canada's prime minister, justin trudeau, has said that there's evidence from multiple sources that the ukrainian airliner which crashed near tehran on wednesday was shot down by an iranian missile. earlier iran dismissed claims of a missile as scientifically impossible. all 176 people on board were killed. australia is bracing itself for another day of bushfires with high temperatures and strong winds predicted. prime minister scott morrison warned friday would be a difficult day in the eastern states. and this story is trending on bbc.com. officials for this year's tokyo olympic and paralympic games have revealed the beds that the athletes will be sleeping on. the frames are made entirely from cardboard, which, along with the mattresses, will be recycled after the tournaments are finished. that's all. stay with bbc world news.

now on bbc news, it's hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. in british politics, 2020 is the beginning of the ‘johnson era', thanks to his thumping parliamentary majority, prime minister boris johnson has the opportunity to reshape the country. that means an exit from the eu at the end of this month but then what? how will he recalibrate britain's economy, its trading and diplomatic relationships? my guest is former conservative chancellor george osborne, whose own political career was killed off by brexit. is borisjohnson the leader britain needs? george osborne, welcome to hardtalk.

good to be here. i want to begin with a pithy quote, words from you delivered apparently in the hours after the 2016 referendum when witnesses reliably informed us that you said — and i will paraphrase because you used a rude word — but you said that, "dave is screwed," that is david cameron, "i am screwed and other countries are screwed." your career and dave's were effectively finished but do you now believe, in retrospect, that the country was and is screwed? well, i think leaving the eu is a bad decision for britain but... the language was stronger

than "a bad decision for britain". i think brexit has an impact on our economy, makes people poorer than they would otherwise be in our country and diminishes britain's influence in the world but we have now, as a country, had two chances to have a say on that, one in the referendum and second in the general election, which happened just last month, and so now we have to move on to make the best of it and i don't do so because i think, you know, brexit is a bonus to the country but i do so because we are a democracy, we have now settled this decision and we all have to come together and work out a way forward. have to come together and also got to reflect on responsibilities and roles in what has happened over the last three years. interestingly, last year you said this, "look, we held a referendum that we should not have had, we lost the referendum and the consequences for the country are grave and the only thing that i can plea in my mitigation is that a huge number of people wanted that referendum. i made a case against it

but i wasn't heard." my question to you is now do you now regret not shouting louder? i made a forceful case inside the government at the time, i was the chancellor of the exchequer, that we should not be having a new referendum. there were very few allies in the cabinet on the position and in the end, 600 members of parliament voted for that referendum, including the vast majority of the labour party. so, the political consensus at the time and, indeed, media consensus at the time cabinet that britain had to resolve the issue, have the vote and many calling for the vote and the referendum assumed we would stay in the eu and not what transpired. i understand the way you lay these things out but it seems to me the one opportunity you had to really make a stand was at the beginning because you when david cameron were famously very close, notjust neighbours at number 10 and 11 downing street but he trusted your advice. you told him it was a bad idea but if you said to him,

"look, this is the most important decision facing us in the country since the second world war, and i cannot go along with this and if you insist on referendum i am out of here," that may have made a difference? i don't think it would have, honestly. i think the train was leaving the station, the political train, towards referendum inside the conservative party, inside the conservative media and other elements of the political spectrum... but you never tested that proposition. ..and i don't think my resignation would not have made any difference and, ifanything, once the decision was made, i thought, well, i am someone who may be able to influence the outcome, i am the country's finance minister, i can set out the economic consequences of leaving, and, in the end, of course, that didn't work. i thought then i actually had the responsibility to make the argument and make sure the country knew what it was voting for and knew about the consequences. and that's interesting because you were — if i may say so — a much stronger pro—remain campaigner then even david cameron was and your message

was simple, that if we do this, if we vote to leave the eu, we put at risk the foundations of the british economy. it may be that your interventions were counter—productive. your opponents, including boris johnson, called it ‘project fear‘ and now that we look back at that, with three years of hindsight, it seems you were the politician that the british public no longer wanted to listen to. would you agree with that? i don't think that is true. others can have their view on how the public thought about me but only a few months earlier i had led with david cameron a very successful election campaign in which we were re—elected as leaders of the country. i think it's a false memory as the years go past that somehow by then the cameron regime was unpopular or people were antiestablishment. only a year earlier, the conservatives had won a resounding victory and the economic message was a very important part of that victory.

just on the referendum and what our opponents called project fear, i have not seen the counterfactual, and in a way we will never know, but i am not sure that if we had not made those economic arguments, we would have won the referendum, we may have lost it by a bigger margin because the truth be told, when he got to the vote, the british people were not particularly enamoured with the eu and the swing voters, the people you appeal to in any campaign, were people who emotionally wanted to leave but were nervous of the economic consequences so, inevitably, the campaign focused on that. one more question then on looking back at 2016 and on your possible culpability. it's interesting to me than in the last year or so they have been quite a few academic studies and i am very taken by one, by a gentleman called thiemo fetzer, who was an associate professor at warwick, and he has written in the harvard business review a fascinating study based on detailed analysis, of voting patterns, individual constituencies,

and he says that in his analysis there is no doubt that austerity—induced cuts to the welfare system since 2010, that is the cuts that you oversaw, played a very important part in shoring up support for the uk independence party and for the vote leave campaign in the brexit referendum. a clear correlation. i've never heard of him but ijust don't agree with him! for two simple reasons: one is, that of course the alliance of brexit voters was notjust people in left behind, depressed towns in the north of england that we have been talking a lot about british politics but also retired voters, pensioners, people in the south of england who were the very people who at the time it was often a charge levelled at me that they had escaped austerity. they had not been the target of government cuts. second, i would say that you have

to look at cause—and—effect and austerity was not a sort of voluntary policy. it was a consequence in britain and basically every other western nation of the financial crash. did the financial crash hit poorest communities hardest in britain? yes, it did. and did the financial crash potentially have a role in brexit? yes, potentially it did. but i think this, the assumption of the question, i have not read the study, is that somehow a set of deliberate government policies led directly to the brexit vote and i just think that is not true. i think underpinning the study, and certainly underpinning my question, was a proposition that you became a politician who was seen to be ultra—zealous about austerity in a way that went beyond fixing the public finances after the crisis that came with the financial crash in 2008 and you had to deal with that in 2010. it went beyond far beyond that

and in some peoples‘ minds it became a fetish, you were absolutely obsessed with austerity strategy. that is just totally, not true! in fact, of course, the longer i was in office as chancellor, the more we moved onto issues like the northern powerhouse, building up the north of england, other policies like trying to attract tech investment in britain and the like. but you were still, you were still, if i may say so, central to your policy was the notion that we have to eliminate the deficit. the deficit was over 10% of national income when i became the chancellor 10 years ago. that was about the highest in the developed world, certainly the highest in britain‘s peacetime history. in the first couple of years that i was chancellor, almost all of our near neighbours had fiscal crisis of one kind or another, easy to forget now — ireland, portugal, greece, spain — whole set of other countries with much smaller deficits had problems. in the end, there are two proofs of the pudding, the first is now we can look back on the last decade, britain had the strongest recovery

from the financial crash of any major advanced economy of the world over the last 10 years. we now see it over the last 10 years. we created more jobs in the government then any british government has created, or created conditions for those jobs. and, finally, missing is this central fact, which is that in 2015, the country got a chance to vote again on what you call this fetishistic economic policy and they embraced it and re—elected david cameron and the conservatives. and their anger and alienation poured out the year later in the referendum. that‘s a specious theory because, clearly, they were voting, you‘re saying they voted for one set of politicians and nine months later they changed their mind. no, what i‘m suggesting also is that there was something interesting, if we bring it to present—day and analysis on what is happening politics right now in the conservative party, post—david cameron and post—george osborne, we have borisjohnson and his chancellor, sajid javid, who are committed it seems to opening the spending taps

and much less concerned about this elimination of the deficit... this is a news programme and something has happened between 2010 and 2020. ten years! the financial inheritance is the same. the strategy is different. of course the strategy is different because the fundamentals are different! in 2010, the british deficit was over 10%. today, thanks to the steps we took, and acknowledged by the new conservative government, the deficit, we have not the latest figures but will be below 2%. it will be around just over 2%. that is a completely different economic situation. as it happens, the fiscal rules that sajid javid, who i am a big fan of, has just announced, almost identical to the fiscal rules i announced 10 years ago, which is you balance the current budget over a three—year horizon and you aim to have debt falling by the end of the parliament. as it happens, this strategy is actually not that dissimilar, even though of course the economic

circumstances have moved on. what we have is a prime minister who now pushes, well, he doesn‘t even talk about the conservative party, he talks about the one nation conservative party, he talks about the people‘s government, and if we believe the times newspaper today, he is intent on trashing all of the pet projects that you and david cameron developed during your administration and pushing an all—new agenda. even thought i am a newspaper editor, i would not believe everything in the newspapers! would you accept there is a very different tone to the conservative party today to the one that you and david cameron led? i think the conservative party has evolved. first of all, borisjohnson was the mayoral candidate for the london election in 2008 and again in 2012. he is a close colleague of david and myself. he has since the general election acknowledged the role that we played in getting the conservative party out of opposition but i‘m nothing other then proud of what the conservative party achieved in the most recent election, proud because, as a northern mp, i was

trying to get the parties strong in the north and we did make big advances in 2010 and 2015 but of course the real advance came last month. i think it is a demonstration that the conservative party can be that one nation party and to have been part of a success story that has seen the conservative party win four elections, increasing vote share in each election is something i am not embarrassed about. i think it‘s a real political success story! you talk about this sort of sunlit world where the tories have achieved triumph after triumph but in the midst of that story you yourself, george osborne, have seen your political career killed off and i wonder how, personally it is to see boris johnson in number 10, with his incredible parliamentary mandate when, just four years ago, you were the coming man, you were the chancellor of the exchequer, side—by—side with david cameron, indeed appreciably younger than borisjohnson and, yet, here you sit now with your political careerfinished, editing a newspaper

and he is in number 10. is that gauling? of course i did not want to lose the eu referendum, because of the consequences for the country, but you have to accept at the top of british politics that your career can come to an end and i had 11 years as chancellor and shadow chancellor, a longer run than most people get in politics and ifeel nothing more than incredibly lucky and privileged to have done those roles at that time. borisjohnson says that he can have both a deeply advantageous trade deal with the eu sown up by the end of 2020 and, at the same time, a transformative deal negotiation under way with the americans and other global trading partners as well. it all sounds like have your cake and eat it all over again. is that the way you see it? ell, i think britain has accepted, and indeed in the official forecast well, i think britain has accepted, and indeed in the official forecast which of the treasury accepts — we will see come the march budget what the latest figures are — but britain has accepted essentially

a lower long—term growth rate and lots of decisions in politics, notjust in this country but elsewhere, are made where you trade off economic efficiency, if you like, for things like sovereignty or, you know, particularly strong feelings about your culture and whatever... but my question for you... ..britain made a decision essentially to be a bit poorer that it otherwise would be in order to be outside the eu and have at least nominal control over issues that otherwise the eu would have decided. but is prime ministerjohnson levelling with the british public about the degree to which real choices have to be made? choices which haven‘t yet been made or outlined to the public? but is prime ministerjohnson levelling with the british public about the degree to which real choices have to be made? choices which haven‘t yet been made or outlined to the public? one, for example is, if he is serious in his message that there will not be close alignment, a level playing field with europe, then there will not be the completely free trade that he is envisaging at the same

time as he does deals with other trading powers, like the united states. it seems to me, what he‘s offering as a proposition, is very difficult to deliver. as a former chancellor, what is your take on that? well, we have got to see. you‘re certainly right that a lot of the fundamental decisions about the trading relationship with europe have not been decided because we‘re in essential parked until after we left the eu, which we will do at the end of this month. and we‘re going to then face these question of, do we align with eu rules and therefore have a sort of loss of control over what those rules are, in order to be able to sell our goods and services into european markets... ? the prime minister says quite plainly, no, because it is all about control. well, i think it will depend sector by sector. you see, i think in car manufacturing, we will end up probably following european car standards. but when it comes to financial services, we do not need to follow european financial service rules. so i think it will be more pick and mix than it looks. i think — you know, another couple

of things bearing in mind — first of all, there is a big trade deficit with the eu so, in the end, the eu will need this deal as much as we do... really?! as much as we do? this is really a question of leverage. where does the leveraged sit, in britain‘s relationship with europe or indeed with the united states? i think, once we are out of the eu, the eu does not have all the cards it certainly has had in these negotiations because we would have been able to exit in an orderly way and then i think there will be a serious consideration in other european capitals about whether you really want to erect trade barriers with one of the major trading partners of france and germany and belgium and so on and a very big market for a lot of european goods. i suspect where the argument is going to come down is all around this issue of divergence. how far can britain diverge from european rules? notjust regulations but also tax and environmental protection and employment protection. and we will see.

i personally think it‘s going to be a long drawn out process. i think they will do a deal by the end of this year, at least on paper, the free trade agreement with eu, but there will be lengthy transitions. we are not falling off some cliff, which by the way was a real threat just two months ago in this country. i‘ve had john major in this study telling me that britain‘s influence in the world is severely diminished. he called brexit "an act of terrible national self—harm". many senior diplomats have said the same thing — former pm tony blair, said the same thing. do you feel that too? there is no doubt in my mind — and this is where we started the interview — that brexit is bad for britain and diminishes britain‘s influence on the world and our ability to shape important decisions on the climate, on the regulation of technology companies, on a whole range of things... and does it leave us, in your opinion... ..where our voice would have been amplified if we‘d remained part of the eu. and i never really — i mean, i guess as someone who went for six years to ecofin meetings and lots of crisis summits in brussels, actually britain‘s voice was quite strong in europe. i think the myth that we were not

listened to was a mistake. but, in many ways, i think wejust have to be realists. this country has made a decision. the country made the decision twice, in effect. and you can either cry over the spilt milk of the past or you can say, let‘s get on with it. just one personal point. you were put forward as a candidate to lead the imf, to become the next managing director, after christine lagarde. after some to—ing and fro—ing, it seems the americans decided that they would rather go with europe‘s choice, which was kristalina georgieva, the bulgarian economist, rather than go with you. is that symptomatic of what is going to happen in the future? britain, frankly, will have a much less important seat at the multi—lateral international table. firstly, i think kristalina georgieva is going to be a good... that is not the question i am asking you... look, i don‘t know, is the short answer to your question because britain has never been able to land the imfjob since its creation, even though a british economist came up with the idea. i do not know whether it was brexit

induced or whatever. .. your mainjob is editing the london evening standard. we talked about theresa may earlier, have you in a sense, used your platform at the evening standard, to go after some of your political enemies? because some of your headlines about theresa may, and your editorials, have been absolutely brutal. and as a former politician, do you ever wonder about getting the tone right? what i certainly try and do with the newspaper is speak for the more than a million readers we have in the capital, and the paper has a has been a kind of liberal conservative paper, supportive of the conservative party but pro—engagement in europe... the "dead woman walking" headline, things like that, do you regret them? actually that was said on a bbc sofa and probably in this studio. i would say, look, people will take a judgement. i would say the things i said that were inevitable, once theresa may had lost the 2017 election majority, that she could not survive,

that it would be a long drawn out political death, have all been borne out and it wasn‘t because i was writing eviscerating editorials. i was actually sitting out the very obvious political facts which i guess the conservative party itself came to realise 18 months to two years later. as a conservative, it gave me no particular pleasure that the conservative party was struggling and it certainly gave me no pleasure that we went backwards in that 2017 election which is why, as we were saying earlier in this interview, i was very pleased to see what has happened now. a final thought on your take on what the government is doing with regard to the media, in particular, it has to be said, the bbc right now. number 10, boris johnson and, it seems, his key advisor, dominic cummings, have decided that they do not believe the bbc is independent and impartial, they are not putting any government ministers onto the bbc‘s flagship news and current affairs programmes. what do you make of a stance toward the media that to same,

indeed the editor of the today programme, has said that it is positively trumpian in the way it is trying to demonize the mainstream media? well, i am a big fan of the mainstream media and not least because i edit one of the big newspapers of the mainstream media and i am also a fan of the bbc but i think broadcasters in particular — newspapers have got their own challenges — but broadcasters and the bbc have to understand that the political environment has changed. the politicians of the kind that i once was in high office, do have options that were not available really to me at the time, which is to reach the public in different ways. they do not have to go on the today programme... isn‘t there an obligation, a duty to be held to account... i am now a journalist and i think that is, frankly, a little bit too romantic because i think, frankly, there‘s always been, certainly in the last 50 years, a kind of quite confrontational relationship between the media and the political classes and, at some times in that relationship, one has the upper hand

and at another time the other has the upper hand. frankly, as i say, politicians now have options available to them. they do not have to go on the today programme and be grilled for 15 minutes by an aggressive interviewer... but do you think it is a mistake to issue a boycott and say we are simply not doing it any more. personally i think boycotts are a bit left wing and student politicky. i would be amazed if the government still is not putting up people after a few months in these key programmes. but i think at the same time, the political interview has got to change if you want to get people in high office coming on the programmes and i also think, actually, the public have moved on a bit from the kind of robin day, jeremy paxman approach. i do not think that works anymore and there are some really effective bbc interviewers with big followings who do not take quite such an aggressive approach. the world changes and good

media keeps up with it. on that fascinating thought, we must end. george osborne, thank you very much for being on hardtalk. thank you. hello there. it looks dry, with sunshine across much of the country on friday. we have seen some heavier rain for central and eastern england earlier on, but that‘s continuing to push away, together with that weather front. before this one arrives in from the atlantic, that ridge of high pressure means skies are clearing. it will be chilly start to friday, noticeably colder than we‘ve seen for a while across much

of england and wales, with a frost more likely further north. but some sunshine to start the day. one or two early showers in western parts of wales, into western scotland, maybe into east anglia, but those won‘t last long, and we‘ll see plenty of sunshine. it will tend to cloud over more in the north—west as the winds pick up through the day, that rain holding off until hopefully after dark. ahead of that 6—9 degrees — cooler than of late in southern england and wales — but a pleasant day in the sunshine. as we head into the night, we see that weather front making further inroads into scotland and northern ireland, bringing with it some outbreaks of rain. at the same time, the winds will pick up in many areas and we will draw our air all the way from the azores again, so turning milder, i think, for the start of the weekend. windy, strong to maybe gale force winds. still rain in scotland, northern ireland, maybe cumbria. wettest over the hills, drier to the east of high ground. eastern parts of england seeing the best of the sunshine here. strong and gusty winds quite widely, perhaps easing off in the north—west

later on as the rain starts to clear and temperatures drop away. ahead of that, we‘re looking at 11—13 degrees. very mild once again. now, that weather front will eventually take that rain across the whole of the country on saturday night, and then we‘ll introduce this showery airstream coming in from the atlantic, and that will bring in with it some cooler air as well. not too cold to start the second half of the weekend because there‘ll be a fair bit of around. we‘ve still got temperatures perhaps in double figures across the south—east. colder air in scotland certainly. we‘ve still rain to clear from south—eastern england first thing on sunday, and then a fair bit of and showers coming in, even pushing eastwards across england and wales. that‘s the morning. in the afternoon, most of those have gone. the showers restricted more towards the north—west of scotland, where it is quite a bit colder. temperatures 5—6 again and potentially double figures in the south—east in the sunshine. as we head into next week, well, we‘ve still got a strong jetstream

pushing right away across the atlantic, picking up these areas of low pressure. you can see a lot of isobars on the chart as well. it is going to windy still into next week, which means it‘s likely to be mild, although there will be rain at times.

this is hello, this is newsday on the bbc. i‘m rico hizon in singapore, the headlines: the moment a boeing aircraft came down with 176 people on board — canada‘s prime minister says there‘s mounting evidence to what caused the tragedy. the evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an iranian surface—to—air missile. this may well have been unintentional. a day after the duke and duchess of sussex announce they‘re stepping back from royal life, meghan leaves the uk for canada. i‘m lewis vaughanjones in london. also in the programme: