in a race where at least one contender, opposition leader alexei navalny, has been barred from participating, why would anyone risk all to challenge vladimir putin? ksenia sobchak is a former russian socialite turned opposition journalist. she's now running for the russian presidency. but many opposition supporters say she's a fake candidate, running a no—hope race to boost the kremlin‘s democratic credentials. she herself admits she has no chance of winning. but take a deeper look, and her candidacy in fact reveals much about contemporary russia. gabriel gatehouse joined ksenia sobchak on the campaign trail and found a twisted tale of intrigue, power struggles and family loyalties, in a country where nothing is as simple as it first appears. applause

in a moscow nightclub, the opposition candidate makes her pitch to the capital's cultural elite. russian democracy is a strange and sometimes dangerous beast. it's a fake election. it's a fake election? yes, i'm always telling that. explain what you mean. i mean that like in a casino, where the winner's always the house, in russian elections, the winner's always on putin's side.

so i'm taking part in the elections not to win, i have no illusions about that. i'm taking part to be heard. once upon a time, in the capital of the tsars, a girl was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. when the communist empire collapsed, the chaotic transition to capitalism produced a sort of alchemy that turned silver into gold — for some. ksenia sobcha k‘s family was one of those few. her father, one of the founders of russia's new democracy, became the mayor of st petersburg. he would later die in uncertain circumstances, while his former deputy, a once unknown kgb officer, would become the most powerful man in russia. he was a person who gave putin his firstjob,

i was a little girl then. but, by a strange twist of fate, nearly two decades later, the girl with the silver spoon would challenge the new tsar for the highest office in the land. 350 miles south of moscow, the city of kursk. ksenia sobchak is on the campaign trail. her task here is to show that she can speak to ordinary russians, too. the biggest problem in russia is not freedom of speech, unfortunately, for many people. it's the poverty.

out in the suburbs, residents have been complaining they can't get their children into a local nursery. now she's haranguing some local officials. this is pretty much the kind of thing that putin does when he goes around the regions. how do you feel like people react to you, coming — as you do — from quite a privileged background? you know, i don't try to be like "i am like one of you",

because, well, it's not true. if i wear red lipstick in my everyday time, why should i go without make up to them? it's not kind of true, i'm not a populist. so, yes, i come in a good car and in good clothes, but i own this money, i didn't steal that. corruption is a big issue in this election for all candidates. after a slightly optimistic welcome at local campaign headquarters, ksenia takes things one step further. in russian politics, there are certain red lines; among them, putin

and his inner circle. are you saying putin is corrupt? i say that putin created a system that allows those people to get funds from the state. direct criticism of putin feels dangerous, and out on the streets, many people simply don't want to know. crazy. as soon as you approach people, they run away. but sobchak‘s journey to dissidents has been an unusual one. when money gets into my hands, i spend everything. clothes is where my budget stays. it's a lot, it's about $3000—4000 a month. i really like this sweater... in the first decade of this century, as millions of russians struggled, ksenia sobchak transformed herself from society rich kid to tv celebrity. feeding the masses a diet of reality

television and branding herself simply ksenia. but then, the girl with the silver spoon had another transformation. in 2011, shejoined opposition protests and was promptly carted off to a police cell. alexei navalny — the movement's leader — has long been a thorn in the kremlin's side. i was close with him all those years, we shared many values, and we are still sharing those values, i hope. but when navalny was banned from standing in this year's elections, and ksenia announced she was running instead, his supporters called her a traitor. ksenia, they said,

is a kremlin agent — her campaign just more reality tv. could that be true? could it be that ksenia sobchak is doing the kremlin's bidding? i paid a visit to her campaign headquarters, to meet one of her top advisers, a woman well versed in the dark arts of russian politics. she should be, she used to work for putin himself. just to be clear, this is sobchak‘s own campaign adviser saying, "yes, we're playing the kremlin's game", but in russia, there's always more

than one game going on. and that's exactly what sobchak says she's trying to do. if there's one thing ksenia understands, it's the power of television. she's using her candidacy to talk about issues that are taboo. to say this on state tv is heresy, genuinely subversive. shocked presenters have resorted to surreal measures, to try to drown her out.

but here is the conundrum, the kremlin controls everything. who gets to stand in elections, and who gets to go on tv. so, what is going on? ksenia treads a delicate path. before she set out on herjourney, the girl with the silver spoon needed to get the approval of the tsar in the kremlin. she needed wise counsel. alexei venediktov is one of russia's most famous and well—connected journalists. as it happens, ksenia

is in the process of making a film about her father, the former mayor of st petersburg. putin, who'd been his deputy, had agreed to an interview. so, in september, she went to see him in the kremlin. and then in the end, i said this, that i took this decision and ijust want you to know that i'm going to challenge you, and he was like silent for a second and said, "well, it's your decision, but it's also your responsibility". what do you think you meant by that? well, i don't want even to think about that, i don't think anything nice. and so, the tsar decided to accept his challenger, but not everyone was happy. behind the facade of monolithic power, different factions struggled for control. how indeed? how did the girl who spoke out

against the tsar get permission to run against him? the answer to this riddle lies buried in the past, when putin worked for ksenia's father in st petersburg. or perhaps it should more accurately be titled the ‘museum of how russian democracy was poisoned at source‘. the name anatoly sobchak stands alongside the likes of gorbachev and yeltsin. the story of how the anti—soviet reformer chosen an obscure kgb officer as his deputy is also the story of how factions from the old soviet security establishment have come to be running russia today.

anatoly sobchak was voted out of office in 1996, amid allegations of corruption. when investigators called him in for questioning, putin helped spirit him out of the country. but in moscow, factions were manoeuvring. putin was being groomed as yeltsin's successor. the battle was over who would have sway over the new leader. then, in february 2000, anatoly sobchak died suddenly at the age of 62. at the funeral, russia's new president was distraught. that was the first and last time

everyone saw him crying in russia. this day i still remember it, and one of the shocks i had was his reaction, he was totally killed by this. but what killed sobchak? to this day, that remains a mystery. the original autopsy was inconclusive, and many were suspicious, including sobchak‘s widow, ksenia's mother. narusova had her own autopsy performed, but instead of making the results public, she keeps locked in a safe in a secret location. the kremlin today is still

a place of rival factions, to threaten their power is to take a terrible risk. the girl with the silver spoon is not a girl any more. her family history may protect her, but only up to a point. meanwhile, back on the sobchak campaign trail... from public transport

to pensions, to childcare, ksenia listens to people's everyday problems as if she were a real candidate in a real election. the passengers on the kursk trolley bus know all about ksenia's family ties, and yet... what then is the purpose of all this elaborate theatre? if ksenia is a threat to the regime, why let her run at all?

i've spoken to a senior government official, on condition that i couldn't quote them by name. i said, "what's the point of having an election when everyone acknowledges that only one person can win?" they said, look, this is it western invention that you have. we don't have a classical or democracy in russia. we have what they called a ‘developing democracy‘. the truth is, russian democracy has stopped developing. it is frozen, paralysed by two certain facts. just as surely as putin will win the next election, he will also not be around forever. behind the walls of the kremlin, powerful people are playing games.

ksenia sobchak is a pawn. some factions are pushing her forward, others want to hold her back. the girl with the silver spoon knows all this, but she thinks the pawn mightjust become a queen. that‘s my chess game. i played this option of going to elections, because i was thinking that i have a chance to go through, because of my name, because they underestimate me, because i have a past which they can always punch at me, because they‘re not afraid of me as much as navalny, so these are my chances. who‘s a better chess player, you or putin? i don‘t know, we will see in the end. but the end is not near, because i‘m only starting.

and you can see a longer version of gabriel gatehouse‘s film on our world on the bbc news channel and on iplayer this weekend. we asked the russian embassy whether they‘d like to comment on the russian elections, and they told us that they weren‘t in a position to do so. but they did say that they invited all russian citizens in the uk to vote in the march 18 presidential elections at polling booths in london and edinburgh. there‘s no sign of a ceasefire in the tory party over brexit. today, sirjohn major made that very clear with his depth charge of a speech calling for a free vote in parliament on the final brexit deal with the option of a second referendum, and hence the possibility of remaining within the eu. always a passionate remainer, the former prime minister has denied he‘s trying to undermine theresa may. but one of the "ultra brexiteers" he was taking aim at, jacob rees—mogg, said that major

was "all cheap comments and propaganda." timing is all, and of course today‘s eu draft legal agreement has particular resonance for sirjohn, whose dogged work on the northern ireland peace process led finally to the good friday agreement. the idea of a "common regulatory area" for ireland was rejected immediately by the prime minister. so, is the man who as prime minister in 1993 faced his own hell at the hands of the maastricht rebels, now in full rebellion himself? one of those maastrict rebels is here, but first, nick watt. europe, a storm that has consumed successive conservative prime ministers. when this one was bundled out of office, she promised to keep an eye on this one. when he exited the stage, he promised to be more friendly and was supportive of this one.

but today, he cast his own shadow. thank you very much, and good afternoon, everyone. the mild—mannered former prime minister, usually punctilious and polite to a fault, eviscerated theresa may on brexit. for the moment, our self—imposed redlines have boxed the government into a corner. they are so tilted to ultra—brexit opinion, that even the cabinet cannot agree them. and a majority in both houses of parliament oppose them. if maintained in full, it will be impossible to reach a favourable trade agreement. the intervention by the former prime minister echoed the private fears of many remain members of the cabinet who have been biting their lips. an old foe who clashed with the former prime minister on europe was surprised to hear him call for a free vote

in parliament on brexit. during maastricht, there was such a strict whip imposed that there were a whole bunch of conservative mps who lost the whip for voting against the whip. that means being kicked out of the party and parliament. they were stateless, as it were. and people were shipped in by ambulance and all sorts of things, to comply with the vote, such was the benign and kind nature of the then regime, which i do believe at that stage was led byjohn major. pro—europea ns welcomed john major‘s intervention. you go into a negotiation knowing you will have to make some concessions in return for gaining some. he quite rightly pointed out that every time we create a red line, europe in turn removes options from the table for the uk. sirjohn chose a significant moment to issue his warning. a few hours earlier, the eu‘s chief negotiator upped the ante. by tabling a series of demands

that trampled all over the uk‘s brexit redlines. a new european commission draft of the uk and eu withdrawal treaty calls for a common regulatory area between northern ireland and the irish republic if the uk and eu failed to negotiate a comprehensive free trade deal. a definitive role for the european court ofjustice in policing the withdrawal agreement. theresa may rejected the eu‘s proposals, which could place a border within the uk between northern ireland and great britain. the draft legal text the commission have published would, if implemented, undermine the uk common market and threaten constitutional integrity of the uk by creating a customs and regulatory border down the irish sea. and no uk prime minister could ever agree to it. i will be making it crystal clear to presidentjuncker and others

that we will never do so. in downing street, officials acknowledge brexit negotiations are entering a crunch phase ahead of a showdown summit in three weeks‘ time. ministers leaning to the brexit side believe the eu is turning the screws to improve its negotiating position. other ministers fear that the long drawn—out process to reach a cabinet consensus on the future trading relationship has provided an opening that the eu is exploiting. even a prime minister cocooned in their security bubble cannot escape the uk‘s chilly visitor from the east. when the elements turn, it can feel like the world is closing in. nick is here now. an update to the reaction tonight? i was just talking to lord howard about thatjohn major speech. he says it is very sad the former prime minister cannot come

to terms with the results of the british people. you will remember michael howard had run—ins with john major when he was a member of his cabinet in 1990s ovate europe. he was labelled byjohn major as a bastard. i asked about the feud was going and this is what he said. he wasn't keen on free votes at that time, no questions about that. indeed, this speech was full of rich ironies. i seem to remember that when he was prime minister, he was quite upset about the interventions of one of his predecessors. i think he was called back—seat driving in those days. the cabinet will meet tomorrow to approve the decision by the cabinet subcommittee, brexit subcommittee, to have the end state negotiations pursuing an ambitious managed divergences. that really is going to set

the countdown, a three—week countdown to the opening council at the end of march, where hopefully guidelines will be agreed on the future, the nature of the future trading relationship. i asked michael howard what he thinks of that cabinet decision we are likely to get tomorrow and this is what he had to say. i do think it's realistic. it's realistic because the european union, at the end of the day, wants a deal, it wants a deal on goods and services because it sells more goods to us than we do to them. it uses london not because they love us but because it's the most efficient capital market in the world and they want the deal because they want our money, and without a deal, they won't get it. michael howard, thank you. i‘m nowjoined by one of those maastricht rebels who made john major‘s life in office a misery, sir bill cash. he rebelled the party whip 48 times

during the period and is now chair of the european scrutiny committee. good evening. i want to start with a tweet by george osborne. why this synthetic brexiteer anger over the eu tax and irish border. number ten made key concessions in december, they made a deal in which you all cheered, in the absence of agreed solutions uk will maintain full alignment with the eu and customs union. look, basically what they said in this draft legal text, and my european scrutiny committee are looking at it right now, the bottom line is what they are trying to do is to create a constitutional crisis in the uk. this is basically the eu, which is seeking to achieve this hard border, where actually they have said they don‘t want it. we have also said we don‘t want it

and the irish government has said they don‘t want it. nothing synthetic about this. they‘ve actually created, trying to create a constitutional crisis. the truth is, the question of the irish border is a key issue in brexit. it‘s not some kind of fake argument. you have a situation here now where you have either got a customs union or you get a border. if you take for example, that we‘ve got the euro row at one end of ireland and the pound at the other, you have different fiscal arrangements, you‘ve got different corporation tax, there are differences already within ireland north and south. do you believe it can be something like borisjohnson said, congestion charge? bertie ahern... nobody is prepared to say what would be in place from the british side just now, we are still waiting. i don‘t agree with that, we put forward proposals on those proposals are based on the fact

there are technical ways of dealing with it. bertie ahern actually said you can turn a blind eye to a lot of the local trade and that most of this stuff... a blind eye? there is a swedish expert and customs who says it is perfectly feasible to do it. real experts were saying that. the eu are trying to dig in and over this, in order to create maximum trouble for the government. it‘s very, very obvious. also the conservative government, with the goodwill of the dup, do you think what you are fighting for is worth threatening the good friday agreement? it is not threatening the good friday agreement. the prime minister today said we are going to stand by the good friday agreement, everybody will stand by it. the bottom line is this is a synthetic argument, as you said from george osborne, author of project fear,

this is the synthetic part of the argument which is coming from the eu. there is no need for them to do this, but they are doing it in order to create maximum trouble for our negotiations. byjohn major‘s speech today, it is very clear there is no harmony in the conservative party, never mind conservative membership, all about the kind of brexit there should be. he famously called you one knows the bastards in the maastricht treaty. i thought i was watching another edition of spitting image when i saw the speech he gave today. i actually think the real problem here is that he can‘t come to terms with the fact he has lost the debate. actually, it much worse than that because when you examine what he says, he talks about conscience voting for study

talks about a second referendum. i do remember a thing called the maastricht referendum campaign, which i organised with some friends. give him a free vote now. the position was neither an maastricht or in relation to the lisbon treaty have ever been any free votes on this question. bill cash, thanks very much indeed. on the eve of meteorological spring. it was the bleak midwinter today for millions of people in the uk. we‘ve all had our fun with the beast from the east, but tonight it is set to evolve into the much more menacing storm emma. the mercury could sink to minus 15, where there‘s snow on the ground, and the blizzards, gales and sleet just keep coming. worst affected is scotland, with a red warning. earlier, i spoke to lorna gordon, who‘s in glasgow. i asked her whether there were any signs of supplies running low. i did a quick run through

a couple of shops in some of the areas i have been today. so far, so good. i think scots are pretty stoic. we are used to the bad weather. it takes quite a bit to rattle people up here. so the shops, i think, are doing ok so far. but this is an extended period of bad weather. we‘re talking about that red warning in place until tomorrow morning thus far. but the bad weather will continue beyond that. but, yes, a big impact on public transport here in glasgow and in fact over this large red warning area that affects 3.5 million people. no trains running. here in glasgow, no buses running. and you can see from the road here, very few cars out on the streets as well, at least in the urban city centre areas. one of the most obvious effects of the snow is the closure of hundreds of schools. hundreds of thousands of children in scotland will be off tomorrow.

with me in the studio is geoff barton, general secretary of the association of school and college leaders. good evening. is it an easier decision to close a school than keep it open? it is always a difficult decision. i think today maybe a slightly easier decision, given the scale of what is happening. i have had people contacting me today, some of whom are new headteachers, really anxious about whether they have made the right call and some veterans also. ultimately the decision we‘re making is about looking after children and making sure we can protect them and get the staff in to supervise them. if you could get the staff in, the appearance of one teacher would mean that the families of 30 kids could be out of work supporting the economy. what is distinctive about a school is in my case, 1500 students. what you had to do is make sure if you had 1500 students going to school, did you have sufficient staff to supervise a man for the quality of teaching? all i knew is with 85 teaching

staff, there was about 30 of those who lived more than 20 miles away from the school. so the decision was, can i safely supervise those students and bring staffing to do it? every member of the leadership teams in all schools will be making that decision before seven o‘clock, in order to inform parents of the decision. there is now, here, the safety of the children but also in attendance, record of attendance. if you leave school open and children can‘t get there, then the attendance record gets completely shot. there is a scale of different considerations. the number one, which parents would want to hear as saying, which is the most important, is good week supervise their child safely, that is most important. and are we able to give some kind of educational quality to what we‘re doing? i know there was a day when i decided to close the school, in my 15 years of being head, there were three times. one diagnostic, by 11 o‘clock it

cleared i felt humiliated. it will always be a difficult call. it‘s a different thing to leave the school open to see who comes and the kids who don‘t come then get marks on their attendance record, which the school in order to avoid that, you close the school? that is such a small issue. what you would do if their school is closed, you would authorise the attendance of the children who are not there because you are in extreme circumstances. if parents were unhappy about the decision, the governing body hold you accountable. it is the chair‘s decision that you report to the governing body and you are accountable for that. leadership is about making a decision. that followed the people today have done in the darkness or morning. is the primary consideration health and safety? health and safety but not that caricature of health and safety, are we worried lots of children will slip on the pegram?

they could slip on the street. that is not to say you wouldn‘t want to be concerned about that but the number one is, can i supervise the number of students in school by bringing staff who can do it? why is this so different, briefly, from 1963 when schools did stay open but this didn‘t happen? just like lots of things are different from 1963. parental choice means more children will be travelling further, more children travelling on parental cars they were before. i don‘t think we can do like for like comparison of 1963. thank you very much indeed. that‘s almost all for this evening. a quick well done to the newsnight team which picked up two rts awards tonight for the programme‘s coverage of grenfell and our film on the rohingya massacre. tomorrow, i‘ll be talking to brett anderson, frontman of suede, and he doesn‘t hold back on britpop... i think it kind of became... it mutated from a mike leigh film into a carry on film. more from that tomorrow. but, before we go, civilisations, a new nine part series on the history of art, starts tomorrow on bbc two.

it follows from the legendary original, civilisation, presented by kenneth clark in 1969. we thought we‘d leave you where that original series left off, with clark musing on a poem by wb yeats. "things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood—dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." well, that was certainly true between the wars, and it damn nearly destroyed us. is it true today? not quite, because good people have convictions, rather too many of them. the trouble is that there is still no centre.

the moral and intellectual failure of marxism has left us with no alternative to heroic materialism. and that isn‘t enough. one may be optimistic, but one can‘t exactly be joyful at the prospect before us. the 1st of march it may be, but we are still in the grip of our spout of wintry weather. disruptive weathering winter at that, read warnings are still in force across central parts of scotland, for a wider part of northeastern scotland, north england, there is an amber

warning, all these areas are seeing plenty of snow showers, taking us into the first part of thursday. some showers further west and south, the winds are picking up here as well, bitingly cold if you happen to be out and about through the early hours. but most concerned will be the weather in north and eastern scotland, snow will feed him, some areas will see 10—20 cm of snow. let‘s look further afield and run the weather through the day on thursday, the showers continue to feed him across northern and eastern areas, some showers across northern ireland into northern england, not as many showers as we have had across parts of lincolnshire and east anglia, and down to south, an area of low pressure spins in, parts of wales, and maybe other southern areas as well. on the thermometer, your attempt —— thermometer will struggle to read above freezing.

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is... l. % will xlll l % will still on some there w'lllstillbelshowers on some of 7% —— and there w'lllstillbelshowers on some of has"; —— and some there w'lllstillbelshowers on some of 7% —— and some of those will of those —— and some of those will still be wintry. hello, you‘re watching newsday from london and singapore. i‘m sharinjit leyl london and singapore. i‘m sharinjit leyl. the headlines. another resignation. president trump‘s communications director hope hicks is to step down. it comes a day after she testified to congress. the children of parkland return to school to the day after a gunman walked in and killed their friends. i think eventually, it will be normal again, but not the same normal again, but not the same normal it was before. it will probably be a new type of normal because those in 17 people aren‘t going to be there. i am in singapore. also in the programme. is the uk being backed into a corner over the irish border? we have the details of the european union‘s controversial brexit proposal.