as we go through northwards as we go through sunday evening. it will bring a spell of wet and slightly breezy weather conditions across england and wales. clearer skies to the north mean a chilly start a monday morning. it looks as if we see a north— south divide from under, with outbreaks of rain likely across england and wales. tuesday looks like the best day of the week as high pressure builds. this is bbc news — our latest headlines. up to 500 salisbury pub—goers and diners are told to take precautions by england's chief medical officer, after traces of nerve agents are found. the people who are in the pub for 1:30pm last sunday until evening closing on monday should clean

clothes they wore and possessions they handled while there. sergei and yulia skripal remain in a critical condition in hospital — a week after they were taken ill. the chancellor says there's cause for economic optimism, ahead of his spring statement, but admits there's still work to do. china approves the removal of term limits for its leader. the move effectively allows president xi to remain in powerfor life now on bbc news — it's time for dateline london with shaun ley. hello. welcome. this is dateline london, the programme which brings together international correspondents based here with british columnists who write about the world beyond.

here with british columnists it's been a week in which the old cold war powers appear to be flexing their muscles, and europeans fear what it may mean for them. donald trump — trade warrior and peace maker? was someone in russia responsible for the poisoning on an english street of a double—agent? and, after italians deliver the political mainstream another drubbing, are europe's leaders capable of fighting back? with me: yasmin alibhai brown, who came to the uk as a refugee from a hostile country and is now a political commentator. agnes poirier of the french news magazine marianne. stephanie baker, us journalist writing from here for bloomberg markets. ian birrell, columnist with the british newspaper the mail on sunday. a warm welcome to you all, good to have you with us again. the news that donald trump is to meet kimjong—un, the north korean leader, to discuss reducing the nuclear threat surprised many. only hours earlier he'd been posing as a warrior, at least in trade terms — signing into law tariffs aimed at repelling imports of steel and aluminium. "trade wars are good and easy to win", president trump tweeted.

six months ago, the president warned he could unleash "fire, fury and, frankly, power" against pyongyang. perhaps the summit with kim suggest that's a war mr trump doesn't think he can win. ian, is it evident that his combination of mockery and threats has delivered? no, i think obviously the positive and optimistic hope of this is that two mavericks might make a deal. but i think it's highly unlikely. i think the truth is, trump has a habit of being boastful and bragging and very different things are happening. here he has gone out on a limb, we are seeing him gow back a bit in america, he has gone out on a limb and promised this, giving away with one of his cards, just like with recognition ofjerusalem. the truth is, they are talking about very different things. trump wants to see nuclear weapons removed from pyongyang. they will not do that, it is a vile state run by a very small elite and they depend

on the nuclear weapons for safety. you have been to both north and south korea? i spent a long time with dissidents, somebody in the special forces with north korea, he said that during the sunshine policy, which won a nobel prize, they were ramping up ideas of how to attack cities in the south, how to use nerve agents, building up stockpiles of nuclear and biological weapons. they are talking about very different things. north korea are talking about things such as demilitarisation, denuclearisation of the korean peninsular and a removal of the threat. what they are really saying they don't want america and american weapons on the peninsula. it is a very different thing. people always talk, they want to hear talks, they want to see people getting around the table together. but nobody comes up with, where is the deal? there is no deal, because pyongyang will not remove its weaponry and can't be trusted. and the world can't give anything to help. is kimjong—un playing donald trump?

i think that is the fear. sceptics have said that he could be walking into a tap. and trump, because he is very confident, thinks that this is a salesjob and he can market his way out of it. it is consistent with the reality tv show formats of the presidency. that, you know, he loves to surprise, he loves the unconventional, he loves to be first to do something. in this case, the first time a sitting us president meets with a north korean leader. there has been speculation in the us that this was an attempt to distract from a more damaging story, this alleged hush money paid to this pornography star, headlines about stormy daniels were dominating and this is a way to push those down. this is an actress who claims that she had a relationship with trump, but he has denied. his lawyer paid her off before the us election. some people are saying, if he can't

do an airtight deal with a pornography star, how is he going to do a deal with north korea?! the white house has suffered unprecedented departures in turnover, the state department is not operating at full capacity, we don't have an ambassador to south korea or an assistant secretary of state for asia. the person on point for north korea stepped down in frustration. rex tillerson was blindsided by this and not consulted. if you are going to do a deal with north korea, you do need to prepare. of course, diplomacy is better than the sort of schoolyard taunts on twitter, but this is a high risk gamble that may not pay off. what about ian's point about mavericks, mavericks can we the rules. we have got these two gorillas, really, who are really

shaping up for a fight or a victory. but i disagree with what he and hasjust said. we were thinking of how we might disagree but i do disagree, over 60 years, the korean peninsula has been in this situation. what was really moving was to see how the people on both sides came together. they wanted to come together over the winter olympic games. and i think one has to think of a way to demilitarise the entire zone. the us has no business being there anyway. and japan now has two rethink its own policies on defence. but i certainly think that this doesn't come out of anything sensible like that, it comes out of these two men, who are arguably the least rational and most macho men upon the planet. to men yasmine is not going to invite around a0! ithink, you know,

you save a north korean leader is rational, i have the feeling he is pretty rational, he's ruthless —— i don't think rocket man... i don't think he is ridiculous at all. the idea actually comes from him. unlike his father and grandfather, he's going to be treated as an equal. you know, his strange family has been ruling. the war hasn't officially ended. i agree with you when you save or is room for massive misunderstanding. i think the sanctions are beginning to bite and this is the reason why he wants to have some time. it happened by former jimmy carter and madeleine albright, it's been going on for decades. each time north korea says, ok, we're not going to suspend... but i'm saying it's nothing to do with him or trump in that sense,

they are playing games with each other. they want to be whatever they think they can be. you are right about the first, you know, i'm on telly, and always the start of my own drama, what goes on. ian has done programmes on it, and other journalists do, what goes on in north korea isjust so shocking, and we don't know half of it, really. i'm not defending the country, but i do think the people of these two koreas need a break. but we don't talk about china and japan. china doesn't want to see the us have more say than china. but china has been retreating. usually it was the choice, you know, the first choice for north korea. so this is really, you know, the asian countries, how they going to react? they have got something to play that. also, we must not fall for the pr of north korea. the reality is, it is such a tightly restricted country, you have

to be part of the elite even to live in pyongyang, you need paperwork to go anywhere in the country. the only people to come out are members of the elite. the elite are doing very well there. the rest of society is being crossed. at the core of it, it is the world's worst regime. it is notjust hype and propaganda. this is a country which runs death camps and have been accused by the un of breaking also also rules. but the people on both sides are desperate. divided countries help nobody in the end. long—term, 100 years from now, one wishes to see a united korea. i'm going to be ruthless now and we're going to move on. a week ago, perhaps as you were watching this programme, a man and his daughter collapsed onto a bench in an english cathedral city. sergei skripal was a russian former double agent, jailed by moscow and then freed in a spy swap. he's lived quietly in the uk ever since. the use of nerve agent prompted suspicion of state—sponsored poisoning, not exactly discouraged

by the presenter on state television who warned russian traitors — "don't go to england, something is not right there". yasmin, what's wrong? well, i think it is... this is not a surprise. we don't know. i keep hearing, we don't have the full facts. i don't even know if we ever will have the kind of evidence that people need to prove whether it came from, who did what. we still don't know what happened to litvinenko, we don't know what properly happened that. this man was killed in 2006 because of polonium, nobody can actually say for certain who killed him. the son of the man who's just been killed by in mysterious circumstances last year in saint petersburg. we don't know. but what we do know is that putin asked for the law to be changed at one point so that traitors who had fled abroad could be cut down.

so, i see connections between those kind of ambitions and what we see. and why did they move to salisbury? this really is a question! laughter it is near porton down, the research establishment for chemical and biological weapons. britain is really a magnet for all spy stories. there is something in the british psyche that attracts that, but that's another programme. what is striking is that you could have thought that this man was safe. you know, he was a double agent, he admitted to his crime, he had been sentenced and officially pardoned and been the object of a swap, so everything is fine. so now they are digging up his wife's grave and his son. people are wearing hazmat suit in case there is any contamination. whoever did it, ithink the connections are pretty right, i mean, it's

extremely frightening. you know, they say we can out strike whenever we want and whoever we want, and there's nothing much you can do. i have the feeling that if in 2006, almost 12 years ago, if the british government had reacted more forcefully, perhaps they wouldn't have considered it twice before doing what they did salisbury. but it's going to take another ten years, you know, we're starting the major and long—lasting inquiry. we will know more in ten years' time. but we can just shut down their bank accounts. this is the point. london, the uk, has more power than many western countries because of the amount of russian money that flows through london. and so if they want to make the russians pay, they've got the ability to. and the local mp who is a government minister and also happens to be the british treasury, the british finance

ministry, but something on social media to say, there are financial measures, this is one of the weapons that could be used. they haven't implemented the legislation to make the litvinenko law take effect. to seize assets even before proof? this would allow them to blacklist russian individuals with ties to human rights abuses or russian government officials that they have traced to nefarious activities. so they could push ahead with that, and they really need to. and if they do, you know, narrow down the cause of this and who was responsible, there should be much stronger response, i agree with that. the response to litvinenko was not strong enough. they should consider a boycott of the world cup, which is an incredibly important... it is due to open this summer in russia. it is an incredibly important event for putin, is a his moment on the international stage. that is a way to make him pay. one of the government

security ministers were saying on saturday morning, someone has come onto our soil who has recklessly and brazenly committed a nasty crime using a nerve agent, you have to act in those circumstances? there are three certainties. president putin wiggles away and finds cracks in western societies and is pushing his right—wing malevolent creed, in syria he is warming and killing thousands of people. he did the first annexation on european soil and shot down a civilian airliner, he kills lots of his enemies. the second certainty is that britain will continue to talk tough and do nothing. we did nothing over ukraine, really, few sanctions here and there. the third thing is very clear, britain is the capital of dirty money in the world. all of the money is washed here by british lawyers, estate agents and bankers and sanctioned by british politicians. if britain wants to take tough action instead of

registering state—controlled mafia is basically companies that are operating here instead of allowing all of this money to washed through here, britain will do nothing and carry on taking the money. and it is to our shame. all we are about is money now. italy's national election may not have delivered a government yet, but there was a clear winner — populism. between them, 69% of voters supported parties that have challenged the political mainstream. it isn't just italy. from germany to greece, from the netherlands to hungary, a consensus that held since the collapse of the eastern bloc 30 years appears to be breaking up. angela merkel, now that germany has a government again, albeit one from a shrunken political centre, says she'll roll up her sleeves to begin reform of the european union. france's emmanuel macron, a rare mainstream winner of the last year, even suggested post—brexit britain would soon be hammering on the eu's door, pleading to be let back in. is that a case of hubris?

can i unpick that narrative of doom and gloom and populism in golfing europe that you find mainly in the british media. i'm not saying it doesn't exist, but if you go back since brexit, since britain shot itself in the foot, there's this element of schadenfreude. they want, you know, some part of the british media, the conservative part, they want everybody else act as unreasonably. there was not a day passed without an article before the french presidential election saying marine le pen is going to win. we want her to win, probably. no, she didn't, and she was never going to be elected. then angela merkel can't form that coalition in september. then you have all of these articles, oh, germany is unstable, germany is finished, merkel is going to go. of course she wasn't going to go. it was going to be difficult, she did it as expected.

as for the italian elections. i mean, i wouldn't say it is 70% that voted for