we could be talking about the warmest day of the year so far, only 28th of january. while they are all the way from the atlantic has gathered quite a bit of moisture. it is bringing with it a fair amount of cloud but the hills of wales are acting as a good break for the midlands, taking out a lot of the cloud. lots of sunshine here at the moment. and high ground generally this afternoon is the best of the breaks. temperatures may even up to 15 celsius. always more cloud across scotla nd 15 celsius. always more cloud across scotland and some rain in the afternoon. far north of scotland, chilly air. this front and the colder air all coming south overnight tonight. monday, we will see some change in the weather. england and wales will get grey and murkier spells of rain sinking south and then clearer and brighter conditions from the north as the hours go by. you get the sunshine, lose the warmth and in the south, you are still stuck with the cloud, temperatures of 11 or 12 could be yours. this is bbc news — our latest headlines:

police investigating the deaths of three teenagers who were hit by a car in west london on friday are trying to establish how many people were in the vehicle. the cabinet office minister david lidington urges the conservatives to "come together" amid growing rifts in the party over brexit. hospitals in the afghan capital, kabul, struggle to cope with casualties from a suicide bombing that killed at least 95 people and injured 158 others. water levels are continuing to rise along the river seine in paris following some of the heaviest rain for a century. now on bbc news it's time for dateline london with jane hill. hello and a warm welcome

to dateline london. the conversation has already begun. i'm jane hill. thanks very much for being with us. this week we are asking — was anything achieved at the world economic forum in davos? what do the british chancellor's comments there tell us about brexit? and the situation on the syria—turkey border — what is the us going to do about its muddle in the middle east? my guests this week — already wonderfully talkative, eunice goes, the portuguese writer and journalist. henry chu, the international editor of variety magazine. the british political commentator and author, steve richards. and the french—algerian journalist, nabila ramdani. a very warn welcome to all of you. we start this week in the swiss resort of davos, where donald trump was the first us president to attend

the world economic forum for 18 years. his presence attracted an enormous amount of attention, just as he likes it. was there a shade less protectionism in his speech, perhaps, than had been anticipated? you might have thought by the end of the week that the gathering was all about trump. of course, the world's political and business elite was there as well. emmanuel macron of france called for greater co—operation — so did germany's angela merkel. but was she overshadowed by him? and as for brexit, while theresa may was keen to discuss the issue of internet reform, her chancellor was ruffling feathers, not least in his own party, when he suggested that actually after march 2019, divergence in trade between britain and the eu would be pretty modest. we'll come onto brexit in a while. let's begin with the bigger picture, everything we heard at davos. what was under discussion? henry, let's start with you. we will start with the president, and the first visit for nearly 20 years. was it more conciliatory than perhaps the audience anticipated? i think people were bracing

for a very nativist speech, something that would be fiery and along the kind of pugnacious rhetoric that we are used to from trump. so it did sound a bit more temperate. he said america first, but not america alone. that isn't a bad phrase. this is the first president to visit for many years. he had never been invited before as trump, as a businessman until now, as president. i think with trump you always have to be careful about rhetoric and then actual policy. he is hard to nail down. he says one thing one day, but his administration does another. he will say, as he did at davos, we are not protectionist in the scary way the press are portraying, and yet at the same time, tariffs have been slapped on solar panels, on washing machines from allies like south korea and also on china. it is hard to marry his rhetoric with the actions the administration takes. did you pick up on a sigh of relief from other countries? what was your take on how he was received?

i think it was clear that he made an effort to sound conciliatory. that he made an effort to address that particular audience of businessmen, plutocrats, and so on. but he couldn't help but make a few sleights against the media, and that didn't go down well with the audience. i think people were, as henry said, perhaps expecting a more nativist speech. that didn't come true. he is, afterall, the president of the united states and maybe there is now a bit of expectation that he is a bit house—trained, in terms of getting into the wording and the style of being a president of the united states. but i think people are not holding their breaths for very long. because, as henry also said, there is what he says and then what the administration does. in terms of his attack on the media, he is still aware of his base back at home. being at davos, which as you say is with a crowd of plutocrats, oligarchs,

people with vast amounts of wealth, so different from his core voters, he has to also make some sort of show that he still keeps those voters in mind. so attacking the media is very popular with that base, as well as, i think he said, we should not forget those who have been left behind and forgotten. he had to make some of those sops in his speech as well. what i thought was interesting about the speech, it was a well constructed speech. i don't know if he wrote it or somebody else did. but it was still full of contradictions. he put a huge focus on the fact that he despised regulations and was getting rid of loads of them. but he is a regulator. immigration and his plans for that will involve bureaucracy coming out of the united states' ears. he praised all the tax cuts and condemned government. and yet, he is pledged to be one of the biggest spenders, apparently, on infrastructure and capital spending of any president. so, like a lot of outsiders, he is not alone in this. his actual ideas, even

in a relatively coherent speech, are wholly contradictory and confused. was he — is there not a valid point though into the broader point american economy is good for the global economy? he is effectively saying everybody benefits. well, i must say that davos is always a conciliatory affair. there is something about the beautiful surroundings and the sense of varnished privilege that makes everybody relaxed and happy. donald trump, in particular, sounded as if he wanted to get on with everybody, to be nice and civilised towards everybody, and he was exceptionally fawning towards britain, continually saying what a great country he thinks it is. i think he feels that a visit to the uk is very important to his legacy and he wants to be loved here. but of course the truth is that millions of britons view him asa pariah and will let him know this when he eventually visits. i think the only group that trump expressed his usual venal prejudice towards at davos

was the palestinians. of course, at the time, he was sitting next to his ideological ally and close friend, benjamin netanyahu, and he effectively said he wanted to stop millions of dollars of aid to palestinians because the palestinian authority showed disrespect, as he put it, towards mike pence, his vice president, during his recent visit to israel. so, essentially, donald trump accuses the palestinians of not being polite enough as their land is stolen, as they are routinely murdered in their thousands, imprisoned in their hundreds, and undergo all manners of human rights abuses. there was, of course, no mention of the incredibly provocative decision to move the us embassy to jerusalem, while completely ignoring the palestinian right to east jerusalem as their capital. what i found particularly disdainful is the way trump threatened to wash his hands of the entire israel peace process, making that out he had enough

—— making out that he had enough of the boorish palestinians, again signalling that they should somehow accept their fate and also be polite towards the billions of dollars poured into israel to ruin their lives. and we will certainly talk about that on another day. davos is the world economic forum. that is what it is and that is what it's there for. away from trump, he arrived later in the week. you have all described it in fascinating terms. is this a glorious talking shop? is itjust an opportunity for people to get together and network? is it about that as much as anything? does it achieve anything in policy terms? i think it is the place where politicians go and present their visions. it is where the plutocrats of the world feel good about themselves. because for three days they will discuss inequality, refugees, all the problems of the world that very often they have contributed to create, but they are there discussing potential solutions. for the politicians, it is the perfect platform to talk about their visions.

that was clearly the case of emmanuel macron, the french president, who used the opportunity to say that france is back and it is a france that will lead in europe. very different for theresa may, on the other hand, the british prime minister, who seems really out of place in davos. it is a place of posturing. she is not a prime minister who likes to posture. she feels very uncomfortable. she looks very uncomfortable. she is also not a visionary. that has been one of her greatest handicaps as a prime minister. and she doesn't seem to like the attention, which is something very strange for a politician who reached the heights of political power. normally politicians are very vain. and sometimes in a very good manner. you could say it is quite striking that she is like that. it is. as opposed to an awful lot. absolutely. it is fascinating because what her chancellor said in davos caused all kinds of ructions back here —

the use of the word ‘modest‘. it's remarkable what she has come back to, isn't it? yeah, and what eunice said about theresa may, that is very perceptive. in britain as in the united states we tend to elect actors as prime ministers. not just that, but they love the performance of politics and the art of politics. they spend a lot of time reflecting on their own role on the stage. she is a publicly awkward, shy figure, who clearly doesn't like that side of politics, and it is unusual in britain to have that kind of prime minister. on philip hammond — in fairness to hammond, what he said does not necessarily contradict the government's position. because the government's position is still so vague on brexit. virtually anything can be said and could fit in. so what he said, he subsequently defended by saying, "but we are hoping to have as close to a free trade agreement as possible with the rest of the european union." but what isn't clear is how that becomes possible. so he can pop up and say, "look, don't worry, things can be pretty much the same."

that is true. that is the government's aim. but they are still at their have—their—cake—and—eat—it phase of their objectives. equally, you could have another hardline brexit minister pop up and say, "we must have the right from march of next year to start trading with other countries as a separate country outside the single market, outside the customs union." which implies a very big break with the rest of the european union. so we are more or less a year away from this happening. and actually, you could have two wildly different interpretations from different senior cabinet ministers of what will happen. they can both claim it is close to government policy because government policy is so imprecise. and this circles right back to theresa may. if you had a strong enough

prime minister who was able to exert discipline and actually have a unified vision for a cabinet, it doesn't mean you have no dissent at all, but it means you can manage it in a way she hasn't been, we wouldn't be in this position and we would be further along in terms of brexit negotiations than we are. the fact that anyone, as you say, steve, can say x or y and it somehow seems consonant with government policy, it means you don't have a policy at all. if you are a policy of everywhere, you are a policy of nowhere, just as she said of citizenships. how much longer until a decision has to be made? it has to come down one way or the other, ultimately, doesn't it? it looks like theresa may is hoping that we get to the period, march 2019, she will be going through the transition period, that now might go up to three years, without any clear vision of what brexit actually means. this is what i think she hopes for. interesting. nabila.

i think psychologically brexiteers will insist that something very big happens in march 2019. all the indications are that very little will happen and instead britain will continue to muddle through a transition period while there is no certainty in the meantime. there is no concrete policies. this to me shows what a vague concept brexit always was. there has never been any question of britain ending its dealings with the european union. i think people who voted to leave felt that they knew what they were voting for. you are saying politically, it is not...? i think the in and out referendum, fooled many into thinking it was actually possible. what, in fact, britain is doing at the moment is redefining its relationship with the eu, which is very different from leaving the eu completely. in fairness to theresa may, even if she was replaced, and there is now talk about that, it is beginning to happen again amongst conservative mps, it is very hard to see, even if a titan who liked the theatre of politics, who had a very clear idea of what form brexit should take,

could guide his or her parliamentary party, could get a deal through this particular house of commons. now it might be, in the end, that she gets quite a bad deal if it's still her and it still gets through the house of commons because of various factors. but if the deal is defeated in the house of commons, then the united kingdom is in an extraordinary constitutional crisis. remember, it's a hung parliament — it's not impossible. but i think if she were to be replaced — a, that would throw the brexit negotiations into complete disarray. there would be a tory leadership contest. and there are presumably lots of people making that point in the party? you talk to people in the party in westminster all the time. are people saying that would be more disruptive

than sticking with what is happening now? there are some stirrings, people saying, "this is going so badly wrong that we have to act." but most people i speak to still say that would disrupt the negotiations. the brexiteers, some of them say, that might jeopardise brexit, which is what they have been waiting for since they were six months old! laughter so the sort of forces that keep her in place all of these sort of negative ones. if we do this, that could happen. if we do that, that could happen. that is not that unusual with british prime ministers. quite a few have been kept in place for many years for fear of the alternative being worse. and that keeps her in place for now. politics is so febrile in the united kingdom, as in many other countries, that could change very quickly. it is those kind of forces that at the moment mean she keeps the job. isn't this the bed, again, that she made, that she's having to lie on? she has no full majority of her party in the house of commons, because she chose to call an election which she essentially

lost, and now we are in this kind of situation that we're and it goes back to her yet again, doesn't it? there is no doubt that the election is the context of everything. it is very unusual for a leader to lose a majority for their party and stay on. she stayed on. it explains the sort of enhanced authority ofjeremy corbyn. the election of last year changed everything in the uk. and, of course, it is the context of the precarious brexit talks. if she had a big majority, she could basically tell her party what form brexit would take and they would vote for it. and she lost it. it does feel like a particularly interesting period at the moment. you'll be back with us in weeks to come discussing all of that. wild politics at the moment. thank you for now. let's cast our net much further afield, because also in the last week, for the last week really, turkey has been sending tanks into north—western syria to fight the kurdish ypg militia. though turkey is sheltering three million refugees from the

seven—year—long civil war in syria, it's alarmed by the ypg, which it regards as terrorists linked to the banned pkk, carving out land along the long border between the two countries. turkey is the us‘s nato ally. the kurds have been a support to the us in the drive to eliminate so—called islamic state. the us, therefore, appears to be on two sides in one war. so what happens now? nabila — president erdogan on friday saying that this offensive could continue and could even intesify. first off, the us role in this, is it in a muddle here? what does it do to resolve it? well, i think we can spend plenty of time working out how donald trump gets out of a muddle. but the truth is, everything about him seems to be based on muddle. he is arguably the most inconsistent, confused and thoroughly unprincipled us president in history. which is saying something. i actually think the phrase

"muddling along" suits him perfectly. because all his policies, if they can be called that, are based on pettiness and mood swings. the reality is that the kurds are a decidedly unusual ally to trump's america. they are internationalist and leftist by nature. they want to get rid of borders. but they are, of course, anti—islamist, which, sadly and utterly unjustly, has become a byword for anti—islam. anybody who is anti—islam is ok by donald trump. that is why he ended up supporting britain first — although he apparently has apologised for that now. and turkey is a nato ally. and america will be duty—bound to support them, even though the turks generally view the kurds as terrorists. you mentioned the pkk. it's a party that been calling for an independent kurdish state —— it's a party which has an armed

branch that has been calling for an independent kurdish state within turkey for decades. but it is also lending military support to the kurds currently fighting in syria, but also in iraq. it is a listed terrorist organisation, notjust by turkey, but also by several states and organisations, including nato, the us and the european union. so the fudge is that kurdish militia groups come in a number of different varieties. and america will continue backing what they view as the good kurds to try to wipe out groups like isis. but we have to remember that historically powerful nation states, and especially america, have been palling up with ideological adversaries to fight a common enemy. they have done that in latin america, supporting the guerrilla groups, the contras, and more recently in libya, supporting the rebels,

many of whom were al-qaeda affiliated. we also must bear in mind that a lot of that logistical support that will be provided in particularly muddled theatres of war will be covert. so trump's america will be offering an awful lot of logistical support without anybody, let alone the turks, knowing about it. he will keep instructing his commanders to do what they have to do to try to eradicate isis. it is notjust the us though, is it? all western nations, if they had to pick one primary aim in that region, everybody wants to eliminate so—called islamic state. that is something that an awful lot of countries agree on. we discuss it all the time. absolutely. knowing your enemy is the famous saying about the art of war. but it just shows how difficult it is to identify your enemies nowadays. we have got into such a complicated — you know, the world is so complicated, especially in the middle east, where it is hard to identify where the alliances lie, and we have increasingly mass combat groups substituting for traditional armies.

eunice, i want to talk about the tillerson speech. the point here is that we need to think about what triggered this reaction from turkey. it is essentially the united states going back on promises made a few years ago of our support of the kurdish militias only goes this far. in recent weeks we have the us announcing that they are going to build a 30,000—strong border separating turkey from syria. and that's essentially seen as a massive threat by turkey. if we add to the us's recognition of jerusalem if we add to that the us's recognition of jerusalem as the capital of israel, this is something that profoundly irritated turkey. erdogan, in fact, turkey was quite instrumental in making sure there would be a vote against the united states at the united nations. there is quite a lot of dissonance between turkey and the united states.

there is turkey becoming very strategic in its relations with russia as well. and, of course, they are, and you would think the trump administration would understand that, the way they see it — they are securing their border. you would think the trump administration would understand the importance of a border. not that i ever feel like absolving the trump administration of anything, but we should remember that it was under 0bama that we first started to support the kurds as our proxies in that fight. and the us choosing questionable allies to prosecute the war against isis has been true from the very beginning. we have also partnered up with islamic radicals in the region. the good ones, we somehow decided they were because they were also taking it to isis. this dates back before the trump administration, but now trump finds himself in the middle of this morass. and rex tillerson has been talking about it again this week. did you detect any

shift in us policy? did it become any clearer? i didn't detect a shift in us policy overall. if you took it back to the 0bama administration, which was also looking at this as a longer term project. but it was a shift from donald trump's own vision of no more foreign entanglements, of being much more isolationist. because what you had tillerson saying at stanford university was actually that we, as the us, are going to be in there for the long haul, both diplomatically and militarily, to help build up in the sense of nation—building, syria. this is precisely what donald trump said he wanted to get us out of. whether they will devote the resources to that is another story. so, you have a policy. do they have a strategy to realise it? i'm not sure they do. this is all part and parcel of wider american — notjust trump — wider american muddle in that region and getting themselves into a quagmire that we haven't figured out how to extract ourselves from. and does it ultimately then — if there aren't the resources to back up what rex tillerson said, are they hoping that it falls to

regional actors? well, i think state governments can call these groups terrorists or freedom fighters, depending on their ideology or allegiances. what we know is that these allegiances can and do change over time. just look at how gaddafi was a close ally of the west before they turned on him. so if i were the kurds, i would be very guarded, that the us might turn on them as well, once they feel the job has been done. historically, powerful nations have always used other groups as cannon fodder. the french used north africans in africa and in world conflicts. there is nothing new there, frankly. and with president erdogan on friday saying this could intensify, the tanks will keep rolling across the border, this continues with the world watching on? i think it's going to be quite dangerous if he continues pushing. unfortunately, in the wider context of us—turkey relations,

they haven't been worse in a long time. besides this conflict, there is already the sense in turkey of a conspiracy on the part of some in the us of trying to overthrow the erdogan government, because there is a cleric named fethullah gulen, who resides in the us who was probably behind the coup that was put down a couple of years ago. i think this whole situation is now at a point where nobody really kind of knows how to get out it. it'll be interesting to see how the european member states of nato will react. will they come in defence of turkey? there is also the un agreement with regards to refugees. the european dimension, that is also fraying. the cooperation between turkey and the european union is fraying. but will london and paris come to help or at least support erdogan? that is something we will watch in the coming weeks. that is what we wait to see in the coming weeks. thank you very much to all of you.

good to see you as ever. that's all we have time for on dateline london this week. we'll be back with more passionate debate next week at the same time. thanks for being with us today. bye bye. hello. some very mild weather across the british isles today, in fact it could turn out to be the warmest day of the year so far, not saying much because it is only 28 january but today if you see the sunshine, high of 15 degrees could be yours, the mild air has come from across the atlantic, with the moisture underneath it has picked up some and it turned into cloud, some western hills command here we are, with this picture across bristol recently the cloud is hanging low and it's a grey

and dreary picture but that shelter around some of our coasts, glorious sunshine in devon. to give us an idea how it shapes up across the british isles as a whole here is the satellite picture, the white areas showed the biggest cloud but the welsh mountains taking up the cloud for the midlands, right the way through into east anglia and the south—east for this afternoon it should clear up. breezy story throughout and again it could continue to break up the cloud, the cloud for northern scotland, though, much more stubborn affair. to the far north some breaks, slightly cooler air, however, the weather front for central and southern scotla nd front for central and southern scotland means more stubborn cloud this afternoon, further outbreaks of rain. northern ireland, grey skies, northern england misty and murkier and resilient over the hills, still quite dank for the and the moors of the southwest. as promised with that shelter to the east some sunshine and widely highs of 12 or 13, up to 15 in the best of the brightness. a mild evening but through tonight the

change, the weather front will start pulling south and to the north of the front is the chilly air into scotla nd the front is the chilly air into scotland by the end of the night, and look out for patchy frost, perhaps some showers as well first thing. the weather front starts bursting across northern england and northern ireland and that weather front is the boundary between cold and mild airand front is the boundary between cold and mild air and the front and cold airsinks and mild air and the front and cold air sinks south on monday. the change through monday will be the great, damp weather sliding south across england and wales, accompanied by gusty winds and clearer and brighter but cooler conditions spreading into northern ireland and through the afternoon sunshine for northern england and wales too. southern counties and east anglia always rather grey with outbreaks of rain but the payoff here is you keep the milder air, highs in double figures, further north highs of around 6—8. clear skies overnight monday into tuesday should set us up for a sunny start on tuesday but don't get caught out a mother could be a frost first thing on tuesday after the mild air

on the weekend. building cloud, temperatures closer to average for the time of year, around 6—8d. this is bbc news. the headlines at 12pm: police investigating the deaths of three teenagers killed when they were hit by a car on friday night are searching for a second man, who is believed to have been in the car. the victims' families have been visiting the scene. well, i'm cut up, really cut up. it hurts. it does hurt at the moment. after his headquarters is raided, russian opposition leader alexei navalny is detained by police at a rally in moscow. president trump says he would have taken a different attitude than theresa may towards the brexit negotiations. i think i would've said the european union is not cracked up to what it's supposed to be, and i would have taken a tougher stand on getting out.