our top story. turkish forces step up their offensive on kurdish—held areas in northern syria. as tens of thousands of civilians flee their homes — president trump said his administration is looking at ways to deal with the turkish assault. japan is preparing for the arrival of a super typhoon on saturday. the authorities have cancelled two rugby world cup matches and some transport, and it's also threatening to disrupt japan's formula one grand prix race. and this video is trending on bbc.com. the former world no. 1women‘s tennis player, naomi osaka, has taken steps to give up her us citizenship to play forjapan in the 2020 olympics. which was a huge mistake the 21—year—old star, because they went up 15 whose parents are haitian and japanese, grew up in new york. times very quickly. except you still made tens japanese laws require those of millions of pounds. with dual citizenship to select one that's true, but it would have country before turning 22. been better to have made hundreds of millions of pounds. let's get to the way you use the money and politics. you became a donor to the conservative party. relatively small donations to start with. but then by 2001, you decided to make the biggest political donation in british history, £5 million. i think i may have shared that that's all. stay with bbc world news. distinction with one of the gettys.

ok, the point is you had become now on bbc news, hugely influential thanks to money. stephen sackur speaks you think on reflection to brexit supporter that is a healthy thing stuart wheeler on hardtalk. for a democracy? do i think it's healthy quest to mark the people with wealth should have any influence? welcome to hardtalk, i don't mean to be rude but i think i'm stephen sackur. it's absurd to think whatever brexit represents a political gamble the political party or charity played for the highest of stakes. or anything else which receives an enormous amount of money if britain leaves the eu from somebody shouldn't be willing without a deal, there will be significant economic disruption. to give them more of the hearing even the most ardent than somebody who gave them £5. brexiteers acknowledge that. life doesn't work like that. here we are, we've discussed your but they believe the potential personality and your predilections. rewards justify the risks. you're a gambler, it's a calculated bet you develop a company on britain's future which comes which is a gambling operation. naturally to my guest today — gambling, frankly, is a severe social problem in the uk today you've made a lot of money about a controversial activity and then you put your money into politics which gives you a seat at the table, gives you a significant amount of political influence and many people will say, add all of those things stuart wheeler, the together and that frankly successful businessman and lifelong gambler is a potentially very dangerous who backed his commitment to brexit with plenty of his own cash. perversion of democracy. it wasn't so much that i wanted to look at power, in fact, i was idiotic. has his money given him undue and i went to see influence over britain's future? william hague because i

wanted to give him £5 million, i was taken in by my friend rodney leach, before he could opening his mouth, i told him why i was doing this and i ended up saying, if i was offered a peerage, i should reject it and further, i was stupid enough to say i want no influence at all over the cabinet or over your policies. i think you changed your mind about that over time. yes. it interests me given your background that you've said and again the book you discussed it, that your views of broadly libertarian, you are right of centre when it comes to economic policy—making. "i am right wing economically. stuart wheeler, welcome to hardtalk. "the critical point i suppose is that i would be in favour thank you. would it be fair to characterise "of being not at all kind to those who do not have a job you as a lifelong risk taker? "unless they genuinely yes, it would. couldn't get one." and what motivated you, "i would be more kind to those from a very early age, who have low—paying jobs. " to want to take so many risks? it seems to me there is an irony in that being a pillar of your political thinking the first risk i took, when for much of your life, albeit you made a lot i was very, very young, of money out of gambling, but you spent much of your time was at a point—to—point. at card tables and racetracks. is that a horse race? you weren't exactly... a horse race. i'm just saying that it's important to encourage people and i backed the brighter days, to get a job and to work for it, second, one shilling of even money and it obliged so that if they can't get one. i have huge sympathy for those was my start of gambling. who can't work because of some how old were you? physical problem or anything about eight or nine.

eight or nine. like that but i think people who can get a job, who are capable and from that point on, it always seemed, you had, of getting a job, should jolly well an obsession, would get one and work for it. let's get to the development of your political ideas. you say with gambling? economically, you are clearly on the libertarian right but when it yes, i was interested in gambling came to your biggest but also in odds and probabilities preoccupation in politics, it wasn't in the end as well which are very much economics, it was brexit. connected with gambling, it was euroscepticism obviously. and your increasing dissatisfaction i suppose you were lucky with britain's membership of the european union. in the sense that you were raised by a family who were which got me expelled sufficiently well—to—do. from the conservative party. you always had access to money. exactly. you were well enough off to be able to indulge your appetite for risks. now, in 2009, david cameron, well, we weren't terribly well off. who i dare say you had never been eye—to—eye with on europe, actually decided to fire you, expel you from the party because you'd decided even people on the lowest incomes to vote for ukip. now are well enough to do a little and give them some money. bit of gambling, a lottery ticket or something. £1,000. the way i was expelled i wasn't so rich that by was eric pickles, i could gamble when other who was the chairman, people couldn't, that wouldn't be fair. writing an email saying, you mentioned lotteries. "you are going to be considered for expulsion and you can write to appeal if you want to and blah, blah, blah," it seems your entire life has been to a and i wrote back saying, certain extent has been this "i don't care about my rights combination of calculated risk "of appeal, i shan't appeal." and chance and the greatest chance of and then later i was all that you experienced

was the fact that as an unwanted baby, an orphan, you were adopted by a family interviewed by anne mcevoy. who both loved you but also had the economic means to give you a life of privilege. i told her that and she then asked eric pickles who said, "oh, no, i neverspoke to him, or had a long chat with him." i was actually very lucky "i never spoke to him in my life." the way i was adopted. maybe that tells us something my. div mother to be about politicians and politics but let's stick with you and your evolution to becoming one went to the adoptive of the prime movers behind what we now know home with her sister and my adoptive is the brexit campaign. mother to be found a very good looking baby, obviously not me and said, how about that one? her sister said yes, it began with the ukip, but this other one who is making the uk independence party. the real nuisance of himself might cameron, by 2016, decided to hold a referendum. be a bit more interesting. you decided to become a main backer that was me and that's of the leave campaign. how i was chosen. how much money, now that it was very bit bringing, wasn't it? you look at it, how much? your parents were not vastly wealthy several hundred thousand pounds but they were well—to—do to ukip, when i was backing them, and they also didn't really have jobs. and then when the campaign got they seemed to have, maybe not decadent, but they enjoyed their lives. going i gave more than £1 million to vote leave which was the authorised... more than £1 million? that probably makes

yourfather, in particular, you their biggest individual donor. spent most of his time riding, shooting... no, i don't think i was, unless you count, which is fair i think there was somebody else enough to count it, he fought who gave more. throughout the whole but when you look at leave of the first world war, and that campaign in 2016, it's the onlyjob we ever had. are you proud of it? he once said to me, i can quite see you paid for quite a lot of it, everyone should do some work are you proud of it? for their money but i hope that yes, i am and you've got doesn't happen when i'm alive. to distinguish between vote leave, you, in your 20 and 30s, which is the authorized body had of host ofjobs. for backing those who wanted you were a barrister, to leave and leave.eu, you worked in the city as a banker, which was our great rival couldn't really settle at any of it in the contest to be and throughout all of this time, your main love, your vocation, if i can put it that way, the authorised body. seems to have been playing cards, going to the racetrack and gambling. there is some truth in that and a lot of the things that body and i was nailed barrister and a failed chap did, i don't approve of. they were arrowing in on an anti—immigration message. that was quite an interesting in the city as well. point, actually. many people think that the leave in the end, i couldn't get a job campaign, let's not get too specific so when are friend of mine suggested about which part of it but the leave campaign unleashed feelings starting ig index, ijumped at it of xenophobia, fear of the other, because i had no other choice. of migrants, which have been very were you an addict, do you think? damaging to british society a gambling addict? in the years since.

i don't think i was an addict in the sense that i might‘ve lost yeah, but, we — leave — vote leave all my money ruined my life. was not part of that. dominic cummings, who i hugely i like gambling but i wouldn't quite admire, made a point in discussions say that i was an addict, no. inside vote leave, we don't but you nearly did want to emphasise immigration, lose all your money. if only because everyone there were various points where you described having to go to, for example, bridge is already aware of it and, clubs as they were in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, your point really, it would give us a reputation for being racist, because you needed to win money. which we're not. my organisation, the one yes thank you for the work that i was a member of, was not doing what you are suggesting. let me quote you some yes thank you for the words from michael gove, you were very good at bridge. at one case i was so short of money, who was one of the figurehead leader of your leave campaign, i hated having to do it, in a campaign speech in 2016, he said this — i went to a friend of mine and said, "could i have some money i'd just like your views if i really needed?" on it today — he said, he gave me a cheque for £1000 "after we establish full legal which was a huge amount at that time independence, we can then decide and i took it into the bridge club which eu rules and regulations we want to keep. and i knew i would have to cash that one thing we won't change is our ability to trade cheque unless i won £600 freely with europe. which was a staggering amount to win in those days in one night. after we leave, we will remain i did win it and never had to cash in europe's free trade zone the cheque but i was eternally and the day after we vote leave, grateful to him. you've written this memoir we hold all the cards and we can which is full of fascinating stories choose any path we want." of this period of your life. my autobiography, yes.

well, what's wrong with that? it's just not true, that's what's wrong with it. winning against the what is not true? odds, it's called. i wonder if you think very hard about how many the notion the uk different times you could have lost, and actually lost everything. holds all the cards. that's quite true. during the 1987 stock market crash, if it wants a free trade deal it can have one. my company was in a terrible mess. i see, we can and we very likely we should say, your company, ig, it's based upon spread betting will get one because i think the eu which was a sort of idea that you did quite a lot to make popular has been very successful so far, in the ‘70s and ‘80s. for all its posturing it needs it began not being a dealfar more than we do, very well understood. ig took off... and i might be proved wrong it did. within days, but they will crack up. they will be the ones but then, in the late 1980s with the last minute... and again a little later on, i have said this all along, at the very last minute, you had periods where the eu desperate ig nearly folded. for a deal, they will give we were very, very lucky in that ‘87 thing. lots of our clients, in and make major concessions. and i don't blame them, they lost more money than they thought they ever could. this is where i remember the dowjones index had never even you an inveterate gambler. fallen 100 points before this is the mentality of a poker and on the black monday, if you want to call player whose hand isn't good it that, it fell 500 points. but is convinced that his our poor clients were in a terrible rival‘s hand is worse. mess and solicitors would write our hand is very good.

to me to say, "our client patently, many of the things said doens‘t have to pay "you because they are gambling debts," and that would have been true in the leave campaign by leavers but for a thing called the financial services act came to our rescue and was brought into effect in bits and the bits which made such as michael gove and borisjohnson, prime minster these debts enforceable had just been brought into effect now, arejust not true, you have when the crash took place. to think of the campaign bus. sorry? not true. the campaign bus with that message let us now fast—forwa rd because you survive the financial saying that if we leave we will have crash of ‘87. £350 million a week ig became really very successful. to spend on the nhs. not true. you, in the end, walked away well, it depends what with tens of millions of pounds you mean by "not true". when ig floated and went public the money that we have could be spent on the national health service but it's highly unlikely and you made a killing, that it all would be. but since you do raise that you made a lot of money. subject, i was a bit worried it seems to me you then about that became rather bored. that's when your political instinct because £350 million was a gross started to twitch and that's figure and not the net figure when you decided to use your money after the rebate. i was somewhat concerned about that. to wield some political influence. it's not so much that i got bored. i'm totally non—technological so here we are more than three and i realised that i was the ceo of ig index, years after the vote, we haven't left, the country is deeply divided, we've seen yesterday one of the vote leave activist campaigns, not the one you are involved in but another one, putting up advertisements on the internet. i was attending meetings

where technological things with the main things discussed so i couldn't understand a word that's crackers. that's exactly why we didn't want to join with them. they're doing things like that. so i made an instantaneous decision to retire as chief executive so then i completely wrongly lacked confidence 00:09:15,909 --> 2147483051:41:22,670 in my successoi’s 2147483051:41:22,670 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 and sold all my shares do you think there are racist elements in the campaign today? there might be racist elements in that section which is very definitely not our section. when you look at where we are, all the uncertainty over the next few weeks, business and you are businessman, not knowing the reality will be on the first of november, can you say that you regret nothing about what you have done? i do regret nothing that i've done. it's going to be the same as the millennium bug. the fear of disaster or recession, nothing will happen, the millennium bug was meant to be dreadful, but absolutely nothing. it's got up by those who want to remain and are trying to frighten the voters.

there's a possibility of some very temporary problems, but for instance, the shortage of vital medicines, do we really think our colleagues in europe who are perfectly responsible and decent people, are going to let us not have the medicines we need? just a fantasy — it's rubbish. i began by perhaps suggesting that your decision to make euroscepticism and brexit a big part of a life, it wasn't so much you being the rational, calculated oddsmaker but it was you being driven by emotion. and you are saying about your thinking i had too much emotion the last few minutes. i haven't really got to grips within your memoir, or even in this interview, with exactly why in your life,

you had a successful business, you became a eurosceptic. when britain was in the eu, you built a successful business and had a rather wonderful life, with britain inside the eu, i can't for the life of me quite understand why you became so passionately convinced that britain... britain — nothing to do with us being in the eu. despite the fact we have free trade, no duty, we have a surplus with the rest of the world, the idea that it has been to our advantage is absolute rubbish. what was it in your early to middle life that made you personally such a profound eurosceptic? what was it? well, first of all, we've ran our own things since 1066 till 1973, and not perfectly. what? but rather better than before, why would do we want to be ruled by the people in europe? our economy has done better since 1973 than before. but not because of anything

to do with the eu. but my point... it just fascinates me, people such as yourself, very successful, who have become committed, come what may, die—in—a—ditch brexiteers, in the end it seems to me largely driven by emotion. it's not driven by emotion, the eu imposes for example about 10,000 regulations on businesses, 95% of which are, they do no business in europe whatsoever and have to put up with these awful regulations which impede business. and why do we want to give them £39 billion. why do we want to do that? there's nothing that we get from it. we just... it's going to be hugely beneficial... you remain a gambler, you have been all your life. what are the odds you believe on getting what you want, which is britain out of the european union, deal or no deal, on october 31? 6—4, on.

you think it's more likely than not? 60%. would you agree with me that is perhaps the biggest gamble that britain will have taken in at least a generation? britain is not taking a gamble. that's the wrong way of looking at. it's a british decision. i've not the slightest doubt whether it happens or not, britain is absolutely right, of the british government, the current british government to want to get out of the eu because the eu would be absolutely disastrous. do you know that the percentage of trade which the eu has with the rest of the world has something like halved over the last 20 or 30 years and it's confidently expected, it's not even challenged, to go down much further still. why do we want to be tied to this losing organisation? just a final point, and it goes back to your upbringing and frankly, your privilege. does it strike you that if you are ever wrong, and it's possible that you're wrong, that britain won't thrive and succeed post—brexit. if you are wrong, it's not

you about the consequences, because you have a privileged, comfortable, wealthy life. it is many millions of britons who are less well off than you. if i'm wrong, but all one can do is argue for is what one thinks is best for everyone. notjust the rich, the poor, i'm convinced in my own mind, and this is why gave the money, no point in my giving the money otherwise. i think it is to the benefit of rich and poor that we leave the eu, and that is why do it. we have to end there but thank you very much indeed for being with us. it's been a great pleasure, i assure you. i really enjoyed it.

hello. so far october has been a very wet month for some of us. during friday there will be more heavy rain across parts of england, wales and scotland, especially in the west with heavy showers here. mostly to the north of glasgow. this weather front is hanging around for much of the weekend. going on through into sunday, this weather front will eventually start to pull away but we will see my heading in from the atlantic. yes, it is staying unsettled even to next week as well. this is how we start friday. we've got heavy rain in parts of england and, further showers into western scotland. a dry start in northern ireland with some sunshine. very blustery out there as well. just focusing on the wetter areas with a greater risk of disruption. the met office has yellow weather warnings invoice for rain as well as wales, the peak

district into the pennines, totals 15-30 district into the pennines, totals 15—30 millimetres, it will be difficult driving through that. joe was rattling into west of glasgow, giving fairly high rainfall totals again. —— showers. difficult travelling conditions. giving an indication of the stronger wind gust as well, this area of heavy rain feeding further south across england and wales, quite widely in nature as the day goes on. brightening up for northern south wales, sunny spells, the odd showerfor northern south wales, sunny spells, the odd shower for northern ireland, one or two reaching into eastern scotland. it's not a washout everywhere. this is the picture into saturday morning, still the cloud in some outbreaks of rain, but the further south you are in england, still a chance of a shower in northern ireland, especially in western parts of scotland. temperatures will be higher where you have some clear spells. latter—day begins. we still have this close to parts of southern england but they will be some sunny spells to be had, yes, there is a chance of catching one or two

showers, but it won't be a disaster ofa showers, but it won't be a disaster of a day. there will be lighter winds than recently and temperatures mostly in the mid—teens. it looks like later some of this rain towards south—west england, maybe south wales as well will begin to turn heavier, certainly more persistent, too. so that is how saturday shaping up. as we go into the second half of the weekend, overnight heavy rain across parts of england and falling into the north sea, it looks like we'll see another area of cloud and rain, spreading infrom we'll see another area of cloud and rain, spreading in from the south—west, turning more of scotland wetter, including eastern parts of scotland. some uncertainty about the detail, though, so keep on checking if you have weekend outdoor plans. does your forecast.

welcome to newsday on the bbc. i'm sharanjit leyl in singapore. the headlines:

fierce fighting as turkey continues its offensive against kurdish areas in northern syria. president trump says he wants to mediate between the two sides. japan braces for the arrival of a super typhoon — the authorities warn of severe weather and widespread destruction. i'm nuala mcgovern in london. also in the programme: two donors, reportedly with ties to rudy giuliani's dealings in ukraine, are arrested on campaign finance