president trump's handling of the pandemic has been described by his predecessor, barack obama, as "an absolute chaotic disaster". in a conference call with his former staffers mr obama accused the current administration of having a mindset of ‘what‘s in it for me and to heck with everyone else‘. the british government says emerging from lockdown will be a gradual process, and the public should remember it's not a single leap to freedom. it comes as the prime minister boris johnson prepares to address the nation on sunday evening, to set out the next phase in tackling the pandemic. the self—proclaimed "architect of rock ‘n‘ roll" richard penniman, better known as little richard, has died. the legendary singer built his ground—breaking sound with a blend of boogie—woogie, rhythm and blues, and gospel. he died at the age of 87 after several years of poor health.

now on bbc news — dateline london. hello and welcome to dateline london. i'm carrie gracie. this weekend, europe marked the 75th anniversary of the end of world war ii on european soil. this week lockdown, grieving, paralysis, not part of the original plans for celebration. a lot of fighting talk has been deployed in relation to covid—19 and a lot of talk about solidarity, too but are there real lessons on fighting or solidarity that the second world war generation can teach us now?

my guests on socially distant screens are garden —— guardian columnist. and a journalist from the new york times. welcome to both of you. and in the studio, jo coburn, presenter of politics live. would you start us off, nesri, the uk this past week has reached the grim distinction of being the european country with the highest death toll, how did we get here? there is a short history and a long history. the short history is, obviously, the months and weeks of indecision and paralysis on behalf of the government on their quarantine and lockdown decisions very late and way behind the curve.

there is a longer history as well which is, i think, a decade at least of austerity that has made it quite hard for the nhs to cope, privatisation of care homes, which means they've also just been allowed to descend into the sort ofjaws of the virus without much assistance from the government. so, it is a combination of indecision on the part of this quite new government that was oriented towards brexit but then had to deal with the real more practical issue of the pandemic. but also the defunding and hollowing out of public services in the uk, which means the country wasn't well prepared at all. jo, you spend all your time looking at uk politics — how much of a problem is this headline number, the worst death toll in europe, or are there effective defences and is the country is still united in solidarity around lockdown and how to get out of this mess? it is a problem because it is a large number. the government keeps saying

every day when it shows that chart and it compares the uk deaths from covid—19 to other countries and the united states. it says it is too early to make clear and accurate international comparisons. now, it says the reasons for that is you cannot compare apples and pears, and they have two lines of defence. one is about how deaths are actually counted. the uk government will say it has been very transparent about how it has counted, counted in hospitals and care homes and in the community. when it looks at a country like italy, which says part of its official figures it counts the deaths in her care homes, the question the government would pose is — how extensive has testing been in those care homes in order tojudge what the death rate has been?

there is also a question about deaths in the community. some of these problems are also the case here in the uk, and isn't that easy to count deaths in the community because if you haven't been tested you don't know perhaps you might have died of covid—19. looking at that, they put those figures in terms of how everyone is counting them on one side and, with that, they would like the focus to be on what they call excess mortality rates. can they escape the verdict we have heard from nesrine? they can't escape it, but if you look at the figure, over 31,000, that is the highest death toll in europe as we stand here today but what they will say is that isn't the whole picture. so that verdict that nesrine offered on a bit of complacency, incompetent government, can they escape that? not completely. they will deny the charge they were too slow to lock —down, that they were too slow to actually get testing going at the sort of pace it is now, but we know from boris johnson's appearance at prime minister's questions

in the houses of parliament this week, he admitted in a rather long answer that actually, they had to abandon the track and tracing mechanism in about mid—march because the uk didn't have the capacity. and when you look at those graphs and you look at those other countries, it's very hard to get away from the fact that germany is the standout country, and there is praise and has been praise from ministers here saying, well, they have a very flourishing diagnostics industry. and you can have a deep discussion about why we don't have that to the same degree. they also say the rate of transmission at that point at the end of march was such that widespread tracing and tracking in the community wouldn't have been worth it. now they want to go back to that because infection rates are falling but they haven't fallen far enough. the other real brews and weak point for the government is on care homes. and i think the epidemic in care homes, which the government has struggled to get a grip on, deaths are rising as they are

coming down in hospitals, they are still rising in care homes, and i think the charge there is a much more potent one. let's go from the medical to the economic point. the other huge headline of the past week is we are facing in the uk the biggest recession in 300 years. and the partial recovery of the bank of england talks about is dependent on a lot of factors. these kinds of headlines that invoke history, they are becoming commonplace that we are meeting challenges or seeing drops in output we haven't seen in centuries. it is the job of the government and the bank of england to make forecasts to try to model the way ahead and they're doing that, but it is predicated on the unknowns that are part of these uncharted waters we are in with this pandemic. it is about whether the lockdown

can be eased injune — that's one of the conditions it poses. i don't know how much it actually knows how to predict human behaviour because a lockdown can be eased but whether we ourselves, as individuals, want to make the choice of going out again to, say, bars and restaurants, doing the activities we as social creatures tend to do, or whether we will shy away from that because of the fear of contraction, is still anyone‘s guess so the model and forecast say that hopefully by the second half of next year the british economy will have recovered, it will have gotten back on the same footing it was before the pandemic broke out, i think it is at this point anyone‘s guess. talk us through the personality of the prime minister, jo, just back to work after his almost fatal brush with the virus, new father, etc — how much is all of the pressure from the economic and medical challenges, how much is all of that falling on one man's shoulders? it does fall on his shoulders.

we have a system of collective responsibility, first among equals and so on, but when you remember when he was ill, in hospital, in intensive care, there was a sense, maybe it was perceived or real, that no major decisions or change to the lockdown, and it would have been too early anyway, could be made without the prime minister being at his desk. there might have been a holding pattern. everything was functioning but to some extent nothing would change that dramatically until he was back at his desk at number 10. there's been a huge debate about whether he is a changed man from his experiences, in terms of his approach to easing lockdown, in terms of his approach to the sort of country we will be economically, as henry was talking about. those sorts of thoughts and principles are now perhaps not quite as gung ho as people might have assumed somebody with the personality of boris johnson would actually approach and pursue. so, really, all the information we are getting, far from going

for any real major change when he gives his address to the nation, i think these will be very incremental changes. the government is obsessed with what they call the reproductive r rate of transmission. it has to be below one and they always say we are following the science, the guidance of the experts but, in the end, although there isn't a trade—off, as they'd versus lives. they've got to keep that reproduction rate below one before they can do anything substantial in terms of easing lockdown because they don't want a second peak. that is what they're trying to avoid beyond anything else, and making sure the nhs isn't overwhelmed, that they will be spare capacity which they would point to another line of defence about how they have handled this crisis, is that it hasn't been overwhelmed.

so, borisjohnson has this momentous decision to make about — it is about messaging, too because people are fearful about going back, maybe not to the park and exercising, but about going on the transport system, going back to work and sending their kids to school — he's got to judge that moment. i want to hear from you, nesrine on how you see this shaping up in the next couple of months. like henry said, it is anyone‘s guess but what i think is very interesting is the sort of new attitude the government have. they went from not taking it seriously at all to taking it extremely seriously, and trying to play catch up. so, in essence... there was a measure announced there is going to be quarantine of travellers coming into the uk for two weeks, which is essentially two months behind everyone else.

the airports are still open. and, so, what i think will happen over the next two months, and, again, this isjust a guess, things that should have happened weeks and weeks ago will happen over the next few weeks, which means there will be almost a two—tier pandemic response. one where people will be trying to find ways to come out of the lockdown, and in other instances trying to plug all the gaps that were left by the delayed reaction two, three months ago. henry, let's broaden this out to a different country, the united states, we are six months away from the presidential election — we've got the biggest death count in the world in the us. and we've got a jobless count which is worse than at any time since the 1930s now. what on earth can president trump do with that as he faces a battle

with the virus, a battle with an economy in such trouble, and a battle with a democratic rival? there is no question this pandemic has completely upended the political capital going into november's election, both for trump and also for the senators, particularly republicans trying to ride on his coat—tails. this has all been scrambled by coronavirus. trump won in 2016 based on his promise to revive what was actually already a pretty fine and healthy economy at the time. before the pandemic hit, it is true unemployment was down to 3.5%, a historic low, and economic growth was happening. but now we've seen unemployment has now gone to 20.5 million, 14.7%, and these are not the numbers trump wants to have going into heavy campaigning that lies ahead. that's why we see him already beginning to encourage friendly states to try to open up, even at the cost of potentially lives that will be taken

by the coronavirus. his strategy, as all presidents have, not unique to him, is to deflect blame, to find other villains he can place the blame on for what has been happening, whether it is china, the who, the democrats, that's all part of the game. he has also put himself on a wartime footing, calling himself a wartime president, which is well and good despite the fact that he opens himself to criticism from those that would say, 'are you not a wartime president underestimating the strength of this enemy, who said this enemy would be vanquished by april the 1st and people would be back to their normal lives?‘ this will come back to haunt him in the months ahead. he is now saying it is the worst attack, as he is saying, since pearl harbor. using that second world war language. and that he can drape himself in a rally around the flag atmosphere, which there is in the us and the uk, too. people who really want to pull together for national wealth ——

welfare. he exposes himself to criticism as being the commander in chief in this global struggle, in the national struggle, to how well he has performed and whether he has actually pursued a battle plan that has resulted in more deaths, more than was necessary. nesrine, on the point on the economy, president trump says jobs will be back. will they? again, i am not in the business of making any predictions but it is really hard to imagine that happening. there was a good way of describing what is happening right now is that the pandemic is an urban forest fire. every day we hear of small businesses shutting down, people being furloughed. once businesses are unwound, it's hard to put them back together. they are the results of years and years of loans and hard work and financial engineering, so to just assume that this infrastructure of self—employment to small

businesses to large businesses willjust, like a flat pack, be put back together after the pandemic is really unrealistic. what we might see is a reshaping of the economy so that some areas that were underserved or underutilised before might flourish, like henry said, we don't know how people behave. maybe there will be a huge renaissance in going on holiday because people have been locked down for so long, there might be a leisure and hospitality boom afterwards but all is contingent on, a, how humans behave, b how much assistance businesses get, and the third is just consumption. everything hinges on consumption and consumerism and people spending money. if that happens very slowly and in a staggered fashion, jobs won't come back overnight. which is a bit like the conversation we were having about the uk. henry, you wanted to come in. yes. just also wanted to say,

this is another danger point for trump in the sense those that have been put out of work by the pandemic, for example in the hospitality industry and other industries are not necessarily those who are most aligned with his base, who include a lot of blue—collar workers and are not the fortunate ones who all they need to do to continue working is to have a laptop, a strong wi—fi connection, and their home—made lattes by their side. the blue collar workers will be watching to see how the economy comes back. let's turn to henry, something you said about looking for villains to blame. president trump and his secretary of state talked about enormous evidence that the virus started or spread from a wuhan laboratory. we don't have an enormous amount of time to talk about this and the chinese have said it didn't. why hasn't beijing put this to rest by inviting the who to organise a big international investigation to come and just investigate it to the roots and just have done with it?

that is asking why a tiger doesn't change its stripes, really. this is not a regime that invites outside scrutiny not certainly on its own soil. it is aggressively battling back any narrative that says it was in the wrong on how it handled the pandemic, trying to really control the story out there saying that what they did was absolutely correct and is what equipped the rest of the world to take proper measures, if the rest of the world had heeded what china had done. they won't allow who they fear will be politically motivated investigators on chinese soil to check out highly sensitive areas, such as this virlology institute in wuhan. it is not in the nature of this regime. nesrine, picking up on other things that are not in the nature of our times, i suppose, it is hard enough to modify chinese behaviour when the west or international

community is united but if it's disunited and without clear leadership, what chances do you see? not much. what is clear so far is that no—one — no—one — has managed to resist politicising this virus so it has to not only domestic national politics but international politics as well. it has fallen in between the us—china beef. it is also being utilised by strongmen in africa and the middle east. it's also become a way to frame the virus as something exogenous, this is one of the things trump is doing, and borisjohnson is doing in the uk, which is why the world war ii language is so helpful is that this is either something that has been brought in by foreigners or that it is an external enemy. so... the language used around

the virus, the language used around how the virus came to us has been either to frame it as default of other who have come in, or framed it as an act of god we can do nothing about. so, i don't see any solidarity at all in the future and if anything i think it will be used to drive more populist politics domestically and drive more wages between countries where there was already existing conflict before. and, jo, just before we leave the china investigation issue altogether, the european union talking about investigation, the australians. it leaves borisjohnson, who we have explained as a number of challenges on his plate, with a difficult post—brexit challenge so how do you square the circle on china,

the bold new trade partnerships versus talking tough on issues like this? it'll be fascinating to see exactly how the boris johnson government deals in terms of its relationship between the uk and china. picking up on what both nesrine and henry have said about this is that the language, some of the rhetoric from conservative politicians, particularly, and also you have to remember it wasn't that long ago when david cameron and george osborne, and theresa may were embracing china. they wanted to embed and entrench diplomatic and economic ties with china. now, of course, the pandemic is here. we are in the middle of it. but even before coronavirus had really broken out across europe, there was already a suspicion from a small but significant group of conservative politicians, who didn't like the idea at all. in fact, they were absolutely opposed to the idea of the chinese telecoms giant huawei would be involved in any way in the 5g network.

that was a headache but it was outvoted and to some extent there were rumblings if you like on conservative backbenchers. now you have the foreign secretary saying things like it won't be business as usual with china. we have another senior conservative politician saying, actually, there may be a reckoning. there's been a china research group set up within the conservative party to look at a reset of relations between the uk and china. i would add a little bit of caution. this is rhetoric. these are words. they are not actions yet. it may turn out to be so if there is this investigation. and interestingly you mentioned the post—brexit world. they've got this dilemma, the uk government, because there will be a different relationship with the eu so they can really afford to shun china in any shape, sense, or form when they will have to try to navigate a way

between the us and china? they want china to remain an international player. they want them to be part of the international scene so they may have to watch their tone a little bit if they want to think about our post—economic relationship when trade might be very, very difficult and not very certain, depending what happens with the coronavirus. another challenge in the in—tray. we are running out of time. nesrine, you're talking to us from cairo so can you give us a quick insight because we haven't talked about north africa very much on this programme over the course of the virus, give us an insight how egypt and north africa is coping. it's really interesting. the story in africa as a whole has been interesting. when the pandemic started, there was a lot of fear and completely legitimate concern that the continent would be overwhelmed and generally the continent to the south would be

overwhelmed where there are very few ventilators, capacity is very poor on the continent. my own birth country of sudan has such a small number of ventilators which circulate around the country. so, what happened was a pre—emptive shut down so if you compare what happened in places like egypt and sudan and north africa in general, to what happened in the uk, they shut down way earlier. airports were shut down, curfews, police and troops on the street making sure people are not violating the curfew. and that came from a position of extreme caution because authorities knew that the health care system couldn't withstand a coronavirus pandemic explosion. but what has happened is it looks like and, fingers crossed, the other shoe won't drop, the cases have been

relatively calm if you compare them to europe, relatively small. and the peaks of the pandemic across the continent have also been relatively flat. that isn't to say there haven't been hundreds and thousands of deaths all over the continent and the south in general but it doesn't seem to be going down the route people expected when it first started. the downside of that is most of these countries have authoritarian presidents and authoritarian systems which mean people can be, sort of, subordinated into submission. there is none of this pesky democratic consensus making that there is in the uk or in the us. but it does seem that, overall, the attitude was responsible. it was pre—emptive and it was really cautious. south africa in particular has been a standout case in this regard. in how quickly they scrambled and moved when the pandemic struck. fascinating insight, nesrine. we will have to leave that

thought because we have one minute left in which i want to do what i promised the audience we would do at the start, which is to look at what lessons we have to learn from the second world war generation. henry, you start us off. i think we can get through to national international calamity. after they did so, they felt it was a time they could reset the terms of society. it wasn't just about winning the war, it was winning the peace and deciding what kind of a nation britain would be thereafter, which created the national health service that saved the life of our prime minister. so i would hope that after this the brits take a look at their society and decide what kind of new footing they want to be on. nesrine, a thought from you. it's always a flawed exercise to say, you know, what would the second world war generation have done... but tell me in one sentence! i will indulge that thought which as we are all in

lockdown, everyone is feeling aggrieved they can't go out and do their things they like to do but it is a tale to remember — there was a time when these nations suffered for four or five years and we can get through a few months. thank you. and jo. following on from that, it is a bit of a strange juxtaposition, this idea that we had ve day, we are in lockdown and there was a sense of wanting to celebrate and commemorate. and while in lockdown there was a feeling of finally, in my case, we could sit out at the front of our house, see our neighbours. there was a slightly party—like atmosphere, maybe it is inappropriate but can actually, all of a sudden, you could see people beyond your family and, do work colleagues like yourself, face—to—face but at two metres distance. and that was quite joyous. that is a happy note to end on, thank you all three so much and thank you for watching. that is all from dateline for this week.

that next week. same place, same time. stay safe, bye—bye. hello. our weather turns much colder in the day ahead. arctic air‘s spreading south across the uk. a frosty, icy start in parts of northern scotland. a bit of snow to quite low levels here and further wintry showers to come during the day. sunny spells developing elsewhere in scotland, for the afternoon northern ireland after a cloudy start with patchy rain. and some cloud and some outbreaks of rain pushing south across england and wales doing the day. some spots towards the far south, still mid to high teens. the cold air does get in later in the day. but most of us, though, to end the day we're talking 6—10 celsius, feeling colder still in a strong and gusty north—easterly wind. largely clear overnight and into monday morning and that means a widespread frost, just a few spots in eastern and southern

england avoiding the frost because it is so windy. and then on monday it is going to be a cold, blustery day. a mixture of sunshine and cloud. most staying dry. just a few showers running in towards northern and eastern scotland and a few along the north sea coasts. more frost for some on monday night.

welcome to bbc news — i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: it's a disaster — president trump's handling of the pandemic is slammed by his predecessor barack obama. easing the uk's lockdown will only be done with "extreme caution" says the government — as many already ignore the stay at home advice to soak up the sun. brazil's world famous maraca na football stadium — now a coronavirus hospital — as the country's deathtoll reaches 10,000. and the pioneer of rock 'n‘ roll, little richard dies aged 87.