one, and i afternoon from air force one, and i have spoken to the white house chief of staff, kelly, to make sure we have clarity as to the days ahead. what is most important is to make sure there is a smooth transition during a time when there are so many national policy and security challenges to the country. that's a summary of the news. now on bbc news, newsnight with evan davies. translation: i don't care. i couldn't care less. ever get the feeling someone's laughing at you? he was actually laughing at accusations of us election interference, but president putin might as well have been talking about salisbury. so what, if anything, can we do about russia? one option — kick russian state television out of britain? or maybe boycott the world cup? but is there really anything we can do to intimidate such a large nation?

there have been declarations of solidarity today from the us to france and germany — but how far will their support extend beyond rhetoric? what kind of strategy will work? we'll reflect on the choices, or lack of them. meanwhile, it's goodbye from him. us secretary of state rex tillerson has been shown the door, which means the west is not at its most cohesive — in fact, not even the west wing is. is us foreign policy in disarray, or has trump now found someone who can see it his way? and puzzle time: which disney character has the chancellor likened himself to? but what is a tigger? # the wonderful thing about tiggers # is tiggers are wonderful things! # their tops are made out of rubber # their bottoms are made out of springs! yes, some upbeat economic news in his spring statement gives

philip hammond a spring in his step. # i'm the only one! time, then, to ask whether it's time to ease the squeeze on public spending. hello. yesterday, the prime minister had said russia should tell us what it knows about the salisbury attack by the end of today. her time horizon was quickly hardened into a theatrical midnight deadline for the russians to respond, and we are not far off that. today, we heard a russian response — moscow says britain must supply samples of the poison found on mr skripal and his daughter, and anyway denies any involvement in the attack. it's perhaps unsurprising that the russians are not playing ball. but it leaves a challenge for theresa may as tomorrow — to mix metaphors — the ball now lies in her court. what does britain do? the helpful news for her is that from germany to france even to the white house, there is now increasing support from close allies. here's mark urban. britain set the timescale, little more than 2a hours for russia

to come up with answers on the poisoning in salisbury. but it's a type of pressure that's not likely to cow president putin. i think it's very difficult to see whether the kremlin is worried or not. but if we judge purely by what is in the russian press and the russian newspapers, it is not on the front pages anywhere, including on the main internet websites. and it doesn't seem to be that this is the core issue which is going to dominate the remaining several days of the russian election campaigning. it is quite remarkably absent for the kind of crisis that is looming on the horizon from public opinion. and asked today about britain's challenge, russian foreign minister sergey lavrov responded with one of his own. translation: we immediately requested through an official note access to that chemical agent so that our experts could analyse it in accordance with the chemical weapons weapons convention. so, time is short for russia,

but they aren't going to buckle. the march of minutes also prompts questions for the uk's allies. since late last week, british diplomats have been consulting european capitals, often reluctant to sanction russia in the past, gauging their appetite for tough action now. it's a very complicated issue. we have certain very large european countries like germany, france and italy, where the sentiment is not as firm on russia as we see in other countries. so it is still an open question. but i think there is a universal condemnation of this kind of attack. but what the eu will do is still not very clear. and unfortunately, we have seen in the past that sometimes tough talk has not followed by concrete action. and president trump, often assailed by critics for being in putin's thrall, says russia must now provide clear answers. it sounds to me like they believe

it was russia and i would certainly take that finding as fact. it will be organised in russia! for many european countries the question may be whether they are prepared to boycott the football world cup in russia. germany are the reigning champions, but interestingly, even germany's bestselling tabloid could be ready to advocate a boycott. i think there are things beyond football. so in the case that, for example, prime minister may would ask for a british boycott of the world cup, and would ask nato allies in europe, in the west, to join into the boycott, i would say we as a newspaper, a news organisation, would not be in favour of turning down a request. we would be in favour of supporting that request. and as the last hours of mrs may's

ultimatum trickle away, it's time also for her to decide what steps the uk should take on its own. from expelling spies in the russian embassy — which today tweeted out a series of messages warning britain against tough action — to imposing so—called magnitsky law— law—type sanctions on russian officials or even using gchq capabilities against the kremlin. well, cyber—countermeasures are something that has to by definition happen in the shadows, so to say. in the classified domain, through the intelligence agencies of the british government or european governments and the united states. this is also something that has been discussed during the obama administration in the united states, during the election interference. whether the us should, you know, for example, have a more offensive cyber strategy against russia, to maybe have intelligence communities leak information about corrupt kremlin

officials, where their money is, how they are using western financial institutions to hide their stolen money and to launder that money. i think these are all potential options. the choices are many, but the dilemma is acute. a nerve gas attack on british streets may be an unprecedented outrage, but the response, the extent, and even what it's meant to achieve, are all the subjects of fierce debate. and mark's here now. our political editor nick watt is here too — nick, we'll come to you in a moment. mark, update us on the investigation in salisbury today. we have known for a couple of days that identifying the agent suddenly recast the investigation and they are looking further back. as a result of what we have learned today, we can now see that it is a window of between one and a half and four and a quarter hours during which they think this

happened, never before they got the pub in the centre of salisbury. in that window of time, the is very important. but they are still saying that they don't know how and when the poison was dispensed —— the car is important. there was speculation within the law enforcement community that there was some kind of method of dispensing it inside the car. that would not appear to be the case from what the police have said today. but the car is important and where it was during 40 minutes after they had left home and before they arrived in the town centre, much longer than is needed for thatjourney. this is the key thing we have heard from the police, though — they are still saying there is no suspect, and they must be keen to make a determination of someone of that kind. so they want people who saw the red bmw. the pressure is on. theresa may is going to step up tomorrow and talk about whatever the russians have responded. what might she do?

i understand there will be a substantial response from the prime minister in the house of commons tomorrow, but we will not see the full range of measures in the uk for two broad reasons. in the first case, there will be things that the uk will do that they will not want to advertise. and in the second place, there is an assumption that vladimir putin will retaliate, and therefore the uk needs some space to be able to respond to that. there is also a hope that the uk will not be alone. there were two encouraging phone calls today with two nato allies, chancellor merkel and president trump. thanks. in a further development today, it was confirmed that counter counterterrorism police are leading an investigation into the unexplained death in london yesterday of a man believed to be russian businessman nikolai glushkov. mr glushkov sought exile in britain after being convicted of fraud in russia and had become a vocal opponent of president putin. there seems to be no evidence linking this latest death

to what happened in salisbury — but the timing is at the very least awkward as the world waits to see how mrs may responds to the skripal affair. so let's discuss that response now. i'm nowjoined by andrew mitchell, conservative mp and the former secretary of state for international development. he is leading a cross party group of mps preparing to back a "magnitsky amendment" to the government's sanctions bill. also with me is the washington post columnist and lse professor anne applebaum. in washington is andrei illarionov. he was chief economic advisor to putin — and is now a seniorfellow at the cato institute's center for global liberty and prosperity. i wonder if i could start with you, andrei illarionov. where do you think we go when it looks as though the russians are somehow not taking the british complaints very seriously? well, that is not surprising.

the traditional response of the russian authorities is like that. remember what happened with the litvinenko case, when he was poisoned in britain 12 years ago. so it is not a surprise. what is more surprising is the lack of response from the british side and the western side to all these cases of aggression, whether it is against britain, as it was in 2006 and 2018, or against georgia in 2008 or against ukraine in 2014, against the united states during the intervention in the election and so on. we know the charge sheet. tell us what we should be doing? there are at least two sides of potential response. one is punishment of those

who are responsible for all those acts of aggression and terror. it should be clearly said that that is a terrorist act. the other one is more long term and a wider response from britain and not only from britain, but from the wider west. the final long term goal of such a strategy is to have russia, free, democratic, rule of law based on peaceful. sorry to interrupt, but what do we actually do? we know the goal. what do we do? you don't know yet, because there is no consensus in the western world. there is not even discussion about what the long term goal is. there was not much discussion

about the strategy itself. that is why it is firstly necessary to come to an understanding among the western countries of what the west wants from russia. that is the main question new post at the beginning. what kind of russia would you like to see? lets hold that there. andrew mitchell, it does feel as though we don't have a strategy here. while lurching after a headline that will work on thursday. is there actually a strategy for a medium—sized country like britain to have sanctions that work against someone like russia? i am sure there will be. it is comparatively early. we have the statement yesterday from the prime minister. there will be another tomorrow, but the most important thing is to gather the evidence. we must find out where culpability lies and put it in my view through the united nations. firstly, it may be circumstantial.

is that good enough? we must be absolutely clear about what happened, or we won't have conviction when we put it into the public domain through the united nations so that our allies can see the threat it poses to all of us. is it premature for the prime minister to stand up tomorrow and pretend we are starting on a new path? it is our deadline, not theirs. do we need to do it that fast? the deadline was to answer two questions. and tomorrow, should she be saying this was the response, or should she say now we will think about it response and gather a coalition of allies? i think she will take it to the next stage. she will say what evidence is now available, how she will put into the public domain and what the consequences are. and the same question to you. the nature of the question shows what is the important point, the uk needs to be part

of an alliance, part of the european union, what with eu allies. unfortunately this is the worst possible moment for the uk to leave the eu just as russia becomes the surgeon in many spheres not just inside britain. the most the uk could do to revive those alliances, the better. it is all about the allies but also about understanding why we do have power and influence. the russians keep their money, their wives and children, their property, in this country and western europe. ending that practice, the money—laundering done, enforcing our own laws and using those laws about mysterious money, we now allowed to go and ask people where your money comes from. making those laws work. pushing that through, ending the practice of using shell companies to buy property

and companies in the uk, that could all make an enormous difference. and you would agree with that, you support the magnitsky amendment. yes, that enables us to take serious measures against those conducting themselves in this way from russia and i think parliament will want to see something like the full magnitsky amendment that has been introduced in america and canada. a couple of other options, a world cup boycott, surely pointless unless everyone does the same? us on our own willjust make them... i think it is silly to involve sport and talk about a ban on rt. the russian broadcast service. we need to use the leverage we have in those areas where we can control things that matter. and working in conjunction with other allies. imagine if we could end russian money—laundering all across europe and begin working with the eu to close all the loopholes. i would not ban rt.

that's one of the most talked about options. i spoke out during the russian bombing of aleppo and they carried that in russia. i do not think it is sensible to ban arty. it gives credence to the view that broadcasting is partisan here. it is not sensible to ban russian state elevation. of all the things, the specific things you've heard, i know you want a big strategy for the west to align itself. what would you do specifically with the uk? let me just address what my colleague has already said,

everyone should understand this is war. this is aggression against britain, aggression against other countries, aggression against the west. and in the war of aggression there is no response that would be enough or not enough. so that is why all these instruments that have already been mentioned dealing with illegal financial assets in london or the magnitsky act or rt, the state broadcaster, all of them are important. all of them are important but they are only elements. some elements of the possible grand strategy. so you do not need to forget about the long—term goal of such a strategy.

and that is why those instruments could not only be elements but if you really want to win the war you need to give this expression. thank you very much. well, we've referred to it already. rex tillerson, us secretary of state, has finally, after months of chat about it, been sacked by president trump. mr tillerson was reportedly not actually told, other than finding out with everyone else when the president announced it on twitter. one satirical website suggested that tillerson had been surprised to find he was still in the job. he had certainly been semi—detached from the trump operation for almost his entire period in office. when he was appointed 13 months ago, rex tillerson was an outsider. he wasn't a politician, but a former exxon chief executive, and he'd never met donald trump until he was offered the job. at his senate confirmation, a record number of votes went against him.

democrats suggested he was too pro—putin. now of course, the line is he has been sacked because he is too anti—russian for president trump. that is not the president's line. we got along actually quite well. but we disagreed on things. when you look at the iran deal, i think it's terrible, i guess he thought it was ok. i wanted to either break it or do something and he felt and president trump is right, they clearly have been at odds. in tone and substance, again and again. in the summer tillerson openly registered his opposition to trump's plan to withdraw from the paris climate accord. i was free to express my views. i took a counter view to the decision that was made. but i fully appreciate the elements behind why he took the decision. and then there was a striking interview that tillerson gave to fox news after racist violence

in charlottesville, distancing himself from the president's views. i don't believe anyone doubts the american people's values or the commitment of the american government, or of the government agencies to advancing those values and defending those values. and the president's values? the president speaks for himself, chris. tempting as it is to see this in terms of policy differences, perhaps the real story is just the chaos in the white house. john kerry, hillary clinton, condoleezza rice, colin powell, madeline albright and warren christopher, the last six secretaries of state have all served four years, not one. and no—one needs reminding that there have been all too many comings and goings in an administration so young. well, the replacement to rex tillerson is mike pompeo. he is a defender of the cia after a senate report on torture detailing practices such as waterboarding. he said people at guantanamo who were starved looked

like they put on weight. he said that they were heroes and not torturers. so where are things in the white house? i'm joined from washington by david frum — he was a speechwriter for george w bush and has recently written a book about donald trump's white house. anne applebaum is still with me too. how will history remember rex tillerson's period as secretary of state? i think he will be remembered at the least bad secretary of state under donald trump. we are heading into a time of more instability. i will direct attention to a story that may not have broken in the uk but is indicative of what is going on. rex tillerson was not the only person to lose his job today, donald trump also lost his chief personal aide, the person who would walk around with the president and hold onto things for him.

it turns out he was escorted from the building to a newjob at the trump campaign because he is under investigation for serious financial crimes. quote unquote. that is the kind of thing that is happening more and more, people going out for reasons that in another administration would have prevented them even serving as visitors let alone staff. you were a fan of rex tillerson? i think he will be remembered as a disastrous secretary of state. he treated the state department as if it were a kind of non—performing part of exxon and tried to reform it on that basis. he stuck to a tiny group of advisers, he ignored diplomats and experts. he tried to do large—scale reforms which no one saw the point of, mostly to do with cutting money which is not how you want to push a diplomatic corps. all kinds of people left the state department. huge numbers of exits. far fewer joining. he made diplomacy seemed like an unattractive thing. having said that, these

things are not exclusive, on the one hand you could say he was a terrible secretary of state but also say the next one may be no better. so, not clear that we have reason to rejoice. do we think mike pompeo will be less of a restraining influence on the president and the world will be more subject to changes and policy changes in the presidency? mike pompeo was a businessman and then a member of congress, and as director of the cia, a much more sensitive reader of the personality of the president than rex tillerson. so he will bend more to the presidential will then rex tillerson and seems more in line with his views on iran. but we're already escalating crisis in the korean peninsula, the idea that we could escalate that with iran as well, to nuclear crisis at the one time. that's two more than we should have.

and just expand on your idea about more instability to come. i'm thinking in foreign policy. you have all these crises butjust in terms of the sort of day—to—day stuff outside of the three or four critical things on the top of the list for the secretary of state. donald trump has repeatedly said that he has his administration not quite the way he wants, but almost. that's indicates more changes are to come. and he also seems to be more and more impatient on any kind of restraint on him. that augurs ill for those members of his administration who have tried to restrain him in one way or another. chief of staffjohn kelly, people who are good at theirjobs and have told the president you cannot do this or that. it feels like people come and go so frequently, can we believe that for another three years or even seven years under president trump, that that kind of place of chaos

can carry on. it happens in other countries, italy for years had government that changed constantly, in latin american countries people come and go all the time. we get used to thinking of the united states as a stately model where things happen slowly and administrations do not change. and the secretaries of state stick around for four years but really there's no reason to expect that. this is a president who wants to hear, he wants people to express his will and when they do not he fires them. but every president... he does not want to hear people contradict him. what he did not like about rex tillerson is that he sometimes said no, that is not how things are, i see things differently. mike pompeo, he has been good

at briefing the president, aligning his views with those of the president. he's done a couple of things that i think are worrying, one of them, he actually lied about an cia report and said it showed there was no russian interference of significance in the election whereas the report said the opposite. we know he bends the truth in those ways. i do not want to talk much more about russia but how much did it play in the sacking of rex tillerson? we do not know the answer to that because we do not know exactly when rex tillerson was fired. the president clearly has been on his way to this decision for some time. chief of staffjohn kelly said to reporters, that he had indicated to rex tillerson on friday to be braced for bad news. but the actual firing happened

today, the day after rex tillerson gave support to the uk in a way that is more forthright than the president has yet done. he has not yet agreed that theresa may was correct in what she said to the house of commons. what is shocking about that is that in any normal administration the us and the uk would have worked out their statements in advance. in private agreement before either country made a public statement on the matter so serious. donald trump has undercut theresa may after taking a position and that is quite troubling and troubled rex tillerson. in the end, international news completely overshadowed the first ever chancellor's spring statement. on this day in years past, we would have had a full—on budget, but philip hammond has moved that to the autumn, so today we had a slimmed down update on where we are. the chancellor's central thought was that the economic news is marginally better — spring is in the air, but the long term projections have not changed, and so only if things continue to improve will there be extra money to spend. nevertheless, the chancellor was in an upbeat form, eschewing his traditional role as the gloomy one in the cabinet. and if, in the autumn,

the public finances continue to reflect the improvements that today's report hints at, then in accordance with our balanced approach and using the flexibility provided by the fiscal rules, i would have capacity to enable further increases in public spending and investment in the years ahead. while continuing to drive value for money to ensure that not a single penny of precious taxpayers' money is wasted. he even likened himself to tigger. we know that is not a disney character, but we were showing disney footage at the top of the programme. now he had to offer a more optimistic outlook. with hope of more spending later, but not so optimistic that people could demand extra spending now. and here's a graph to show why. this is the obr graph on borrowing. that's the office for budget responsibility — the official forecaster.

this goes back over a decade. so this is what has happened over the last decade, you see borrowing soar, and now, the government has got it right down. it's a huge adjustment. so are we there yet, as every impatient child asks on a long carjourney? can we relax now? this is what the obr did think would happen to borrowing over the next five years; this is what they projected back in november. borrowing falling, but still not disappearing. so that's the old forecast, and then we got the new, more optimistic one today. here it is — and you see that not much has changed. borrowing comes down, but is not eliminated. well, i'm joined by nick watt. what were your impressions of this statement? against the backdrop you were talking about, the dour spreadsheet phil macro became de rigueur phil and indeed liberated phil. he gave a much stronger indication of spending

in the november budget, but said no, i do have my fiscal head room, but november is a long way off, so let's be cautious about that. and two other things he will do in november is that he will use headroom to keep taxes low and to keep paying down the deficit. but we also saw liberated phil, and the chancellor was able to make arguments against labour that he was not allowed to make in the general election. he is essentially going to say the choice now between vote conservatives and you will get spending up and get down, vote labour and you will get spending up and that up, to which labour will no doubt say, if used in the late and economy, you can expand an economy. one eye—catching thing not so much obvious from the speech but from the documentation of the obr — about brexit. that's right, a very striking graph in the obr book, saying that the uk will be paying its brexit divorce bill up until 2064. it's important to say that the obr

is mapping out the treasury plan. that means it will take 48 years after the referendum for the uk to finally settle its accounts. the treasury is very relaxed about this. they are saying two key things which you should be able to see from that graph. 75% of that will be paid off by 2022, which coincidentally will be the next general election. the other thing they are saying is that this was actually a uk idea, to ensure that the uk doesn't make any payments earlier than if it had been a member state of the european union. and obviously, the crucial thing is pensions and if the uk wanted to change the profile of those payments, we could negotiate it. thank you. mel stride is financial secretary to the treasury, and peter dowd is shadow chief sectary to the treasury. mel, are you happy with the level of public services and how much we are spending on them? well, we always want to do more and we have done a great deal. so you must be happy.

we have spent over £60 billion on additional public expenditure. in the last budget, we put an extra 6.3 billion into the national health service. you are quoting all these numbers, but are you happy with the level of public services at the moment? going forward... are you happy? it has to be seen in the context of taking a balanced approach. so obviously, you are unable to say you are happy with the level of public services at the moment, and yet your policy is to cut them by another 1% in 2019, another i% on top of that in 2020 and another 1% in real terms per capita. the day—to—day spending on public services still has to be cut year after year.

so you must be pretty unhappy. you can't say you are happy with them at the moment, and you are planning another three years of cuts. we have to look at the whole picture, which is firstly being a responsible government that takes a sensible approach to bringing down the deficit. you could put up taxes. well, this comes to my other point. firstly, we need to bear down on the deficit, or we will leave ourselves vulnerable to external economic shocks. secondly, we want to invest in public services and we have done a huge amount of that. prior to cutting them. thirdly, we do want to make sure we do whatever we can to alleviate

the financial pressures on a hard—working family. you are outlining a big group of incompatible objectives. you are not giving me a policy. we would all love lower taxes, better public spending and less borrowing. stewardship of the economy is of course about choices. petered out, your choices are to spend more and tax more, correct? to tax more in relation to the top 5%, yes. the conservative party are saying you can have all the welfare state you like and pay no more tax, which isn't true. on the other side, labour are saying we can levy more tax but someone else will pay because it will come from the rich, which also isn't true. well, it is true. i have spoken to you before about funding britain's future. we set out in the manifesto £46 billion worth of expenditure and {48.6 billion. pauljohnson went on to say labour's manifesto had a lot of overestimates

on what you can get from the rich and it did not balance out. yes, it did. do you take expert advice? of course we do. and is there any group of experts better than the institute for fiscal studies on making these kinds of financial conjecture? of course they are entitled to their view, but we do take advice. but their view is a pretty good view. they have a good overview of the tax system. but that is not the only view. but should the public believe them, who have no agenda, or you, who are trying to sell us better public services without having to pay for them's well, the government refused access to the obr. the guy running the obr used to run the ifs. you would get the same answer from the obr, i suspect. maybe a at least we could have the opportunity to test that out.

isn't the truth that both of you are trying to infantilise the nation and denied the nation a sensible decision we have to make, that if we want better social care and they better nhs, we probably have to spend another £15 billion on public services? borrowing is not too low, so we have two tax more, and we have to tax real people more to pay for extra public spending. do you have any agreement with that? and myjustin tucker ghulam? —— andi —— and ijust in cloud —— am ijust in cloud cuckoo land? it is not about being in cloud cuckoo land.

we are trying to set out spending plans in our document. so you are against straightforward increases in spending? at the end of the day, we would not start from where we are now. the point i was making before is the question of investment. we are not getting the investment in the economy that we need. do you ever think that maybe we just need a bit more tax to pay for social care? you are from devon. what do your local conservative council say about funding in their backyard? we recognise that there are precious out there. if the vulnerable and elderly of devon are to be supported, it is essential that additional funding is secured. that is your local conservative. there is no way of magic—ing up the money. there is, put up taxes. some will say that that is possible, but we know from history that it is not possible. it's not possible to raise taxes for better public services? what are you talking about? because we take a balanced approach to the economy,

which means we have to get on top of the debt. equally, we want to take the pressure of hard—pressed households. that doesn't mean overburdening them with additional taxes, the kind of spending policy that the labour party will pursue will not leave people feeling better off. it will make them worse off and in the long term would derail the hard work we have done. the government have their own fantasy figures in their budget and to make up fantasy figures for labour is ridiculous. we have set up our spending plans. and the ifs say they are not credible. people have different opinions, but the bottom line is that the nation is in a mess in terms of economic growth, productivity. schools are having cuts to their budget. and people out there recognise that. people out there who can't get social care recognise that. he says he is not happy with public

services as they are. i didn't say that. you didn't say you were happy. i don't agree with peter's characterisation of our country and our economy. half your cabinet are arguing the same thing. this is an economy with a near—record level of employment. then why is it not possible... if it is going well, as you say, why do we not have social care that is adequately funded? we will have a green paper on social care. we have already put £2 billion into social care. and the reason we have been able to do those things is that our stewardship of the economy has been responsible. if you go for this tax and spend and spray the money around, it ends up in disaster.

we end up back where we were in 2010. you keep saying tax and spend. you have gone from a strong and stable economy to the magic money tree. you gave the dup £1 billion, which suddenly was found. the magic monetary analogy went. the bottom line is that the country is in need of investment and we are not getting it from the government. and that, gentlemen, is where we have to leave it. it was a good discussion. thank you both. that is all we have time for. i will be here tomorrow. until then, good night. rain is on the way but not for all of us. in fact, a day of mixed fortu nes of us. in fact, a day of mixed fortunes on wednesday. all due to

this area of low pressure. it will bring wet and windy weather into western fridges —— fringes but if you managed to escape the rain, there will be a bit of spring warmth. make the most of it, things are set to change again as remove into the weekend. starting off wednesday with this divide. lovely spells of sunshine in the east. further west, i windy start. increasing gale force gusts on exposed coasts and some rain pushing into cornwall, devon and west wales. that will spill its way into ireland and into the western fridges of scotland's —— fringes. sensual and eastern areas with some sunshine could see temperatures peaking at 1a degrees and that will feel pleasant. a bit ofa degrees and that will feel pleasant. a bit of a contrast across the country. as we go into thursday, the

weather front pushing north and east. behind it, scattered showers. still breezy. some of the showers breezy and boundary. not quite as warm, 5— 12. on friday, we could see some showers turning increasingly windy. chiefly to higher ground. it is the start of a change, a shock to the system, to come, as we move into the system, to come, as we move into the weekend. we start to see the influence of high pressure across scandinavia. some showers in the north—east under this area of high pressure, circulating around the high. we drag in the easterly flow and if you haven't already heard, the cold weather is set to return. with the easterly flow, we will potentially see some snow. there is

some uncertainty heading towards the weekend that some of us could see snow but for all of us it will be bitterly cold with a significant wind chill will stop whatever you do, keep watching the forecast over the next couple of days. this is newsday on the bbc. i am rico hizon in singapore. the top stories. just over a year after his appointment, rex tillerson is sacked as us secretary of state. president trump says this. we have been talking for a long time. we got along quite well, actually, but we disagreed on things. russia issues defiant statements to britain about the attack on a former spy as the deadline passes to explain the use of one of its nerve agents. i am sharanjit leyl in london. also.

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