this is bbc news. i'm shaun ley. the headlines at 9.003m: borisjohnson and jeremy corbyn make a direct appeal to voters as the election campaign enters its final few days. a huge blaze breaks out in a factory in delhi — indian police say at least 43 people have been killed. manchester city promise to give a lifetime ban to anyone found guilty of racist abuse after manchester united players said they were targeted during the derby. redemption for anthonyjoshua, as the british boxer reclaims the world heavyweight titles with victory over andy ruinr in saudi arabia. dame helen mirrenjoins crowds in trafalgar square, as thousands of people in cities around the world camp out overnight to raise cash to tackle homelessness. i don't have the change to give them something everyday. it's something

like this that on the skills you can help in some way or another. our sunday morning edition of the papers is at 9.35am. this morning's reviewers are rosamund urwin and john rentoul. with less than a week to go until polls open, the main political party leaders are continuing to push their election pledges to voters. conservative leader borisjohnson says thursday's poll is "historic" and a choice to "move forwards" after brexit. labour leaderjeremy corbyn says he has "the most ambitious plan to transform our country in decades". our political correspondent susana mendonca joins me. the last push begins today, i guess,

after a relatively quiet day yesterday. all the main political parties are out and about. the prime minister has already spoken today? he has. he has spoken about his vision for the future and the idea that if you vote for the conservatives it is about voting for the future and not looking to the past. focusing today in particular on the issue of immigration, so their points—based immigration system and how that would work. they are saying it was started injanuary 2021, they would have experts who would give them advice on how to get up would give them advice on how to get up and running. there are some questions about whether or not it would be possible to get things up and running in the period of time. the prime minister was asked about his immigration plans earlier on today and is focused in particular on the idea that unskilled people would not be able to just come over to the uk. that is very much as push on it. questions about what that would mean in terms of getting people to come and work and social

care, for example... would you want come and work here if you were told you couldn't stay long term? you look at the vacancies within social care, 120,000 vacancies, would they be able to get the number of people to come over and do those jobs be able to get the number of people to come over and do thosejobs if there was no certainty you could stay. we heard from the prime minister earlier explaining his policy. people who are essential talents, they can come in. first violinist, nuclear physicists, prima ballerinas, whatever, they can come in simply by virtue of what they can contribute. then there will be skilled workers and we will have a syste m skilled workers and we will have a system so people can come in to work in the nhs or whatever. my question is... there would be a sector specific group who wouldn't have an automatic right to stay, but they will come to the particularjobs. we wa nt will come to the particularjobs. we

want to bear down on migration particularly of unskilled workers who have no job particularly of unskilled workers who have nojob to come particularly of unskilled workers who have no job to come to. that was the prime minister there. labour today focusing on one of their key policy areas, which is social care, in particular the money they are putting into that, so ten billion pounds into social care. they are talking about the freeze social care offer for elderly people, so the idea if you are in your home a neat ca re idea if you are in your home a neat care you would need to pay for that. also the issue we were talking about before, immigration, and whether you would have enough people coming over to work in social care in the uk going forward. the shadow health secretary has been talking about this today. part of the reason why out this today. part of the reason why our nhs is under such intense pressure as we have had these savage cuts to social care budgets. this is the support that elderly people get in the community so they can stay at home. we will put more support and,

funded properly, £10 billion extra, funded properly, £10 billion extra, fund freeze social care. i don't wa nt fund freeze social care. i don't want have people languishing in on hospital trolleys. it means that nobody will have to pay for anything that they get in their home. this is about fairness in the system. we see from the pool is published in the newspapers this morning that the gap between labour and the conservatives seems to be narrowing, if that is an accurate picture of people's opinion now. do the parties think they will shift further? is there an optimism on the labour side that they can close the gap? for labour there is a hope that they will close the gap. it is pointing in the right direction for them. there is some suggestion that they are picking up perhaps liberal democratic voters, and that is why there is this shift.

the conservatives seem to be quite static. the pools could change. are there some events that could project things and shift things in a different direction? when it comes down to the pools, we never know if that means it will be reflected in the general election itself. we have seen that in the past and previous pools, previous elections, where things have not point out the way the bulls were suggesting. for labour, this is a positive indication for them. in terms of the prime minister, when he was asked earlier on whether or not he would resign if he ended up not getting a majority, he didn't answer that question, he made it clear he was just pushing ahead. with boris johnson, the company and has been focused on the clear messages about getting brexit done. with labour it has been about the public services,

the nhs, social care today. the other political parties are trying to get their message across. the liberal democrats are talking about their plans for investing in infrastructure across the country. for example, electric charging points for electric vehicles, broadband, those type of things. all of them are trying to get those key foods in those last few days. how many shopping days until christmas? there are certainly four days before the election. throughout the election we've been travelling round the country to hear from voters. tomorrow, the last stop on our election roadtrip sees us roll into the sidings in crewe, historically a railway town at the heart of the uk's train travel infastructure. we'll hear from voters there about what matters to them in this election. indian police say at least 43 people have been killed in a huge factory fire in delhi. it's thought that many of those who died were asleep in the building. the blaze, in the old quarter of new delhi, broke out in the early hours of the morning. about 50 people have been rescued and taken to hospital. john mcmanus reports

the fire began in one of delhi's many factories, sweeping through a six—story building in a congested residential area. local media say the building was packed with handbags and other material, all of which helped the fire to grow in strength. as well as retail goods, the emergency services say some labourers were also sleeping inside the building, a common occurrence for india's many poor migrant workers. dozens of fire appliances rushed to the scene to help extinguish the blaze, though the district's narrow streets made access very difficult. translation: we received a call at 5:22am and we had initially sent four vehicles to the spot. a total of 35 tenders have been sent until now. 150 people have been deployed. the rescued people have been sent to different hospitals. the exact number of dead and alive

will be available from the hospital. emergency workers are now combing through the building to check nobody else is trapped. so far, the cause of the fire is unknown, but the state government says it will launch an investigation. pratiksha ghildiyal is in delhi. this looks as though it was a terrible fire. hampered in terms of the emergency operation by the fact it is an area where it is very difficult to get the vehicles on some of the streets. that's right. to give you a sense of this part of delhi, it is an old quarter of delhi, it is an old quarter of delhi, lined with narrow alleys, densely populated. there are electrical wires hanging off pools and buildings. some of it is very badly lit, as well. access for big vehicles is difficult here.

officials say that when they got a call at around 5:30am this morning, they did rush more than 20 fire engines to the spot, but it was difficult to get them right to this pa rt difficult to get them right to this part of the incident as a result of which firefighters had to rescue people manually, by going inside the alleys and carrying them out on their shoulders one by one. it is a huge issue in many parts of big indian cities where old quarters remain congested and densely populated. is it common for workers to be sleeping in the place where they work in the day? it is indeed. delhi is a city of migrants. there are hundreds of migrants who arrive here every day. they are looking for work, most of them are poor labourers. when they do find work, in order to save costs for housing and rent, they tend to sleep at their workplace. it sounds like in

this case it was the factory where they were working. it sounds like there were about 100 of them asleep inside when the fire broke out on the ground floor of the building and then quickly spread. reports say that because the factory ma nufa ctu res that because the factory manufactures bags there was a lot of plastic and cardboard inside, which caused a lot of fumes to be created very quickly. as a result of which, the people who were sleeping, many of them died due to asphyxiation. terrible story. thank you very much. north korea's central news agency is reporting a "very significant test" has been carried out at its sur hay satellite launch site, but they haven't specified what was tested. the reported "test" comes after north korea warned it could take a "new path" in view of the stalled de—nuclearisation talks with the united states.

manchester city have said that they will issue a lifetime ban to anyone found guilty of racist abuse after manchester united players said they were targeted during their derby win at the etihad yesterday. city are working with greater manchester police to identify any individuals concerned. a video was widely circulated on social media that appeared to show a supporter making a racist gesture towards united players as they prepared to take a corner midway through the second half. the united player fred was also pelted with missiles and hit by an object. here's the united manager's immediate reaction after the game. i have seen it on the video, it's jesse and fred in there and the fellow, he must be ashamed of himself. that's unacceptable. and i hope he won't be watching any football any more. we seem to be speaking about it an awful lot. over this past six months, eight months. and, you know, it's not something that anyone wants to do. even speaking about it now, it's not

a nice thing to speak about. but, you know, the necessary departments need to do the right things to stop it in the game, because, you know, that's a big negative of the sport and just of the country, it's not something that you want to see. officials say 100 fires have formed a "mega blaze" raging across dozens of miles north—west of sydney. the fire has been sending plumes of black smoke across the city and it's too large to put out currently. since october, bushfires have killed six people and destroyed more than 700 homes across australia. live now to our correspondent phil mercer in sydney. it must have transformed the city, with the smoke and the effects of the fires, never mind the fires themselves. well, we are seeing today some of the ash from these fires washing up on some of sydney's beaches, turning the water black.

not only do we have to content with this toxic smoky haze in the sky, it is also reeling town ash into the ocean, as well. that gives you an indication ofjust how widespread, how severe some of these fires are. there is are mega players burning about an hour's drive north—west of here. authorities say that five fires have conspired to perform this enormous blaze that they simply can't put out. they say it is too big, that your brain is too rough for them to have any hope of extinguishing displays. they say it could burn for weeks and the only hope of putting it out is very heavy rain. if you look at the weather forecast for the summer here in australia, more dry and warm conditions are forecast. the next appears to be tuesday here in eastern australia with more roost in

temperatures and strong winds, as well. the minister for emergency services in new wales was on the world service a few hours ago saying that they are close to being the worst bushfires in australia has ever seen because they started so early, back in the middle of the winter, and things have been so dry. is there any discussion in official circles about what might be done to mitigate the effect? the government can mitigate the effect? the government ca n test mitigate the effect? the government can test whether or not climate change is connected to this, but presumably there are some people in australia, some of the mayors in torrents who are talking how about they manage this in the future if this is the start of a pattern. they manage this in the future if this is the start of a patternm is not the conversation the centre—right government in australia is keen to have. the prime minister, scott morrison, has said that there has been no specific science or scientific research to directly link

climate change to these bushfires. many scientists, academics and researchers not just many scientists, academics and researchers notjust here but around the world with that. the consensus is among many researchers that australia's fire season is starting earlier, lasting longer and it is becoming more intense and that is due, in part, to climate change. in eastern australia, it is a very dry parts of the country. there has been a long dry tear. firstly, the ground is tinder dry underfoot. we haven't had significant rain here for a long time. on top of that, you have very warm temperatures and strong winds. all of these factors are conspiring to make these fires unprecedented in terms of when they started in the annual bushfire season, that is earlier than normal, they are burning more intense than we have seen before, so it is fair to say

this crisis is unprecedented and that shows no signs of easing. it is safe to say that on the 8th of december, eight days into summer here in australia, the rest of the summer promises to be pretty brutal, i think. thank you very much. the headlines on bbc news: borisjohnson and jeremy corbyn make a direct appeal to voters as the election campaign enters its final few days. a huge blaze breaks out in a factory in delhi — indian police say at least 43 people have been killed. manchester city promise to give a lifetime ban to anyone found guilty of racist abuse — after manchester united players said they were targeted during the derby. avanti west coast has taken over from virgin trains as the operator running the west coast main line. avanti's first train left london euston for manchester piccadilly this morning. virgin trains was britain's longest—running rail franchise

operating for more than 22 years. our business correspondent katie prescott explains what the changes will mean for passengers. stripped of its colours, one of the last virgin trains pulling out of euston station. after a row over pensions liabilities, britain's longest running rail franchises being replaced by avanti west coast. it's a joint venture between scotland based firstgroup and the uk arm of italy's main train operator. the main change that passengers at euston station will notice will be the change of branding, as virgin's red and white livery is stripped away and the staff wear new uniforms. but the people in those uniforms will stay the same, as most of the crew, drivers, and even senior management are being kept on. all pre—booked tickets will still be valid. passengers will travel on 20 new british—built trains, which willjoin refurbished ones on the avanti service. what we're trying to do is we are going to offer greater value for money, we're going to increase the number of trains that

people are going to see, the number of seats will be far greater in a couple of years. and we want to encourage, it's very important, the environmental footprint that we all put on the world, we think rail can make a great impact on that. avanti is italian for "forward". these passengers are hoping that the new franchise lives up to its name as the christmas holiday approaches. katie prescott, bbc news. andrew white from rail magazine is in doncaster. thank you very much forjoining us this morning. with the same staff, same management, people might wonder if this is just a rebranding exercise? different owners, which is a big thing. it will also have responsibility for hs2. that will be

the big thing that happens later on. the trends that will be brought in, they will be the ones that are going to be used on the east coast and the gwr franchise. it will be a familiar new lot of rolling stock brought out, too. that will improve important to passengers because the ones they are replacing have been quite unlike for quite some time. so will the painterly new gradually disappear? they are being capped. there will be refurbished. there will be a lot of changes with them. they are a very successful fleet of trains. it is the most unpopular voyager trains that will be replaced with these new ones that will be built in britain. in terms of the attraction for this joint venture between first group and tree in italia, is it then really the hs2 which is the cherry on the cake for

them, rather than just a straightforward existing routes? certainly. i think this is the big thing. when the department for transport put out the franchise for the west coast partnership, virgin has been operating it, and also for hs2, an integrated partnership franchise. they specified that beggars have to have some experience of high—speed lines. virgin and stagecoach had put in with the national french company, the originators of high—speed railway in europe. it was really important that first group put in with somebody who had a lot of experience in high—speed rail. that is what they have with this franchise. they will be hoping that this one will run and run much like virgin did. andrew walker, thank you very much.

around 60,000 people took part in a charity sleep—out last night to highlight the issue of homelessness. organisers of the world's big sleep out, which began on a small scale in edinburgh three years ago, said 52 cities participated in this year's event. our reporter chi chi izundu has more. the idea is simple — sleep rough and raise money for the homeless. that's what hundreds did last night in london's trafalgar square. an estimated 1,800 people had signed up, but in 50 cities around the world more than 60,000 people were expected to sleep rough. at this time of year, as the temperature dropped and the entertainment came to an end, there was a gentle coaxing into bed by dame helen mirren. i'm your bedtime story. they don't have a home. there's no roof. sleeping out in this cold weather, and i have like a million thermals on, is actually quite upsetting. i don't have the change to give them something every day. it's doing something like this that almost makes you feel like you can

help in some way or another. this is the fourth year sir chris hoy has taken part. you get through it. it's not much fun. it's a pretty grim experience, but that's one night. only one night, and you get to go home to a warm shower, a warm house, get some food. so it's almost impossible to imagine how life must be on the streets. for 20—year—old j cocoa, this event mean so much. she used to sleep on buses and in takeaway restaurants when she was homeless as a teenager. it wasn't a comfortable stage of my life. it wasn't a place that i wanted to be in. nobody wants to be homeless, nobody wants to not know what their next move is — in a bad way. and it's a very vulnerable place to be in, you know, just having nowhere to stay. even though it was just one night, those who took part are hoping their efforts can help end homelessness for some forever. chi chi izundu, bbc news. anthonyjoshua says

he's a warrior at heart after re—claiming his world heavyweight titles from andy ruinunior. the fight went the distance in saudi arabia, withjoshua winning by unanimous points decision. andy ruinr has blamed his defeat to anthonyjoshua on three months of partying and a lack of proper training. he admitted he was "overweight" for the rematch. lee ferrie is a leading professional boxing trainer, and joins us from his gym in nuneaton. presumably, lee, you would not advise professional boxers took a parting for three months before facing a world we much like that. no, no, obviously not. it wasn't that he weighed in at 20 stone, for me, ifancied him. ithought he would do it again. but it came in at 20 stone. i still fancied andy ruiz to have his measure. what was it that made anthonyjoshua so dominant

this time round? was itjust a memory of last time, that his pride, blu ntly, memory of last time, that his pride, bluntly, have been hurt by what happens? yes, i think so. last time round he dropped and he released, then he went in for the kill. when you have done it time and time again, he thought it was another routine, there you go, i'll do it again, but andy release had a different answer to it. it ruined him. he must‘ve been having sleepless nights and nightmares about it. he has gone to the gym, come up with a game plan. it might not have been one of the most entertaining fights, but it was more that andy ruiz was, as you say, a little bit out of shape, a little bit lazy. he didn't really cut anthonyjoshua off, bit lazy. he didn't really cut anthony joshua off, he bit lazy. he didn't really cut anthonyjoshua off, he followed him, and that played into the hands of

anthonyjoshua, because at that distance he had nice, fast hands. anthonyjoshua never distance he had nice, fast hands. anthony joshua never really lost control. you know the importance of psychology in your sport, would you say a defeat like this in this stage of anthonyjoshua plus my career is a good thing for him, in terms of his long—term prospects, of lasting many years in the ring, because being pulled up short makes him realise she just can't take anything for granted and you have to treat each opponent as an individual? well, yes and no. he didn't really get caught up short. i think he made a mistake. that mistake was, if you ta ke a mistake. that mistake was, if you take the chicken out of the oven too early, it will be bad for you. we went for the kill too early. andy release wasn't ready. to made that mistake. he has learned from that.

the most important thing is if you fight someone and you drop them, then they drop you three times, that it's a hard thing to get over, a ha rd it's a hard thing to get over, a hard thing to overcome. they are your nemesis. that sort of thing plays in your mind. he overcame that very well. that more than anything will help him in his professional career, and his future. when he comes to the point of no return, when they are both tired, and he happens to drop someone, he will be be —— he will then be able to sense if they are ready or not. it was a masterclass from him yesterday. he did everything he needed to do and he did it right. we didn't get caught by any sloppy shots, nothing that would knock him out. and even luis couldn't keep up the pace, cut him off or stay with him, or even left the pace, which is what he needed to do. lessons for both of

them. an interesting match of not them. an interesting match of not the most exciting, but probably the right result. definitely. thank you very much for speaking to us. we'll be taking an in—depth look at the papers with our reviewers rosamund irwin, senior reporter from the sunday times and chief political commentator from the independent, john rentoul. that's coming up after the latest headlines and a full sport update. now it's time for a look at the weather with susan powell. stormy times ahead for the rest of the day and into tomorrow morning. and deep area of low pressure is going to bring widespread gales and heavy rain. these isobars or what is driving the strong winds. we will also see some more persistent rain in western scotland and northern ireland through the afternoon.

showers will move eastward through the central belt. some sharper ones for the south—east of the afternoon. the winds will cost up to 60 miles and are through the irish sea coasts, peaking potentially at 80 miles an houras coasts, peaking potentially at 80 miles an hour as this band of squally showers dives through overnight. by monday, we will start to see high—pressure building from the west, calming things slightly. gales this time for the north sea coast, showers in the east early think should become brighter as you go through the day.

hello, this is bbc news with shaun ley. the headlines... borisjohnson and jeremy corbyn have made direct appeals to voters — as the election campaign enters its final few days. a factory fire in the indian capital, delhi, which broke out in the early hours of the morning has killed at least 43 people.