you could get your plastic badge. you could get your fruit and veg in a paperback.” don't have any fruit and veg that i could actually... stop making excuses. laughter another paper is suggesting that the public‘s use of plastic bags has fallen by a decent person. astonishing. 86% in three years. fallen by a decent person. astonishing. 86% in three yearsm was the beginning of it. of people did not want it for the reasons are that michael has just said. they didn't want the nanny state interference. max lee astound people thinking, oh, idon't interference. max lee astound people thinking, oh, i don't need a back and then the next thing sure, you encourage people to buy things in brown paper bags or paper bags or ta ke brown paper bags or paper bags or take their bags and by their vegetables. there are more and more places where you can do it or you can buy dry goods lose as well. surely you can do both. could you put up the price of plastic carrier bags but also try and stop the supermarkets packaging and all their food? this is my point. why is that not being done? what is the government have to legislate? because at the moment they put a tax

on lasted bags. so this is actually thatis on lasted bags. so this is actually that is not well, it is not a tax. he goes to good causes. 53,000 shops will now have to charge. there is no suggestion what they would actually have to do with the money. so it could go straight in their tails. while we are talking about shops... look at that. i'm glad you appreciate my art. financial times. they got the boxing day bringing little cheer to the retailers who have been more hoping for sales bonanza. because well, you know, it was a massive day obviously. boxing day means of sales. it used to be. but not really any more. no, i think that all three of us are old enough to remember being sent out to see someone to remember being sent out to see someone sitting out a high street store window, being reduced from £1 million. but of course we have sales going on all the time all year round. we have online shopping. and

boxing day has still been sort of the traditional big day for retailers. anyway you have the black friday thing? they have this month that goes straight on that everybody knows you have got discounts going on as they say all year round, you're going to get discounts going into january. shopping and retail has changed. particularly when it comes to clothes. because once upon a time, the seasonal stuff was only there for a certain amount of time. now you can buy pretty much anything you want, and what is interesting is this report in the st is that central london retailers actually reported a rise in the number of people visiting their shops. around the country, it was particularly low. they were about 3% down on last year. and those were particularly the out—of—town shopping centres.“ the out—of—town shopping centres.“ the high street diane? yes. i rather think it is. i actually think retail shopping is dying. it is further

thanjust the shopping is dying. it is further than just the high shopping is dying. it is further thanjust the high street. shopping is dying. it is further than just the high street. some online companies are in trouble as well. yes. what was interesting, and a lot of the evidence you get his just simply anecdotal when you are out and about, but i found that shopping centres when i was doing my christmas shopping particularly one down and can't —— in cans, i found the place was empty a lot of the time or at least not many people there. and every shop was discounting as if they had a sale oi'i. discounting as if they had a sale on. i don't remember that happening before. we know that black friday and what they call here in the financial times the golden horde for sales, black friday did not work very well because people are buying someone someone it very well because people are buying someone someone it is much more convenient that actually going out into a shop is something we are not doing too much. you wonder what the people have just bought enough stuff. but they are beginning to think hard about buying. while we are talking about finance and general economics, also at the st, volatility leaving wall street set for the worst of december six great

depression. i think it should send a chill through everybody. is that really true? according to this, yeah. they have had a turbulent and up yeah. they have had a turbulent and up to christmas. the s&p 500 is on track for its worst december. it was in was the great depression. in general the american economy is not doing too badly. except you have got the partial shutdown of government, having you? that happens from time to time. though, it happens a p pa re ntly to time. though, it happens apparently all the time. laughter and then you have got worries about slower growth and the political uncertainty. that will send a chill. it will be interesting what happens when markets open your tomorrow. my jewel, it makes you sick is the mirror‘s front page. hospital parking charges. this has been something that the mirror has been campaigning on for quite a while. that is right. and other papers i'm sure. what has come out today is that almost half of nhs trusts have increased about hospital charges.

you could be paying up to £4 an hour, which is an outrageous charge. i don't think there's any reason why will shouldn't pay to park at a hospital, but it should be a fair charge to go into it. the big problem is how do you cope with people or popping in to see a sick relative, don't know how long they're going to be, come out and because the car parts are run by rival firms, thing to hit with a ticket? his things to me that the answer is let to have a little bit more compassion about this. yes charge for it, don't charge £4 don't use private companies who want to make a profit out of it.” use private companies who want to make a profit out of it. i suppose it should not be more than it cost to park in the street. exactly. these private companies are absolute... well, i'm not even going to say it. but i mean they are private. and they are appalling. and they have got no proportionality. the other thing i think... i'm sure they would say it is a business. of

course, and yes they would also argue that the monies going back into the trust, the national health service trust. arguablyjust going into front—line services. but it is outrageous that nurses and doctors and other health professionals are having to pay parking charges. as they do in many, many cases. particularly people were working anti—social hours. particularly people were working anti-social hours. the level of charge would you think is fair? should be the same as it will cost you to park on the street? yes. i think that whatever the local car parking, whatever the local charges are should be the same as in the hospital. i think i will be fine. not free, you're not suggesting? no, i'm not suggesting free. just to clarify that. you are getting tougher. laughter the times have got a warning from the ministry of defence in particular the defence secretary gavin williamson saying that he is very worried about the threat of spying from chinese technology giant

huawei and its involvement in written's next—generation mobile phone network. we had a bit about this before. we have. i can only imagine that mr williamson has a chance to catch up over the christmas break. because actually already... red box. america new zealand and australia who are members with us and canada have already banned the company from involvement in their networks. he has come to be party little bit late for this. he is now saying that we should study our decisions. one of the problems is huawei are actually saying that it is not true. but there are concerns that they might be asked to put in a back door, mandatory back door into this 56 technology. the last meet to explain it. can you just a claim that? laughter no. that is what we have got rory cellan—jones for, not me. the art

worries about how the chinese government could announce it. i think one should be careful. this is the man who told russia to shut up and go away, isn't it? yes. saying that to china now? he is quoted as saying here that china sometimes act ina saying here that china sometimes act in a maligned way. yes. it does. he gives special security device if you go to china and russia. if you go to china and say you went to hong kong, don't plug your mobile phone into the hotel wall. make sure you charge it up with a power pack. that is the way that they have become, big called your material. that we are concerned about china and i would generally be concerned we are offering contracts to the mobile network. it seems odd that we have to let them do this. but is perhaps more about gavin williamson's profile than anything else. would make eight greg prime minister.

talking about new technology. we have also got in the times, the debate about whether terrestrial television is still getting mass audiences over christmas, which it appears it is not. and the headline is the queen, or the crown is in the crown on netflix or the queen's christmas broadcast which actually still was the most—watched programme. yeah. did you watch? yes, idid. i programme. yeah. did you watch? yes, i did. i can see why it is the most—watched. i did. i can see why it is the most-watched. i watched in the evening on bbc two. that is why the queen can actually get an awful lot. this is the royal round robin letter. i will put you at the family is doing. she even had a go at people on brexit, which i thought was rather good. the point of this article is saying that more people are watching things like netflix. so that the big christmas blockbusters are not getting sucked big audiences as they used to because a lot of people are watching the crown on netflix. what is interesting is that these figures that have come out, they include people watching on live

and catch up tv. but they do not include people using on—demand services. 50 i think you will be very interesting to know, put the queen to one side because although she got 6.3 million viewers on bbc one and itv, that is nothing compared to be 2118 million viewers tuned crocodile dundee in 1989 a p pa re ntly tuned crocodile dundee in 1989 apparently —— what 1.8 tuned crocodile dundee in 1989 apparently —— what1.8 million viewers to crocodile dundee. but two people watching on—demand, a lot of those old still be terrestrial he produced. i was watching earlier on today a rerun of an old show from 1971. a special. yet, you and the rest of the country! i think that is something like 30 million people, staggering numbers, half the country was watching one show. audiences are not like that at all now. apart from the news channel obviously. of course. the bodyguard, which was why it was such phenomenal, that was one of the things that people watching at the same time. once upon a time you would go to a pub enables them to because it was whatever it was

that night. a bit of a rarity. good to see you both. have you had a good christmas? very good, thank you. indeed. lovely to see you and we will see you again in the new year in 2019. that's it for the papers for this hour. don't forget you can see the front pages of the papers online on the bbc news website. it's all there for you — seven days a week at bbc.co.uk/papers — and if you miss the programme any evening you can watch it later on bbc iplayer. thank you to my guests, jo phillips and nigel nelson. we'll all be for our second review at 11:30. but for the moment, goodbye. good evening. it may not have been a white christmas, but it wasn't always a particularly bright christmas either. many of us have had large amounts of clouds to contend with. this is how it looked earlier on this boxing day from a weather watcher in derbyshire. and the next few days, more of the same on the way. mostly dry but often quite cloudy.

high pressure is still with us, sitting down to the south. frontal systems dancing across the far north, the british isles, a little bit of patchy rain here. generally a west or south—westerly flow of air across the country. that continues to bring mild conditions. generally rather cloudy conditions through the night. some mist and murk and hill fog and drizzle. for southern england and the south of wales, as the sky clears a little bit through the night, it is going to turn it a bit chilly. towns and cities maybe three or 4 degrees. in the countryside, there could be a touch of frost. also something, a little clearer, building across the northeast of scotland. in these areas, northeast scotland or south of england and south wales likely to see some sunshine during tomorrow, although for some areas, there could be some dense fog patches to start off. those were generally large areas of cloud. that breaking up a little during the day, perhaps for northeast england for example, some sunny glimpses here.

those temperatures around where they have been, 9—12d. on thursday night, it will be that mixture of low cloud, mist, a little bit of drizzle. some fog patches developing. similar story for many on friday. but a weak front just works its way across scotland, a bit of patchy rain for a time. as that front clears away, the sky should clear a little bit. we will see some sunshine for northern ireland and mother england. further south more cloud, generally high, highs. ——further south more cloud, generally dry, highs. of 9—11 degrees. pressure. a familiar friend by now. still sitting in place down here to the south. however, this frontal system approaching northern parts of the uk could bring some slightly heavier rain. the potential for a fairly wet day across scotland on saturday. some of that rain into northern ireland and perhaps northern england, a bit of insurgency about that. ——northern england, a bit of uncertainty about that. the further south you look generally cloudy, generally dry and it will be milder on saturday. maybe 12 degrees. for the last two days of 2018, we stick with the same thing. a lot of dry weather, a lot of cloud, some spells of sunshine and generally,

it will be mild. this is bbc news, i'm ben brown. the headlines at 11:00pm: president trump makes an unannounced trip to us troops in iraq and defends his decision to pull american soldiers out of syria. queues for the boxing day sales, but the number of people on the high street today has fallen for the third year in a row. japan is to restart commercial whale hunting next summer, in defiance of a global ban. sister wendy beckett, the nun who became famous around the world as an art historian and bbc broadcaster, has died at the age of 88. and at 11:30pm, we will be taking another look at the papers with our reviewers, jo phillips and nigel nelson. stay with us for that.