and with lighter winds, it should get a degree or so warmer as we go through the week. so, not much in the way of significant rain to look out for. might be a little warmer thursday onwards. hello, this is bbc news with ben brown. the headlines: borisjohnson is to announce a shift in message on coronavirus later, with a a roadmap for easing the lockdown in england. the government is also set to unveil a new slogan telling the public to "stay alert". it comes as parts of germany get back to business — some bars and restaurants opened this weekend, more will do so on monday. in spain, the authorities are also preparing to relax restrictions from tomorrow. in the us, the former president, barack obama, has heavily criticised the trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. mr obama called the management of the crisis "an absolute chaotic disaster".

the fiancee of the murdered saudi journalist jamal khashoggi has urged the english premier league club newcastle united to consider ethical values before accepting a bid from a saudi—backed consortium. now on bbc news, foreign correspondents look at events in the uk through outsiders‘ eyes, and at how the issues of the week are being tackled around the world, in 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 guardian columnist nesri malik. 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, nesrine, 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 the part 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 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 reason 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 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 it 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 bruise 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. henry, 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 numberio. 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 see between the economy and lives, it is lives 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 there 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 tojudge that moment. i want to hearfrom 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 way 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 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 will just, 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 humans will 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 it 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 virology 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 succumbed 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 foreigners 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 near future and if anything i think it will be used to drive more populist politics domestically and drive more wedges 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 boris johnson, 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 will not 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 countries of 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 were 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 they showed us that you can get through a national and 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 actually, all of a sudden, you could see people beyond your family and, dear 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. back next week. same place, same time. stay safe, bye—bye. hello, there. there is a marked difference with the feel of the weather today, as the cold front continues to push its way steadily southwards. it's bringing light, patchy rain with it, but the winds are strengthening and it is the winds that are the more significant

feature to the story. further north of that, we will see some sunny spells and a few wintry showers on higher ground. the wind direction, a north or north—easterly, gusting in excess of 30—110 mph, to really make it feel quite cold out there in comparison to the last few days. so, top temperatures on those exposed coasts, no higher than 5 or 8 degrees. further south and west, with the best of the morning sunshine we've seen, we could see mid to high teens. but the cold air is set to stay with us as we go through the week. high—pressure dominates. a good deal of dry weather and a forecast. and with lighter winds, it should get a degree or so warmer as we go through the week. so, not much in the way of significant rain to look out for. hopefully a little warmer thursday onwards.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. uk prime minister borisjohnson is to announce a shift in message on coronavirus later — with a new warning system and a roadmap for easing the lockdown in england. he's also set to unveil a new slogan — telling the public to "stay alert" rather than "stay at home". a government minister explains the new advice — criticised by some for being confusing. staying at home will remain an absolutely essential element of that strategy. but it will broaden out. and we'll encourage people to stay alert when they are going about their business. president trump's handling of the pandemic is called a 'chaotic disaster‘ by his predecessor barack obama.