hello, good evening. if you want to understand president trump's economic policy, all you have to do is read playboy. an interview he gave nearly 30 years ago to the soft porn magazine lays it out with clarity. "we americans are laughed at around the world for losing 150 billion year after year", he said back in 1990. "for defending wealthy nations for nothing... our allies are making billions screwing us". there, in a nutshell, you have the theory behind what the president has now introduced as trade policy. a levvying of tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium from the european union, canada and mexico, when their current deal expires at midnight. the duties are being imposed, washington claims, on national security grounds, in particular to stop china flooding cheap metal into global markets. it's "america first" worn with pride and has left his allies screaming about protectionism and reaching for their own retaliatory moves. here's our political

editor nick watt. apples, blueberries, and iconic bulb and whiskey, hardly the stuff of war. but the european union and mexico are lining up those innocent products for retaliatory measures of the new tariffs have been imposed by donald trump. —— bourbon whiskey. from midnight, tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium will apply to imports from the eu, canada and mexico, the trump administration cited national security grounds for targeting the trio, who once considered themselves closest allies of the us. even if the eu does retaliate, and even if some others do, it will still remain unlikely to be as much as 1% on the economy.

remember, just because they put tariffs on some of our products, does not mean those sales will go to zero. the reaction, markets around the world plunged, as the us announcement sent a sharp reality check across the atlantic. in the world of commerce and trade, the us, canada, mexico, and the eu are giants, with, in most cases, relatively good relations until now. but donald trump has delivered on his core campaign pledge, to protect american industry. and his views are hardly a secret, nearly 30 years ago, he declared in an interview with playboy magazine that us allies are making billions screwing us, and he made it to the white house on his america first campaign slogan.

we will never, ever sign bad trade deals! america first! again, america first! donald trump has been prescient on all of this, 30 years ago he was already, he was already aware of these difficulties, and it simply took several decades before his moment arrived, we had so much technological prosperity for 20 years, americans were not really feeling the pain but now they are, and, they are demanding profound change, which donald trump has promised to deliver. the white house believes there will be one winner. if ever there were to be a trade war, which is what so many rather histrionic interpreters are calling this, the united states would stand to win, we have trade deficit with all the countries in question here, mexico, canada, the eu. that means that we are not selling them nearly as many goods as we are buying from them. that means that we have the ability to put tariffs on their goods

and there is very little that they can put tariffs on all retaliate against in terms of trade with them. even friends were dismayed. it is very disappointing that the united states has chosen to apply steel and aluminium tariffs to countries across the european union, allies of the united states, all in the name of national security, and in the case of the united kingdom, we send steel to the united states that is vital for their businesses and the defence industry, it is paid to the absurd. it is totally unacceptable that the country is imposing militaant measures when it comes to trade. translation: what i am really fearing is that on top of that, president trump will take further retaliation, and then what will the eu do? that is why i was saying, then i think we are really stepping

into a real trade war, not just a skirmish about steel, or about measures that concern steel. we may be going from one to the other, then to cars, and further and further into an all—out trade war. it has been an ever closer globe over the last 60 years but if the strings are pulled apart, then maybe we will see a new world order taking place. in a moment, i'll be exploring the politics behind the imposition of these tariffs, but first to the economics. joining me now from washington is wendy cutler, the former acting deputy us trade representative. she is now vice president of the asia society policy institute. and from stockholm, carl bildt, former swedish prime minister. how much do you think this will change the world order? it is a dark day for trade, the president has gone ahead,

and as of midnight tonight we are imposing tariffs against three of our closest allies, they have not missed a beat, they have announced they will counter retaliate, and then the question will be, does it stop there or go further? this is not a good day for trade. the wto almost seems irrelevant in what is going on right now in the trade world. do you believe there is any thing retaliatory that europe can offer? we will take retaliatory measures, that has already been announced. dollar for dollar, and the mexicans have done the same. there will be significant or equal measures taken by all of these so—called allies and so—called friends of the united states. and that will clearly have a detrimental affect on the trade. i guess that there is nothing surprisingly in what donald trump

has announced today, as we said, it was in the article, the interview he gave 30 years ago, and this is fulfilling an election promise, he has done it for the domestic market and he is a politician who has stuck by what he has said. that is a question, although, perhaps, we are somewhat unused to us policy being dictated by interviews in playboy magazine... (!) there was the belief for a long time, the hope for a long time that some sort of sense and sanity will prevail in washington. what we have seen now is the president forging full speed ahead. let mejust bring in wendy, four americans this is not a surprise, this is exactly what he was voted into office to do. in some ways it was a surprise, many thought this was a threat to get trading partners to come to the table, to make concessions. and it has not worked out like that,

and so i do not know if the whole strategy is really well thought out, particularly when our workers and companies and consumers face counter retaliation from major trading partners, including allies. there are many people who have suffered from global trade, something that we know supporters of donald trump have expressed their frustration about over the last few years. is this the result of a very imperfect solution? well, yes... ithink... i will stick with wendy, then i shall come back to you. we are losing the support for trade in the united states, that is evident, the question is, how do you build that support up again? in my view, taking actions under section 232, a statute which has just been used less than three times in the past 50 years, is just not the way to go, we need to find a way to work

with trading partners, particularly allies, to improve the trading system and to find a way to level the playing field for exports and investment, we should be working in partnership, not confrontation. tell us what europe has to do at this point, because they can scream protectionism but as soon due for your own retaliatory move, you essentially arejoining in. arrow commentator in the film said, america will win this one...? —— our commentator. there will not be any winners, it is really about a debate about who will lose the most. the risk is that when these measures are taken, as they will be taken by the european union and canada and mexico, that donald trump will go even further, then we are in a really serious situation. the reality is of course that free trade and trade has been contributing to prosperity, if that trade machine slows down, it is going to hurt all of our economies,

including the us economy, no doubt. you think the us will be as big a loser as any of the allies? different in different sectors, as you say, but the direction of policy, if there is a problem, with steel over production in china, then the idea would be to get the chinese problem addressed by the mexico, by the eu, by the uk, instead, this comes on top of a lot of things, the nuclear agreement with iran, the paris agreement, it is once again a threat against those with whom the united states should really be cooperating to address the real issues. we know your president enjoys brinksmanship and likes deadlines, do you think any of this will materialise, or is he just trying, in his inimitable way, to bring the allies to the table and make them sit up?

well, he is already saying this is not brinkmanship, because these tariffs are going into effect, the question will be, can we avert more retaliation, and can we get both sides to come back to the table, and maybe come to the table with other countries and tried to deal with the overcapacity problem in steel and aluminium. those are real problems, multilateral solution has been tried at the 0ecd and has not succeeded. i think we should come together with partners and we should figure out a way to elevate discussions to inject urgency and address the problem which will allow us all to lift tariffs, lift tariff increases. when you say, oversupply, and i can see carl is nodding,

are you really saying, it is fine to do that to china, the problem is all with china, but it is not a problem with anybody else? with the allies? no question about that. that has been recognised by the european union as well, and has been a willingness from the european side to work with americans on that particular issue, but, that doesn't seem to be the trump administration approach, they want to go it alone and they are taking measures primarily at the moment, strangely enough, against their close allies, and on top of that using provisions of national security, saying trade with the european union and trade with canada is a threat to the security of the united states. that is plainly, it is beyond bizarre. it is insulting. thank you both very much indeed. we are staying with this. in washington is kayleigh mcenany, spokesperson for the republican

national committee. there may be gains in the small term but in sounds like a disastrous path that your president is setting, notjust the allies on, but america itself. well, we think this will bring a lot of success for the american worker and that is this president's primary goal, we have haemorrhaged job, going back to 2000, we have lost 5a,000 steeljobs, and just with the announcement of these tariffs we have factories saying we are going to open our door, smelters coming back to the us you, that we can produce products again. but you are going to make some gones in iron and steel, the us trade partnership body estimated a net loss in the us economy of 146,000 jobs, so you bring back a few here, and you lose many more. well, we don't see it that way. also, you know it is worth mentioning the national security component of this, this was after all a 232 action, we are taking this measure for national security purposes and what that means is you look overall, which had 23 aluminium

smelterings that has gone down to five. of those only one, only one of them produces the kind of high purity aluminium we need to build fighter jets otherwise we are dependent on china. it is a national security aspect that is really important to this and we think it is a measure worth taking. nobody believes the national security argument september in terms of what china are doing, this is not about the eu or canada or mexico. well, we don't see it that way. also, you know it is worth mentioning the national security component of this, this was after all a 232 action, we are taking this measure for national security purposes and what that means is you look overall, which had 23 aluminium smelterings that has gone down to five. of those only one, only one of them produces the kind of high purity aluminium we need to build fighter jets otherwise we are dependent on china. it is a national security aspect that is really important to this and we think it is a measure worth taking. nobody believes the national security argument september in terms of what china are doing, this is not about the eu or canada or mexico. no, it is about all of that. it is about certainly about the national security component but aluminium and steel are big components on aircrafts and submarines and weapons of war, it is very important

we have the ability to produce that in the case of a national emergency, but also, it is an equity issue, the fact when you send a car to the eu for instance, we are hit with a 10% tariff and on the of that value added tax and when a car is sent to us it is a 2.5% tariff. we have the lowest tariffs in the world. that is not, that is not sustainable for workers or the economy. you know it is notjust about the workers because the workers that is not, that is not sustainable for workers or the economy. you know it is notjust about the workers because the workers are consumers and everything becomes more ex pen is if for people to purchase goods, and then jobs are lost and it has a knock—on effect. i mean, broadly, this is a political move that will do a lot of harm, isn't it? well, we don't see it as political at all. we see it as primarily economic, you talk about prices going up on a can of beer, it might go up by one penny is

what peter navarro was estimating. this is one traction of i% of the economy. it is a small sector so we think that small hit is certainly worth it in the long run, bringing back thosejobs and production capabilities. do you recognise this is an analogue solution for a digital age, that the president talks about coal miners in west virginia and factories in ohio and most people understand that this is not about jobs going abroad, it is aboutjobs going to automation, machines taking over and having to reskill the worker, you can't keep old factories open forever. well there are lots of factors, you talk about automation, that is why we have seen many factoryjobs haemorrhaged but in addition to that, the an equitable playing field is a big component. we have seenjobs haemorrhage, since nafta, we have lost one millionjobs in this country so something needs to change. i would note president 0bama hit nine countries with the steel tariff, and you know,

no—one was crying trade war then, they were saying he is levelling the playing field. this is not an unprecedented action. nice of you to join us. thank you. the nhs turns 70 in a few weeks — an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of a much loved institution and recognize the extraordinary work its staff do. but the birthday will inevitably raise questions about its own health and the chance of it reaching old age with any dignity. today, a call from the nhs providers' chief executive to recognize the enormous funding increase it would need to keep pace with the quality of care found in europe. chris hopson revealed that there were more than 90 thousand posts unfilled in the nhs and stressed the need for a major increase year on year. the treasury and the department of health are locking horns on how to deal with the funding crisis — as chris cook reports, marking the birthday could be very expensive for the government. a hectic day indeed for both patients... as the nhs draws in on its 70th birthday, it's not in good health. the health service is expected

to get some kind of fresh funding settlement this summer, and boy, does it need it. in 2016/17, that is the year before last, hospitals in england ran a pretty big deficit. they spent £791 million more than their income. iin the past year, 2017/18, the plan was to rein that in, back to £196 million. but today, we learned things had slipped backwards, hospitals overspent by almost £1 billion. that is way more than planned, and that number actually flatters them. what we've got now is £800 million worth of one off savings made this year, to get us to the £1 billion deficit figure, so those one off savings by definition can't be made year after year, they are things like land sales, they are one off changes to the way we structure the workforce, there are all sorts of elements you can only do once, so therefore to do that

on a sustainable basis is simply impossible. the reason for the trouble is the same reason they have missed their performance targets. this is the total number of people dealt with within four hours of going to an a&e each month. it is bumpy but that is a pretty flat line. here, though, is the number of people who turned up. hospitals have not had enough capacity to keep raising their performance in line with demand. this fundamentally is a problem of demand, we've got many more people using trusts‘ services so demand is going up by around 3.5% a year, however proportionately, the income for trusts is only rising by around 1.2% a year, so we've got a fundamental gap arising. hospitals have become more efficient but the need to keep the show on the road has eaten into their ability to make long—term improvements. it's very difficult to think years ahead when you're struggling

against the edges of your budget. for example, in 2009/10 hospitals spent more than £2 billion on capital, that is new buildings and kit. but, in 2016/17, that was down to around £600 million. partly because money allocated for new stuff had to be cannibalised to underwrite day—to—day running costs, so it didn't go into extra capacity for future care. there is a limit though, to what you can do just by making a hospital more efficient in itself. hospitals are very reliant on other institution, so for example, the number of people turning up at a&e is determined in part by local public health campaigns and how good the local gps are. and the number of people who can be discharged promptly from hospital is largely determined by the success of the local authority. around a third of the people in english hospitals are there because they are waiting

for their local authority to deliver them some care. ok, then, how much extra money do we mean across all of these areas? the deficits we are seeing in hospitals at the moment and have seen for last four or five years really, and the poor performance, despite overspending, there's still poor performance really is pointing to the need for a long material settlement. what would a decent settlement look like, what would a decent birthday present for the nhs and its users look like? i think all the work points to about a 4% real increase for the foreseeable future, not forever obviously but for the foreseeable future. 4% a year every year is a lot. a single 4% increase right now would be £6 billion. that rate would double health spending every 18 years. there is a lot of money to be saved if we can just improve efficiency but the service right now hasn't got enough money to meet our current expectations. joining me now, anita charlesworth, chief economist from the health foundation think tank.

and from our dundee studio, carrie macewan chair of the academy of medical royal colleges and chief signatory of the letter sent to the times today. nice to have you both. can i start with you anita? we are at a crisis point clearly. is this all about money? it is predominantly about money, and the reason why we need extra money is because we have got big changes in our population. population's growing, but it is growing most among the elderly, so we are due over the next 15 years, nearly 11.5 million over 65s, people are arriving in retirement age with many more health problems, now, so we are seeing people with long—term health problems, and multiple long—term health problems so diabetes, dementia, that becomes complex to treat so we have seen more coming into hospital, needing to be admitted and problems getting them home at the end. so this would follow us, whatever.

it is not an inefficient system. no, the nhs compared initially, is an efficient way of delivering health care and if you look over this decade, the health service productivity has substantially outperformed the productivity of the economy as a whole. there is more you can do to make services more efficient and actually some of the worries people have at the moment are, that things like cutting the capital budgets that chris was talking about, mean you have outdated equipment which starts to have a negative effect on your productivity. all of the problems with staffing mean it is harderfor hospitals to run as efficiently as they could. right, you are on the front line, carrie, does it feel that way to you? yes, indeed. we are aware constantly, that resources are limited

within the health service, and we are aware there are backlogs of patients, they are waiting a lot longer than they used to and in greater number, we are also aware on a day—to—day basis we are struggling with equipment, with it, which is very clunky and it is very difficult not to duplicate and redo things if you don't have the right equipment. so on a day to day basis we are aware very much we are running very much on a deficit, and we are very keen to continue to develop the service, and it is very difficult to do that, when we are constantly trying to catch up. so is your suggestion then, that you cannot start looking long—term, before you deal with you know, the crash in front of you, if you like, or is it that you have to look long term because you are not going to get out the crash until you do? i think that is correct. there are three things that need to be done. the first thing is to deal with the backlog we have, the second is to improve the efficiency in order to improve equipment and make sure we have the staffing in place and once we have done that we can

start thinking about what the future holds but unless we make changes to the way we perm and perform we won't manage to deal with the demand we have already heard about, increasing aged population, with complex morbidity. like what? what sort of system would you completely overhaul in the way you work? you talked about clunky it, how big a problem would that be? well, the it in the health service has had its problems, and i think looking at a national system would be difficult, but you have to remember that the health service is not one pure system, it is a number of different regional areas that are working to provide the health care within their own area, they have their own plans ready, everybody knows that i need more monetary policy, they know they need to transform the services and everybody has their plan in place waiting for it to happen. there is a survey recently that found for community nurses,

so people like district nurses who go into people's home, a third are still working entirely off paper, so what they are doing then, is not being able to access the clinical record, to see what has happened to people in hospital, and then at the end of the day, half the time they are having to drive to hospital or an office, queue up with other nurses, to input some information, about those patients before they go home. how much do you think in terms of hours or time in your day, how much is that adding to a workload that could be spent on the clinical treatment. i mean it is notjust the impact on the amount of time that people lose, but it is morale sapping. if you are working in hospital, and you haven't got functioning it, and you haven't got access, you can't view the patient‘s scan because the system is down, all these things, both make you less productive, but also they are not why anyone goes to work, and to try to deliver the best quality patient care.

look, the trouble with this, i guess, people have very, very positive experiences themselves with the nhs. people are seeing it, we have 4 million people now on the waiting list, and people struggling to get access, to their gp, so people are noticing it, although people are hugely supportive of the nhs system, satisfaction with the service is starting to fall much as they see the impact, this winter was a very visible sign of that. it still remains the case that day in, day out, staff go the extra mile to make sure patients receive high—quality care. in terms of nhs england. do you think it needs to agree to implement changes

before it gets the money? does it need that carrot, or does it need to have the money in the system to make any change visible. we certainly need money in the system in order to make changes, it would be a mistake if the money did not come with strings attached. so that the money can be used effectively and efficiently, to make changes that people can identify with. improving outcomes for patients. thank you both very much indeed. george orwell is supposed to have said it best: "journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations. " tonight, the spotlight is on the evening standard. the political website, 0pen democracy, claims the newspaper, edited by former chancellor george osborne, has agreed a £3 million deal with six companies promising them advantageous coverage which would breach the traditional divide between editorial —

that's news and comment — and commercial interests. the paper has hit back, vociferously denying the paper would offer "money can't buy" positive news calling the claim "grossly inaccurate." we did ask to speak to someone from the evening standard, but no one was available. i'm joined now by les hinton, former executive chairman at news international, who'sjust published his memoir, the bootle boy, about his 50 years working for rupert murdoch. what is your concern? it sounds that they could be getting pretty close to the important line that separates commerce from independent in editorial matter, once that is crossed, readers can no longer be sure if they are reading sponsored material or traditional independent news, and then they are on the road to ruin. the broader picture, because of what has happened with newspapers and their economies, the balance of power between advertisers and newspapers has been upset. these days, you will see a great

part of the newspaper, hitherto sacrosanct for editorial, for instance, front pages, two and three, they will now carry advertising, they never did before... the interesting question, before we get onto the economics, which is clearly where this ends, where do you draw the line? if there is an article saying, ten things you never knew you could do with google, is that favourable comment? is that out of interest to the consumer? that is the question, the issue is, if the reader, if the reader believes, as readers of the evening standard may begin to, is this ten things about google something that the journalists have decided would be a good thing to do or are they doing it because there has been some financial imperative... ? that assumes the reader cares, does the reader care? if the evening standard does,

uber will take you to the ten best burgers in london, does the reader have to ask the question? certain things they care about less than other things but if a deal involves, take this example and accepted to be true, that they pay half a million, £15 million, whatever the number is, to appear in the standard, and that has an impact on whatever criticism uber might be subject to, and in this town it is subjected to a lot of criticism, you wonder whether that will temper? it questions the independence of a newspaper, when they are not certain what has been paid for and what has. has that been crossed already, how often do you read travel articles where you know that the hotel has put its name in, fashion articles where if certain designer has their product in, there is a lot of product placement already. in magazines in particular,

where you will see lots of outfits, and they will identify the designer, they will identify the price of the retail store, you can argue that is a service to the reader because if they read something like that they want to know where they can buy it, it is a service to the reader as well. i guess you will know well, you worked for rupert murdoch for years, the times always has a special report, inside burma, inside laos, let's take you through the economics of the country, all that sort of thing. i remember them well, they looked awful, the key thing, advertising supplement, all the fonts, the typeface in, they were quite distinct from the newspaper, you knew when you got that... maybe you did, as he sector to chairman, but our readers as discriminating as you make us out to be?

laughter. in the example you set, yes, they do, there is also a tendency now, i saw this at the wall street journal, there will be a page that is not in, but faces the same as the editorial pages, that is where readers have an instinctive knowledge. of its top white newspapers are a dying to be honest, there is very little way for them to make money. they are struggling, the truth is, there is so much advertising revenue in particular leaking to the internet, that they have had to make changes in the way they sell advertising, this is where the trouble begins, how far can they go while still maintaining the trust of the readers, that what they are reading is proper independent information, if they don't get that right, then in the newspaper is not going to get trust and perspective. thank you very much. that line from the evening standard, it was a deliberate misrepresentation taken out

of context, part of a statement they sent us, vociferously denying that their editorial position has been compromised. in her latest blockbuster, novelist kate mosse takes 300 years of history and begins the equivalent perhaps of a "boxed set" of literature, which she knows will take her another eight years to complete. the burning chamber is the first book set in a time of tumult and intrigue, the religious wars in southern france. i went to talk to the founder of the women's prize for fiction about whether she felt the award itself was still relevant, about her sense of history, and europe. all of my fiction, particularly the burning chambers, is a love letter to carcassonne, and then to toulouse and to puivert, but there's a tiny bit of south africa in there as well, and that came from arriving at a book festival in franschhoek. and as i drove into the town, seeing a sign at the side of the road that said languedoq, spelled with a 0, which is the part of france i normally write about, and discovering that seven huguenot families had gone to that part

of the world, having been sent away as refugees, you know, they were fleeing persecution in france, and had started to plant vines. and so this combination of franschhoekan south africa and then carcassonne and toulouse, and the bit i know well, that was where, you know, 300 years of history suddenly started, and for me that's always that moment, ah, i can write a story set here, because the land holds the story in it, you know, in its earth. you already know, it mean it's quite unusual, you already know the sort of scope of this. the scope, yes. you have written what i sort of describe as a literary box set. that's a great... yeah, yeah. you know how it breaks down, right. yeah, yeah. well, i know the spine of the story. i know my first generation, i know their children, i know their children's children, and i know bits of the real history, so i know what's going to happen.

i know in 1572 the most famous thing is the st bartholomew's day massacre but do i know everything that's going to happen to them? no. and you write adventure. i mean, primarily you write adventure. do you feel you are writing for women, or is that completely equally spread ? i absolutely am writing strong female characters, the sort of ordinary women in extraordinary circumstances who could have lived, and so my fiction is female—led, but it is also male—led, in that i'm writing gentle men who don't want to be the one who picks up the sword and has to run somebody through, but they are given no choice about that either. but of course i grew up reading ryder haggard. my dad used to read ryder haggard. i was telling him about one of my early novels, and i said "they're the same as the adventure stories you used to read to me, but the difference is it's the girls that get to have swords", and he said, "darling, i've waited all of my life for a woman with a sword to come and rescue me". so, i write for people who like this sort of book, but certainly the women's stories, the untold women's stories, all of us who have been left out of the history books, that matters a great deal to me, putting those voices back.

you founded the women's prize for fiction 20 years ago. does that still feel it needs to be relevant today? it does, absolutely, because what we're doing is celebrating different women's voices and honouring them. so would you like the women's prize not to exist one day, or does that miss the point? i think that we should always be celebrating excellence, wherever we find it. so i think the booker prize celebrates excellence, i think the women's prize for fiction... but it celebrates specific excellence, doesn't it, gendered excellence. 0h, absolutely, but all prizes do. every single literary prize has criteria, and some are about race and some are about age and some are about where you live or were born, and ours is about gender. it's no different from any other prize in that way, and so for me fiction helps us to listen to each other. do you think we're not very good at listening to other views right now? is that the age...? i think at the moment there is a lot of noise. the setting is obviously the religious wars and

the displacement of family. yes. you could say it's a very profound theme for our age, now. yes, yes. does that matter, is it important to try and make history relevant for today, or do you want people to lose themselves in this fiction? my profound belief is that fiction can sneak through. many of the dead ends that politicians and generals and kings and queens and rulers take us down, but fiction, we can stand in other people's shoes and maybe we close a novel, or we see a piece of theatre, and we come out and think, "yeah, i'm making some of those judgments as well". and so let's just try to listen a bit more, and use fiction, i suppose, to change things. kate mosse, thank you very much. thank you very much. before we go, the newspapers, screening test heralds new error in cancer care, that is the front of the times. and, liam fox urging brussels to avoid a us trade war on the trump story.

the financial times, you can imagine, going big on that. the spanish prime minister on brink of defeat, in a vote of no—confidence. and, roman abramovich throwing his toys out of the pram, as it were, the end of that development on chelsea's stadium. that's about it for tonight, but before we go, the wall street journal today reported on the curious case of thomasj mace—archer—mills. mr mace—archer—mills, founder and chairman of the british monarchist society, was a regular presence on media outlets around the world in the run—up to the royal wedding earlier this month, speaking for his fellow brits about what the royal family mean to us. except, as thejournal reports today, he's actually an italian—american who started life as tommy muscatello, born and bred in upstate new york. but you wouldn't necessarily know it to listen to him! goodnight. the monarchy always needs to be variable, it needs to change, it needs to be reflective of society, so of course we need

to have the institution keeping up with the times, and it does modernise, but the most important aspect is keeping integrity, keeping formality, and making sure the traditions and heritage we have as british people always remains at the forefront. because it is the royal family that identifies who we are as british people. we are going from chris fawkes to license —— lightning forks. we have just had this beautiful picture sent from 0xfordshire where this was sent m, from 0xfordshire where this was sent in, and thank you to mary mcintyre. the worst rain around west sussex and it was not cricket earlier today, with the greens seeing flood waters where the boundary should be in the cricket field. and you can

see the radar picture is picking up the storms working across 0xfordshire and into wales where they will continue to night. the amber weather warning remains in force until 6am friday morning so there could be more downpours, but there could be more downpours, but the worst will be working across wales the next few hours. the rest of us, a lot of low cloud to night, quite murky across many central and eastern parts of england and scotla nd eastern parts of england and scotland with mist and fog around and that murky weather will take a long time on friday before it thins out. then it will get brighter but then we see showers and thunderstorms and the risk of those storms is further north with scotla nd storms is further north with scotland and northern ireland and across parts of north—west england and northern wales where we could see 30 millimetres of rain falling from the downpours in the space of an hourso from the downpours in the space of an hour so the rain will be torrential and there could be unlucky communities where we see the storms aligning together and over two or three hours we could look at

50 or 60 millimetres, enough to cause flooding problems, the type we saw from today's storms. into the weekend there will be further heavy showers, especially for the first pa rt showers, especially for the first part of the weekend, mainly focused across the northern parts of the uk but the weekend will get better by sunday for most. saturday's weather looks like this with showers limited to northern england, northern ireland and scotland and a risk of some localised flooding but further south, fewer showers, more in the way of sunshine and property starting to feel warmer given that there will be less cloud around and feeling quite humid out and about. by feeling quite humid out and about. by sunday, still murky to start the day especially across scotland and then turning brighter with a few showers in the afternoon, and the showers in the afternoon, and the showers are not too far—away from the south west but for most of us we are looking at a dry day on sunday, feeling warmer with highs of 25 degrees towards london and the south—east, so feeling warm and humid here. storms to night,

continuing across parts of the south midlands and onto wales and they will take time to clear, but tomorrow the main risk of thunderer and showers is northern ireland, scotland, northern england and north wales and we could see localised flooding problems. that is your latest weather. i'm sharanjit leyl in singapore — the headlines. 0ptimism from the us secretary of state for a summit with north korea's leader — he's made it clear what's at stake. al two countries face a pivotal moment in our relationship where it would be nothing short of tragic to let this opportunity go to waste. fears of an international trade war as the us carries out its plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium from europe, canada, and mexico. i'm kasia madera in london. also in the programme.

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