this idea of a messy divorce. barnier has always said we are going too slowly and i think having an election that cost us 120 million or something in the middle of all of this when we should just have been cranking on, the decision has been taken, get on with it, don't keep looking, which is the way it looks to me is happening in britain as if we are not really getting to the point. and, of course, we don't blame them for saying, right, we wa nt blame them for saying, right, we want you... at the moment you pay towards a lot of the european institutions and projects we are working on and you can't suddenly cut off, you agree to them so you should pay towards them and the british are saying we are being made to pay twice because we are trying to pay twice because we are trying to leave the single market and we are still being made to pay into it. at the moment there is a stalemate. but who blinks first? that is what the constructive ambiguity phrase that david davis has come out with is true, you don't want to reveal all of your hand all at once. this isa hard all of your hand all at once. this is a hard negotiating phase now.

dft , is a hard negotiating phase now. dft, this kind of continues again, this is a brexit trio for us here on the papers, because theresa may is hoping to start building trade deals in the background, but it seems as if she is hoping forjapan to meet her halfway. she isjust about to go there. yes, she is, two days. the big problem is we were helping europe to have an agreement with japan, and now we are saying actually, we are going out and we'd like to have the same agreement as we work helping europe to have with japan commandjapan we work helping europe to have with japan command japan are saying we area bit japan command japan are saying we are a bit busy at the moment. this could be a good leak that we're not going to get very far with japan, because the financial times is now owned by a japanese company, so this could well be true and it seems perfectly plausible to me. if you

are doing a deal with europe, wait, join the queue, britain, and then we will talk to you. i think she could come back empty—handed the way david cameron came back virtually every handed from europe. japanese officials say their priority is completing the deal with brussels, as you say, and they also say we can negotiate until britain is out of the eu. i think this is what shinzo abe, theresa may's counterpart, wants to hear from prime minister theresa may. very quickly, let's stay with the front page of dft. i don't know how many housewives will be able to afford nearly $40,000 for a plastic bag. what is happening in kenya? i am a bit allergic to the word housewife. i can multitask! but basically kenya has become the fourth country to ban plastic bags and they have banned them, you get

banged up in prison, $38,000 fine for something. they are talking seriously. rewinder, a country that has had so much strife, has already banned them. and then i look at the high street and i still see people staggering about with plastic bags. for goodness' sake, people, get ones that you can put inside your bag that you can put inside your bag thatis that you can put inside your bag that is reasonable, not plastic! let's move quickly on to the times, the lead story, council fostering christian girl with a muslim family. it sounds like a horrendous case. apparently the child was sobbing and begging to be returned to the foster family because she doesn't understand arabic. the girl is also understood to have said that she was regularly expected to eat meals on the floor. this story has been done

by andrew norfolk, an award—winning journalist who broke the story on what is happening, and what happened in the child sex ring in rotherham. we don't have an insight into what was said. there is a statement from tower hamlets. my only insight is what on earth is a council doing not spotting this one coming? warning klaxons should have been sounding. we co nta cted klaxons should have been sounding. we contacted tower hamlets council and they go back to us, and just to read out the statement: we are unable to comment on individual cases all those subject to court proceedings. the council's fostering service provides a loving and stable home for hundreds of children each year and home for hundreds of children each yearand in home for hundreds of children each year and in every case we give absolute consideration to our children's background absolute consideration to our child ren‘s background and absolute consideration to our children's background and to their cultural identity. all of our foster carers receive training and support from the council to ensure they are fully qualified to meet the needs of the children in their care. that's

the children in their care. that's the statement but something has gone wrong here. i'm going to guess this is happening all over the country and let us know if it does. this is one of the questions that the times asks, if it is a one—off or if it goes further. i view pro frank on the front of the express, are you a fan of ib preference? the front of the express, are you a fan of ie preference? no, there is a wonderful conference in barcelona at the moment with the top people in the moment with the top people in the world talking about their research, but for the public this is so research, but for the public this is so baffling. 0nly research, but for the public this is so baffling. only about two years ago we were told not to take these other painkillers because they have too many side—effects, just paracetamol, and now they say paracetamol, and now they say paracetamol has side—effects. we have got to be told as the public and what are the right... wipe clean the board, on a piece of paper in every home, what are the best painkillers to use if you have got common conditions, and which ones you should not touch with a barge pole. john, surely most tablets

taken to pole. john, surely most tablets ta ken to excess are pole. john, surely most tablets taken to excess are bad for you? you don't even have to take them to excess, by the way. i'm totally confused i don't know which ones to take. that is my point. you do not know where to stand with these pills, you read that one is good to ta ke pills, you read that one is good to take one week and then that it is bad for you the next. there is something called cochrane collaboration, the scientists review everything in the world, they should tell us what is safe to take. the times, maybe this is the responsible we don't need painkillers, we don't need drugs, we just we don't need painkillers, we don't need drugs, wejust need we don't need painkillers, we don't need drugs, we just need to start getting fit and there is hope. and eu are never too old to get fit. everyone should be out there doing a bit of something or other, and most people in britain don't do much. what do you both do?|j people in britain don't do much. what do you both do? i run and i walk. i walk, i have what do you both do? i run and i walk. iwalk, i have a what do you both do? i run and i walk. i walk, i have a fitness tracker that tracks my walking and i play football to a very bad standard

occasionally. it says getting fit in your 40s and 50s could half your long—term risks of stroke, so some body at the younger end of that, that gives me hope that i can get off the sofa and perhaps even the more encouragement to get more fit. it says 100,000 people a year in britain suffer strokes either through disruption of blood supply to the brain or bleeding within it. we can laugh and joke about our lazy life style we can laugh and joke about our lazy lifestyle but it's important and you can do it now. what was that well—known. .. the baker on can do it now. what was that well—known... the baker on the high street. for breakfast i went to a baker that is popular in the north of england and is growing in southern england and had a coffee and sausage roll this morning. how many steps have you taken? 8000 steps running up—and—down the stairs here between different shows. do you know how many flaws we have got? just 2000 to go. it's not like the old step counters that sitting at your desk and you moved and it was

half a mile. that is cheating. we will find out how many steps you have done. i will give you an update. for now that is it for the papers, don't forget you can see the front pages of the papers online, have a look at the bbc news website, it is all there for you seven days a week, bbc.co.uk/ papers. if you missed the programme any evening you can watch it later on bbc iplayer, the award—winning iplayer. thank you to my guests. next on the bbc news channel its meet the author. stay tuned. 0n the cover of sambourne's latest thriller, to kill the president, it says this, the unthinkable has happened, the united states has elected a volatile demagogue as president. readers may suspect they know what's coming but of course, we don't know who he is, he has no name

in the book, just that there is enough danger for some of those around him to have to face a troubling moral dilemma. sam vaughan is the guardian column, colourless john cridland and long since 0uted himself as the author. welcome —— sam bourne. some of your readers may find the setup in this novel eerily familiar. does that make it easier 0r harder to write? in some ways harder because this is meant to be fiction, alternative present, but of course the reader will have recent current events in their minds. you have to sort of ride that and use it to your advantage and also insert things that are inherently unfamiliar, so the heroine of the story, maggie

costello, who appeared in a couple of earlier sam bourne novels, very idealistic, principled, woman who worked for the previous president, was this widely admired figure around the world and now works for this much more unpopular president, so this much more unpopular president, so she is at the centre of it, wholly fictional character, the universe around it, i'm aware people will bring things to it that they know from the real world. you know what they will bring to it, they will say it is donald trump. is it donald trump or not? the president is never named, he is a fictional creation and i think that's important as you would not be able to set these other hares running. at the centre of the story are these two lieutenants to the president, loyal partisans to their party, who find themselves frankly appalled by the man they are serving and come to the man they are serving and come to the conclusion that he is a menace, not only to america but to the world, and the those people have, in this novel way of the defence secretary, the chief of staff, so

what you are doing is creating an alternative universe, this alternative universe, this alternative world, but at the centre of it will be things people find familiar. we don't want to give away the full plot and central dilemma that unfolds as the story goes on but you can set the scene at the beginning without spoiling it for anyone. the book opens with the president is launching a nuclear strike against north korea. remember i wrote this book many months ago before any of the current events happened, but that is a quirk of the timing. he launches a nuclear strike against north korea and china after against north korea and china after a warof against north korea and china after a war of words with the north korean leader. that is narrowly averted by the ingenious intervention of quite a low—level person who narrowly averts that strike. it's a fascinating moment because it gets us fascinating moment because it gets us into the whole question of whether there is a machine that is irrevocable once it starts or whether it can be stopped. one of the fascinating things in the

research i did for this book was about the nuclear authority of the president. it turns out it is the least checked power of all the powers that an american president has. the power to launch a nuclear assault that could end the civilisation of human race, there is no restraint and no filter. 0nce civilisation of human race, there is no restraint and no filter. once he 01’ no restraint and no filter. once he or she decides to do it visibly have this aide, quite a low—level military aide who walks around with the briefcase manacled to their wrist which has the nuclear codes in it, he the codes from the aide, calls up the number in the pentagon war room, confirms identity using those codes, and then he can give the order. the defence secretary is not there, the head of the army is not there, the head of the army is not there, the chairman of the joint chiefs is not there, it is up to the president, he's a nuclear monarchy with this power and that's what sets this plot and story in motion. what the plot explores is whether the military and political mind as the flexibility to say in those circumstances we must do something. evenif circumstances we must do something. even if it is something morally as

difficult and dangerous as the launching of a nuclear strike itself. well, that's right. at the heart of this book, i hope, are a series of these kind of moral dilemmas for the players involved. figures in the white house. the president himself is actually more or less offstage for most of this novel. it's about the people who serve him, and the dilemmas they wrestle with. and there's one right at the very beginning, can you thwart a presidential order? what will it take? but from then on, the even larger dilemma, which confronts the two people who work for him, and which is discovered by our heroine, maggie costello, is that they begin to conclude that the man that they have taken an oath to serve is a menace to the world. and there they begin to wrestle with, where does your responsibility lie in that situation? as a good patriot, is it your duty to serve the commander—in—chief, or should you, if you really have concluded he's a danger to the world, seek to remove him? and of course they explore the legal avenues first. in a sense, we've been there before in the nixon presidency, because although what was at stake was simply the clinging on to power, it wasn't the possibility

of a nuclear strike or anything like that, at least as far as we know. but there was a question raised among some of those around him as to whether his travails and horror of the position he was in had unbalanced him. and if it had, was there anything anyone could do about it? well, it's absolutely right. and i'm glad you mention it, partly because the characters themselves refer to nixon and the so—called madman strategy. this is where he deputed his secretary of state, henry kissinger, to go round the world saying to world leaders, nixon's a bit crazy, you know. he's just crazy enough to do this. which nixon encouraged this strategy, because he believed it would make them fear him more, and therefore accommodate him with peace in vietnam and that kind of thing. but i'm particularly glad you mentioned nixon, partlyjust because it comes from that era of the early ‘70s where not only was nixon and watergate going on, but it spawned the conspiracy political thriller. and, you know, i had no role in this, but one thing i love about this book is the cover. and the cover is absolutely a ‘705—era sort of cover design. it could be day of the jackal or three days of the condor, which were thrillers i grew up

with and loved. and the nixon era really incubated an atmosphere where people were ready to believe that the president was somehow a danger, and therefore buy into those kinds of scenarios. some people will think either looking at this book, just looking at the cover, or reading it, that this is a bit rich. you can't bear donald trump, so you've written a book portraying him, albeit through an unnamed president in these pages, as somebody who is about to blow up the world. and they say, come on, if you believe that, write it, put your name on it and answer questions, rather than suggesting that it can happen. how do you answer that? well, jonathan freedland is denouncing trump regularly in the column i write as a newspaper journalist, i'm sort of commentating on that. this was a different issue that i wanted to wrestle with, which was this question, the what if question. you know, i think all thriller writers will say, the two most useful words are what if. you take what's going on in the real world, and then you knock it on a stage,

and you think, what if this then happened? and the what if for me was, what if you served somebody like that, and you yourself, not a hostile guardian journalist, but you yourself, a loyal member of the president's party who had sworn the oath to serve him, you yourself came to the conclusion he was dangerous? that's what i wanted to explore, and i think, you know, the day of the jackal, and i've been very pleased a couple of critics have compared it to that, was about a named president in charles de gaulle. jeffrey archer wrote shall we tell the president?, in which teddy kennedy was imagined in an assassination scenario. so i think there is a kind of sub—genre that does this. but to me, the reality and this novel are separate. they may be separate, but the key to a novel like this, you mentioned day of the jackal, you mentioned three days of the condor, the key is that the reader has to believe that this is not fantasy, that it could come to this. if they don't believe that, they'd probably give up after five pages. yeah, i think there is something in that. and i think one of the things that's interesting getting

the reader reaction so far, and it's not been very long, is this idea that this seems plausible, that the danger, the sort of stakes that are in their mind as a reader, are because they look at the real world, and they think, a scenario not the same as this, not identical to this, is plausible. and i think one of the things that the big surprises that have confronted you and me as journalists this year is they've made all kinds of scenarios that would once have seemed fantastical now seem plausible. and therefore i think it makes readers able to regard a story like this as plausible, because the real world itself is throwing up fantastical things all the time. jonathan freedland, sam bourne, author of to kill the president, thank you very much. thank you. hello, good evening. it's been a pretty good bank holiday weekend for many of us and today we saw temperatures up to 28 degrees.

lincolnshire had the hottest late august bank holiday monday on record. further north, though, we have cooler air together with more cloud slipping southwards overnight. this band of cloud here bringing with it a little bit of rain and drizzle. to the north we have the cooler and fresh air, blustery winds in the north—west corner and a few showers. to the south the warmer air we have had today with lows of 16 or 17 degrees. we have still got this band of cloud on tuesday, the rain tending to peter out on that, but a cloudy day for yorkshire, lincolnshire, the midlands, towards the south—west of england, so temperatures a few degrees down. richard brighton—knight in northern england, and a scattering of showers for scotland and northern ireland. the last of the heat across the south—east and also east anglia. —— richard brighton—knight in northern england. this is bbc news. the headlines at 11: north korea fires a missile over

northern japan drawing a furious response from tokyo which says it will take full steps to protect its people. president trump declares a disaster of historic proportions, as america's fourth—largest city is hit by a year's rainfall, injust one week. plucked to safety from rooftops by helicopter as the entire texas national guard are called in to help. up to 2,000 people are rescued, including residents of a care home. she said within10— 15 minutes the water went from ankle high to waist high, so immediately