. that is the point, what you say? i never campaigned in a disgraceful way about student numbers because i have been very relaxed about the student situation, what the problem has been is free movement from the european union, that has been the issue and today we have seen in courage in signs about a number rafael in the number of people. you don't want to address that fact but i will bring neil onto it, peter bone is in a celebratory mood, the majority of the country voted to leave the european union, these figures would say that this is the right direction of travel, surely you see today as a bit of a democratic victory

for those people? i'm not sure what the celebration is for. what brexodus is showing us... yes, brexodus, it is damaging, making a contribution to the country, they are leaving... making a contribution... i want our economy to be the best in the world, more people to contribute to... and i want them to be confident that they can come here. where british people can be trained and fill roles, absolutely support that. but the simple truth is, in the construction sector, in the leisure sector, in the food and farming sector, there are massive vacancies. did you or did you not to tweet today, that anti—brexit campaigners are the real patriots... it is not patriotic for them to take jobs away from people there is a finite amount ofjobs. you assume that they are taking jobs away from people,

i disagree, look at the food and drink federation report, it shows that one third of their members are worried about having to close as a result of not having british workers to fill... why don't they pay better, maybe they will get british workers, market forces. the reason i made this twitter post about being a patriot, i am proud that people want to come to this country to live, study, work, contribute, i'm proud of the contribution they have made to the constituency. i'm very worried about the people leaving and the message they are sending. because that is the other side of this, to think these are people leaving jobs that will be filled by british people is a mistake, some of them take jobs that will not be replaced. you cannot prove that, that is your take on it. making brexodus happen, you are an unpatriotic man. he's entitled to his opinion, i have been called a lot of things by the extreme left, just another one today...

extreme left, if he is the extreme left, what are you? i'm the centre ground. great democratic debate, the eu referendum, it was wonderful, and the result at the end was to say that would come out of the un we want to see immigration reduced. that is what is beginning to happen. we asked la long way off. you got to the figures in the end, even if you ended up not answering my question. gentlemen, thank you very much forjoining us. one of the most acute challenges of brexit is what happens with our borders, specifically regarding our large land border with the eu in ireland. there's already been much hand wringing from politicians about how to solve that particular problem and there's plenty more to come over the next 18 months. well, one solution that has been floated by the brexit secretary david davis is to mimic the border situation between the eu's sweden, and norway, which is outside the eu.

but is it really the holy gail of a frictionless ‘soft‘ border? james clayton went to find out. and a warning, there is some strong language from the truckers in the piece! stretching across 1,000 miles, the border between sweden and norway is the largest frontier of the eu and this bridge is by far the busiest crossing. it's said to be the most technologically advanced border in the world and is a model for the frictionless customs border between northern and southern ireland that politicians so desperately want. an example of how that might be done, the committee will look at the norway—sweden border where you have, they're both in the single market but they straddle the customs union.

it's a very open border. how frictionless is it? what do you think about the customs? it takes a long time. it's not necessary. what does it mean for the areas around the border? we have a lot of the people employed, taking care of administrations made up by this border of course. it's an industry of bureaucracy then? yes, exactly. in 1995, swedenjoined the eu but norway didn't. although norway is in she thinkle and the single market, it's not in the customs union. and that means different laws and taxes on different imports and exports with inevitable problems. there's no import tax on garlic in norway but there is import tax on garlic in the eu. so if i was in norway and i decided

i wanted to buy some garlic and then i walked over that bridge without declaring it and tried to sell it in sweden, i would be breaking the law. the garlic example sounds ridiculous, but garlic smuggling actually happens. in 2013, international arrest warrants were placed on two british men for smuggling £8 million of chinese garlic into the eu via norway. and so, customs checks have to take place between norway and sweden. venka and christine are head of customs on the norwegian side of the border. this is a polish lorry? yes. that is right. you are interested in what is inside it? yes. he has declared some goods. we have the paper for it and now we have to look if there is something else.

to check what is actually in there? yes. it's doors and windows on the trailers, so i can't see anything other than what he has declared. quite a lot of work to find out what is in all of these lorries? yes. this camera helps us a lot. not all the lorries are scanned, but of those that do, not everyone behaves themselves. yes. this is all the things... alcohol and cigarettes are considerably cheaper in sweden and taxes are lower on things like textiles. so if you haven't declared them, they get confiscated. norway and sweden collaborate closely and the customs process is almost completely automated. you can even download an app so that you can declare your goods on your phone. but truckers still have to stop for between five and ten minutes, and much longer if there are queues. some truckers are fine with that.

what do you think about the trucker process? it's not a problem for me, i'm from sweden so it's fine. others are less enthusiastic. the people here say it takes about ten minutes? that's not correct. if you come here on a sunday evening, first i have to wait two hours. so the queue takes a long time? yes. they say they've tried to prioritise things here, according to the mayor. we have a list ew are ticking, and this year we have this year managed to get rid of two or three more of them. when we firstjoined the european union, the ambulance in sweden had to go via the custom control in norway. and they were supposed to pay

for the different drugs and equipment they had in the ambulance and they'll have the money back when they returned. but carrying a sick person, it wasn't possible to go via the custom control. that wasn't an easy thing to solve because it was obvious to everyone that you can't have it like that. but there's one key detail that makes this border so attractive to british politicians — that a bridge just down the river from this crossing helpfully illustrates. you may notice something different on this bridge between sweden which is just over there and norway behind me. and that is that there aren't any trucks or lorries on it. and that's for a reason. there are ten customs checks between norway and sweden and traders have to use these routes. 0ther crossings don't have customs checks and are monitored by cameras. last week, newsnight‘s david grossman illustrated the soft border

ireland currently has. wanna see how soft this border is right now? that is van is in the republic, now it's in the uk. the only hint it's gone from one country to another, the speed limit signs go from metric to imperial. if the uk were to emulate the swedish norwegian model for a normal punter not in the import export business, they really won't notice much of a difference. for truckers, it's a different story. there is hope for a true frictionless border though. sweden and norway intend to pilot next year using number plate recognition in order to automatically approve some vehicles. can it be done technically, can something scan the lorries? yes, they can scan the lorries and the registration plates. and that technology exists? the technology is there already. it's not implemented, it's not installed. to implement this technology, martin says, means changing

legislation which norway, sweden and the eu needs to approve. not an easy task. david davis is right to say that the swedish norwegian border is something to look at. but is it frictionless? well, not quite. james clayton there. this year 16—year—olds could be forgiven for feeling like they need an extra gcse to understand their exam results. this morning students in england received a mixture of numbers and grades on their results sheets. numbers from one to nine for english and maths and the traditional a, b, c letters for everything else. this is how the new system works. anything below a grade 4 is a fail. grade 4 itself is a deemed as a ‘pass'. grade sis said to be a ‘strong pass' splitting the old ‘c‘ grade in two.

and for the brightest students — the old ‘a star‘ and ‘a' grades are now split into three. grade 9 is the very top mark — and only achieved by a very small number of students. the new system will be rolled out across all subjects over the next few years. the government claims this it is designed to make gcses harder, will drive up standards — but will the reforms be worth the upheaval? and which students could risk getting lost in a new setup, already facing criticism for favouring the most able pupils? joining me now are the outgoing head of bedford free school, mark lehain who is leaving to persue a career in education policy. laura mcinerney, editor of schoolsweek who used to be a teacher in east london. and francis gilbert — a teacher for 20 years and was one of the founders of the local schools network. is it worth the bother to have this complete change of the system? i think in the end it will be actually. i've been up since early because it was results day at my school and it's been a really, really positive buzzy day and there's been lots of lovely news

to share with our students. from our students and talking to colleagues in other schools, students have got their head around the fact that they have a mixture of grades this year and it will be the same again next summer. we are good at getting ourade around the system. but what is the benefit to the change? i'm also a maths teacher as well as a head teacher so i've taught the big fat massive gcse and i've loved it. the students have done the foundation paper, grappling topics they might not have seen before. more challenging? absolutely. and students have been getting stuck in, the top end. let's talk about those in the middle. papers will be filled with the eights, nines, but what about people around the four and five mark, laura, does the new system hurt them more? this is where we have got a slightly strange situation because the government have said the four is a standard pass

and the five is a strong pass and it's not clear what that means. there is a concern that around one in five children who last year would have got a c which was just considered a pass and would get you into university and could get you into a job for example. or an apprenticeship? yes, which require a c. now if those people ask for a five, there's one in five this year who got a four that might miss out. so we have a slightly odd situation in the middle and the government haven't done a lot to clear that up. employers have already said they're confused by this. they're left in limbo? employers have always been confused. when you look at the surveys, they weren't clear on gcses either. but they're ok now going into college but we don't know what university is going to do. 16—year—olds today might feel 0k but in two years' time they might face a barrier. that is what is confusing. do you see any merit in being ambitious and making the exams tougher and splitting the grade at the top and sometimes lower down because actually we need to understand where people

are coming in? i would dispute they're not tougher at all. i would say this massive concentration in on teaching in a test in a few hours on the other hand measures someone's ability over their whole school career is really troubling. i would get rid of the gcses completely and have us rethink the whole system because all students now go on to stay until 18 and we need to give them a rounded creative education which these gcses are not doing. i specialise in english and i certainly know that i've seen too many classes where it's just teaching to the test and the teachers aren't to blame for this, it's because central government have got an obsession with the league tables. but that's notjust come about with this system? no, it was there before. this government have put rocket boosters on that. mark, do you recognise any of that, teaching to test, it's not a full

education now, it's all about the exam ? no, of course i would dispute that. that's not why we go into the profession. but it might be the system... it's exam factories up and town the countries, the teachers aren't to blame, it's the politicians. let him come back on that. exam factories? we have always had the challenge about making sure you get the results at the end. that is nothing to do with the new grade systems. for me, the joy has been walking into the classes in my school. we are a new school so we have had to switch from getting our head around the old system to the new system in a short time. thejoys has been going into the lessons and seeing my colleagues step up. what about creative subjects, drama, music, being cut back for the expense of... no, no. the obsession with these kind of other... with respect, that's a leadership decision within a school. we have increased the art.

that won't better gcses. it has everything to do with the way the government's obsessively focussed on a few narrow subjects. i won't get you to agree on this, but laura, you would like to see a return to 0—levels wouldn't you and another system entirely? we have had a lot of change already so anything where we say rip everything up won't go down well. it would save millions of pounds. let herfinish. the original plan michael gove wanted was to reform things at the top end, we needed to get that differentiation for children who were very, very bright. what got missed was his plan to do something at the bottom end which is that children get very, very low grades. some will have got a three, two or one and it's being considered a fail. michael gove's original plan was almost to split gcses in half

and to enable some students to do more deeper but less content, if you like, so they could learn maybe two topics in history instead of four, do those over the two years and get one half of the gcses, then get the other half between the age of 16—18. these reforms are only helped the brightest and we have left the rest without any reform at all. let me bring you back in, mark. i know you have set up this school, you are leaving it to do other things but staying within education. it's very well you saying it's been a lovely day with celebrations, but parents and students will be watching who it wasn't a lovely day for. what are you doing to support those who now have no idea whether their four or five means they can get to the new stage because nobody really knows what it means? you can never know what the future holds but in the end, we have been really good at addressing changes we have had in the past.

what have you said to those pupils today? just as we have seen universities this year, just what they have been asking students in order they can fill their courses, it's inevitable you will find universities are not the answer. these pupils are the guinea pigs and there's been a lot of change. regardless of your view, we have had three education ministers in a matter of years and there's been huge changes. what have you said to pupil who are in limbo? the most important thing they can do now is to make sure that what they do next they do really, really well, be it an apprenticeship, a—levels or something else. everyone has to stay in training until they're 18. if they haven't achieved the grade they need, they have a year or two to sort it out. i have to say, we have got to give our profession, students and families the credit because they've stepped up to the challenge when other things have happen and we are really good on that. thank you very much. spirited debate. 600,000 of us visit morocco on holiday every year.

but there is a dark side to the country that most of us just associate with sun and seaside and soukhs. last week a group of teenagers collectively raped a 24—year—old the woman with learning difficulties in a bus in broad daylight in casablanca. and no one stopped them and the woman did not report it. the attack was filmed and put on social media sparking outrage. and yesterday protests took place across the country in solidarity with the young victim. this is not an isolated incident. amnesty international‘s fadwa elbooamrawee joins us from rabat. good evening. how big a problem is this? and how big a problem is sexual violence against women in morocco? indeed, this is not a first—time issue, as you mentioned, this is part of a widespread phenomenon that has been happening

in this country for years now. as a human rights organisation, along with the other national and international organisations, we have been calling for years for the government is to be more proactive and find real solutions to put an end to its violence against women. and girls, especially in the public space. so far, we are still quite disappointed with the way things have been going on, with, you know, the governmentgovernment‘s work on this issue, as we have seen over the latest reaction from the government on this video and rape incidents on the bus, we are still disappointed. they have been mentioned vaguely, in clear terms that the government will be working on a strategy, and a mechanism to put an end to all of this. but then again, the government, through unclear statements, does not clarify exactly, you know, how it is supposed to work on this. they are not clarifying the nature of the strategy. and so...

we are still... can ijust... i want to bring to the audience's attention, i did not know this, only in 2014, a matter of three years ago, has it become against the law to rape an underage girl, and get out of prosecution by marrying her! have attitudes changed since the law was amended? not much, to be honest, this is again another issue that we have to deal with and we are still trying to work on this, we are talking about a very conservative society that puts, you know, higher priority on the honour of the family. that puts priority on the honour of the girl of the family and society in general. we are not considering a woman as an equal citizen, and, again, when we talk about mentalities, regarding sexual harassment, rape, there is a taboo that goes into it,

this is a patriarchal society, and the fact that since 2014, as an organisation we have been working through a global campaign on putting an end to violence. the one thing that is still very clear is that we are still a long way ahead in terms of changing mentalities, and creating actual real awareness about the issues. thank you very much for talking to us and giving us that perspective from amnesty international, talking about morocco and it is an interesting insight and a sad one. south africa's main opposition party is claiming that a major uk public relations firm has been found in breach of an industry code of conduct following a controversial social media campaign. as we reported a few weeks ago, bell pottinger has been accused of inflaming racial tensions in the country with the aim of boosting the image of the president, jacob zuma. manvine rana has been following the story.

good evening. give us the background to all of this and what have we specifically learnt today? so, a disciplinary hearing heard on this on friday, according to the published timetable, if it had been accelerated we would have known today, that has not happened, work in south africa, hired by the gupta family, who have made millions in the last couple of decades. this action was ruled by the opposition, it has become a huge politically totemic action, it is a proxy war against president jacob zuma himself, he is very close to this family, together they are accused

in south africa of corruption and political influence on such an epic scale that it is called state capture, buying up a state to get government contracts. bell pottinger were brought in to bring attention away from this, by launching a racially divisive campaign, basically encouraging south africans to blame their economic woes not on the president, and his policies, but on wightman 0koli capital, the white businesses who have always operated in the country. what impact, from what we have learnt today, will it have on bell pottinger? they will announce sanctions they will take on september 4, a couple of actions, they could expel them from the body from itself, they could suspend them, they could still work in the industry but since the scandal has broken, they have lost a number of clients. i interviewed this year, he admitted as much then,

they are losing even more now, once found guilty by the industry body, it becomes hard for... why do you think they may have been found guilty by the industry body? it has become so politically toxic, to be honest, since the interview i did with the ceo, i have been contacted by a number of people in the industry who saw this as looking so bad for the pr industry at large, they want to detox altogether, and they feel that if nothing is in to be done, the pr industry starts to look very bad. now, there has been remiss in the last two days that the ceo has resigned, he denies it, we will wait and see, being a pr firm, if you would resign, you would probably wait... thank you very much. newsnight doesn't usually cover much sport. frankly, we know our strengths, but the most hyped and possibly most absurd, sporting event of the year takes place this weekend so we're giving it a go. the undefeated 40—year—old

floyd mayweather has come out of retirement to take on an ultimate fighting champion, ireland's 29—year—old conor mcgregor. for the uninitiated, ufc was once described as no—holds barred human cock—fighting, but mixed martial artist conor mcgregor looks to be the tournament's first fighter to gain the recognition and respectability of mainstream boxing. saturday night's fight will be mcgregor‘s boxing debut, but that has not held back the hype and the trash talk. mayweather is also gambling a lot in the ring, he will surpass fellow american rocky marciano's perfect record of 49 fights without defeat if he beats mcgregor. but they both also

have a lot to gain. mcgregor‘s in line for a $100 million payday and mayweather as much as $200 million. dance for me, boy! and they aren't the only ones raking in the cash, the broadcasters are set to profit as well, the fight‘s expected to break the record of 4.6 million pay—per—view buys set by mayweather when he defeated manny pacquiao two years ago. so is this just a shameless cash grab, or will it be the greatest sporting show on earth? joining me now from las vegas is dan hardy, a former ultimate fighter and now a sky commentator for saturday night's show, alongside the editor of boxing news magazine, matt christie. dan, are you expecting great things? iam. we're already experiencing

great things, breaking records left, right and centre, the fanfare, the hysteria, something we have never seen, certainly in mixed martial arts and not in boxing either, it is a special occasion. it will bring the best out of these fighters. not odd that conor mcgregor‘s first ever boxing match is this, against floyd mayweather, undefeated, he is not a professional boxer...? has been thrown in at the deep end but this is where conor mcgregor‘s thrived, he has come through mixed martial arts and rewritten the rules around self—promotion, around performances inside the arena as well. the is a special athlete and they do not come along very often, when you have a person like conor mcgregor, he transcends the sport, he can step outside the octagon and step into the boxing ring. we have to give him a chance. nothing to do with smelling the money, of course(!) do you think the boxing world has underestimated conor mcgregor? you have heard he's pretty special. i don't think we have, actually,

he certainly has something about him, magnetic personality, fantastic fight in his own discipline, we know he has had a bit of boxing experience as a youngster, he has been training exceptionally hard, there has been good reports from his training camp. to make the jump to fight somebody who has been boxing since three years old and is arguably one of the greatest fighters of all time and one of the best defensive fighters of all time, that is a humongous, almost ludicrous leap. a huge amount of hype about this, surely good for the boxing world? there is certainly a lot of hype about it but my concern is... where does this spectacle appeal stop? just because lots of people want to see something, does not make it ok, where do we go next? what if conor mcgregor wins, for example, and decides he wants to fight anthonyjoshua, and because everybody wants to see that fight, have we got to make it, even though it is insane... coming back, boxing is hardly... you could hardly say it hardly

noble, floyd mayweather‘s nickname is money, it is hardly as if people get into it for the noble art, isn't it? no, and i did not suggest that is the case at all, no one could deny that the vast majority of floyd mayweather's career has been fuelled by his need and desire for riches. so they are pretty evenly matched, then, maybe. evenly matched, bank balance, they could have a good fight! in terms of boxing, absolutely not evenly matched. your money is on floyd? yes, my money is on floyd, my money is on "money". i'm commentating for sky sports, i have to stay impartial... i'm here to explain basically, there is a chance for conor, cannot count him out. floyd mayweather is great but he's 40, out of the sport for two years, 49 training camps will take it out of you.

hand problems, not necessarily the hardest puncher. his technique, his defensive boxing is excellent. the reason people are tuning in is because of conor mcgregor, no boxer in the world would have brought floyd mayweather out of retirement. no other ufc fighter could generate as much money as this. it will be on 5live. that is all that we have time for. naga muchetty will be here tomorrow night. i'll see you soon. goodnight. hello there, good evening. we're going to end the week with the best of the weather across the south—east of the weather across the south—east of the weather across the south—east of the uk and the coolest, wettest weather in the north—west and we got rain overnight for western scotland and northern ireland, still there in the morning and will continue on and off throughout friday and heavier showers developing in eastern scotla nd showers developing in eastern scotland if it brightens up but more cloud spilling into northern england

and wales, a few showers here but some continues further south and east, more than today and it should be warm as well. into the evening and overnight, that wetter weather keeps going on and off across scotla nd keeps going on and off across scotland and probably drying off in northern ireland, a few showers running down perhaps as far south as the midlands, lows of 14 or 15. into saturday and we've got a sunny start for many places. the worst of the weather pushing into the north sea. we'll see a much better day for western scotland and northern ireland, not too many showers. a slow improvement for eastern scotland, one or two showers pushing down to the midlands and towards the south—west, in the south—east it should be dry with temperatures in the midtwenties. welcome to newsday on the bbc. the headlines: a verdict due for yingluck shinawatra. thailand's former premier could face jail if found guilty of illegal subsidies. the white house says all‘s fine between donald trump and the republican leadership after he criticised senior figures in his own party. and i'm alpa patel in london.

also coming up in the programme: has north korea just given us a glimpse of its next planned nuclear weapon? a wall chart next to kim jong—un reveals blueprints for a new rocket. yay! the biggest single win in us lottery history — a woman scoops $750 million on the powerball.