and... charting all his failures. suede front man brett anderson on the time before he was famous. a lot of the experience of being in suede in the early days was kind of like failure afterfailure, struggle after struggle, and it seemed to be the word that sort of summed it all up. good evening. the military was called in to help emergency services today, as the country remains frozen by a blast of extreme weather of a scale and severity few can remember experiencing before. tonight, storm emma is preparing to do her worst, with snow threatened to up to 50 centimetres in parts of the uk. a red weather warning for snow is in force for south west england and south wales until tomorrow at least. the day has brought very sad fatalities, but also births in extraordinary circumstances. there was also a warning from the national grid that there may not be enough gas to meet demand.

we'll be investigating the impact of that on industry and domestic users and whether such a shortage could have been avoided, but first, it was a day of drama. these are the temperatures that you may well see on your thermometer, but if you step out in the wind, it is really going to feel cold. —13 in birmingham. that is not to be sneezed at. i've just been speaking to chris evans, he says his hair froze in the few minutes it took him to go outside and then come back in. we've got amber weather warnings into south wales and the south—west, but we have a red, top tier, that means take action, the weather could turn really quite disruptive as we go through the evening. rock music plays

a lot of snow piling up, some spots seeing 15—20 centimetres, maybe a0 or 50 over the higher ground here. some of that snow then fringing into parts of northern ireland. as we go through the night, we keep the snow showers across northern and eastern scotland. rock music plays well, police across the country have been urging people not to travel unless they have to, and hundreds of drivers remain stranded tonight. among them isjo deahl, a bbc employee who has been stuck on the a62 near diggle

in greater manchester for five hours with partner chris and their brand new 8—week—old puppy, maggie. good evening to you. first of all, why did you venture out? well, we're asking ourselves the same question now. we came from chesterfield and we checked the weather, checked the roads and there were problems on the m62. the road we are on now, the a62 looked fine and it was fine until we got to diggle. we got to a bend and we stopped. we haven't moved since. we've seen about 20 tractors, snow ploughs, some pulling articulated lorries back up the hill but nothing going westward, towards manchester. we've just seen the first people we've seen in about five hours, the mountain rescue people, said the council have closed the road and they are advising us to leave. we said, where shall we go? out of the car? he is saying leave the car

and he said we have just been told there is nothing happening here tonight. we literally heard that in the last couple of minutes. so what is your plan? presumably you don't have a lot of stuff with you, are you prepared to bivouac somewhere? what are you going to do? we don't know, we have only just heard. we are quite prepared because even though the roads looked 0k, we got some blankets, food and water, because the weather wasn't great. i don't know. we have a massive tractor in front of us right now. i think they may maybe putting somebody from another car into it. the winds, it's like armageddon, the wind must be 60 miles an hour. i got out of the car and could barely stand up. we don't know right now. you're probably looking at overnight on the road? i think we are going to bed down here, we're not getting out of the car. watch that puppy, as well. thank you very much indeed.

now, early this morning, the national grid issued its first gas deficit warning for eight years and has said it will remain in place overnight. it's not as if our gas boilers will suddenly go out, but rather the shortfall of about 30 million cubic metres could affect industrial users. it's the first major test of britain's gas market since the closure of rough, the uk's biggest natural gas storage facility. so why is there a shortfall? here's our business editor helen thomas. the 1990s, the north sea's heyday. having a hefty deposit of hydrocarbons on our doorstep had its advantages, but since then, uk gas production has roughly halved. as recently as 2003, the uk was a net exporter of gas, which meant that availability, even on days like this, just wasn't really an issue. now we're more reliant on supplies from overseas, which means that unusually cold

weather or unexpected disruptions to supplies risks leaving us short. about 43% of the uk's gas now comes from domestic production. 44% arrives through pipelines from europe, with norway as the single largest source, and 13% comes on tankers in the form of liquefied natural gas. technical problems at norwegian fields and at lng facilities contributed to today's squeeze. but national grid's warning didn't ever mean uk homes would go cold, it was a call to the market to plug a forecast shortfall. and it worked. what we've seen is a spike in prices, which is expected. that tells people there is a scarcity. the flip side, we've seen more gas come onto the grid, so we've seen increased flows from europe. we've also seen some reduction in demand from the system. what we've got to, the point we've got to now is actually national grid

have managed to balance the system. so that shortness of gas has gone away. so that's the system working? that's the system working as it should do. national grid didn't have to take further emergency measures, like buying in the market or taking official steps to reduce demand. but this crunch comes after the closure of the uk's largest gas storage facility, rough, last year. less storage means reduced ability to respond to unexpected events, and that, says this analyst, is a problem that needs fixing. there's plenty of gas in the world, there's plenty of import infrastructure, so it's not really a shortage of gas overall. but what we saw today is our ability to handle short—term spikes in demand is not great. i think the government should incentivise storage operators to stay open. they could give them a regulated return. and if they need to invest further,

then incentivise that. i think it's a very small price to pay for security of supply. seasonal storage isn't commercial in part thanks to the uk's international energy market. pipeline supplies on tap, squeezed the gap between summer and winter prices, which is how facilities made their money. spending more on the emergency storage is for some, the wrong solution. the best way to make the uk more secure is to reduce our dependency on natural gas, notjust imported, but in general. and the way to do that is to reduce the demand for it. most gas that we have in the uk is consumed in the residential sector but we have some of the worst housing stock in europe for energy efficiency, for insulation, windows, these sorts of things. so if the government improves the housing stock in the country then we would reduce our dependence on gas and these kind of events would become less likely. hitting climate change targets will mean a move away from fossil fuels and the beast from the east

brought wind as well and snow. wind has provided a big chunk of uk power in recent days but then so has coal. a few days of snow, the inevitable travel chaos, but it means longer—term questions about the state of the uk energy market. helen thomas. we asked the department of energy for an interview but nobody was available. i'm joined though by dr thierry bros, a senior research fellow of the oxford institute for energy studies. he was formerly in charge of security of supply for oil and gas for the french government. also with me is dr laura cohen. she is chief executive of the british ceramic confederation and is one of the members of a gas security lobbying group that wrote last year to secretary of state greg clark to demand an inquiry into gas security. good evening to you both. thierry bros, looking at helen's report, why have we left ourselves open to shortages like this? as you saw from the report, you are not open to

shortages, on average it is ok. the problem is the balancing of the supply and demand on the very short level. here you are in an absolutely new situation. you are an importer and you have no or very little storage following the rough closure, so you find yourself a bit like the other european countries, continental european countries, back in the last decade. the question is do you need to change the regulation or are you still going with the deregulation, which means you will get some volatility to cover those supply and demand imbalances. we could have gained this volatility, we left ourselves open to this because we don't have the spare capacity? that is always the case. laura, that is the case, you trade cheaper gas for this uncertainty? any economy needs security and lack

of price volatility. our members, up to a third of their production cost can be energy, so this is really potentially hurting them, this price spike that they had seen today hurt them very badly indeed. they have to be able to compete internationally, but also there is the physical risk of disconnection. that hasn't happened yet, but if you crash called a brick kiln 100 metres long that 1000 degress that usually takes weeks to cool down and you are told to cut your gas off in four hours, that can only cause damage. industry isn't going to be told to cut gas off, are they? yes. remember, there are two levels. one is that people like you and me.

we are safe. there is no risk, retail consumers are. yes, big industries, and this is the type of warning we got this morning and tonight, if there is not enough gas... there's no chance for you to reduce consumption, you just have to do crash kill your kiln? yes, you try, if you are given enough warning, but we won't be. you make bricks for the houses people need? exactly. we need an urgent inquiry into gas security, both the physical security and the price volatility. what does the government say? you are head of that federation, what does the government say to you? the government isn't offering us that. we need government to look at a minimum level of gas storage, and they need to look at options to underpin this, using regulatory means. do you think the government

gets the idea that if your members have to crash kill kilns in different areas of the industry, then productivity goes down on the impact will be quite severe? i'm not sure they really get it. some businesses can shut down when there are enormous price spikes, many can't. it is notjust us, our reliance includes the british chamber of commerce, the major energy users council, other manufacturers as well, and trade unions. they are concerned about jobs and businesses and investment. what you do, reopen a storage facility? when you see this has actually happened now, is it time to build supply again or is this drive to get away from gas going to mean there will be much more investment in wind energy and other forms of energy? two things, i think your video was important. in the last ten years we have seen a reduction of gas demand in europe and the uk, so we find. ——gas demand in europe

and the uk, so we were fine. we have seen since 2014 and increasing gas demand in the uk and you are absolutely right, as we saw in the video, the increase was linked to the coal to gas switching. so you are getting greener, we are getting greener, but we are getting more reliant on gas and we have less storage. the thing is europe has storage, so perhaps there is... maybe europe is the answer. could be the answer. thank you very much indeed. we reported last night on the strange case of the russian presidential opposition candidate who might not be all she seems, but today there was nothing equivocal about vladamir putin's announcement that he has a new array of invincible nuclear weapons. making his bid for a fourth presidential term, he told russian mps that he had a cruise missile that could reach anywhere in the world. he added that the west needs to take account of a new reality and understand that this is not a bluff. the us state department this evening responded by accusing moscow of violating its obligations under nuclear treaties. so what is putin up to, and could

this start a new arms race? nicholas burns was us ambassador to nato under president george bush and joins me now from harvard. good evening, thanks forjoining us. do you believe vladimir putin has got what he says he's got? you know, it's uncertain. this could be a bluff, it's not been ascertained whether or not this new nuclear cruise missile actually exists, but he may have. i don't think it changes much in the world of defence because the united states, the uk, france still have a nuclear deterrent. putin is an experienced leader, he knows that any use of nuclear weapons by russia would be met with full force by the west. do you think the position over the conflict in

syria changes things, the more aggressive attitude? i think two reasons, he is appealing to russian nationalism. he did so after his occupation of commie two years ago. he wants to convince the russian people that russia is a great superpower —— his occupation of crimea. he is still looking for a big turnout of russian voters. in terms of russian foreign policy, in the final part of his speech, putin complained that the west has not been listening to them and that they had better listen now. his words. i think putin has long complained that russia is treated by europe and the united states as a backwater, that china is given

pride of place and he wants the west to understand that russia continues to be a powerful country. but what a crude message, what a cynical and bitter message from a world leader, disappointing to hear his speech, certainly. is he baiting trump? he may well be doing that. i think the russians are also disappointed in president trump. i think they felt when he came to office, that there would be warmer relations between moscow and washington. trump had that intention, but now we've had this very long investigation by the former fbi director of possible collusion by the trump campaign with the russian government, and it has made it politically impossible for trump to warm up relations. as an american citizens, i must say that we know that the russians interfered in a massive way in the 2016 election, the people in congress don't want business as usual which has constrained president trump.

is he potentially breaking the international nuclear laws? well, i think that is the concern here. there is a concern in europe and the us and canada that putin may be violating the 1987 intermediate forces nuclear treaty. the russians have been testing new weapons, as he said this morning and showed on the big screen this morning in moscow and they may well be in violation of the agreement is that they signed in decades past. that's a serious charge. this is going to require a concerted and unified response by nato, the european countries and the us and canada. i'm sure you'll see that. it's very serious. i don't think it brings us closer to war with russia because the russians understand that the west is still very powerful. putin is a brutal leader but he is rational and i don't think he'll test our defences.

thank you forjoining us. theresa may today gave the european council president donald tusk the heads up that the european commission's draft legal text was "unacceptable to britain," just in case he was in any doubt. she was meeting him at number ten, ahead of her big speech tomorrow at mansion house billed as laying out the "ambitious economic partnership" she wants with the eu. is this finally theresa may's opportunity for the vision thing? the moment when brexit means brexit is finally explained? i'm joined by our political editor nick watt. what are you hearing? theresa may is going to set out five tests that must be met for the negotiations to be declared successful. let's have a look. in the first place, the result of the referenda must be respected, the uk taken control of its laws, borders and money. in the second test, any agreement reached with the eu must endure. we don't want to be back at the negotiating table. the third test, the agreement must protect people's jobs and security.

in the fourth test it must show that the uk is a modern democracy. interestingly the fifth test says that the union, the uk must come together and that's interesting because a year ago the prime minister was saying that the country was uniting behind brexit and now she seems to be acknowledging divisions. it doesn't sound very pokey, it is a bit woolly. the prime minister is keeping some things up her sleeve, i think we will see the fruits of cabinet discussions on how we will define the uk's economic relationship with the eu when we are out of the european union. we can look now at what theresa may wants to do. she wants to break the relationship into three baskets. number one, the uk would be fully aligned with eu rules in some areas for example cars. in the second basket, you'd have the same goals, but different rules,

things like environmental standards. in the third basket, different goals and different rules, we'd be on our own. things like the insurance market. i'm told there was quite a pointed discussion in cabinet this morning about the first basket. there was evidently intent for the uk to make a binding declaration that it would fully aligned in those areas. some brexit cabinet ministers said that they don't like the language, too strong and they hope the prime minister won't use that language tomorrow. we'll see, but what is the brussels we action? michel barnier was pretty tough, saying the uk is closing doors and going in the direction of a free—trade agreement. but i spoke to somebody who knows the mind of theresa may and this person said that brussels is engaging in classic negotiating posturing. this person told me they believe that theresa may absolutely wants to get a deal and what we'll be hearing is tough language tomorrow

but eventually a compromise, if that is what it takes. thank you forjoining us. coming up, the front man from suede‘s new memoir. i get the sense you don't really like the association with britpop? i didn't like what it became. i was writing, i was documenting britishness, englishness, whatever you want to call it and i think those other bands that came later were celebrating it. i think that's the difference. i documented it because it was part of the world i saw around me. i wanted to document real life. the italians go to the polls on sunday for the first general election in five years. silvio berlusconi is back. and he's got some new political allies, parties on his right, even the far right. discontent over migration and persistent economic problems are high on the agenda. but with as many as 40% of the electorate undecided there's everything to play for. here's our diplomatic editor, mark urban. milan's manzoni theatre.

where better for italy's old stager and ultimate political player to work an ecstatic crowd? berlusconi may be banned from holding office, but he's back, thrilling supporters and proving wrong those who confined him to political oblivion. up in one of the boxes, laura capella. she's driven an hour to see her idol in action and she wasn't disappointed. you may think of berlusconi as right wing, but sharing the playbill

are people like attilio fontana and his party, the lega nord or northern league. such is the trend of italian politics that berlusconi now sits on the left of a right—wing bloc with lega and another far right party. the new allies almost competing in attacks on immigrants that have dominated the campaign. there is talk in this campaign about sending back hundreds of thousands of immigrants. is that really a practical proposition? lega has a long history of racist politics.

0ne mp even blacking up in parliament, saying he'd get more attention that way. it's often attacked cecile kyenge, the country's first black minister. a member of the ruling democrats who look set to suffer in these elections, she thinks berlusconi has allied himself with hate—mongers. i'm a victim of the campaign from these political parties. lega nord had a political party, lega e fratelli d'italia. they are investing in fear of people. i think that today our country must take measures and sanctions to all political leaders and political parties who invest in racism. across milan, there are plenty of

reminders of italy's fascist years. the architecture, like the politics, eschews complexity, instead clean, straight, easily understood lines. then it was about italian greatness. now it's about pledges by berlusconi and his lega partners to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants. today, as in the 20s, the right is using the language of authoritarian populism. back then, mussolini's targets were other countries, those that would deny italy its new age of greatness. today, the scapegoat is internal. immigrants. and indeed the immigration question has come to dominate this election campaign. in sesto san giovanni, near milan, they've recently elected a mayor from berlusconi's forza party. it marked the end of 72 years of

socialist control of the town hall. in a few weeks, the new mayor has thrown out 208 illegal immigrants, served many with deportation orders, and laid plans to stop them coming back. sesto's story has many echoes of europe and indeed america. its heavy industries have been hit by closures and the local economy sank into the doldrums. alessandra aiosa's family used to have five shops. now it's down to one. she approves of the new mayor's policies. back in milan, the patron of the asmara an eritrea restaurant, has been in italy for 46 years. he is a citizen. in theory he has nothing to fear but he's noticed a change in the climate. exchanges like one with a lawyer seeking a permit on his behalf belie an underlying racism.

and do you feel that the situation‘s worsened because so many people came on the boats from libya, is that what's changed the climate, or is there something else going on, do you think? what we have in this italian election is another chapter in the industrial decline of the west, and the faltering with it of social democracy. in its place, the rise of nationalism and nativist sentiment.

for the moment, here, it targets immigrants and immigration, but one could just as easily see it move on to attack the eu and its institutions. as the ground shifts, lega, who brought thousands of supporters to milan's piazza duomo, could, if the polls are right, be on the verge of entering government. its leader matteo salvini has found immigration touches deeper chords than lega's eurosceptic messages, though it also blames the eu for creating the migration crisis and leaving italy to deal with it. the interests of europe, not italy. having marketed itself as a centre—right coalition, italy's far right, enabled by its pact with berlusconi, may soon return to power.

how are you different from the fascists of the 1920s? italy's election will be decided on sunday's vote, but if these people get their way, it could soon have a government committed to deporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants. the band suede are synonymous with the birth of a musical and cultural phenomenon, britpop, something suede‘s lead singer brett anderson is keen to distance himself from. and while other musicians often chart the glory years, what anderson calls, coke and gold disc memoirs, his own memoir coal black morning which was published today, concentrates on his beginnings, his rackety, impoverished childhood with his mismatched parents, his beautiful beloved art school mother and the mercurial taxi driver father who wandered the house dressed as lawrence of arabia playing the music of franz lizst. i started off being a guitar player and wanting to be

the quiet one at the back, sort of thing, and i just wasn't really good enough to be the quiet one at the back. the only other option left to me was to be the singer. suede‘s eponymous first album went straight to the top of the charts in 1992 and won the mercury music prize. for the band, which had included justine frischmann, who was also his partner until they split and she left to form elastica, had taken a while to get going, and in his memoir, brett anderson concentrates on his own early failures. influenced by the smiths and compared to bowie, who was a fan of suede, the band became more experimental than their britpop pack and 25 years on from their debut, are about to release a new record. it was time for a bit of reflection. ijust fancied writing something, it was just one of those things.

i didn't have a deal or anything, i wrote it for my son and that's kind of where the genesis of the book comes from. we were dirt poor, existing in penury in a cheap council house, but my parents filled it with trappings more akin to the lives of upper—class hampstead intellectuals. mum's paintings were everywhere. she'd decorated the whole place with strong colours, midnight blues, william morris wallpapers and her own rich velvet home—made curtains in the windows, and everywhere of course was the deafening torrent of my father's classical music. he used to see music as this sort of like charged battle ground of opinion, and for her music was just something nice that you listened to. she was much more visual, she was an artist. she spent most of her time painting, and when she wasn't painting, she'd be mending things and fixing things and making things. so it was a very creative sort of environment. the only way we could possess things was by making them. you grew up knowing that there was no money?

i'm not sure. i think later i became aware of that, but when you're very young, you don't really have that sense of perspective. apart from a cheap electric oven, we have no mod cons, so my mother washed and dried all of our clothes by hand, something that seems unbelievable to my pampered 21st—century self. there was no central heating in the house, just a small fireplace in the lounge and a little paraffin heater in the kitchen. the coal black mornings were brutal and the ritual of lighting and maintaining the fire assumed a religious status. you've chosen not to put photographs in. i feel i have an image of your parents fairly clearly in my head, but why did you decide not to put photographs in? it was a very conscious decision. i wanted to make the writing as descriptive as i can, so that hopefully you don't really need the photographs. ijust wanted to give the book a kind of tone, i suppose. you deliberately said that you didn't want to do a coke and discs memoir,

you wanted to do a memoir of, you call it failure, why do you call it failure? erm, well, that was the tone that i thought, that was the sort of word that i thought kind of summed up a lot of my upbringing, and my parents‘ situation in the world, and also a lot of the experience of being in suede in the early days was kind of like failure after failure, struggle after struggle. it seemed to be the word that sort of summed it all up. that's why i ended up finishing at the point that ifinished the book, because i finished it where we got signed and i thought that was a very symbolic moment. enter suede, who've been hailed by the rock press as the best new band in britain. tonight, they make their first television appearance. there is a part in the book where you're withjustine frischmann and your mother dies.

it was a huge, incredibly influential period of my life, where i metjustine and that opened up so many vistas in my life. you know, a year or so later, my mum dies and these incredible kind of clashing emotions happening in me. i think without those two events, i think i probably wouldn't have had this sort of sense of carpe diem that i needed, in order to make the band happen. you then wrote a song for your mother. # see you, in your next life #. the interesting thing about that song the next life is when i wrote it, i didn't really realise what it was about, and it wasn't till later that i kind of was able to assess it and realised that it was about that event.

# far away... # so far away #. you talk in the book that actually justine frischmann leaving the band, in a sense, was the making of it? before justine left, she was kind of not really happy with where we were going. i think she wanted, she had a different vision for what she'd like suede to be. and i think that kind of confused things. she went on to do, to realise that vision with elastica, i think, which was fantastic. but i think that allowed us to do what we ended up doing with the songs on dogma and the more grandiose stuff. i get the sense you don't really like the association with britpop now? i don't like what it became. i was writing, i was documenting britishness, englishness, whatever you want to call it, and i think those of other bands that came later were celebrating it, and i think that's the difference.

i documented it because it was part of the world i saw around me and i wanted to document real life. it was almost like a slightly scruffy, mike leigh kind of vision of the world that i saw around me, and i think it became a... it mutated from a mike leigh film into a carry on film. it was a period of creativity. do you think there's been a period of creativity since like it? i think it was the last big movement in alternative music. and it had value in that sense. i think its rejection of american cultural imperialism was a really powerful statement. and possibly the best thing about it. and the fact that it moved alternative music into the mainstream, i think that was fantastic. but finding worth out of it, beyond those things is quite difficult for me. brett anderson, thank you very much. thank you. that's all we have time for tonight.

but we leave you with a few tips harvested from social media on how to keep warm. goodnight. music: shelter from the storm — bob dylan hello there. first is bring today, the weather will gradually get less severe as the weekend goes on. but it has been atrocious out there for many of us today, lots of snow falling, another red warning from the met office with some stranded motorists, as we have seen already. coupled with strong winds leading to blizzards, here is where we have the red warning for the next view hours, the big amber warning covers a large area, not just the big amber warning covers a large area, notjust in the south southwest, we have some amber warnings for northern ireland and across scotland in northeast england, per we have frequent showers. it's not just

england, per we have frequent showers. it's notjust snow, we have had some freezing rain reported towards possibly into cornwall. but some snow in the cold air as we head into friday morning for the rush—hour, which could be slippery out there, in many areas those temperatures are below freezing quite widely, by the morning, some snow towards the southwest not far away from northern ireland. easterly winds will be blowing showers into scotland. we may see the snow moving away to northern ireland, but there's a chance of wet weather coming back through the english channel into southern parts of england into wales, we will find another spell of snow, unsure how much, but more towards the southwest and south wales. another cold day, temperatures struggling to get above freezing. it will feel significant look older. but as we head through the evening, we will find this area

of snow pushing its way a little bit further north, continuing into the evening rush hourfor southern parts of england into wales. continuing north overnight, the snow will peter out to a certain extent, some showers and cold winds in some areas north. we may get some rain and snow coming on land later in the day, but temperatures not quite so low, it will not feel so cold for many of us. will not feel so cold for many of us. particularly as we head into sunday, mind you there's still the risk of snow and ice in the morning from overnight, we did see some snow pushing into central and southern scotland, in the southeast temperatures could get up to 8—9d, we could even get for across scotland. there is a trend across the weekend, he will be less cold, we will lose that bitter beast from the east, but there is some snow around, there'll also be some sunshine in time. iam in i am in singapore. the headlines. president trump says he will impose

steep import tariffs on steel and aluminium ina steep import tariffs on steel and aluminium in a move likely to provoke a backlash from china. boko haram strikes again, kidnapping over a hundred schoolgirls in nigeria. now nearly a fortnight on, i would miss accounts start to emerge. i am kasia madera in london. . we travelled to nashville and did to meet the woman to meet the women taken on the... hoping for oscar glory. the profoundly deaf start will be on the red carpet this weekend. live from our studios in