we'll ask if the saudi prince's plan is ever likely to succeed. and are our universities a bastion of left wing remoaners, and if so, does it matter? the daily mail's stephen glover takes it up with a professor of philosophy. hello. after a day of some confusion in catalonia, spain this evening stands on the brink of a serious clash between region and nation. after some dithering, the catalan president carles puigdemont decided not to call an election. instead, he said the catalan parliament will decide on whether independence should be declared. the vote is expected to happen tomorrow. meanwhile in madrid, the spanish senate will also vote on whether to invoke article 155, allowing the national government to take control of catalonia. a test of strength may follow, who will the police in catalonia obey? can a government run a region against its will? and will the pro—independence

politicians in catalonia remain united in their determination? well, it's a volatile situation, and our diplomatic editor mark urban is outside the parliament. is that a city in turmoil this evening? it's not, and in fact, the demonstrations we saw earlier in the day from militant separatists not really more than a few thousand, even those have dissipated now and the streets are largely quiet. but everyone you talk to hear is full of a sense of anticipation about tomorrow. now, if there are people that don't believe in quitting spain, its anticipation tinged with trepidation. the separatists, it is tinged with possibility. people in the centre ground of politics here, a parallel with brexit, they believe if the parliament vote tomorrow is one of separation, somehow things will be sorted out, and life will not

change in a major way. but still, all sorts of tensions on the two flanks of this question. can either side back down now, that is the crucial question this evening? you are right. it is absolutely a crucial question, given that both of committed to certain courses of action tomorrow. it seems the spanish prime minister has talked about using the nuclear option, so—called article 155 of the constitution. some people are saying, there is a certain amount of wriggle room. but he seemed to be committed to going forward on that route, regardless of what is said or decided in catalonia. for their part, the catalans are also committed to this vote on independence, and most people think, even though there are splits within the president's party, they will boat to go that way. how can it be resolved? it is really, really unclear whether it can be, hence the strong sense of people

almost trembling with the possibilities of what tomorrow will bring. hence also, a meandering around politically dumb by the president throughout the day in parliament. nothing happened quite as expected today in the catalan parliament. elections were going to be called, then they want, and as one timed event or another slipped and vanished, the press pack were suitably laid—back. instead, he promised a parliamentary vote on independence, separatist deputies were jubilant. translation: i was prepared to call these elections on the sole condition that we were given guarantees that they would be held in an absolutely normal manner. but there are no such guarantees that would justify calling these regional elections today.

pro independence deputies who thought he'd lost his nerve were jubilant. the president has said he won't call elections, and he'll give the whole matter to parliament to decide. and these people are happy, because they favour independence, and they think parliament will, too. but if he leaves it to a parliamentary vote, having a slim majority and dissent within his own party, will there be majority for independence? translation: it's come to the moment of truth, and we feel the nerves appropriate to such a man. we think tomorrow, in the parliament, the favour for independence will end up declaring independence. as this played out, the government in madrid mulls the position of emergency rule on catalonia, something that could

also happen to one. each side apparently determined the other should make the bigger error. translation: in order to come back within the law, where you are, where we are, where the government is, and since saturday, nothing relevant has happened. but we have heard nothing but noise. tonight, the parliament is debating a motion for independence with predictions, if anything is still predictable here, that it will come tomorrow morning at 10:30. outside, separatists scenting victory in joy a carnival atmosphere. i think the real battles starts from the declaration of independence. and for that, we need the support of our president. which we are not sure we have. what is the catalonian

government doing? what is the spanish government doing? it has been tense. the people here are ready to speak for what they passionately believe in, which i think its independence. mark urban reporting from barcelona. i'm joined from barcelona by the pro—independence activist anna arque solsona, and via skype from madrid by alfredo pastor, he's the former spanish economic minister. good evening to you, alfredo pastor. what is the best way out of this situation as we stand here now? easiest one seems to be for the president of of the catalan government to call an election. that is the easiest one. right. now talk me through what happens if he doesn't do that. talk me through what happens if they do vote through this declaration of independence. the motion can be carried, it may be carried or it may not.

the majority is a very weak one. no one is going to recognise it. then, of course, article 155 would be set in motion. right. does carles puigdemont, does he get arrested and sent to jail? i have no idea, but i wouldn't be surprised. you wouldn't be surprised if he was sent to jail? i wouldn't be surprised, no. justice is slow in spain, but sooner or later, independence like that is not something... it is not allowed. do you think the spanish

government can keep hold, the federal government can hold catalonia by force? do you think that is a very good idea? if catalonia doesn't want to be part of spain, you can hold it there, and you can force the police, sent in the army, keep it and occupy it? catalonia does not have one single voice. there is a large number in catalonia who would prefer not to be in spain. i'm not sure that all of them have weighed up the costs and benefits of that carefully. but the fact that many of them, many more than the spanish government thought, are in favour of independence. but they are by no means a majority. even should the government try to hold even this large group of people by force, that cannot continue indefinitely. let me go over to anna arque solsona. you are in favour of independence,

wouldn't the right thing now, be to hold an election in catalonia? this is what the president of catalonia pulled away from today. would the right thing be to delay the election and withhold the crisis that is impending tomorrow? well, i think that tomorrow is a perfect day to lift up the suspension of the declaration of independence. that is the mandate of the people, that was the result of the referendum, to which 43% of the population voted, even though the violence that we suffered that day from the spanish police against unarmed people, even though we do have a mandate, and that is in favour. sorry to interrupt, but if you are so confident of this strong independence majority, then great, have an election.

you will obviously have the independent forces win with a thumping majority, and you can go ahead because you have more legitimacy than that referendum. well, but there's really no point for an election. we had elections, that's why we have an absolute majority of members of the parliament in favour of the independence, and that's why we've been able to pass through two laws. one of them, the referendum, the law for the referendum, for soft determination. we have achieved that because we already had elections, and we have already won the absolute majority. that's why we did the referendum. and now, people have spoken, the same way as brexit referendum people spoke. 0k... that is democracy, that is what it is all about. when carles puigdemont is sent to jail on monday because the spanish authorities don't agree with your assessment,

when that happens, who runs catalonia, and what is going to happen? what do you actually expect to happen on monday if you declare independence and the spanish pass article 155. it is important to remember, in spain at the moment, there are two people injailjust to organise a peaceful demonstration. they do have too get to arrest president puigdemont, and maybe it is not that easy, because he is the president of this country, elected democratically and legally. who is good to run in case the spanish state goes once again way beyond the democratic framework that we have given, all of us, in the european union? nothing, another person will be in charge of... will there be violence?

article 155 is not going to be able to be reapplied... is... you need the people to obey. we have little time... sorry to interrupt. we have little time, do you think there will be violence if spain tries to take control of catalonia, or partial control catalonia? not from the catalan side. all the violence that we have experienced has been from the spanish state. thank you... sorry, i had to cut you off. i want to put that point to alfredo pastor, do you think there will be violence? if the spanish state, if it sees it can't control catalonia peacefully, will it use tanks on monday? no, there will be no tanks. there will first be demonstration by peaceful people,

who will probably start breaking things after a while, then the police will have to come and things like that. that kind of street violence will happen, but there will be no tanks. it will be unpleasant, the problem in the long run, the wounds will take time to heal. we need to leave it there. we don't have any more time. but we will be watching obviously everything that happens over the next few days. thank you, both, very much indeed. a boring old conference for investors held in the saudi capital riyadh would not normally move the news dial here. but a bland—sounding gathering this week, the future investment initiative, has really put on show, a saudi ambition for a momentous change of direction. a transformation of the world's strangest, and least liberal countries and one of our most problematic allies could be transformative of the region.

a tie—up with richard branson announced this week, and his company called virgin, is but one sign of the culture change apparently underway. the crown prince, mohammed bin salman, heir to the throne, looks like one of those gorbachev types that come along from time to time. an insider who thinks the regime in which he operates is dysfunctional, and needs to be reformed. one concrete ambition is an investment of half of $1 trillion in a new futuristic city on the red sea coast called neom. a place where pioneers and thinkers and doers can exchange ideas and get things done. the promotional video shows just how different they intend it to be from the stultifying, repressed images we normally see from saudi. translation: stunning nature, mountains, plains, valleys, coast, coral reefs, islands, mountains that are covered with snow in winter, mild weather in summer,

10 degrees less than the other gulf cities and capitals. the political will is strong. the popular will and desire is strong. all the elements of success exist to create something great within the kingdom of saudi arabia. that's the crown prince bin salman. he's only 32. and the recently appointed heir to the saudi throne, replacing his cousin in the role. he's already impressed president trump. with energy that flows from the sun and wind. one objective is economic, preparing the country for when the world weans itself off oil. it also needs jobs to occupy its youthful population. more than two thirds of the population is under 30. but another objective is cultural, the country has become a beacon of ultraconservative sunni thinking. the crown prince made an astonishing admission to the guardian this week. change has already been evident.

women being given licence to drive. an obvious step to us, but a huge change in saudi arabia. the vicious war in yemen might be seen as just one sign that the country is not close to a humane presence in the region. and then, of course, there is the problem of resistance within. willa crown prince beat the forces whose status and power has derived from the old order? saudi arabia as a new dubai? well, dubai has its issues, but nothing compared to those of saudi. so is reform for real?

i'm joined by the saudi journalist abeer mishkhas, who returned just this week from riyadh, and by nesrine malik anotherjournalist who herself used to live in saudi arabia. but let's start with the bbc‘s frank gardner who knows the country extremely well. frank, tell us about this crown prince. it's impossible to overstate the changes this man is making. by saudi standards it is moving at a lightning pace. these are changes nobody could imagine possible happening so quickly. the man who runs the economy, the defence, the royal court, just about everything, has turned around and told the people of saudi we have been getting it wrong, it is time to stop extremism. and he has the support of the king, presumably, because he was promoted by him a few months back. he does. i met them both in 2013 in the king's palace. i didn't even know who he was.

i said what you do for a living, he said he was a lawyer. at the time he was relatively obscure. but he has risen to prominence. he has made some mistakes. he started this catastrophic war with the yemen. nobody is winning it. the yemenis are losing it by the thousands. is also involved in a spat with qatar. but this is a bold step that many people of saudi belief should be done. they need to find an alternative to oil and they need to join the rest of the 21st—century. let me turn to my two guests. do you think this is for real? often people talk about reform but it isn't there. i think it is for real. there is a huge wave of feminism in the country. something nobody talked about before. talked about how we had a problem with. .. with the religious establishment, with the ideology.

and to say that we had all of that time, we wasted 30 years, we won't waste another 30 years, and we have to do something about it. i think this is something somebody was so happy to hear. presumably you welcome this? absolutely. were other people talking about it? yes, they well, at least the people i have seen and talked to, they are very optimistic. they are thinking about what is going to happen in the country. do you feel this is real? one thing you could do is liberate it now, say we will take people out ofjail... i believe it's real. one issue is that in the short term a shifting of tectonic plates, is a completely revolutionary, is something we did not expect to see in our lifetime? absolutely yes. my concern is in the application and the suggestive mistakes that he has made, which you have mentioned, and in the past few weeks, since he has started to confront the religious establishment, people have been thrown injail, banned from travelling, and every high—profile youth religious scholar and tv

presenter was banned from travelling. that was just a day. my concern is, is the application going to be as smooth, and is the support for him confined to cosmopolitan, elites, but in the hinterlands which one of the senior royals referred to, the people in the small towns that haven't really, you know, come with the times, are they going to be supportive? you support the guy obviously. why is there still such repression today? you could start liberating more quickly for this programme, you don't have to envision 2030. it's very hard. you are talking about a country that has been kept behind everyone else for years and years. now he is wanting

all of these changes. you cannot imagine how much resistance there was for the driving of women. there still is. if you listen to people talking about it, people are still complaining, some people are not happy with what the crown prince is talking about. he has to fight all that. but he is supported by all of the young people of the country, who have been travelling abroad, who have studied abroad, you want to find newjobs, who want to stop travelling to other countries to feel free. they want everything in the country. should people worry that the crown prince may mean it, but the forces of conservatism are just too strong? assassination, you could imagine a number of things, couldn't you? i do worry. the current generation has been on the internet, on social media for the past 15 years. it is a very different bedrock to people who have tried reform before him.

i'm not concerned about the tailwind behind him. i don't think there will be that much resistance from the establishment. i'm concerned about the lessons that are learnt from the last 30 years, as he refers to it, i am afraid that those lessons will not be learnt, in that there was complicity on the half of the royal family to inject extremism and radical language into the public address of the country. religious language? yes. this wasn't something that was imposed by some disembodied rich establishment, it was with the full sanction and complicity of the royal family. to deny that was something that they did and they need to undo will be one of the big tests. we are not talking about democracy in 2030, are we, or is that the ultimate vision?

no. let's not get starry eyed. he is a democrat. lots of people are getting locked up for things they have said on social media. it's not a western—style democracy, his aim, he is aiming to liberate the economic power of saudi arabia. to find jobs for these millions of people pouring out of schools and universities. the risk is that there will be dark forces gathering, people who don't like what he is doing, and they will remember what happened to the 1960s moderniser. the conservatives opposed women's education, television, he overruled them, ultimately he was assassinated in 1975. god willing that isn't going to happen. yemen is a blot on the saudi copybook of a serious kind. should we trust a guy who is behind that to be the reformer? you cannot get everything you want from the same person. you said gorbachev.

gorbachev did help in that way. at the time it was not seem that way by those in the soviet union. you always have to see everything. it's going to be a mixed bag. 0k. an interesting one to watch. thank you all very much. the government means business when it comes to brexit, even if we are not quite clear what exact line of business that is. yet, it's real businesses that will be on the front line of dealing with any consequences. in as far as a community can be said to have a view on brexit, the business one has been against it, or in favour of the softer variants of it, with a decent transitional period. and above all, there's no enthusiasm for a no—deal outcome. in fact, real concern at it. but while they might not want it, businesses have to be ready for it. helen thomas has been finding out what that entails. before any big adventure, it's wise to plan ahead.

avoid getting left out in the cold, go equipped for unexpected hazards. preparation can be the key to a successful trip. the government can't quite get its story straight on whether no deal is a negotiating tactic, or a real possibility. we are seeking to get a deal. that is by far and away the best option. the maintenance of the option of no deal is for both the negotiating reasons and sensible security. but with 17 months to go, businesses are starting to get ready. i think firms are preparing for the possibility of no deal, because it's a logical possibility. i think they are still optimistic that we will strike a deal, because it's in everyone's interest to do that. particularly the larger firms, i'm hearing more and more that they have prepared contingency plans. some of them have pressed a few buttons.

but what a number of them say to me is, it's not one button, a button every few weeks as they adjust to new assessment of the risk. this isn't really about whether brexit is good or bad for britain, it's about being ready for anything, being prepared for a no deal brexit. broadly, that means leaving the eu in march, 2019, without the kind of comprehensive free trade agreement the government says it wants. but even that isn't clear—cut. people happy for us to leave without a deal concede we might need some basic agreements to keep planes flying, say, or to stop a meltdown in financial contracts. in finance, no deal means no access to european markets. that risks cutting off an industry that accounts for 12% of uk tax receipts, but regulators have forced banks to get on with their no deal planning. what they've done is they've looked at the various

locations across europe, decided which one is the best one for them, so maybe a place where they have existing operations, maybe that there are competitors there. they have started to acquire a premises, so they've got their offices, they've started thinking about the people they need to move to those locations. but crucially, they've started to get the authorisations they need to enable them to do business in april, 2019. ingredients for eisai's cancer and epilepsy drugs crisscross several borders before being made in the uk for sale worldwide. the rules say drugs for sale in europe must be tested in an eu country. so with no deal, eisai, a japanese company, needs a new facility. we can't afford to wait any longer. we're having to go out for tenders, we're having to look to move that part of the testing operation, not the manufacturing, but the testing to an eu member state, and put things in place. ensuring no disruption to drug supply in 2019

means spending money now. we're talking many millions of pounds to do this. this is something which will have no gain. literally, it will mean we are doing in april, 2019, what we would have been doing, shall we say, in february, 2019, so there is no gain. money that could have been spent for developing new medicines, bringing new cures to patients. other industries are planning, too. one car maker told us their manufacturing setup might not work in a no deal outcome. it could need more parts on site, and new storage facilities. it might not be terribly complicated, but rather like the negotiations, it all takes time and money. there is another source of uncertainty. a transition period is meant to make life easier for businesses, giving them time to adapt, but will it be agreed early enough to be useful? and even then, will it be certain enough for businesses to hang investment or hiring decisions on?

the longer it takes, we will have lost time, jobs and investment in the uk. a drip—drip, if you like. our view is that the end of the year is a key moment, that if a transition agreement on status quo terms could be secured by then, we will keep jobs and investment in the uk. but the real prize here is the shape of the final deal. they don't want an extension of the cliff edge. so the next thing that would have to happen is, the first half of next year, all eyes on that final deal. this week, the prime minister suggested a transition agreement could only come late next year. a bit of government backtracking later, and don't panic, it might land much only. i wonder, is there anything here that can unscramble mixed messages? helen thomas there.

we did ask the department for exiting the eu and the department for international trade to join us on the programme but nobody was available. our political editor nick watt is here, though, nick, you have some more details tonight on how the government is getting on with brexit? the government confirmed that the committee stage will begin on the 14th of november, the joke doing the rounds with the backbenches is the government will put out a slew of amendments to its own bill to avoid a tory rebellion. interesting, i was talking to somebody close to the whips, the feeling is they need to reach out to dominic greeve, the former attorney general, who is one of the main potential rebels. it looks like we may have a committee of both houses to look at the so—called henry viii clauses. he is worried the changes could be made without the government having a say. it will be a committee. a traffic light system. another idea he has is that it would bring back the european charter of fundamental rights, that looks more difficult. so, friendly messages there,

but the word from the land of the whips is, we're being nice to you, but we don't have too, because we don't believe the rebels have the numbers. the rebels are saying they mean it, they are serious. universities are feeling a bit picked upon this week. one tory whip appeared to be inquiring about pro—brexit sympathies among the lecturers. he denied it was an attack on free thinking at colleges; but then the daily mail today went in hard on the idea that our universities are a bastion of remainer resistance to the popular will. a kind of fifth column. but would it matter anyway? do we need our academics to be politically representative of a population at large? possibly, you might say, if academics are unaware of their own biases. we'll argue about whether it matters, but first a little evidence on the subject, from our policy editor chris cook. it feels like a culture war is underway in britain. the daily mail is clearly on one side, universities are on the other.

you can see why the mail is grumpy, it's a phenomenon observed around the world that, well, students like dissent, and more educated people tend to skew more liberal. you can see that in the referendum results. 68% of graduates went for remain, but people with the most gcse level qualifications backed leave by similar margins. there are a few threats to consider. first, socialisation. students spent time with other students, whose views are to the left of the country at large. so are those of their lecturers. here's a result of a poll from around the 2015 election, showing the relative support at that moment of the four biggest parties. and here's what things look like just for higher education staff. a lot more labour and lib dem voters are working on campus. second, universities are not as a homogenous as they once were. 15% of academics are from elsewhere in europe, 16% of research funding is from the eu,

the very internationalist bodies. third, the consensus in economics or brexit is that it will leave us poorer. now, the academics may be wrong, and consensus can be afflicted by groupthink and bias. but, by and large, academics will only teach things they genuinely believe to be true. well, with me is steven glover, who wrote a column about this for the mail today, and professor barry smith who lectures in philosophy at the university of london. welcome, both of you. what was your point today, steven, the point of the headline, our remainer universities, what was the fear underlying? i don't write the headlines, but the point was, there are a lot of remainers teaching at our universities. and some of them are probably putting pressure on students to think... it is the pressure on the students?

there are plenty of examples in today's daily mail, universities sending e—mails to students, exhortation is to students to vote in a certain way. and afterwards, other examples, which at the worst involve bullying. so i think it... it blew up because a tory mp wandered naively into a new letter, that's how it blew up. but it is a matter of public interest that universities, which are very good in this country, they do tend to be very, very pro—remain. is it right that the fesses should tell students how to vote? is it right that professors should tell students how to vote?

is that good practice, or advising them how to vote ? they should be putting the arguments before them. when we hear now from the daily mail that there is a worry about so many university professors being anti—brexit, it would be irresponsible not to be, if they think they have arguments and evidence to suggest it might be a bad thing for this country. is it not that there may be biases and prejudices of their own, which they are teaching students? you might lecture students and give them both sides of the argument, or teach them in a broad way, but not profit arising to students. we will have to see. we have heard an act is ace and there is anti—brexit bias. we have to wonder whether they are hearing inconvenient truths. when i hear people say, anti—brexit bias, i don't hear a lot of bottle of the ordinance put forward in universities.

i hear argument is to close down the discussion. the big picture is, though, you are worried because universities are more left—wing than the population at large. a lot of the copy in your column was about left—wing voting, rather than remainers. if they are pointed in a competitive way, does it matter if they end up in quite a different place from the population who are less educated? is that a problem? it is true that intellectuals probably, if you pick 100, 70—80 will be on the left. this turns out to be true everywhere. students go to university to be told, to be taught how to think. that's the point of university. they don't need a newspaper to be told what happens. but your newspaper goes further than that! the daily mail, lots of newspapers say different things, it is just a tiny part of the media. but the average professor,

of course, has just one voice, and there are lots of other voices that affect students. of course, we don't know. i don't think professors should be coerces and should tell students how to vote, or how they should think. barry, i am interested in the issue of biases. do you accent that group thinking, confirmation bias, where you look for information that supports your view. do you think these afflict university teachers? they may do. we teach it, we talk about it, we expose it. groupthink and the consequences of that, and how it might be set up are taught and discussed in psychology. i think we are aware of it some copies are, or even government parties. the thing we must be careful with is the idea

that our younger people, students at university, are so impressionable, so easily led, that if a university professor has a view and expresses it, they take it on immediately. if you do accept that you have these biases, it is quite interesting to be told by a newspaper or a government minister what kind of prevailing views are. it may not be mccarthy, let's just be aware, these are the values you are starting with, and there may be confirmation biases. we need to ask that and look at it. but look, most of the cabinet and most of the previous cabinet in the conservative government were educated at universities. if they are so left wing, i can't see the effect of it seeping in. this may be interesting, because people talk about becoming more right wing and conservative as you get older. this may be a phase they pass through. are you proud of britain's universities? yes. yes, iam. you wrote about them this

morning as hysterical, patronising, elitist. you don't sound very proud. what i said was, the reaction was hysterical. he has been called leninist, accused of censoring universities, it was a straightforward letter, completely open, not perhaps very intelligent. and the reaction... the official point is, you are proud of our universities. they're not perfect. but if you look at the university international league tables, al universities are good. thank you, both, very much. that's all tonight. before we go, canadian artist stan douglas has spent a lot of his career exploring moments which come in his words, ru ptu red moments which come in his words, ruptured the status quo. in his latest exhibition, he has recreated

the london riots of 2011, choosing images from the news and he flew a helicopter over the exact locations, then digitally rendering the pictures. the idea is to get us to pause and consider how police, people and objects are interacting. take a look. good night. the weather is looking good on friday across most of the uk. a lot of sunshine on the way. the morning maybe a little cloudy. some mist and fog in places but, overall, a good day. we've got a lot of cloud at the moment, all we had some cloud earlier across the uk. some cloud lingers across central and southern areas but is this high pressure comes in, we pushed the club towards the south. wind swinging in from the north. skies are clearing. in the south, it's relatively mild, 12 degrees in plymouth but for most of us across degrees in plymouth but for most of us across the country, temperatures of single figures. a chilly start of the day across scotland. northern

england too. temperatures about 5 degrees across the lake district. higher in oxford, double figures across the south and south—west. cornwall, devon, somerset, perhaps will chair, where the cloud could be fixed first thing in the morning. —— wiltshire. later in the morning, not much to say. hardly any wind. it is sunny and a stunning autumn day. one thing that i will point out. to the north across scotland, through the afternoon, wings freshening. gale force winds in the far north for our friends in orkney and shetland. things strengthen on friday to saturday. the weather is not perfect everywhere. but on that beautiful friday it all goes pear shaped. on the saturday, a strong wind is blowing off the atlantic which drags inaof blowing off the atlantic which drags in a of cloud. spots of rain and hill fog in many areas. the east and

the self should be fine on saturday. we have a cold snap on the way, a chilly snap, scotland and these north sea coasts will feel the chill as we move through sunday and into monday. daytime temperatures here of eight or 9 degrees. some showers too. further south, we hang on to knock the warmth but the less cold air. london and plymouth there, london dropping down to 12 degrees. on monday and tuesday, this weather front pushes in from the atlantic. a beautiful day tomorrow, friday, may just be a one—day wonder. enjoy it, if you can. good night from me. i'm in singapore, the headlines. authorities in indonesia are investigating the cause of a fire which left nearly 50 people dead after explosions tore through a fireworks factory.

president trump accuses drug rings in china of flooding the us with cheap and deadly pills, as he declares the opioid crisis a national public health emergency. in our lifetimes nobody has seen anything like what's going on now. i'm in london. also in the programme. a court case in australia could decide the government's fate — with the high court due to rule on whether seven politicians are allowed dual citizenship. a third day of commemorations is taking place in thailand for king bhumibol who was cremated on thursday with mourners