this week, maybe not to interviews this week, maybe not to you but i have given several interviews. i have been in london, i have been working with my teens, i have been working with my teens, i have been working with my teens, i have been out in the streets, i have been working with my officers and leading operations, i am now talking to the media. that's a summary of the news, newsday is coming up at midnight. now on bbc news, it's time for newsnight. following intense media coverage yesterday i would like to take the opportunity to update you on the condition of the two remaining patients being treated at salisbury district hospital. another day, another twist in the elaborate plot of the poisoning of sergei and yulia skripal. today, we learn that he is now no longer critical. unlike much that has been said, it's unbelievable, but true. we'll hear from one of the men involved in creating novichok, on how it's possible. and we'll talk through the american and british tactics at dealing with the russians. 50 years on from those famous protests in 1968, france is at it again — against reforms promoted

by president macron. we'll ask this macron supporting en marche mp, how it'll end. and this — the unspoken benefits of silence. hello. many of us had, i think, assumed that the skripals could not survive a novichok attack. indeed, in some media coverage they had accidentally been referred to as murder victims. so their improvement has been an unexpected and welcome development. salisbury district hospital gave an update on them today — in response to recent media coverage, they said — a significant update on sergei, and more on yulia too. as yulia herself says,

her strength is growing daily, and she can look forward to the day when she's well enough to leave hospital. i also want to update you on the condition of her father, sergei skripal. he's responding well to treatment, improving rapidly and is no longer in a critical condition. as you will appreciate, i won't be giving any further details at this time. the whole affair, of course, remains a deadly serious business, but that being said, an information battle is underway an information battle is under way between russia and britain, with moments of apparent farce. russian and uk un ambassadors quoting alice in wonderland at each other. russia raising the issue of sergei skripal‘s pet cat and guinea pigs — with a subsequent admission from the british they were left to starve and die in the sealed skripal house. other information about the case seems only to come out of the british, after it's raised by russia. if it is a propaganda war,

it has not felt as though the british are winning this week. i'm with gabriel gatehouse. reports on russia so well and so often for us. the surprise of sergei skripal coming through this and being in a better condition, so much to talk about, what do you think it means for the investigation? we now have two potential witnesses who, number one, may remember something from the hours leading up to when they were poisoned and number two, more broadly, sergei skripal may be able to give some idea of why someone might have wanted to kill him. as it stands we have no official suspects that we know of as to who actually carried out this poisoning. we only have accusations as to which country was behind it. the diplomatic thing between britain and russia has been sort of strange to behold this week. the roller—coaster. presumably that continues as well. we now have two life people recovering as we understand it at the centre of the diplomatic storm and i think that makes

a difference —— live people. it looks like russia is keen to get them back to moscow and it looks like the uk is keen to prevent it. victoria skripal, the cousin of yulia, the niece of sergei skripal, who we had on the programme yesterday, has apparently been refused a visa into the uk, government source told the bbc it appeared that "the russian state was trying to use victoria as a pawn." that may or may not be true. it probably is true but it looks like another pr victory for the russians. they have said this clearly means of the decision has been taken purely out of purely political considerations, that is their quote, and their refusal to cooperate, they say, means britain hasn't been to hide. as you said, it hasn't been a great week for the brits, quite apart from the guinea pigs and cats you mentioned, boris johnson caught out on exaggerating on porton down, the fco deleting a tweet, now this visa issue,

russia has made hay out of this. but what we haven't seen until now is a crumbling of the coalition to british put together over the diplomatic expulsions. went there for a moment. let's think about what this development means about novichok itself. a group of nerve agents reported to be so much more deadly than other chemical weapons. earlier, i spoke to a man who was working on the development of the nerve agent in the days of the soviet union. dr vil mirzayanov now lives in new jersey. i need gabriel to help me with that! i asked him whether he was surprised that the skripals look to be surviving the attack. i heard about that. does it tell us anything about novichok in general, though?

that maybe this isn't as powerful as we have been saying? or maybe that this particular sample of novichok was older, or not as pure, maybe not even made by the factory that you were working in? at military purity it should be ten times more potent than vx gas. the russians, as we look at their reaction to all of this,

don't seem to be taking it very seriously. they seem to be almost laughing at us and mocking us, they've been talking about the pets and the way the pets were treated. what do you think the russian game is here? the information game, if you like, or the propaganda game. dr vil mirzayanov, thank you so much. thank you for talking to us. gabriel is still with me. i don't know what you make of what we think about novichok in the light of the fact two people appear to have survived an attack. i spoke to a well—respected chemist

before we came on air and a level—headed expert on chemical weapons. he said a number of things. number one, we in the media and dr mirzayanov himself seem to have over exaggerated the power of novichok. he did not by the fact that novichok was ten times stronger than vx gas, which you heard dr mirzayanov say. the second thing is, the skripals will have survived due to prompt and effective treatment, standard treatment for exposure to organophosphate poisoning. that will be the reason they have survived. the third thing he says is numerous people in the past have been exposed to lethal doses of nerve agents and have survived, although there is only one case we know of so far of somebody exposed to the novichok and survived. this was a guy who was a colleague of dr mirzayanov, a soviet chemical weapons scientist, exposed to novichok in 1987 when his hood malfunctioned. he described what happened

at the moment, he said circles appeared before my eyes, they were red and orange, there was a ringing in my ears, an antidote was administered promptly and he survived for five years but eventually died premature and pretty gruelling death. i have one other thing to report that alistair hay said, as i said, a chemist who is very level—headed. he says he is still on the fence about whether it has to have been the russians. again, talking from a scientific point of view. he has not seen the intelligence. whether the chemical comes from there. he said chemically the russians are not the only people who have, could have made this nerve agent. thank you, gabriel. meanwhile — the us adopted a swathe of eye—catching new sanctions against russia today — not just for skripal poisoning — but for "worldwide malign activity". as they put it. the measures focussed on friends and associates of president putin

and aroused an angry response. russia said it would retaliate. well, at the end of another extraordinary week, let's look at how effectively the west is dealing with russia. iam nowjoined by professor louise shelley. she is a leading authority on money laundering and financial crime and is the founder of the terrorism, transnational crime and corruption center at george mason university. and edward lucas from the centre for european policy analysis. louise, if i can start with you, in terms of the sanctions today, what were they for and were they more than perhaps was expected? i don't think they were expected because it wasn't sure that president trump would allow such sanctions to be placed on russia but these are much more potent sanctions than one could expect in our political atmosphere and they are going at key, political figures, friends of putin and key economic institutions,

so they are hitting very hard and close to the kremlin. and the timing, we are obviously very preoccupied with the skripal case. should we think the timing of it is related to the skripal case because the us treasury change and press release mentioned quite a lot of different parts of malign activity, to use their phrase. i think it may also be tied to the departure of mcmaster from the nsc and the effort to do something against russia in this critical period. so, yes, the us is being a supportive ally to britain but it is also expressing something that is deeply felt across parts of the us administration and congress is increasingly taking an assertive role in foreign policy in this country and they are also concerned about russia. this is congress saying this is what we want to do and let the president stop us but this is what we think needs to happen. it comes out of the treasury department but there are other parts

of the administrative apparatus that have to support it but congress is being much more assertive, so it's a combination of the two and trump has not been able to stop it. i'm going to put a question to edward lucas and i will put the same one to you in a moment. edward lucas, it's striking how tough some of the sanctions are against individuals in a different way than we have been doing this in the uk because obviously we enjoyed some of these people making money and earning money here particularly in london and the financial district. who has got it right and who has got it wrong? it is not striking, it is out right shameful the americans, despite all the bad things people say that president trump and all the controversy about alleged collusion between his campaign and the russians, they are hitting the ball out of the park on this. they have gone after really key

people and hit them in a way that has got the kremlin very angry. yet the money—laundering centre of the world is not new york, it is london. we have a measure, for example, to criminalise the misrepresentation of ownership of companies, which is a very good thing to do, turning up and saying this is a bc limited of british virgin islands and don't say it is evan davis who owns it, if your lawyer lies about it that would be wonderful. when do you think that will come in? the answer is not next month, not next year, 2021. i think it should be next wednesday. it is a wake—up call to the british. the us treasury, the company had a flotation in london, it is chaired by a tory peer, does the british establishment need to change the way it treats these people? absolutely the way in which the bankers, lawyers and accountants in the city in general, not making any specific allegation because libel lawyers are no doubt tuned into newsnight rang out

with their pencils at the ready because that is a bit tactic the russians use, dear compasses of russian money—laundering and it is a small minority in this country but they do very well out of it and i think the government must take it on the chin, even if they are tory party donors or otherwise connected to the tory party. louise shelley, do you think there is an inconsistency in the way the west is approaching the sun would be better if we sat down together and worked out one way in which we are all going to do it, rather than dealing with somebody who you are sanctioning, for example? —— approaching this. i agree with edward lucas that our measures are much more hard—hitting. but we also need to be much more concerned in our society about beneficial ownership and who is behind the property and who is behind the investments. you are ahead of us on that and we are behind on knowing where all of the money is in new york and miami that has

made these oligarchs so enjoy western society. but now with the sanctions, some of these people who are closest to putin and in great positions of power will not be able to enjoy their properties overseas. very significant. edward lucas, let's talk about this propaganda information war and the way it feels as though the russians have been getting information out of us because we haven't said it and they have said what happened to the cat? and then we suddenly say, well, the cat was killed and obviously it raises big public reaction. are we mishandling this? i think if there were an olympics for disinformation the russians would win all the medals, they are really good at this. you have this classic example hit of a hybrid operation were something physical happened, mr skripal and his daughter were poisoned, you have a diplomatic side and an information site and they are playing this like an orchestra,

they are good at it. it is a simple story, russia does bad things, they've been doing it for years, and when they do bad things they lie about it from poisoning litvinenko, through to estonia, georgia, ukraine. it should be easy to respond to that by simple telling the truth in a straightforward and open weight, not hiding things that don't need to be hidden and not having wrong tweaks that confused the evidence that you yourself have assembled. that is down to the foreign secretary, it is astonishing... i think we have to take this really seriously. in the past in other circumstances are politicians have really worked on what is the line, the talking points, the phraseology and what to avoid. we used to be quite good at doing this and now we have become, i would say, amateurish and the russians, it's not so much the russians are good at it, they are making hay while the sun is shining, and i'm worried that what comes next will be worse.

there was a clear warning from them when they said we are playing with fire and we will retaliate and i'm nervous about what we will see next week. we will not like it. thank you very much, and louise shelley, thank you very much indeed. before we move on, if you want you can watch a film on one of our russian oligarchs on our address —— oi'i russian oligarchs on our address —— on our russian oligarchs on our address —— on our website. there will be more strikes in france this weekend. if you're going, be wary of air traffic disruption and rail disruption. but travel inconvenience is not the real story here. it's that france is at a very important moment in its post—war history. in fact, it's important for europe, and for the liberal political centrists who've been humiliated in quite a number of european votes. president macron is desperately trying to reform france in ways that he thinks will save it from what he sees as the perils of populist nationalism. he doesn't have long — he needs to get the pain out the way

as soon as he can, hoping that the sunny uplands will be visible by the time of the next election in four years. if he fails, well, then france may be attracted to the political extremes, with consequences for the rest of the eu. emmanuel macron came into office 11 months ago. he adopted a strikingly more presidential style than his predecessor, and a more european one. so many hopes were vested in him. he'd thrashed the far right front national, he was a new beacon of hope for european liberals in their great battle against the populism that's struck that so many different countries. so, could macron really make france great again? he's got all the chances, really, on his side. but of course, there's this irrepressible culture and feeling in france of supporting whoever stands for their rights. so, it's really a tale

of two frances. and we'll know more in three months' time and anything can happen. for him, it's all about the economy, and he scored a success last september with labour market reforms. despite the usual opposition, they got through. but now, more intense battles are under way on different fronts. students are angry, tussling with each other over a blockade in dijon on tuesday. the president is trying to allow over—subscribed universities to select students on merit. it sounds uncontroversial here, but is seen as a breach of long—held principles there. then, of course, there are the railways. here, passengers are climbing through a train window as the doors were locked. the train did run, though. france is braced for three days of rail service, then two days of strikes

rolling untiljune. the issue is the removal of early retirement and other privileges for new recruits. not surprisingly, people have drawn the comparison to 1968. it's the 50th anniversary now of the widespread protest then in colleges and streets. france was then led by conservative charles de gaulle. and ever since, it's always taken a certain pride in its subversive resistance to powerful interests and to market forces. that heritage means it's a brave person to try to shake the country up. others tried and failed. alainjuppe tried to cut welfare, but was defeated by whites spread ——widespread strikes that had a good deal of public support. some argue that now it's different.

macron was elected saying he would... saying he would equalise pension rights across all this. —— all public sectors. that is what is going to do. it is different to 1995 when it was announced out of blue as part of a reform package of the welfare state then. the lady's not for turning. undoubtedly, president macron wants to be bracketed with margaret thatcher, one who sees the struggle through, and two, on one narrative at least, inflicts tough love, allows short—term pain for long—term gain. for the moment, macron‘s great enemy, the far right, are having their own problems. the front national are rebranding, but it may yet regroup. its successes, like those of populists across europe, are often more to do with nationalism than immigration. with nationalism and immigration. so, macron is gambling notjust

that he can deliver economic benefit, but it's the economics that will matter and not the politics of identity. i am nowjoined by alexandre holroyd, he is a deputy in the french national assembly for northern europe. he has been a member of president macron‘s party, en marche! since the party's founding in 2016. good evening to you. how does it end? take the sncf strikes, it feels too many of the workers, an existential showdown about workers' rights and an existential showdown for president macron to reform the french economy. it's quite straightforward, really. in 2015, the european union adopted a package. this reform that we are driving in france is a by—product of that package, which was approved by all the heads of states of all the members of the european union. and that implies introducing competition in the transport market.

and we need to make sure we are ready for that competition. it can't retire the drivers at age 52, because it would never make a profit... in the long—term, yes, but both sides are true. we can protect the workers that are, at the moment, in the workforce, and make sure that when competition is introduced in the market, those advantages are carried, because we have committed. the state has committed to the workers. in the future, new workers had to come in... who is going to win? i come back to the question, how does it end? actually, the people who win are the 4 million people who use the sncf today. you are talking about an organisation that has a debt of 50 billion euros. that's the size of our national education system budget.

you're talking about an organisation, which taxpayers subsidise about 1k billion a year, about the size of the budget of all our police forces, so it needs to be re—formed to be able to actually benefit the whole country. does mr macron fancy himself as a bit of a thatcher? have you in conversation outside of talking to british people, tried to expand what he's doing, have you ever used the thatcher comparison to describe what he is doing? no, by no means. there's a focus put on certain reforms of emmanuel macron. especially abroad, there is a prism through which france is observed, and it's true that we do liberalise the labour market, and it is true that we are making investment in the economic system easier. but we are also helping those fragile in society, and investing money for the unemployed. another billion in the education system. so there's an enormous amount of investment going towards the fragile in the society... the strikers are right to think this guy is trying to make a very fundamental change to the french model, the french public sector

and the way france has done things. the workers are right, everybody is right to see that president macron and the majority, and our majority in parliament, are trying to do what we committed to do in the campaign, to transform the country, a country which hasn't seen such significant reforms in the last three decades, and which desperately needed them. you can already see some of the impact, investment is up, unemployment, it is going down. in the fat years, people argue about whether they were benefits, they didn't come in the first three years. you need to get through an election in four years' time on the basis of a set of quite, at best, a set of reforms that deliver short—term pain and long—term benefit, and that is aided a good position.

——that is quite a difficult position. one of the changes that we have tried, both by the names of being elected, a lot of people from outside politics like myself, was also to change the way we approach the exercise. the absolute priority is to transform the country. we're not thinking in terms of the next election, the next election, the next election, we are thinking what the country needs to deal with the challenges. we need to leave it there. alexandre holroyd, thank you very much. in this inescapably noisy world, wouldn't it be nice to just switch off for a while? we don't recommend that during newsnight, but i mean at other times. the virtues of silence get a boost from an unlikely quarter in a quiet place, a horrorfilm opening today and starring emily blunt. the premise is that the monsters can't touch you as long as you don't make a sound. which set us thinking about the often unspoken merits of quietness in the arts in general, and indeed, in the rest of our lives. this report from stephen smith, who used to be a household name back in the golden age of silent television. (piano plays)

in a quiet place, no one can hear you scream. or at least, you're best off not making a peep in case the monsters hear you. the producers are revisiting one of the great truths of the arts,

silence is golden. applause. who has a heart so cold it doesn't thrill tojohn cage's composition 11:33. ..in which, on the face of it, not a lot happens for four and a half minutes. a work, i, myself, find almost heartbreakingly poignant. the idea here is to listen in to the sounds that we usually take for granted. at the end of the ring cycle at the proms in 2013, now usually, you hear that in the theatre, the world ends, the rhine floods over the world and you're left with the nihilism at the end

of the peace and a lot of applause. of the piece and a lot of applause. at the royal albert hall, when the conductor finished it, he held the whole audience in silence. applause. it felt like such a precious thing because it was the dark energy that actually drives all of musical culture, which is that all these pieces of music project onto the concentration, the silence of our listening. some say it's a paradox of our overstimulated lives, that while we might seek silence,

it's howling emptiness is a challenge. the idea of a whole hour of meditation is absolutely terrifying, and quite boring. i've tried it. negative thoughts come into your mind, that's what we're scared of. i think a little bit of training, i'm going to give myself one minute, it happens when a well— known figure dies, we have a minute's silence, and that sort of thing, so it's still there in the culture, isn't it? i suppose, start small and build up to bigger bits of silence, and lose the fear. as we fade thankfully into the ether once again, let's hear it for silence. applause.