i'm kasia madera with bbc world news. our top story: the world health organization says reports from china that coronavirus infections have stabilised must be treated with extreme caution. the organisation's head warned that the virus could still spread. at a meeting in geneva, public health officials from around the world agreed a master plan to tackle the outbreak. the indonesian president, joko widodo, has rejected criticism that his presidency has become increasingly restrictive. however, in an exclusive interview with the bbc, he said thatjobs come before human rights. and video of a huge fire at the fifth—largest oil refinery in us is attracting a lot of interest on our website. a pipeline caught fire on tuesday night, but was put out within hours. there were no reported injuries at the exxonmobil plant in baton rouge, lousiana.

now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. like many of europe's long established parties of the left, the uk's labour party is in big trouble. last december‘s election, labour was not just beaten, it was humiliated, losing its grip on the working class heartlands and the north. jeremy corbyn serving his notice as leader, the party is in the midst of picking a successor. my guest today will have a say about choice. len mccluskey leads the unite the union movement, which is labour's biggest election backer. can labour be saved from a slow death? len mccluskey, welcome to hardtalk.

on the eve of last december‘s general election, did you honestly think labour was going to win? no. honestly no. i was predicting that borisjohnson would gain a workable majority. i must admit i was shocked by the level of that majority but it had become evident to me for some time that labour's drift into being a perceived remain party was going to pay some problems, give it some real problems in our heartlands.

so you draw your own personal conclusions even before the votes had been cast? yes, very much so. in fact, i drew on those conclusions for over a year and i was attempting, along with others to try and persuade the labour leadership not to slip into that remain area. and unfortunately we did pay the consequences. softly convenience that the people around jeremy corbyn in various different forms have all concluded that the problem wasn't jeremy corbyn or anything to do with the policies or the division within it the party, its all to do with confusion over brexit. that seems a very convenient conclusion. it's not convenient and all those other issues you mention add to what happened in december but if i can take you back tojune 2017, corbyn went to the electorate with a radical manifesto and he came to within touching

distance of power. he lost? he came to within touching distance of power. (crosstalk) that's not true stephen. the reality is, if the conservatives had lost another five seats, labour would have been in power. only because the scottish national party had other seats and various others. labour, if you compare it with the glory years of tony blair, labour is underperforming. it underperformed this time around in a humiliating fashion. there is no doubt this was a massive defeat. let me take you back to 2017, it's not true to say that labour were not within touching distance of power. if the tories had lost five more seats, we would have had jeremy corbyn in 10 downing street — a minority labour government, yes. in terms of underperforming, let me make this clear, in 2017 and indeed in 2019,

jeremy corbyn had more votes for labour in england than tony blairdid. but let's talk about the disaster that was the december election of 2019. it was very evident that as we drifted more and more towards a remain party, that in our heartlands, there was a feeling of betrayal. there's no doubt about that. some of us tried to point that out and unfortunately, we ended up with a policy that resulted in the type of defeats that we've seen. when you say betrayal, you're tying it to brexit. maybe the betrayal is much bigger than that. working—class people feel betrayed by the labour party as a movement because it no longer speaks to them. let me quote to you extensive research done by lord ashcroft. now he normally polls for the tory party but he's just released a report. diagnosis of defeat — labour's turn to smell the coffee.

here is one key finding — he says while it had once been true, that they knew us because they were part of us — being a mantra for the labour party and its supporters — labour today seems to be mostly for students, the unemployed and middle—class radicals. it seemed not to understand ordinary working people. it seemed to disdain what they consider to be mainstream views and to disapprove of success. but stephen, the reality is, brexit caused all of that. are you trying to tell me that in two years from 2017 and 2019, suddenly there was this turnaround aboutjeremy corbyn‘s leadership or the radical nature of labour's policies? there wasn't — the one thing that happened was brexit and brexit played into everything. brexit played into the belief that labour had let them down in our heartlands. it played into the belief that jeremy corbyn wasn't a strong enough leader and other elements added to that.

it sounds so simple the way you put it, 10,000 people were surveyed by ashcroft. there were 18 focus groups, precisely with people in labour seats who had voted labour and now were no longer prepared to do so. again, i quote to you, it wasn't just brexit. just hang on and listen to what ashcroft found. these people found labour couldn't be trusted with public finances, that labour looked down on people who disagreed with it, that labour was too left wing and failed to understand and listen to the people it was supposed to represent. the point i keep coming back to... thta's not brexit. of course it's brexit. the whole question about being betrayed and let down. trusted with the public finances, policies that were too left—wing and not credible. so what happened, what was the difference between 2017 and 2019? the credibility argument comes from the fact that in an attempt to break through brexit, labour produced a manifesto which had way, way too many policies in it in a desperate hope that people would push brexit to one side. there is no doubt that there were too many policies and not enough focus.

people began to disbelieve the credibility, that only two years previously, they were prepared to embrace enthusiastically. labour's radical policies, taken in isolation as individual policies, are popular with the general public. many, many polls have proved that but it was brexit and the perception thatjeremy was not a strong leader, a divided party, that did for us in the december election. so when rebecca long—bailey, the candidate for leadership that you and your union have put their weight behind in this labour leadership contest. when she says, when asked how to rate corbyn‘s leadership of the labour party, that she would give him ten out of ten. what would you give him? i'm not going to play them silly playground games. the fact of the matter is... forget marks out of ten,

just tell me, do you believe... i'm going to answer you. i don't play those playground games. the fact of the matter is, jeremy corbyn, made mistakes, like any leader. his major mistake goes back two and a half years. labour went to the electorate on the basis of respecting the 2016 referendum and pledging to take us out of the european union. he should have stuck with that policy. he should have stayed with that policy as labour's policy but that he would have had to have dealt with the half of the nation that believed in remain and he should have argued the case that we still would have respected the 2016 referendum and taken us out of europe but we would do so in a way that protected jobs and investment and dealt with any of the fears that remainers had. what is so striking about your analysis is that you pile the blame on brexit and if and when boris johnson does indeed deliver over the next five years on getting brexit done, then that problem

will have gone and so you believe that the way will be open for labour to perform brilliantly at the next election and win it. that is absolutely a challenge. a challenge. you do not acknowledge at all, all of this evidence ashcroft has uncovered that many people inside labour have alluded to that right now, there is a much deeper fundamental disconnect between labour and many of its former supporters in the so—called labour heartlands. .. and brexit is the reason for that. so when alan johnson. .. hang on. you're talking about ashcroft‘s polling. my union polls its members, 20,000, to find out different levels of what they think about various issues. which is why i knew way in advance that labour's position of being perceived as a remain party was going to be disastrous for us. in terms of many of the other policies, the issues, of nationalisation of our railways , royal mail, £10 minimum wage, abolition of zero hour contracts, a investment bank within our region

so that we can redistribute wealth properly. all of those are popular with my members and my members are the general public. my members are the big society. we'll get to who your members are and you know better than i do but fewer than a quarter of british workers are now in unions. you are not representative of all workers across the uk. but i want to get to... we are still the largest voluntary, sector body within society and we still speak for organised labour in all of our major sectors of the economy where density is high. and you claim to represent the working class and here's one genuinely working labour former minister said, alan johnson, started life as a postman — you know him very well. here's what he said today, he said corbyn was a disaster on the doorstep. everybone knew that he couldn't lead the working class out of a paper bag. alanjohnson has been saying that

from the minute that he abandoned it the working class. he's been part of a blair—ite move in our party that, in many respects, led to a disillusionment with working people. alan has made no secret of the fact that he's never supported, never ever supported jeremy corbyn and a radical alternative that both jeremy and john mcdonnell put forward and almost took us to power. do you acknowledge that a lot of the people who joined the labour party in 2015 and then went on to votejeremy corbyn and formed their own internal movement within the party called — momentum. do you acknowledge, many of them, farfrom being working class and from these heartlands we've been talking about, are metropolitan, university educated, middle—class people who have every right to their voice in the labour party but have taken the labour party in a different direction.

this is nonsense, this is utter nonsense. is it? of course it is. if you are challenging jeremy corbyn with bringing young people into politics once again, then he'd plead guilty and thankfully. the labour party was dying. the labour party was hollowed out in most of our constituencies throughout the uk. and what corbyn did, he reignited an enthusiasm that brought lots of people... it was people, commentators, not necessarily you, stephen, that were telling us that young people were interested in politics and then suddenly, they saw something different and they flocked to the labour party. these are decent, these are our future you want to dismiss them as some kind of... i'm not trying to dismiss anybody. yes you . i'm trying to make sense of the identity of the labour party today and how it is going to become electable again. let me ask you a couple of quick—fire questions, did you vote for tony blair three times? in the general election? yes. absolutely. why do you, why do you len mccluskey, think tony blair was the most successful electoral politician in labour party history? there all kinds of reasons for that. try and condense it down to a very brief answer. what was he offering? he felt the pulse of the nation. he felt the pulse of the nation, he gave a new, bright future

and of course, he gave me one of the best nights of my life in 1997 when we won after 18 years of tory government. (crosstalk) and tony blair for one, knew thatjeremy corbyn could not and would not win a uk general election. you just want to dismiss the fact of what happened in 2017. you want to dismiss that the fact that since 1997, when i was delighted that tony had won and in previous elections, we went on a slide downwards. inequality grew, we lost a million jobs under new labour, a million manufacturing jobs under new labour. and so there was a need for change. ed miliband tried to bring it in and in my opinion, he was slightly too timid in doing that. and what mcdonnell and what corbyn came along to do was offer an alternative —

a radical alternative. how many times did you and i and everybody here on the doorstep, hear that all of the politicians were the same. that you can't choose between them, between labour, tory, liberal. well, what corbyn and mcdonnell did, was put forward a genuine alternative to see whether people liked the alternative. that's democracy, that's a good thing. asjohn ashworth, a shadow minister revealed in a leaked phone call, he couldn't selljeremy corbyn on the doorsteps. people didn't like him. he said the situation was dire. of course it was. jeremy became toxic in many of our working areas because they perceived that he betrayed them on brexit. ‘s we've talked plenty about brexit, i want to touch on other issues. do you now regeret, with the benefit of hindsight, the way you dismissed claims that emerged years ago of anti—semitism in the labour party. i never dismissed that. you once described it as mood music and that it was being peddled by people out to

undermine jeremy corbyn. it definitely was. you think it was used as a stick to beat corbyn with. first of all, the use of the terminology mood music, was something i would not do again. if that caused offence, i'm sorry. it certainly did. what i was trying to point out was that there were individuals within the labour party on the right wing of the labour party and the establishment of party who saw it as an opportunity to undermine jeremy corbyn. they looked for any reason to do that. (crosstalk) let me... this is a continued argument in the labour movement and you don't seem to have learned any lessons from it. but, with respect, this is a continued argument in the labour movement and you don't seem to have learned any lessons. that is utter nonsense.

and if you let me answer, because this is a very, very important point. i believe that the issue of anti—semitism is the most important thing in our society. the most evil thing in our society. i've fought against it all my life — including physically on the streets when i was younger. the reality is that some people who wanted to attack corbyn quite disgracefully used anti—semitism to do that. but... what we have to do is make certain that all anti—semites in the labour party are kicked out and we have to fight against it in our society. i'll be at the forefront of that. late last year the jewish labour movement published a compelling 47 page dossierfrom 70 whistle—blowers compiling testimony that was shocking the way that people inside the labour party had been called subhuman, yids, cockroaches of the jew kind, child killers. these are all catalogued by the jewish labour movement. you responded to that report by saying, and i quote, and i'm quoting, "i am disappointed with thejewish labour movement. the truth underlying this is that they actually don't support jeremy corbyn." you persist in this idea that anti—semitism and all of those charges are simply being used... that's nonsense. why do you say this then? that's absolute nonsense.

if i say again it's to make this point, because i'm not prepared to allow you or anybody else to try to class me as somebody who minimises anti—semitism. all my life i've fought against it. the reality is that within the labour party, which has had an influx of hundreds of thousands of members, there are anti—semites. and we need to root them out. so some of those things that you've just quoted are despicable and i would root them out and kick them out, not only of the labour party, but out of society. they are pariahs. the reality is that we need to work with thejewish labour movement, we need to work with otherjewish bodies in order to make certain that we rid ourselves of that. the ehrc are currently investigating... they are indeed. ..to see whether or not there is any institutional anti—semitism in the labour party. i believe that they will find that there isn't. but whatever their recommendations come up with, labour should introduce.

this is going to be a hugely important challenge for the next labour leader. so let's turn to that. as i've said before, you've put your backing behind rebecca long—bailey. she's been called the continuity candidate for corbyn, because she says, in essence, she thinks corbyn's leadership was absolutely great. all the signs are, at the moment, she's not the frontrunner, keir starmer is the clear front—runner. and a lot of unions, unlike yours, have decided to back keir starmer or lisa nandy. and a lot of unions have backed becky. unlike the other unions. sure. this nonsense of attempting to divide the trade unions won't work. the three candidates who were running for leadership are all excellent. well, to be fair, there are four. one isn't getting much traction. and i hope emily gets on the ballot paper, but if she doesn't the three that are on are first class good people, and all of them will lead the labour party properly. and all of them will get my support. but at the end of the day, when push comes to shove,

you can only choose one. my union has taken the view that becky is the best place to win back our heartlands and to talk to the rest of the nation about the aspirational views that she has for everyone. this idea that she's a continuity corbin. i mean, that's an insult to her. she's an individual in her own right. and she's demonstrating now her views, her priorities, her vision is a difference in some regards tojeremy‘s and she is not jeremy corbyn. she will be her own individual. much of this conversation has revolved around ideas of electability and radicalism. you've made it very plain to me that labour has got to continue to be radical. your favoured candidate for deputy, richard burgon, went so far as to warn party members that they shouldn't be seduced by electability and abandon radicalism, as though radicalism was clearly more important — ideological purity more important right now than thinking

about getting elected. is that sensible or dangerous? i think it's misguided. the reality is this argument within labour has taken place in the 50 years that i have been a member. can you have power without principles or are principles more important than power? of course, i believe in what i call principal pragmatism. we need a labour government and we need a party that speaks to the nation, that can connect with ordinary working people right throughout our nation. i believe in five years‘ time, when we have another election, labour can win back those seats that they've lost and start to give hope. and that's really what this is all about, giving hope to our nation. we're the fifth richest nation in the world. 13 million of our people live below the poverty line. 4 million of our kids, stephen, go to school every single day hungry. is that the type of

britain that we want? we step over homeless people in our streets, is that the type of... well, hang on a minute, the interesting... ..is that the type of britain we want? because it's not the type of britain i want. the interesting challenge you've got is that borisjohnson, in his first few days in power, clearly has a vision for his leadership which is going to reach out to these traditional labour voters. yes, yes. he's talking about a boost in spending in the nhs, he's talking about massive borrowing to build infrastructure across the nation. he's talking about, interestingly, taxing the mansions of the rich, taxing the rich people's pensions. absolutely. the labour party is going to have to fight on the centre ground to beat this guy. well, the reality is we'll have to wait to see what the prime minister does. but let me just use your programme to say, as the leader of britain and ireland's largest union i will be delighted to work with the prime minister and the government, just as i have done for the last ten years. do you think you can? of course i can! it depends, of course. on how the governments respond.

remember, since thatcher's years, the edict was that no tory prime minister should meet a trade union leader and they never have. john major, cameron — it was only when theresa may was in some difficulty that she called on us to come and talk to her. i would meet the prime minister tomorrow, he is a busy man, i've already meet his ministers, i have a relationship with stephen barclay, had a very good relationship with greg clark... i know that. have you spoken to borisjohnson? i haven't. i've written to him. i have no doubt at an appropriate time he'll get back to me. see, i've just outlined some of the policies that seemed, to me, directed at winning and keeping working—class votes. absolutely. but borisjohnson has also said he is going to take the time to legislate to ensure that strikes in public transport have to allow for a minimum service to be maintained, i.e., he's going to make all out strikes illegal. well... what are you going to do about that? well, i mean, the reality is, we'll have to wait to see what these proposals are.

a clever move by the prime minister would be to embrace trade unions and to work with trade unions. i think it would be a mistake if he tries to kind of attack trade unions once again, some of his predecessors have done. he doesn't need to do that. i understand what you're saying, but maybe there's a feeling in government that trade unions aren't that relevant anymore. we talked earlier about that fewer than a quarter of all workers... well, if they're not that relevant anymore, and i read this in the media, why do they keep attacking us? if we're not relevant anymore why don't theyjust let us quietly wither on the vine? but on the flipside, if you are... the reason they don't, stephen, is because they know we are relevant. we are the first and last defence for ordinary working people. and we are the largest voluntary sector body in our society. and we should be dealt with respect, just like trade unions in the rest of europe are dealt with respectfully by their governments. that's what should happen in this country. and i appeal to the prime minister to do exactly that, and not to make the mistakes of his predecessors.

you've led unite for a long time. i think your term is due to end in 2022. there is some speculation you have had enough, you might go soon. are you going to go in 2020? you'll have to wait to see what my executives, they're the people i'll be talking to, and, frankly, you're going to have to put up with me a little bit longer. len mccluskey, we've got to end right there. but thank you very much for being on hardtalk. thank you very much. hello there. wednesday saw a break in all this wild weather wednesday saw a break in all this

wild weather as more parts of the country enjoyed some sunshine and the showers became fewer. mind you still a wintry scene in the hills across the northern half of the uk and here in southern scotland in particular. it is still cold in scotland as well. we are seeing the weather changing. the wind is strengthening from the south—west, pushing in all the cloud. for many parts of the country we will find rain continuing overnight, pushing in from the south—west of england where it will be particularly mild. further north we still have colder air so it is notjust rain but also snow and even in the rush hour some snow falling in the central belt of scotland. most snow over the hills and central southern scotland and for northern ireland so it could be wintry for a while but it is mostly rain, even that petering out during the morning. further south, heavy showers and those will be driven on by some gale

force winds across southern england through the english channel and channel islands with gusts of 60 mph. further north, an improving story with many places drying off and brightening off, still damp and grey and cold for south—east scotland and north—east of england. the area of low pressure bringing all that weather is going to push away during thursday evening and by the time we get to friday we have the next weather system approaching from the north—west. in between overnight, a ridge of high pressure and clear skies and it will get cold enough for a touch of frost, icy patches and a few fog patches first things. the wind will pick up as it is already in northern ireland in the morning where we see wind and rain here and that will come down from the north—west. snow over the mountains of scotland this time and elsewhere the snow will melt because we get a south south—westerly wind, much milder and temperatures will rise. not a lot of rain for eastern parts of england. it is getting milder on friday and that mild weather continues into the weekend but we also see the arrival of this deepening area of low pressure that is running between scotland and iceland and that is storm dennis and dennis will

be a menace through the weekend into monday. two main elements to the weather. first, the wind strength reaching 60 mph, and there will be some very big waves as well. secondly, the rain. that will be heavy at times, particularly across england and wales, over four inches possible over the hills of wales and the south—west.

welcome to newsday on the bbc. i'm sharanjit leyl in singapore. the headlines: china says virus cases are stabilising, but the world health organisation warns the epidemic is impossible to predict. that gives us an opportunity to prepare and to react, and still gives us the opportunity for containment and potential interruption of transmission of the virus. ‘it‘s the economy first‘, but indonesia's president jokowi denies his country has become less tolerant. i'm kasia madera in london. also in the programme: italy's parliament votes to

allow former interior minister, matteo salvini, to go on trialfor stopping