now, it's time for newsnight. tonight, a broadcast exclusive with the ceo of cambridge analytica. alexander nix responds to the allegations of dirty tricks at his company and vast breaches of data security. we see this as a coordinated attack by the media that's been going on for very, very many months, in order to damage the company that had some involvement with the election of donald trump. we put to him the accusations of a whistleblower that he runs a full scale propaganda service. we get our biggest glimpse yet of the brexit deal. is it to be a full english or a dog's dinner? now today was about the steps we will take next year when we leave the eu, but before we fully relinquish our legal ties with brussels. and there are signs of some cheeky continental interlopers sneaking

onto our plate. jacob rees—mogg is here to sample the menu. and this. vladimir putin! look who's back in power. if he completes this term, he'll be the longest serving leader in russia since stalin. we'll hear from one of those who stood against him. hello. good evening. tonight, the boss at the centre of one of the uk's most controversial companies speaks exclusively to newsnight about allegations of the inappropriate use of facebook users‘s data.

that company has developed — in the words of one whistleblower — "the full service propaganda machine." alexander nix is the ceo of cambridge analytica — employed by donald trump, amongst others, to help his presidential election campaign. the company uses the micro targeting of individuals to work out their behavioural patterns — as consumers and voters. after a report in the observer yesterday, they stand accused of using data from facebook users without their consent — to change minds of millions of americans. tonight, the company faced more trouble in an undercover report, channel 4 filmed the company bosses offering to entrap foreign politicians with dirty tricks. here's john sweeney. tonight british data mining company cambridge analytica stands accused of offering spies, lies and honeytra ps to a prospective client. and taking part in one of the greatest breaches of ordinary people's data in history. cambridge analytica's boss, alexander nix, tempted what he thought was a wealthy client with a bagful of dirty tricks. what the old etonian didn't know was that the client was, in fact, an undercover reporter for channel 4 news. cambridge analytica and mr nix

deny any wrongdoing. the company, which denied a role in furthering brexit but did work for the trump campaign, is also facing an investigation by the british information commissioner tonight as the scandal grows. but the question potentially affecting millions of people around the world is whether their personal data was mined, and to what end. imagine somebody knocks on your door and enters and rummages through all your stuff, and then rummages through the bits and bobs of 300 of your friends and family. you would tell them to bugger off. but that's exactly what cambridge analytica is accused of doing to the facebook data of 50 million people. at the heart of this story is a russian born digital genius, dr aleksandr kogan. reports say dr kogan scraped data from facebook users who took part

in a cunning personality test he devised. taking advantage of facebook‘s obscure privacy settings and claiming he was doing academic research, dr kogan was reportedly able to access the personal data not only of the almost 300,000 users who took the test but also of almost all of their facebook friends. that apparently opened up access to some 50 million user profiles. dr kogan has declined to comment, except to maintain that his programme was, quote, "a very standard vanilla facebook app". facebook dumped its relationship with cambridge analytica on saturday, but today its share price tanked by around $35 billion. professor david carroll from the united states is suing cambridge analytica in the high court in london. it was a reality check to just

get the data and see it was accurate in terms of my voter file some sort of accurate in terms of my politics. what was really disturbing to me was that it came from the united kingdom. and it came from a military contractor. and i knew that, and that was really distressing. there's been unease about their activities for months, the firm has consistently denied helping brexit along or doing dirty tricks for team trump. tonight's revelations raise a simple question. how reliable is the word of alexander nix? that was john sweeney reporting. i spoke to alexander nix, the ceo of cambridge analytica, this afternoon, in an interview arranged to discuss the data breach and before details of the latest channel 4 accusations were aired.

i began by asking him whether it was right that dr kogan offerred cambridge analytica access to facebook apps that were given special permission to harvest data. it's certainly right that he gave us access to a dataset. i think that we would disagree with the veracity of the claims concerning how powerful this data was. we ran many models over a period of time, to understand if we could use this data in a meaningful way and ultimately, it proved to be fruitless and so we moved down a different avenue. because he says that the data came notjust from using the apps but from a far wider circle of friends, or their contacts gave you status updates, like some messages. so from touching 200,000 people, you expanded into their entire social networks which scaled you to most of america.

look, i think it's important to understand what happened back in 2014 is, we were approached by a very respectable academic, who said that he had the wherewithal, the legitimate and legal wherewithal to collect data on facebook users that we might be able to use in part of our modelling. and we entered into a contract with this individual to undertake a large—scale piece of research for our company. and that involved going out and us seeing somewhere close to 40,000 individuals to undertake a survey. a bit like an opinion survey. and as part of that survey, the individuals consented to give up some of their data to this academic, dr kogan, and also some data on some of theirfriends. this work was undertaken by dr kogan in its entirety. he simply delivered to us the model derivatives of these data that he collected.

and we then looked at how we could build models on top of these models to understand whether that would give us any insight or any signal into these audiences. so when chris wylie says that dr kogan was using apps from people who had no idea on facebook, is he wrong, is he lying? well, i think, my understanding is that dr kogan sought permission from the people who filled out the survey and they were then giving up data on their friends. let me point out that this is no different to what barack obama's campaign were doing in 2012. the obama campaign produced a facebook app that requested their supporters to give up their facebook data and also allowed them to give up data on their... they knew they were doing it. exactly, and it's exactly the same. and you're saying everyone you asked knew they were giving up their data.

well, everyone, certainly — let me clear up, we didn't ask everyone. everyone that dr kogan engaged with, my understanding is that they knew they were giving up their data and they would have signed some sort of permission for that. why do you think channel 4 then has been filming an undercover sting to prove that you had involvement in, uh, an unethical way of using people's most intimate and personal data ? well, i think... look i can't speak to channel 4's motives. i think that their undercover sting was intended to embarrass us... why? again, look, we see this as a coordinated attack by the media that's been going on for very, very many months, in order to damage the company that had some involvement with the election of donald trump.

do you know what they filmed? do you remember what you said? do you know what they are going to use? well, i have a fair understanding, yes. and is it as bad as you think? well, look, you asked earlier if i had regrets, yes, i have a huge amount of regrets about the fact that we maybe undertook this meeting and spoke with a certain amount of hyperbole about some of the things we do. what we were trying to do was to elicit from the undercover reporter the true intentions of the meeting. these meetings started out as very bona fide, philanthropical requests for services delivered

to help in the country of sri lanka, to help make it a better country and help spread the wealth through projects of information technology and health care. by the time ijoined the meetings, the undercover reporter pivoted them such that he was asking us about entrapping political officials, the use of honey traps, and all sorts of other behaviour. cambridge analytica has data on how most of america thinks. you are completely confident that cambridge analytica has not in any way influenced the outcome of the brexit vote, or of the trump victory? well, of the brexit vote. in the trump victory, we were involved in the trump campaign, as i've made clear for very many months now. we managed everything from research to data to analytics, to all the digital marketing, to also the tv marketing that was undertaken. so we had a role that was core to some of the functions delivered to the campaign. and do you feel that you have skewed democracy by playing a part in that? by providing campaign services

to a candidate who'd been fairly nominated as the republican representative of the united states? how is that possible? so you think that hillary clinton is allowed to have a campaign team and donald trump isn't? do you feel there is anything ethically that you would do differently as a company now? well, i have some regrets about the way that i have represented what the company does. i certainly feel that the air of mystery and negativity that surrounds the work of cambridge is miss—founded, and as the ceo, i take responsibility for that. i take responsibility in light of the fact that the staff have worked incredibly hard to build this business up. they're very driven on finding, you know,

high—tech solutions to very real problems that face people in the world today, and if i have, you know, failed to convey what we do in the right way, to viewers, and the public, then that is a failing and yes, i have some regrets about that. thank you very much. we asked him if he wanted to talk to us we asked him if he wanted to talk to us but he declined. finally, you might say, a cheer or two — but not three. the long—awaited transition deal between london and brussels marks what now feels like a real milestone in the brexit negotiations. the agreement sorts citizens‘ rights and the transition deal and provides legal continuity after brexit takes place on march 29th, 2019. but it came only after painful compromises and a debate that pitted business calls for certainty against brexiter demands for sovereignty. britain is now set to wait until at least 2021 to take control of laws, immigration and money.

in return, businesses in the uk and the eu are given stronger assurances that an abrupt cliff—edge will be avoided next year. eu negotiator michel barnier hailed the deal as a "decisive step". but the future of the irish border remains unresolved and some brexiteers have questioned what wins the government had in the negotiations. we've waited a long time, but now, at last, we know the flavour of the first stages of brexit. there's been a bit of give and take on the road that is meant — eventually — to deliver the full english. or should we say, a full uk brexit? so, finally we have something to chew over. now, today was about the steps we will take next year when we leave the eu, but before we fully relinquish our legal ties with brussels. and there are signs of some cheeky continental interlopers sneaking onto our plate.

britain has given ground in four main areas in the hope that eu leaders will sign up to a transition period at their summit later this week. not quite, perhaps, the full english brexit supporters had hoped for. britain has agreed that: the rights of eu citizens will continue to be guaranteed during the transition. that transition will end on the last day of 2020, slightly earlier than the uk had hoped. the uk will still be bound by eu fishing rules until then, though the uk will be consulted. and britain will stand by a backstock agreement from last december on northern ireland if no overall deal is reached. downing street points out that there are wins: the uk will be free

to negotiate and sign trade deals around the world during the transition. a special committee will make sure that both sides act in good faith during that period, and theresa may can say that the uk will gain full control of its borders, money and courts at the end of 2020. translation: we're able, this morning, to agree, and after all those days and nights of hard work, on a large part of what will make up an international agreement for the ordered withdrawal of the united kingdom. and there is a lot of work still to be done on important subjects, including ireland and northern ireland. our teams have worked hard and at pace to secure the terms of a time limited implementation period that gives the certainty demanded by businesses and citizens across the european union and united kingdom. but the 13—strong contingent of scottish tory mps

are unhappy that the uk will not have control of its waters during the transition. i don't think anyone should be under any illusion that we can try and sell this as, "better than expected," "it could have been a lot worse," you know, "take your medicine and go away." a useful phrase, whether you agree with it or not, it would be easier to get someone to drink a pint of cold sick than try and sell this as a good deal for a fisherman and it's clear from the reaction from fishermen in murray, fishing communities, that they don't think this is a good deal and they agree with me on that point. at the end of this year, when the 2019 quotas are in agreement, the uk will still be at the table. at the end of 2020, we will be there as a third country, so full control of our waters. and the question is, what happens in middle year, just for 12 months, where i understand we would not be actually in the december council, but there is a process by which we would be able to feed into that.

so i'm sure everyone will be looking at what are the extra protections we've got for that one year? so, it's not quite the full english, though a considerable amount of work has gone into this. it will be just under three years before we can see what the full uk brexit really looks like. that was the last meal he got today. hejoins me now, hot off the press news. this letter from the prime minister on that ireland border arrangement. what do you know now? theresa may wrote to donald tusk, the european council president, to offer assurances that the uk government will ensure there is no hard border in northern ireland. now, donald tusk had a few weeks ago warned that the uk was in danger of backsliding from an agreement that it reached with the eu back in december. the prime minister has said this evening that the uk is committed to that agreement in its entirety. so what does that mean?

it means that the uk will, as it said in december, maintain full alignment with the rules on the single market and the customs union, which support north—south cooperation. now, it is important to say that downing street believes that this backstop agreement will not be necessary because there will be, they believe, a comprehensive free trade agreement between the uk and the eu and that will be so closely aligned that you won't need to worry about the irish border. what about this row over fisheries? as i was saying, scottish conservative mps are very angry that the uk will not have control over its waters during the transition. tonight, they met the conservative chief whip and environment secretary michael gove. i'm told it was an emotional, a highly charged meeting and there were passionate views. there's frustration that they were not told, frustration and anger that they were bounced into this. but what they've agreed is that they cannot change what was agreed

in the transitional fishing because it is in green, which means it cannot be changed, but they are saying there must be very, very strong language on fisheries for when the uk definitively leaves the european union. interestingly, i'm hearing different views in the cabinet on this. on one side, there are those saying that there are people who love to buy into the betrayal myth. others are saying those scottish tory mps, they've got a point. nick, thank you very much. jacob rees—mogg is the chair of the european research group and a leading brexiteer. jacob, you and other brexiteers worked very hard to convince the fishermen they would be better off out. they voted for brexit in their droves. douglas ross tonight says that deal‘s a "bucket of cold sick." they must feel absolutely shafted. well, the secretary of state for the relevant department said about ten days ago that the uk would leave the common fisheries policy in 2019. i don't know what has happened in this very short period, it is deeply unsatisfactory.

you admit it has gone badly wrong? it is not for me to admit, i don't like this report at all. i make no bones about it, i think this transition agreement is a very unsatisfactory agreement, notjust on fish. the only thing that makes it acceptable is the hope that it is leading to a proper brexit at the end of 2020. it is all very well saying that... but this agreement gives away almost everything and it is hard to see what the government has got in return. right, so all that stuff now in green that you can't take back you think are big misses? hold on, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. when its in green, it has been signed off, hasn't it, so it doesn't get re—debated? there is a process — nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. it's an important part of this because there is a staging post in the negotiations and if the government isn't satisfied with things at a later stage, then it can pull back on things it has previously agreed. that has been set out very clearly throughout the negotiations. now, when you look at the bits in green, so far, it looks like concessions

from the british government without counter concessions in return. that is all you see? all i see. the uk giving up ground and getting nothing back? someone said to me that government rolled over but hadn't even had its tummy tickled. now, the question then is what is the end state? many of us can swallow a good deal that is unsatisfactory in the transition, if it leads to a proper brexit in the end. ok, let me look at the northern ireland border question that nick just raised. theresa may is prepared to stand by what you already didn't like in december, in other words, if there is no deal, then the uk will remain fully aligned on those, particularly on those three things, in the eu's understanding on everything, fully aligned with eu rules supporting north—south cooperation. in other words, if there;s no deal, we all remain aligned in the eu. what that is saying is that we would stay in the eu, we'd still be in the customs union

and single market at least to those parts that are related to the belfast agreement. does that make no deal less attractive to you? no, because no deal still means no deal. bear in mind... not if she says it goes back to what was signed in december? the document in december said in an early paragraph that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. then in a later paragraph, that if nothing was agreed that and they would agree this. what you have to ask, which hasn't been made clear, is which of those two paragraphs takes precedence, the earlier one that says nothing is agreed until everything is agreed or the later one? and i would take the interpretation, and when it comes to votes in parliament, would vote accordingly, that the primary paragraph is superior. it does look like you're being boxed in. it looks like the pm has found a way of making no deal look much less attractive to you then let's call it

a medium soft brexit. it's not a question of being boxed in from my point of view. it's a question of whether the government is going to deliver on the referendum result that we leave the european union. the government has been very generous, it is offering £35—40 billion and wants in return a trade deal. that is very beneficial to the european union. bear in mind, without our money, for the final 21 months in the financial framework, the eu is insolvent. people say, what plans have we made for no deal? what plans has the eu made for no deal? what has it said to romania or bulgaria or poland about the funding that it won't get if the uk's deal doesn't come through. in terms of where your loyalties lie, at one point you, thought a no deal would be a better way to proceed because the wto regulations would take us back to zero tariffs. i have no qualms about a no deal. you would still embrace one? the prime minister said it has... could you vote for no deal? the prime minister said no deal is better than a bad deal,

she said this in her mansion house speech just a week or so ago. so the worst deal looks, the happier you are to just walk away and say, we are better off? i do not like this transition deal, but as i said earlier, it is acceptable in the event that the end deal is good. but on its own, this transition deal is deeply unsatisfactory and the government has given way onto much. jacob, thank you. earlier this month, chris cook and lucinda day brought us an exclusive on bullying and harassment of parliamentary clerks at the hands of mps in the house of commons. tonight, the house of commons has agreed to an inquiry into theirfindings. chris is here now. what has been going on today? this afternoon there was a meeting, the house of commons commission, the governing body of the house of commons corporately. it's mostly mps and a few other people. they agreed there should be an inquiry.

they also agreed it should be run independently, and the terms of reference for that inquiry are going to be set by the two members of the house of commons commission who are not parliamentarians, who are completely from the outside. so people have confidence in it. the thing is, there is a big question about what the remit is going to be, and the really big question comes from what they will do if they uncover a large body of evidence about one mp in particular. let's say they get five people who come forward and they have had problems with this mp. they look into that case and can understand the system and how it does or doesn't work at the moment and then they have to come to a conclusion about what should have been done. will they tell us they have gathered all this information about the mp or will it be kept secret? last week, in parliament, andrea leadsom said there wouldn't be individual investigations into individual mps, which made it sound like they might come to broad conclusions, but not name names.

frankly, that won't be good enough for staff who are really worried this will be used to sweep it under the carpet. that has been the response so far? we need to know what is going to happen at this inquiry concludes an mp is a bad person and needs to be dealt with, will that be made public or will it be secret? chris cook, thanks very much. how does the world respond to an election that you putin called in a landslide and were not really believes in? there was no official opposition. certainly, the 70 percentage of the vote suggests the word of the leader he never really doubted he was president. the big question is how the world reacts in a country that has silenced dissent should they congratulate him, should they freeze him out? a muted reaction so far by our diplomatic editor. he assesses the options for the west now. back in the 1870s when britain and russia asked friend or foe about their future relationship,

they did so from a position of relative equality. but as vladimir putin celebrates an election victory that propels him into a fourth six year term, he is consolidating his already dominant position. one of his cheerleaders, the editor of rt said russians would not now allow a change of leaders. in some ways putin has now trapped himself, he's boxed himself in. because he is now very much seen as the founder of modern russia. he certainly has been in power for the majority of time that russia has been an independent country after the collapse of the soviet union. and at this point it's not even clear how to have a successor to someone seen in this very tsarist way. so by common consensus

he has grown and sanctions would be as one person put it like mud wrestling a gorilla. instead, british mandarins are resigned to the power realities of the situation. we've got putin for another six years and we can't deny he is popular with his people. one can doubt how fair the election was but he has a real following in russia, he is not going to change his spots, we know how he operates, this i win, you lose approach to international affairs will go on. we will have to continue to deal with an aggressive russia. and if that isn't tough enough to swallow, one of putin's campaign staff thanked britain, saying its response to the skripal poisoning had got the turnout up just when we needed it. putin seems like he's very much on a trajectory to confront the west, this has defined his foreign policy and i don't see

that changing any time soon. i see the relationship between the west, europe the united states and russia, staying relatively the same progressively worse. but there are areas where it is hard for him to hit back in kind or harder. there are large amounts of russian private cash in london, which is why tomorrow's national security council meeting could spell our further measures against those who can't explain this wealth. my own strong feeling is that we have to show the russians as a result of this case that they can't go on behaving like this and expect to be treated as a responsible country. one of the opportunities we have to send that message is the fact that the city of london has got an awful lot of russian money. some of it no doubt entirely legitimate, some of it no doubt extremely doubtful and put there by people around putin. so let's use that opportunity to send a very, very strong message. phase two of britain's response to russia may then be more of a whimper than a bang,

but on a day that international investigators were heading for salisbury and the police said it was highly likely their inquiry would go on for months, none of this is going away soon. that was mark urban. earlier, i spoke to ksenia sobchak, a russian reality tv personality—turned—politician, who stood as liberal protest candidate in sunday's presidential election. i put it to her that should putin complete this next term in office, he'd be russia's longest—serving leader since stalin. if president putin completes this term, he will be the longest serving leader since stalin in russia. that's true, that's very sad. i actually — i'm in a very bad mood from yesterday. today we're trying, you know, to be a team together and to discuss our campaign but, you know, the mood is really not good, to be honest. you ran against him. i wonder if you regret doing that? you gave him, navalny said,

credibility by doing that. no. i mean, you can see how we discussed things with navalny yesterday and actually, i was very disappointed by this talk with alexei navalny. he invited me to debates and i was there because i am not afraid to meet with navalny or with putin, but if navalny would be permitted, putin have the same kind of credibility, even more so. . . but you must respect, you must accept that while putin is in power, there is now no effective opposition, is that true? i will be trying to be effective opposition. we're forming a party with dmitry gudkov, he's an opposition figure from the protests of 2011. he did a hugejob on the deputies voting in moscow, so we're forming a new power that i hope will represent young,

innovative russians who want change here. let me ask you a question that is very close to british audiences' hearts this evening. our prime minister, as you know, has pointed the finger at president putin over the poisoning of a russian man who is a former spy in britain. do you believe putin was behind that? look, this is actually a very interesting point because, you know, i really, i very much respect, i have very much respect for thejustice in london, and i know that many people, from all over the world, they come to great britain because they know how independent your court system is. and i think that after 2a hours, to make such conclusions, is really something that breaks this independence of all the system, where you have to go to to make

a huge investigation and then come to the court and then do all those things, so the answer, my answer is — i don't know. maybe theresa may is right. maybe she's wrong, but in any way, in such an old democracy like great britain, theresa may should not behave herself like mr putin does. i mean, you can't answer to our autocratic person by doing the same kind of things. you can't say in one day that it's only russia who is in charge, because even if it's like this, there should be a huge, profound investigation. i amm really actually surprised that this hasn't been done yet, but already such accusations appeared and already many people maybe would lose their possibility to go and study in great britain, many russians would lose the possibility to get visas. i mean, russia is not

right in many cases but great britain should not behave in the same kind of manner. this would bring us to end, to nothing. i mean, someone should be wiser, and i hope that great britain can be wise and can be really profound on the investigation. ksenia sobchak, thank you very much. thank you. joining us here now drjavier solana, former secretary general of nato, formerly the eu's top foreign policy chief. very nice to see you, dr solana. you heard there from the opposition candidate, i wonder whether you agree that britain has been, as an old democracy, slightly too hasty to point the finger directly at russia? well, it's very difficult to answer that question, not being a british citizen. but it seems to me that it has to be condemned what has happened in this recent period of time,

it is not the first time it happened on your territory, but it seems to me to use the terminology of the use of force, unlawful use of force has been the terminology used by the united kingdom, is pretty close to... use of force is article five of nato, etcetera. it's too heavy formulation, i think. do you think it's irresponsible to use that phrase? i wouldn't say irresponsible, but it's too close to other terminology tha tmay imply something which i don't think anyone wants. so how do you react to something that looks like not a one—off but part of a whole sequel. well, i think you have to react to who is making the definition of a crime, a dramatic crime, a terrible crime... and... but a crime with no diplomatic effects?

a crime with a diplomatic effect, which has to be dealt with by appealing to the convention of chemical weapons, where investigating can be done. where russia doesn't have the power of veto, therefore they have to go in and deal with the situation. and at the same time, do something that may be possible against people that are very close to president putin... like what? so what would that mean then? you can use your capabilities as a government to look at current accounts from many people... the situation of blood money... rich russians? it is very damaging for putin and putin's friends. i think this reaction that we have had of taking diplomats out

and bringing diplomats in, etcetra, it is something that hasn't been... it doesn't benefit us. it isn't benefit your country or the european union. we are one day after a landslide election which no one outside russia or within russia maybe recognises as an election. putin will soon have been in power as long as stalin and yet the west has accepted him and invited him in as a legitimate president. are they too frightened of him? well, i don't think anyone has congratulated him, that i know of, in the european union. or the united kingdom. but they haven't frozen him out, he's still a member of the g7, the g8. a meeting of the g7 and the g8 is no longer meeting, it doesn't exist any longer, he is a number of international organisations, we cannot avoid that, it is an important power. the fundamental question behind it is, is the west too scared? you look at nato, which seems

to have failed time after time, whether it was a cyber attack on estonia or incursions into crimea or murders on british soil, as we now think, doesn't there come a point where nato is to stand up and be counted? i think nato is counted, and is counted today, counted yesterday and will be counted tomorrow. but counted doesn't mean you have to act in a military manner. i don't think we or anybody would like to have a confrontation with russia in a military front. it's an absurd situation right now. therefore we have to do — to be tough, to take important decisions on things which are not preventing us from having some kind of relationship with russia. and at the same time, be very careful not to step up attention which may lead

where nobody wants to go. the situation in the world today is very complicated. let me ask you one question before we speak about brexit, jacob rees—mogg just said in his eyes, with the brexiteer so far the uk has conceded everything and the eu has conceded nothing, is that how it seems to you? no, on this subject, no, of course not. we have been in great solidarity with the united kingdom. and i think it has nothing to do with brexit, we will continue... on the brexit deal? oh, the brexit deal, it's been a good agreement. i honestly think what has happened today is a good agreement and has to be considered like that. time is ahead of us and we have to see what may happen at a later moment, but for the moment, it's the first day that the step has been taken and an agreement is moving forward. drjavier solana, thank you for coming in.

that is it for tonight. a quick message to whoever‘s tweaking the road signs on the a4130 in oxford — stop it at once. we leave you with the originals, and how they look now. goodnight. .it . it is the equinox to the astronomical start to spring and thankfully, the weather is set to respond accordingly. already though on monday, we saw some spring flowers in york bouncing back after being covered in snow over the weekend. the trend to this weekend shows how those temperatures will continue to climb over the weekend. still an north—easterly component to

the breeze across england and wales, thatis the breeze across england and wales, that is dragging some cloud from the north sea is a lot more cloud than we saw through last night. temperatures will drop close to freezing, one or two isolated showers in the east. western scotland, northern ireland, winds lightest. we could see snow around glasgow. the high pressure that has been to the north of the country is ona been to the north of the country is on a shift in the tuesday and that helps to continue to cut off those colder winds. still a bit of a cold northerly airflow but it is coming around this area of high pressure. a bit more cloud across england and wales tomorrow, the case of cloudy with some sunny breaks. showers should fade away, as will those in the north—east of scotland. after that very frosty start, the best of the sunny weather. temperatures between eight and nine degrees. atla ntic between eight and nine degrees. atlantic winds continue to take over, high pressure continues to

push southwards, allowing the atla ntic push southwards, allowing the atlantic air to dominate for all of us atlantic air to dominate for all of us and eventually bring in milder air. with the milder air comes clouds, scotland and northern ireland on wednesday, much colder day. heavier on the winds in the west, brightest towards the east. foster start the day in england and wales. while it does stay dry here after a sunny start, it doubts over. double figures in the north. that milderair double figures in the north. that milder air does win over as we go into thursday. a brief ridge of high pressure. that doesn't mean after a bit of a cool start across the east, maybe one or two spots of rain. we will see things turned drier and brighter. then we could see a high as 13. welcome to newsday on the bbc. i'm mariko oi in singapore. the headlines —

all eyes on china's president xi jinping as he wraps up the annual national people's congress and gets set for his second term at the top. devastating wildfires in south—west australia leave hundreds of people unable to return home. i'm sharanjit leyl in london. also in the programme — uber cancels all testing of driverless cars in north america after one of its vehicles strikes and kills a woman in arizona. and eight years on, has a statue of the virgin mary stopped god—fearing locals in the philippines from destroying the coral reefs?