if you're paying so much and you're kind of getting little back, you should think that all the extra stuff around that, all the support and all the pastoral care that you can get, should be at least adequate. hello. it's not how you'd expect charities to make money. a dinnerfor some top business names at the dorchester hotel last thursday — a men only event — at which the rich get drunk and are then turned on by attractive young hostesses, who have to put up from some of the guests with groping and from a minority, worse. a kind of raunchy stag night, in black tie. we can only bring you fleeting pictures from inside, as the hostesses‘ mobile phones were locked away beforehand. the women also had to sign non—disclosure agreements. but what we have, we can report as the financial times sent two women in as hostesses, in an undercover investigation published tonight. now the event does raise money by the way, a couple of million. and it is an annual bash that has been going for many years.

but in the wake of the harvey weinstein revelations, the dinner seems like a piece of the worst of the 1980s — or 50s even — crashing into the modern era. is this the night that unreconstructed attitudes in the city and at the top level of business are exposed? our business editor, helen thomas, reports. a 5—star london location. the guest list scattered with big names and big wallets. and innocuous billing, the president's club charity dinner. this was a charity auction like no other. last week, according to the financial times, 360 men from british business, politics and finance came to a black—tie event here. 360 men but no women except they were joined by 130 hostesses. young women, reportedly chosen for their looks, who are given short, tight dresses to wear. the women, who were paid £150, were paraded in and distributed around the table.

later in the evening, the paper says, hostesses according to the charitable trust's last set of accounts for 2016, —ll; flllillll xl—l 2:22; and it raises a lot of money. in 2016, the charity pulled on an income from its dinner and donations of over £2 million. it donates to various charities involving children and child ren‘s health. its chairman, bruce ritchie, and businessman david meller,

who sits on the board of education and the mayors fund the london. mr ritchie said tonight... the organisers are appalled by allegations of bad behaviour. such behaviour is totally u na cce pta ble. the allegations will be investigated fully and appropriate action taken. the presidents club hostesses had been selected by an agency. it was compered by david walliams. there were tables hosted by wpp, property company frogmore. among those listed as attending were british business figures like peterjones and tim steiner.

it's not clear if all the men listed attended on the night. also the newly appointed education minister. the founder of artistic events said this is a really important charity fundraising event. the newly appointed education minister said he did not stay long enough to comment on the occasion. 0thers declined did not respond to request for comment. this is an outdated event which raises money for good causes for that many of the men may not have been aware of the particular characteristics. some expressed dismay. still, a secretive men—only event feels unusual

in today's modern environment. throw in the hostesses who reportedly had to sign nondisclosure agreements and allegations of lewd behaviour and it feels very odd indeed. big names and big money gives the presidents club mask of responsibility. but that may have masked unstatesmen—like behaviour helen thomas there. we should say that there's no suggestion any of the men named engaged in inappropriate behaviour. certainly, now we all know about the dinner, we can expect a debate about what it tells us. but let's hear from the ft reporter who acted as a hostess that night. earlier i spoke to madison marriage. i asked her what the atmosphere was like. incredibly loud. huge amount of testosterone in the room. excitable, i suppose.

130 women hired as hostesses and you could have a drink or two on the night. you could have a drink on the night. i am not an experienced hostess i have spoken to several who say that is very unusual. did they tell you there would be some groping? how reasonable would it be that women expected what was going to happen? i was warned that people might be annoying. what was your experience of the physicality? i was groped several times. i know numerous other hostesses said the same thing had happened to them. it is hands up skirts, hands on hips, on stomachs, or arms going around your waist unexpectedly. not high—level groping. one of the strangest things you could be talking to a man and he would suddenly start to hold your hand. where you surprised by what you found that you were told they might be annoying and you are paid a couple of hundred

quid for this. did you not think that is what you would get? this event has been running for 33 years. we knew such things went on which is why we wanted to go in there and see it for ourselves. i knew stuff like that might happen on the night but i was not 100% sure. there are plenty of other women who have no idea that was the kind of event it would be. one woman told me that she was shocked. she was asked if she was a prostitute on the night. who were the other women? what are the others? aspiring lawyers, marketing executives, film producers, ambitious young women. you had the students and you also have models, actresses and dancers who do a lot of hostess in work on the time to make ends meet because their work is not very regular. your behaviour was controlled

by your side of it, the agency. for example, at the toilet. i was followed and asked, where are you going and when will you be back? be quick. at three in the morning i had done a ten—hour shift and worked in an office beforehand. i was exhausted. depressed but i had a long day ahead of me on friday. what was the worst you saw on that night? clearly there was a lot of grabbing and groping going on. the worst i was told by a hostess was a man taking his penis out in the course of the dinner. the other one was another man telling hostess to down her glass of champagne, rip off her knickers and dance on the table. i cannot believe it still goes on in 2018, it is shocking.

some people would say, women go for it. some go back time after time. some women find it is fun and receive job offers. that said, i spoke to several women... today i spoke to a woman who said it was the worstjob she had ever done in her life. if you want to run an event where women are voluntarily walking in, in knowledge they will be groped, fine, make that clear in the hiring process. that was not made clear. many women did not have a clue what they were letting themselves in for. the dorchester hotel said it had a zero tolerance policy over groping of any employees. veteran businesswoman nicola horlick

is the chief executive of money and co. she worked in senior city jobs for many years. are you surprised at this? i am seldom speechless but when i read that article i was somewhat speechless. i felt i was reading about something that happened a0 or 50 years ago. the lap dancing culture in which you might see this as on that kind of spectrum. does that still go on? 0ccasionally you read about christmas parties where they have ended up in a lap dancing club but not on the scale it used to happen in the 80s and early 90s. i thought we had moved on from this. wpp, their biggest communications company in the country have said they will not be having any association with this event in the future and they did not know about what went on. what is your impression of the clients? how do you think theyjustified to themselves sitting in something so obviously not?

their host says it is the most un—pc event in the year. what do you think about them? i don't know how anyone can justify it. can you imagine a group of women getting together and hosting a dinner getting some young guys around ? you could not imagine a chippendales type thing on the stage. i don't think so but it is highly and rightly we would organise such a thing. it seems so weird, so out of keeping with the present day. the hollywood thing is slightly different. hollywood is not organised in the way that large companies are. it does not have hr departments. lots of producers are acting on their own, so you can see how that could have happened in 2017/ 18. with this, you have major companies, highly regarded business people. what about their wives? what will i think now they have seen this footage?

this has divided viewers to women. i bet hr departments all have very good policies, written policies on employment and equal pay and then they go off and do a night like that. it is very hard to understand. one of the interesting aspects is the nondisclosure agreement. the other thing is the contracts of the hostesses saying the club should not be held liable for any actions of members, staff or attendees that amounts to harassment. can you say they have no responsibility for whatever anyone does? you cannot sign away your rights in a contract. what does the city need to do now? for a lot of people it will be a bit of a shock. not a shock that it was happening, the shock that it is happening. a big shock.

also that it was in aid of charity and charities like great 0rmond street and st thomas‘s hospital are recipients of this money. they must be wondering whether their name should be associated with it. i hope this event will not be happening next year. let's put it this way. it is 35 years since i went into the city and i am a little bit sad that things have not really changed that much. i was also interested that some women said they got some job offers from people. what is going on there? that is also quite curious. it is a strange way to go about it. nowadays is it is terribly rigid. you cannot say i met an attractive young woman and have offered her a pajob. that sounds highly strange was even graduate recruitment is very orchestrated and it is very hard for a senior executive did tenor others here want this goal to work with me. in yourjunior days,

sexism was rife. no, i was fortunate, i worked for a bank in the city that was a fantastic organisation, a true meritocracy, and i was made a director in my 20s and because i reach that at an early age after that people respected and fortunately i have never been put in that position but i am concerned about girls put in that position at this event. nicola, thank you. we have to say they're meant who did not know what was on the agenda. i understand nadhim zahawi

was invited by david meller, the businessman, not the former conservative cabinet minister. this david meller is the director of department for education where nadhim zahawi was appointed minister. i understand they left this event early because they felt it was a bizarre and uncomfortable event. it is worth pointing out he has been to the event before. that is before he was elected an mp in 2010 but as i understand it he felt the event was completely different to the event he attended last week. i was told a senior member of david cameron's cabinet did attend this event whilst they were a member of david cameron's cabinet. i have to say i have not been able to verify that. it's been a funny old

few days in politics. just when theresa may's position was looking stable, there was sudden backbench chatter that she was lacking ambition — short of ideas. "dull, dull, dull", said one, nicholas soames. and then a sudden boris johnson initiative — pre—briefing that he wanted more money invested into the nhs and would be arguing for that in cabinet. that's not how cabinet is normally done. 0ur political editor, nick watt, is here. how did his demands go down? asking for extra money for the nhs and then downing street keen to say no member of the cabinet mentioned any bigger. this was not a great day for borisjohnson and indeed theresa may led to the isolation of borisjohnson at this cabinet when she opened it by saying it is an important discussion by the nhs and we need to have these discussions in private and we around

this cabinet table want to be able to spend the additional money the uk can spend after it leaves the eu on the nhs but now is not the time to do that and she was supported by almost every member of the cabinet apart from michael gove, still there with borisjohnson and i understand there was a very strong intervention, pointed intervention, by amber rudd, singling out boris johnson. what did borisjohnson‘s team say? it would be fair to say he is chastened this evening. he said to his friends he mucked up. well, it rhymes with "mucked." his frustrations with brexit and the way it has been negotiated are well known and he has concerns about the prime minister's overall timidity. but he is admitting the cabinet gave him a kicking.

i am told he regarded amber rudd's intervention as personally offensive but there is one silver lining. he believes philip hammond's robotic response, "i gave the nhs £5 billion," means people who want in the conservative party to protect the nhs might be thinking of turning to borisjohnson rather than the chancellor. thank you. too many students are taking their own lives, while at university. we know it can be hard for some young people to cope, a long way from home for the first time. and it is hard forfamily and old friends to spot what's going on from miles away. the numbers have been rising shockingly over the last decade. in 2016, 146 full—time students killed themselves in england and wales, almost a 60% rise over the ten years before. in a few moments, we'll ask the big question — how can universities help students cope with the stress of self—discovery, and any associated confusion, loneliness or depression? but first, let's hearfrom bristol,

a city that has experienced the pain of several student suicides in the last 18 months. james clayton has been there today. earlier this month, a third—year law student studying at bristol was found dead. the university has said it was a suspected suicide. in the last 18 months, seven students are believed to have taken their lives at the university and the deaths have put the spotlight on how universities can help students with mental—health problems. numerous studies have found that students are increasingly reporting mental health illness in further education. one study by the institute for public policy research found students are at risk in a unique way, a cocktail of stressful factors including financial, social and academic pressures. there is a toxic mix of things impacting on this generation. that includes unrealistic expectations they have

of themselves. this can be compounded by the fact with the advent of social media, students never have any downtime, and often feeling inadequate because what they see is the highlights of each other‘s lives. universities have a duty of care towards students but what that duty in tales is not clear. i think our duty of care as a university is to be alert to the fact we have increasing numbers of students with additional support needs. and to aim to support those students in order that they are able to engage with their studies and make the most of their time at university and also to recognise we are not a health service, as the question indicates, it can be a grey area. the university says it is improving pastoral care, investing in £1 million additionally annually in a student well—being service but not everybody is impressed.

this is the well—being editor at the bristol student newspaper. is there an expectation students should expect better services including mental health services? definitely, students pay so much for academic help and get their degrees so especially if you pay so much anger little back, you should think the extra staff, the support and pastoral care should be at least adequate. for students to feel they have somewhere safe to go. are they adequate here? at bristol, no. i do not think... i think they recognise things need to change but they are scrambling after the rise in mental health issues and it should be the other way round. university students ultimately fall into a grey area. legally adults but often onlyjust. as the mental health needs of young people are changing, some are increasingly looking at how universities can meet the needs of students. the question is, how big a role can they should they be playing? with me in the studio

is graduate vivienne isebor, who spent months looking for mental health support at her university. and joining us from bristol is professor steve west, chair of universities uk's working group on mental health in higher education and vice—chancellor of the university of the west of england. your experience, you had a bad time in yourfinal year, and was being at university, did it make it more difficult than being at home? was it different being a student? the fact you are away from home, especially staying on campus, and everybody is busy, so even having friends on campus

does not necessarily mean someone is checking up on you, but the stress of deadlines and trying to stay on top of things it is hard to feel connected and part of something and if you are struggling you can fall through the net and nobody realises. you can retreat and people notice you are not around as much that they do not know something is wrong? you can go under the radar and because you are busy and your parents are not able to see. the number of suicides and other mental—health problems seem to be rising faster than student numbers. is there an easy answer to what is going on or is itjust diagnosis and reporting? i do not think it is diagnosis and reporting,

although that is getting better. 50% of school leavers go to university, a massive increase in numbers coming into universities. the social constructs they are leaving and going into adds pressure. i think universities are beginning to recognise that we need to do more thanjust is what required in terms of statutory responsibilities. we need students to flourish and we need to do more work. is it your contention the rise is mainlyjust because many more people are going to university and you expect more to have problems, or is there something else going on? there is something else going on because what we see is more people entering university declaring they have mental ill— health as they arrive at university. as they transition into the university through it, we see increasing demand as they go through the transition. they are vulnerable young people experiencing a continuum of ill—health as part of their overall mental health. let's talk about treatment.

you knew something was wrong and wanted help. you had to wait ages? it was constantly signposted. my gp signposted me back to university and they signposted me to a counsellor and a signpost is me on again and it was a cycle and when i got help it was three months after i first went to see the gp. by that time, you got help in the end, is that right? in the end i got cbt off—campus but it was a referral through the counsellor at the university. during those three months, how serious was your condition? it was pretty bad. i was missing lectures and seminars. i was missing deadlines. i had friends able to help me through and get on top of a few things but i was not able to do my degree. when you got help, the waiting time was so long you had to skip a year and do it again? they gave me an extension is part of the circumstances but it was quite squashed so i could not hit the grade

i wanted. professor, has treatment kept up with student numbers of the provision of services with the numbers who have problems when they arrived? we have seen massive increases and there is variability in the sector. the project we are running, the step change project, it tries to identify best practice in universities and evidence —based soup to support interventions. what would be your best practice? to create an environment where students feel empowered to seek help, and an entire community of staff and students working together to support each other. having permission to have conversations and to say it is ok to not be ok is an important step.

we can start to target resources in an appropriate way. that has a prevention effect as much as a curative one? absolutely, we need to get to the point where we are working with students and staff. we all have mental health and have periods where our mental health is poorer in other periods. we need to be on to work with that as well as provide treatment with services and charities when people are falling into mental ill— health. there is a continuing but we need to engage with the entire community. to work with schools and parents as well as students. thank you both. if you are feeling emotionally distressed, and would like details of organisations which offer advice and support, go online to bbc.co.uk/actionline. or you can call for free, at any time, to hear recorded information — 0800 066 066. whatever happens to the prices of bitcoin and its many derivatives over the next few months, and they've been volatile to say

the least over the lsat few, the consensus is that the technology underlying bitcoin — called blockchain — is highly valuable. it is the security of the system, and it manages the supply of bitcoin. and one of the clever things about blockchain, is that it is made to work by a disparate set of self—appointed custodians, called miners. the whole brilliance of blockchain is how it creates scarcity and security of bitcoin, while managing to reward miners for making it all hold it together. the miners don't even have to go underground or dirty their hands. our technology editor, david grossman, has been looking more closely at what they do. lost in a cryptocurrency maze, which is pretty fitting,

because cryptocurrencies, like their most famous incarnation bitcoin, are based on extremely complicated puzzles. these puzzles are programmed into the source code for bitcoin. roughly every ten minutes or so, a new puzzle is released and computers all over the world race to solve it. because the value of bitcoin has gone up so markedly over the last year or so, well, this activity has become more and more popular. it can be fabulously lucrative. it's called bitcoin mining. cryptocurrencies like bitcoin don't have a central register. their strength comes from having what is called a distributed ledger. it's a blockchain. the blocks on the blockchain contain details of every transaction

in the currency‘s history. as new transactions happen, they have to be placed in blocks and added to the chain. a new block contains roughly 2500 new transactions and, to validate the new block, each one contains the answer to the puzzle from the last block. success. this is the work the bitcoin miners are doing and if they, like me, succeed and solve the puzzle first, well, their reward is 12 and a half freshly released bitcoin. and then, well the whole process starts again with a new puzzle. the more computers and more computing power that is actually mining bitcoin, the more secure the network is from some type of cyber attack or attempted theft.

the bitcoin miners are also processing the transaction, so if i were to send a bitcoin to you, a miner would actually verify that that transaction was legitimate before it was added to the blockchain, which is simply a ledger of all the bitcoin transactions in existence. # working in a coal mine, going on down, down # working in a coal mine, oops about to slip down.# so what does bitcoin mining actually looked like? well, it is taking place through those doors. i'm in a facility somewhere near london, that's all i can tell you. we're not allowed to give its precise location. you may be able to detect already something about bitcoin mining. it's incredibly noisy and it's about to get a whole lot noisier when we go in there, so we need these. and the first thing you notice in here is it's not only

extremely noisy, it's extremely hot, as well. today's miners aren't the grimy—faced men of granite of the past. today, they have silk pocket squares. they produce around 100 decibels. it is basically like a jet getting off the ground. can you open it up and we can have a look? absolutely, yes. don't show the combination! so these are bitcoin miners? vlad runs 63 mining computers. it is like a hairdryer, isn't it? this is, he says, a spectacularly profitable enterprise. but... of course, there is no guarantee in anything, even if you buy dollars or the euro, there is no guarantee,

because the price keeps changing — its volatility. you can guarantee your result in bitcoins. basically you already know the network difficulty. you can keep track of it. you know the performance of the miners and you know your running costs, so it is quite easy to calculate your net profit in bitcoin. what you don't know is the bitcoin exchange rate at any given time. so you of course depend on bitcoin‘s volatility. what is the profit margin in an industry like bitcoin mining, now? the profit margin, it doesn't really matter where you are, you can be in the uk, china, iceland and other countries. but roughly, usually, your running costs are about 25% of your revenue. which makes a net profit of around 75%, which is a very high margin. that's why lots of people are in it now? yes, i think so. there is huge concern about how much energy is now being spent bitcoin mining. all those computers churning away all over the world. estimates vary about how much power they are using. some say it's as much

as monaco uses annually. others say it is the same as ireland's annual consumption. i think what gets missed off in this conversation is that the costs of other aspects of our financial system — the mining of the metals that go in into our coins. the operations of payment centres and bank branches and atms, paper currency and shipping all this around, is also consuming a lot of electricity. it has a pretty big carbon footprint as well. when you compare bitcoin‘s carbon footprint to our current financial system's carbon footprint, it doesn't look quite as bad. the amount of energy used by bitcoin is going up and up — partly because people are using more and more powerful computers for mining. the bitcoin algorithm actually adjusts the difficulty of the problem to make sure it only gets solved every ten minutes. as the total computing power engaged in mining goes up, so does the difficulty. nobody really expected it would become such a big thing.

so in the beginning you just had people mining bitcoin with their laptops and computers, so it was relatively easy to get one. mostly people are using antminers, which come from china. they are kind of very optimised, very powerful graphics cards, but only can do one task. they can only mine bitcoins, so you can't use them for any other currencies, apart from bitcoin cash. so which direction is this currency going now? the only thing we can say for sure is the bitcoin mines will fall silent one day. bitcoin source code only allows the creation of 21 million bitcoin, which, at the rate the puzzle is being solved every ten minutes, will hit in 2140. what a bitcoin will be worth next week is hard enough to predict, so who knows what the economics of this cryptocurrency will be by then? south africa is mourning the death of hugh masekela.

he was notjust one of the old guard of anti—apartheid campaigners who, exiled in 1990, stuck with the cause and saw his homeland transformed. he was also a legendaryjazz trumpeter who used his music to make a political point. known as bra hugh in his home country, he was 78 and died of prostate cancer. he'd been diagnosed in 2008, and had been campaigning for men to get regular check ups. so, we thought we'd close the programme today by hearing british jazz saxophonist and radio 3 presenter, soweto kinch — a friend, collaborator and admirer of masekele — play out with a jazz tribute to him. but before we do, let's talk to him. he was, i got muddled in my dates. he was excised in 1960, all the way through to 1990. an extraordinary long time. he really was out of the country.

he actually managed to be a very effective anti—apartheid campaigner from outside. you have to remember there were thousands of x—filesjust like him, not just musicians but mechanics, lawyers and doctors who cast away from their native land and had to make do mozambique, nigeria. one thing that struck me in the few shows i played with him whether of former exiles who had come to remember. the story was he was using politically charged music to motivate. what was he doing? a lot has been spoken about his political fight and being an agitator. in my personal interaction with him he was calm and charming. there was a real fire between his eyes but an ability to galvanise people through sometimes joy and celebration is quite a revolutionary act.

i remember there was a time when very ambivalent attitudes towards the anc existed in the west and whether it was a good force or a terrorist force. maybe it was that you were talking about. absolutely. i don't think the same tension between terrorist and read fight was there with people in the diaspora. he was instrumental, particularly in the song, soweto blues, which was recorded to commemorate what happened in 1976. instrumental in getting the story out there. that is what i owe my name to. he was instrumental, particularly in the song, soweto blues, which was recorded to commemorate what happened in 1976. instrumental in getting the story out there. that is what i owe my name to. the musical legacy, their musical style, how would you characterise it? he managed to embody something we all strive for as jazz musicians. it is about finding their own voice and

articulating their own culture and background. that is what he did. he revolutionised the way phrasing was done with the trumpet. township jazz is the phrase. you have been to south africa so many times they named the township after you. true story! you are going to play for us now. thank you for that. that's it then for tonight. emily is here tomorrow but here to play us out with hugh masekela's grazing in the grass, here's soweto kinch. good night. hello. the weather will be turning considerably more disturbed at the moment. and stormers passing to the north—west of the british isles,

named storms georgina by the irish weather service. it is likely to bring gales and heavy rain. the storm is still deepening, the area of low pressure drifting to the north—west of scotland. look at those of white lines, gusty winds overnight and particularly in the north—west. windy wherever you wide. if you are out and about early tomorrow morning, a lighter showers at eight o'clock around that area of low pressure in the wind is he giving you an idea of how strong we expect the gust to be. 50, 60, possibly up to 80 miles an hour in exposed spots. across england and wales we have a strike of web weather, a band of potentially heavy rain accompanied by squally wind which will drift slowly southwards and eastwards. if you run through the weather tomorrow you can see a band of rain, an active weather front drifting south—east. heavy rain and squally wind. behind that,

the sky will brighten and we will see spells of sunshine. showers packing in from the west and no showers are likely to be wintry because the air will turn that bit colder. 0ne because the air will turn that bit colder. one of those days tomorrow when the end of the day will be colder than the start of the day. to chill a working its way in and that will be with us during tomorrow night, certainly much cooler than the night we have at the moment. clear spells were showers into the west and overnight lows of 2— seven degrees. thursday does not look too bad. spells of sunshine around. another area of low pressure, not a potent one but it will take a cluster of showers eastwards as we go on through the day with sunny spells to be had. temperature is a little lower although that is not too bad at all for this time of year. in that area of low pressure it will clear away on thursday night friday morning should bring a bump of high pressure in across the scene. if the timing is right that could calm things down enough for a

touch of frost on friday morning. a nice they were spells of sunshine. still with a slightly chilly feel but as we head into the weekend the signs are that the temperature will begin to climb again and there will begin to climb again and there will bea begin to climb again and there will be a lot of cloud with outbreaks of rain in the north—west and hopefully some sunshine. a lot going on with the weather. met office warnings of in force that you can read about on oui’ in force that you can read about on our website but for now, good night. i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: free trade in a spin, as president trump slaps tariffs on some asian imports. executive actions uphold the principle of fair trade and demonstrate to the world that united states will not be taken advantage of any more. the us attorney general becomes the first member of president trump's cabinet to be questioned by russia's special counsel. i'm babita sharma in london.

i'm babita sharma in londonlj i'm babita sharma in london. i have to tell you something, i have been dating this girl.