i am not too sure. 40% of the popular vote, the headlines: the us state of louisiana we are in a position to form is bracing for the arrival a government on our own of a potentially devastating storm and we have an absolute majority. that is currently gathering strength we have a strong mandate over the gulf of mexico. it's expected to make landfall and at a time when european politics tends to get constantly more fragmented, we have managed to consolidate our base, within the next few hours. increase our share of the vote by 12% from 28% to 40% and you will not find many centre—right parties in europe these days reaching those numbers. but if you look at the composition of the parliament, the centre—left collectively had 48% of the vote. that is a lot of greek people who still believe in the centre—left. the centre—left is highly fragmented and if you can't change that as a party of the centre—left — i still have my doubts as to whether they can evolve into a party that belongs to the centre—left. but my main concern today is to make good use of the strong mandate

roger federer made it i received from the greek people. through the 12th wimbledon final of his career. he beat long time rival rafael nadal in four sets on fruiday. sunday's final pitches him against another old foe — the defending champion novak djokovic. now on bbc news — hardtalk. but you have to convince those welcome to hardtalk with me, people who did cast their votes zeinab badawi in athens. for syriza and centre—left parties this is the building that you represent them. where the new greek cabinet made you are right to point out that and is also the office i made a campaign pledge that of the prime minister. my guest in this exclusive interview i want to unite greece after four is the new prime minister of greece, years of divisive politics and i fully recognise there are many kyriakos mitsotakis. he has promised to set the country people who took a hard look on a new path of prosperity at what we had to offer after years of austerity. and decided not to vote for us. but has he promised more than he can deliver? my point is i want to go out it was more of a protest vote of my way to convince these people against the former government 00:01:34,202 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 led by syriza? i deserve the trust. what does this mean? it means primarily inclusive policies. i think we are ready to put greece back into an aggressive growth trajectory and we want to make sure that this growth is shared equally and everyone will benefit. for me this is probably the biggest challenge i will face. you talk to so many greeks and you read so many opinions from greek people and they say can the government, led by new democracy

now, really clean up a mess that arguably, when it was in power between 2004 in 2009, it was part of the system that created the mess in the first place? i hear that argument a lot. ten years is a long time in politics. and today's new democracy is very different from ten years ago. it has a new leader. i was personally elected, i would say, against the trend, i was not the favourite to take over the party. i come from a politicalfamily but i was always considered an outlier within my party. and i have managed to rebrand and change the party. many young people who entered politics for the first time and if you look at the composition of our government, for the first time one out of three ministers are from the private sector with no real political experience. they are what we call technocrats which is the word i particularly don't dislike.

they bring very specific skills and expertise to theirjobs. we are making a case that this is a different party and a different government. a different party because there are those who say that kyriakos mitsotakis is a liberal leading an illiberal party. you are quite centrist but there are traditional elements in the party who do not see eye to eye with you on a range of issues. we are a broad tent party and you don't get to 40% by convincing everyone to agree with all your opinions. that is the nature of big parties. i would disagree with the term illiberal. i would certainly use the word conservative. there are conservative elements within our party and we are the traditional centre—right party with a strong liberal bias. so i have managed to keep the party united. we agree on the main principles of the policies that we have to follow but that is the beauty

of being the head of a big party and sometimes you have to find common grounds. it was professor kevin featherstone of the london school of economics who said the risk is mitsotakis becomes the liberal trapped in an illiberal party. let's look at the mammoth task ahead of you. here you are, the new prime minister and you need to roll up your sleeves. the greek people have suffered. they have been traumatised by a decade of austerity and your gdp has lost 25%, unemployment is 1.2 million people without a job from a population of roughly 11 million. people cannot make ends meet. the average salary is about 650 euros a month and the cost of living is really high. you have so many priorities, prime minister, how will you select just a few? my number one priority is to restore the greek economy to an aggressive growth path. this growth cannot come through consumption and excessive borrowing. we tried that. and it failed. we all know the results. it has to be growth

led by investment — foreign, private and domestic investment, and innovation and entrepreneurship. i want to create private—sectorjobs and that is my number one priority, to make greece an attractive destination for capital — domestic or foreign capital. and for that you need a stable government. i think we have ticked that box but then you need lower taxes and you need to drastically impact the regulatory environment and greece is still a very confusing and complicated place to do business. this needs to change and change quickly. let's take the first thing you mention. you want to create 700,000 newjobs. will they be new jobs or will you start counting some of the jobs that exist in the informal economy, the black economy, that are not currently accounted for, or will they be brand—new jobs?

at the end of the day you are looking at statistics, but it is the people who really matter who are behind the numbers. so you are looking at statistics? there will not be newjobs? no, no, i'm saying there will be newjobs. but maybe what we are counting as newjobs today, part—time employment where someone earns 360 euros by working 20 hours a month. is that acceptable job? no. we may still count it and the previous government made a big case of reducing those numbers, but many of the jobs are temporary. my point is we need to make better paying jobs in sectors where we have a natural competitive advantage, and there are plenty of those. but 700,000 brand—new jobs, that is what you are pledging... newjobs. net newjobs. an economy is always losing jobs, we are talking net newjobs. that should be our target. there is a lot of scepticism about your ability to do that because your track record as minister of administrative reform between 2013 and 2015, you had a brief to cut thousands ofjobs and you wanted to have evaluation of people's jobs

and there was even talk that if you didn't meet standards you may be sacked and so on and people are saying have you really changed your tune? aren't you going to come in and losejobs? i had that thankless task at the time of stepping in as minister at a time when i inherited preagreed job cuts that were agreed by the government and i had to implement that policy. i never agreed with it but that was myjob at the time. there will be no sacking, no firing of civil servants and i have said that openly. no civil servant is under threat of losing hisjob. if anything, we need to start adding civil servants but we would do it in an organised way, making sure we add jobs in the civil service according to our financial ability and hiring people who need them. but now i am in charge of the whole country and i know that the jobs are not going to be created from the public sector. they will be created from the private sector. you are seen as the harvard educated former banker,

you said things like "the obstacles to business should be steamrolled and" there is suspicion that you are too much in hock to business and that you will forget the average ordinary greek and start favouring those with money. i have heard that story by the current outgoing government. i can tell you that the reason why i care about investment is because i want to create jobs. and i made it quite clear to business that we need to sign a new sort of contract. i will help business by lowering tax and by helping with liquidity

by improving the regulatory environment and they will take care of the workers, they will take care of the environment, they will get rid of all practices where they exploit workers because, let's be honest, in an environment of high unemployment, the power is always with the employer. so i will show zero tolerance to practices that go against labour legislation and i also intend to make sure that the minimum wage is raised, is being raised faster than the gdp growth in order for those who are living on the minimum wage today to have a bigger share of, a proportionally bigger share of the upside we can create. another big thing, you also mentioned that you want to introduce tax cuts. you want to bring down corporation tax from 28% to 20% over the next two years, and to reduce property tax which is quite unpopular, by 30%, again over two years. and vat and indirect taxation and so on. but where will the money come from for these tax cuts? you will have a hole in the state coffers.

three points. first, over the past few years the greek economy was creating larger surpluses than were requested by creditors. it was a conscious decision by alexis tsipras to overtax the middle class and to use the surplus to give out handouts at the end of each year. my point is simple. if we have additional fiscal space it is much better to return that to the middle class through tax cuts. the second point is we do want to look at efficiencies when it comes to public spending and there are still pockets where we can save money in terms of spending cuts, targeted spending cuts without impacting public service. my third argument... are you sure? that is exactly what your opposition says, you say your plans to cut tax will come from spending cuts of 1.5 billion euros. firstly, there is an additional argument to that. an economy that grows at the pace of 4% delivers more money to the state coffers than an economy

that grows at a pace of 2%. so it was 2% last year, it has dropped a bit so far this year. but that is clearly not sufficient. i just want to keep this simple. the last argument is that once i establish my credibility and i hope i will do that soon, i will re—negotiate and have open discussions with creditors regarding primary surpluses. i won't do that on day one. you refer there to the fact that the greek government has to maintain a surplus of 3.9%. and everyone agrees... european creditors insist on it. every single economy agrees is excessive. and you will look at that again. but let me put this to you. a quote from the greek analysis website said it will be a challenge to find savings at the required scale to implement the ambitious tax cuts promised by you, and your tax cuts mayjeopardise

social security benefits and pensions. so they could hurt people who rely on social security. nobody is talking about any cuts to social security or the current benefits and i have never made any points alluding to that. but you need to find the money from somewhere to make these cuts over two years. and you say growth and investment... that is one part of the argument. that if we don't get the greek economy to grow at a fast pace we will have difficulties. i am being honest. it is also a question of time. you can do the tax cuts over two years but the impact of your reforms to attract investment and grow the economy takes longer. but if you look at the economic climate and how it has changed since we first won the european election and the rapid decline in greek cost of borrowing indicates that the markets, which at the end of the day are the finaljudge of whether we are credible or not, and they seem to believe our story and they like what we have to say. so i was careful not to overpromise during this campaign because i have seen the impact of previous

opposition leaders. so you are not over promising. you said you want to cut the taxes but if the budget can't take it, i won't do it. the first round of tax cuts, the first round of corporate taxation cut, the tax in real estate will happen on january 1st, 2020. we have also been very clear that for 2019, for the remaining months, we don't have any fiscal space to do anything aggressive. but do you accept you have got to benefits of any of your economic reforms with the political cost? thanos papasavvas, a london—based consultant says alexis tsipras, your predecessor as prime minister, managed to pass tough measures with practically no social unrest for the past few years. that would not have been the case under any right of centre government. this is a danger that there could be social unrest. are you ready for this? i don't see a society that is ready to take to the streets the way it did back in 2014.

we shouldn't forget that the social unrest that we've seen in greece was very specifically provoked by the parties including syriza, when they were still in the opposition. it will be very difficult for syriza, now that they lost the election, but in the process of being transformed in what you would call a social democratic party to return to the old, bad habits, i don't see that happening, of course, some of our reforms are going to have elements of unpopularity. and you're ready for any unpopularity that may manifest itself? i have demonstrated that what we need to do has to happen, this is my track record, i will explain my reforms, i will always explain the cost benefit but a lot of the reforms that we have to undertake, i think i have the tacit approval of the majority of the greek people, for example we are very big in terms of reorganising the state. we want to make the stage work for the everyday citizen.

—— we want to make the state work for the everyday citizen. we are very big in terms of digital transformation, we are big in terms of education reform, looking at schools, curriculum, what we teach our kids, all these are long—term reforms which were never really implemented. but people want instant help. i have been very clear in terms of laying out what we can do and what people expect from us. and we will move as quickly as possible, i don't have a magic wand but i have a committed team, a very clear plan, a very well thought out plan for how to take this country forward. we can deliver quick wins, but it is clear that there is no easy immediate fix to the country's problems. you have said you want to make greece more attractive for investment, you have already sold so much of the family's silver, the port of piraeus, thessaloniki port sold to the germans last year, you've got ten more local ports up for sale, what else are you going to privatise? what is necessary and what we can privatise by getting good prices. and selling greece? no, no, i'm not... that's what i said, i'm not in the logic of selling everything

at any price. so we will privatise and it is not only a question of getting the money up front, it is a question of making sure that we attract follow—on investment as we did in the port of piraeus. it is notjust how much money you get, it's how manyjobs you can create afterwards. looking at your party, you say that you see yourself as a centrist figure, and i've put it to you that you have a lot of traditional members of your party, both in terms of members of the actual party and your supporters. sojust looking at some of the social affairs issues, do you support gender equality, for instance? we do. you do? and i would love to be able to do more on that front in terms of political representation. but why didn't you, in that case, have more cabinet ministers who are women? out of 22 cabinet ministers, only two are women. out of a total number of ministers, 51, only 5 are women. because unfortunately we don't have that many women who are interested in stepping into politics. are you serious? in this whole country with all these wonderful greek women?

we put a quota for women, 40% of our candidates were women, which is a big step forward, but if you look at the composition of parliament, we don't have 40% of women in parliament. but you do have the power, though, prime minister. 21 or so of the 51 ministers are not members of parliament, they are people of ability, technocrats, you could describe them how you wish. you could have said, alright, i'm going to find 21 experienced women. i'm sure i could go and find them for you here in greece. i have asked a lot of women to join the cabinet, they were much more hesitant than men to do so. so i'm not happy about our gender composition, i openly acknowledge it, the women we have are extremely capable and i'm sure they are going to do a fantastic job, and i'm sure they will help other women join the cabinet. area of improvement there. a definite area of improvement. and looking at social affairs, you are going to put yourself with the epp, the european peoples‘ party, centrist block in the european parliament. the debates in european parliament regularly about lgbt rights and so on, and so forth, you have supported civil unions

between same—sex couples, when there was a vote in parliament about three or four years ago, but only 16 members of your party voted along with you. you're going to have to do a lot to convince the greek people at large that your party is representative of a large bloc of voters who support lgbt rights. and i think it was an important moment for greece, which is a traditional society, when we passed the civil union. and you know, sometimes reforms take some time to mature, and maybe on that front, greece and the greek society, may be a little bit behind the curve. well, i don't know, because 32% of greek society is under 29, so that's about a third, and two thirds of them support same—sex marriage, for instance, so there you are trying to appeal to younger greeks saying, i want to create jobs for you, don't leave the country, come back, that's one of your pledges, and you are marching out of step with them. of all the civil union arrangements, what is put in place, it was not that we had huge numbers

of people who took on the challenge, so it is an issue which politically is important but there are other issues that we feel we have made lots of progress, we have addressed issues of extreme inequality, of rights of handicapped people who were always left behind in greece, we have been very open when it comes to issues such as drug addiction, advocating very advanced and socially liberal policies. 0n various issues i think we have pushed the party which is a traditional centre—right conservative party, to become more liberal, but these changes don't happen overnight. you have also taken a very strong stand on migrants and you visited some of the detention centres, and you've spoken out against the appalling conditions that they have been held in, you took a phone call, the first phone call congratulating you as prime minister, from the turkish president, recep tayyip erdogan. and obviously, the european union has this deal with turkey to accept

migrants and so on, so what did you discuss with him? did you discuss the migrant issue? do you see a new era of turkish—greek relations? we didn't have a very long discussion but it was a courtesy call. it was actually the first call i received which i think symbolically is important. greece and turkey, we are destined by geography and history to live together. and i would certainly be looking to establish a new framework of the relationship between greece and turkey, but always based on international... 0n the respect of international law and respect of the principles of good neighbourly relations, and i communicated that to president erdogan. of course there are challenges, significant challenges, including the turkish illegal activity within the separate ——cypriot exclusive economic zone and i do expect europe as a whole to react to this, because this is a problem affecting the relationship between europe and turkey. 0n the migration side, this is a deal that has more or less worked in the interest of greece and europe. i would be looking at expediting

asylum procedures which currently take ages in greece, and once a final asylum decision is made, if someone is not granted asylum, he needs to be returned to turkey according to the agreement. and i believe you have also had a phone call congratulating you from borisjohnson, the british mp? i communicated with borisjohnson, who i happened to know, we spent some time together on the greek islands. we exchanged text messages. i spoke to prime minister may, she called me and officially congratulated me. but of course it is not my point to make any public comment on who will replace the prime minister. greece is obviously part of the european union and obviously brexit is a big thing. would you be in favour, as a country, to renegotiate the brexit deal? because both the contenders, jeremy hunt, the current foreign secretary, and borisjohnson has that they'd like to see that.

——have said they'd like to see that. i don't think there is another deal available for the united kingdom. i was obviously not part of the previous negotiations, but i don't see a european union offering. why not? because i think the deal has been agreed, and it was agreed after a long and cumbersome process. and i don't see a reason for changing what has been agreed. alright. finally and briefly, you have said that you want to reintroduce a reborn greece to the world and in 1821, the greek revolution, of course, meant you got rid of the ottoman rule. what can we expect? a vibrant, optimistic country with a strong diaspora that will support the country, a country that is open to take on the challenges of a changing world and a country that is no longer being considered a poster boy for all the problems of europe. i think greek society is ready, and i am convinced that we will succeed. prime minister kyriakos mitsotakis, thank you very much, indeed, for coming on hardtalk.

thank you very much for having me. thank you. with the weekend upon us, the weather is looking generally dry and settled for many of us, it has been a warm, humid week but actually things have been turning a bit fresher, through the weekend, plenty of spells of sunshine, one or two showers around, it won't be quite as hot and humid as it has been earlier in the week. the reason for the dry and settled theme is this area of high pressure that is building its way in from the west,

so that will slowly squeeze away a ny leftover showers, we will have one or two showers on saturday morning, particularly for parts of northern and eastern scotland, and later today a few cropping up down the pennines in towards the midlands, and perhaps the odd one reaching the south—east of england as well. elsewhere a lot of dry weather, the cloud should break up throughout the day, allowing the sunshine to break through, temperatures in the region around 17—211, reasonably warm through the day on saturday. of course, the action continues at the championships in wimbledon, during saturday we are expecting mainly dry and settled weather but there is the outside chance of the odd shower, but by sunday things should be dry at wimbledon. heading through saturday evening you can see some showers continuing down the spine of england but they should tend to fade away overnight as we move on into sunday, as pressure builds from the west. temperatures a fraction cooler first thing sunday morning, won't be too warm and humid and there will be some spells of sunshine from the word go for many of us, but still some patchy cloud drifting about, the winds turning more northerly so that will draw in a bit more cloud and a bit cooler feel around

these eastern coasts of england and scotland as well, just the off chance that we could catch one or two showers west by the time we get to sunday. it will be windy towards the south—west of england and wales, 23 in cardiff, cooler where you have the breeze coming in from the north sea further east. and of course it is the british grand prix at silverstone on sunday, should be dry, we are expecting a fair amount of cloud, 19 or so with a gentle north—easterly breeze. and for the cricket world cup final as well at lords, a dry theme to the weather through the day on sunday, not quite as hot or as humid as it has been, and then that largely settled and bright theme continues into the first part of the working week, before it then turns unsettled from midweek onward. before i let you go we will have a look at what is happening on the other side of the atlantic because tropical storm barry is strengthening, it is likely to strengthen quite soon into a hurricane before making landfall in louisiana. this is likely to bring some very damaging winds, intense, heavy rainfall as well as a significant storm surge which is bringing very dangerous

conditions and flooding parts of louisiana. we have more details on tropical storm barry on our website.

this is bbc news. i'm duncan golestani. our top stories: braced for storm barry. louisiana declares a state of emergency, with warnings of high winds and heavy flooding as the tropical storm gathers strength. facebook reportedly reaches a multibillion dollar legal settlement over the misuse of personal data. the two men battling to win the tory leadership contest face questioning. borisjohnson admits his comments could have played a part in the uk ambassador‘s resignation. was it a factor in his resignation? he said what somebody had relayed to him would certainly be a factor. imprisoned for a decade after being accused of killing her baby.