this is bbc news. the headlines: police in the uk have launched a murder investigation after three people were killed in the town of reading, west of london. three other people were seriously injured. a 25—year—old man from the town was detained at the scene and has been arrested on suspicion of murder. president trump is addressing thousands of supporters in the republican stronghold of tulsa in oklahoma. he's aiming to boost his flagging poll ratings, but the indoor arena is far from full. plans have been scrapped for mr trump to address an overflow crowd outside. china has given details of its new national security legislation for hong kong, which would dramatically change the area's way of life. it includes plans for an office in the chinese territory which would collect intelligence. international organisations and hong kong activists have said this would crush

hong kong's freedoms. now on bbc news — dateline london. hello and welcome to dateline london. i'm carrie gracie. this week: a programme dedicated to the uk and the us, two countries whose leaders talk big but whose performance in face of a global pandemic has done less to impress.

on top of covid—19, one now has to leave the eu and go it alone, while the other has to decide whether it wants four more years of president trump. my guests, on socially distanced screens, stefanie bolzen of die welt, stryker mcguire of bloomberg markets, and here in the studio, observing the two metre rule, jo coburn of the bbc‘s politics live. welcome to you all. hi. thank you. let's start with you, stefanie. we're going to start on the uk and start with uk management of virus. this weekend, we are seeing a certain amount of celebration in government quarters about the reduction of the virus threat level, but critics of the uk government at home say there is little to celebrate. give us a sense of the view in your home country, germany, and across the eu. it has certainly been observed now, already, since the middle of march, with astonishment i think sometimes, how slow the british prime minister and the british government have reacted and how much they have struggled to manage

the covid—19 crisis. also in a sense that if you, as an outsider, look at the uk, the uk is admired as a place of science, the best scientists, the best research and development. i think only this week the european union, the commission, decided to bid some money for a vaccine that might be coming from oxford university. there is this gap of perception between how well this country can manage science and how badly, actually, with more than maybe 60,000 people who died of covid—19, the prime minister and the government have managed the crisis, especially this is the view from southern countries such as spain and italy who also have a lot of people, immigrants, living in the uk and they were surprised if not shocked how badly the effect of covid—19 has been in the uk. and, stryker, obviously the very tragic excess deaths,

as we have seen in uk, but the effects of all of this go into the future, i suppose, because we are seeing now discussion over social distancing and if, as in uk, you have a higher number of infections, you have very difficult questions to face about how to get the economy and education back on track. what is your assessment of the uk's arrangements right now? well, the economy is going to be an extremely serious trouble. we have been cushioned to some extent by the fact that we have had this impressive furlough programme here in the uk which has protected the uk from some economic damage so far, although we did have a drop of 20% in gdp in march. but we haven't seen anything yet. the 0ecd is predicting that the uk will fare worst of all developed nations, and that is partly because the uk has a huge services economy which takes longer to come back than, say, manufacturing. but you also have to put this into context because we had nearly a decade of austerity when there was very little investment in infrastructure, in the nhs, in schools, in services, and then we had three years when the government machinery

was basically tied up by brexit. now we have covid—19, and once we get to the end of covid—19, assuming that begins to taper towards the end of the year, then at some point the uk is going to leave the single market, with or without a deal, and that will inflict further damage on the economy, so it is a very grim picture, frankly. and, jo, coming to you with your politics hat on, this grim picture

that has been painted by stefanie and stryker there, it is so different to that world—beating language we heard from the government early on in the pandemic. the questions about competence go on. we had the tracing app u—turn as well. yes. everything has been focused on that test and tracing system that really had to be at the centre of any major unwinding of restrictions. using the term that you have just raised, world beating anything is always a potential hostage to fortune and borisjohnson used this phrase, we also heard from the health secretary, matt hancock, who said that we would have this manual system of traces, and they have said

that has had a good start but there have been questions about the turnover time and people finding out if they have tested positive and their contacts being reached, but it was going to run alongside the smartphone app with its automated system of alerts. that was vital, matt hancock said. now he is saying it will be the cherry on the cake. i think for people from a confidence perspective and from trust, in terms of reopening the country as the number of infections come down, and they are coming down, the government is very keen to point to that, albeit slowly, but they are coming down slowly and steadily, if you want to open up hospitality and travel and tourism, it is now rather strange to see this juxtaposition of manual tracing being now the cornerstone and the app, which has run into problems, is now being abandoned. they are going to look at an alternative. to be fair to the uk, other countries have also had problems with a centralised app in the same way. 0nly south korea's has really worked and it is a different setup there. the question about competence that you raised is important, notjust from the public, notjust from opposition and critics to the government, but within the conservative party itself. questions were raised by some conservative mps, privately and publicly, as to why it took a footballer like marcus rashford to be the one to actually launch a campaign

about extending free school meal vouchers for the most needy in our schools here and not the government? have they not got their finger on the pulse is what some mps have been saying. there was the u—turn, that was welcomed by many, not all. some tory mps felt the scheme was not robust enough. then we had the u—turn on the nhs surcharge for people who work in the nhs but are from outside the european economic area. again, rumblings within the conservative party. one or two u—turns might be ok from a public perception within the governing party, but already there is a sense of them asking number ten, are you listening to us? do you know what the public mood actually is? or are you beginning to lose sight of what is going on? now, that is a dangerous moment, potentially, for borisjohnson, despite the fact he has a massive majority.

going back to you, stefanie, what do europeans make of borisjohnson's record? are they looking on this with a degree of schadenfreude? that this character is a powerful bestrider of the stage is beset by these problems? i wouldn't want to use the term schadenfreude because that is really cynical. if you look at more than 60,000 people who have died of the coronavirus, this is people who had families, whose husbands, wives, sons, daughters were not able to say goodbye to them because of the highly infectious nature of the virus. i actually interviewed a woman my age the other day here in ealing, london, whose father was a bus driver

and he didn't have the protection he needed and so he died in the hospital where his bus stop was. she described how she didn't have a chance to say goodbye to her dad, so i think anybody who talks about schadenfreude is very cynical. but as jo just said, everybody is aware that borisjohnson has a massive majority, the next election is in 2024, so he seems to be very safe in his office but, of course, all these u—turns and the very bleak record of being the country in europe that has the highest death toll, however you compare it now with other countries and however the statistics work, is in any case a very, very bad start into something that actually, with brexit, should have been a new, glorious, global, splendid new era for the united kingdom. let's talk about that. stryker on economics, to be fair to the british government, you mentioned the furlough and other packages a moment ago, they have won praise for moving fast on economic issues,

how do you see all of that going forward? just pick up your point where you left it a few moments ago about the difficulties in taking the economy off life support, as it were, and getting it functioning again at the time that brexit is immediately coming down the track. i mean, when you shut down the economy with a lockdown, it is brutal but it is also fairly simple. you know exactly what is going to happen, the whole place is going to shut down. then the question becomes how do you reopen, and i think what is concerning some of the people in this country and some of the mps injohnson's own party asjo was saying, is there is this kind of dithering going on, even with the reopening. people are frankly quite confused. nobody is sure what is going to happen and when. there are all kinds of constituencies that are banging on number ten's door saying do this now and yet nothing is happening. i think this is a problem for the government.

it is notjust a political problem, but it is a problem for the economy, it is a problem for businesses who are trying to plan, very difficult for them to plan, and then they look a little bit further and they see the departure from the single market and, you know, some of them are just dreading the future. and, jo, that dreading of the future, that is not so for those who won an election six months ago on the slogan "get brexit done" and all those who supported that slogan. can borisjohnson win back the confidence of the british public and, indeed, his own party at this point byjust getting on and making that happen? well, just to respond to your question and to what stryker

was saying, yes, i think he broadly can, actually. yes, there are people who will despair, opposition parties, although interestingly not labour, explicitly stating that borisjohnson should ask for an extension. well, there is a reason for that — it is a weak issue for the labour party. you have to remember that that huge majority came from seats that have historically been held by the labour party in parts of the country that wanted brexit done, to quote the mantra from the government. now, for many people, brexit has been done, we left on the 31st of january in so many people's minds. this is the trade negotiation and the trade talks and, actually, despite a lot of the rhetoric around it,

there are some small signs of progress and will on both sides, namely emmanuel macron was in london and i think there may be a renewed push between borisjohnson and emmanuel macron to try and get something around the trade deal because there was a deadline about the extension. the extension is not going to happen. there is a more important point for those people who wanted brexit and wanted to leave the eu and delivered that big majority, and that is about the levelling up agenda, this phrase that the government uses. they see, stefanie mentioned this should have been the splendid area for the global britain, they are hanging on and waiting for borisjohnson to get on with the plans that he had to invest and look at the areas of the north—east and wales and the midlands where he won these seats and actually deliver. that is what they are waiting for. yes, brexit done injanuary, yes, hopefully we will get a trade deal, but actually what we want is we want to have this renewed focus on delivering this levelling up. i want to put that back to stryker. do you think that is doable, looking at it from an economically strategic point of view? given the virus and the enormous generational cost of that that will have to be faced, that is widening inequalities rather

than narrowing them? are you referring to the trade deal? no, i'm referring to whatjo was saying, the levelling up agenda in very deprived areas that have suffered from the ten—year austerity that you were talking about a moment ago. yeah, well, where is the money going to come from? i think at best, i think it's postponed. as stefanie said and asjo has been saying, boris has time. that is probably the only thing he has going for him right now. all that he wanted to do with the northern powerhouse and with other aspects of the economy, a lot of that is going to have to be put off because so much has been spent in recent months.

if you just take the furlough programme, it is a hugely expensive project, and then when it ends, of course, then we are going to have unemployment soaring, it is probably going to get too close to 10% by the end of the year, and there is no way of getting around that. it is a trap. just before we come back to the free trade agenda, stefanie, i just want to get a european perspective on all of this because, asjo mentioned, we had the meeting between boris and emmanuel macron and boris spoke to the european commission president, ursula von der leyen, are europeans currently thinking about brexit at all as they try to emerge from the pandemic? and if so, what are they thinking? well, we did not only have the french—british meeting and ursula von der leyen meeting with borisjohnson via video, we also had the european council via video, again, this week on thursday and friday, and i thought it was striking.

there was a press conference by angela merkel on friday in berlin and she was asked about brexit and she was almost a bit surprised, so this is really not on the europeans' mind. they are talking now about a stimulus package in loans and grants in the volume of 750 billion euros, so this is the biggest financial project that the european union ever had to undertake so this is really now on the cards, this is what the agenda is, there is a lot of rows in the back room, how much will be paid, in what forms and so on and so forth. so angela merkel, she did then say we did talk about it but she didn't give any details. saying that, she will be once more a key figure in this because germany is taking over the eu presidency on the ist ofjuly,

so that means that germany or the german government will be leading the negotiations and everybody is expecting this will go down to the wire, not injuly as the british prime minister for a reason i cannot understand is claiming. borisjohnson is saying there will be a deal injuly, this is certainly not happening. but by october, this needs to be settled also because there is a ratification process afterwards and that will take several months. so everybody is expecting that, once more, boris johnson, angela merkel and emmanuel macron will sit down and try to find a compromise, but it is going to be difficult because the positions i cannot see for the time being for them to agree because of very different expectations, how much sovereignty britain will have and how much sovereignty in the trade deal britain expects. stryker, just to come back, jo mentioned a moment ago this idea of global britain and we dealt with the eu dimension with stefanie, but if you can deal with the global dimension of global britain

for a moment? the free trade agreements, it is a very difficult moment, surely, to be pushing them as a whole world starts to think about shrinking its supply chains and the difficulties in terms of us—china trade wars, decoupling and all the rest of it grow, and the uk's relationship with china becomes more difficult. i think the uk is puzzling the rest of the world in many ways these days, and i am not sure that the rest of the world understands what sort of role britain wants to play. the world knows that britain wants trade agreements, those are going to be very difficult. there will be no free trade agreement with the united states, that is not going to happen. there might be so—called mini—deals which is basically an agreement to agree on certain things, that is something that the president of the united states and the prime minister of the uk could sign in the form of a document, but a free—trade agreement has to go through congress and isjust not going to happen.

there is simply no way. so, as we get towards the end of the year, you have on the one hand the agreement or not with the eu and on the other hand maybe there will be some minor agreements signed with other countries but i think it is going to look really paltry and therefore quite worrisome for the economic future of the uk. and, jo, just before we leave the uk focus of the programme, the first half of the year has been enormously daunting and to listen to stefanie and stryker, the second half of the year is going to be potentially more daunting. absolutely. does the government have the bandwidth, the energy, the drive to confront all of these challenges? it would, of course, say, "yes, we do, governments can do more than one thing at a time," but we are talking about a global pandemic and a pandemic here in the uk in which, if you look at the polls as just one example,

with all the caveats that come with them, the gap has narrowed quite significantly between the conservative party and the labour party. i agree with both stefanie and stryker, in terms of a focus of an eu trade deal with the uk is the focus of the government at the moment, and whether that will be able to be done, we will have to wait and see. in terms of the us, stryker is right. a comprehensive trade deal with the trump administration as they are heading into an election, into re—election territory, and there are still these major sticking points, and they will continue, over food standards for one, the government says it is committed to upholding existing uk food standards. the usa would say, well, we are not going to do anything to dilute that, but that is an issue from a pr perspective, if you like. and the other is on the pharmaceutical industry, in terms of any concerns about drug pricing. and at the moment when the health service and health in general is right at the centre of everyone‘s politics, they will be dangerous areas to go treading into lightly. i think stryker is right, anything that would come out of the us and uk, it would be

sectoral, it would be small agreements, it would not be a big, comprehensive trade deal. the caveat in terms of whether the government has the bandwidth for all of these things, well, it will have to, to some extent. it will be about the economy. what the government, i think, is looking at is the trajectory going forward of the health crisis in terms of the number of deaths. thankfully, they are coming down. the attention will focus more squarely on the economy here, on how they do manage to unwind those restrictions. rishi sunak‘s furlough scheme, as it starts to taper off injuly, it will all be about unemployment figures and what we will learn in those months as to what has happened to the uk economy and how the government responds to that. right. now we are going to head across the pond and take that on directly. donald trump takes to the campaign trail again this weekend after a long absence

due to the pandemic. and he's on the attack, notjust against his democratic rival, joe biden, but against former friends and allies. already this month he's called his former defence secretary "the world's most overrated general", and now he's calling his former national security adviser "a liar" and "a washed—up guy" because of an unflattering account of life inside the trump presidency due to be published next week. stryker, is there anything, you think, in this book that will take us anywhere new? we have seen insider books before, and we get an insight into the president's mind from his twitter feed, what does it tell us? it really doesn't tell us anything new. i think the important thing about this book is thatjohn bolton is a serious, albeit controversial, figure of the right in the united states, so what he says is taken seriously. however, what he is saying is filling in a lot of the blanks, filling in the picture of what we knew about trump already — him thinking that finland was part of the soviet union,

the list goes on and on. i think, however, it is really a straw in the wind and that wind is huge at this point. there's a lot of straw, tumbleweed—sized things, flying through washington. this is just one aspect of it. there is one thing, though, that is actually quite important about the book, and that has to do with china. trump has been trying, in recent weeks, to tie biden, the democratic candidate for the presidency, joe biden, he has been trying to tie him to china in some way, make that a campaign issue. bolton has completely undermined that by what he has said about trump trying to get xi, president xi of china, to basically help him win the presidency, so that is gone.

we are very short of time. stefanie, i want to throw you the idea that the polls now put biden ahead, but trump does have a formidable online machine, to the extent that the campaigning remains online for some months, apart from president trump himself stepping up to campaign rally in tulsa. that means there is a lot of catching up forjoe biden to do. what is your assessment of his chances? well, this is going to be now a decisive month. i think, at the end of the day, it is going to be decided, first of all, how deeply the coronavirus crisis will hurt the us economy, how many people will lose theirjobs, or if it picks up, that, i guess, is one of the factors, and how successfully the candidates basically throw dirt at each other. the trump campaign is fascinating. if you look at the trump app that has been launched back in april, which already has half a million people that have downloaded it,

where you can get facts from the sources and it is not fake news. there is a parallel campaigning world being built up with a lot of money by donald trump who, at the same time, is very good at live campaigning and he is returning, as you you just said, right now. joe biden is not a very good campaigner on stage, he is not very dynamic, he is prone to gaffes, so i think there is still a lot of dangers and risks coming further down the line on the campaign trailforjoe biden. stryker, give me two sentences on that. i'm afraid we don't have time for longer.. how do you think the two candidates are faring right now? right now, it is clear that biden is ahead in the polls but he is ahead in the polls in part because he has been hiding out in his cellar and he hasn't really had to do any campaigning, trump has been beating himself up.

and there we have to leave it. it is my fault for not managing the time. we are short of time. stefanie, stryker, thank you so much. and jo, thank you in the studio. that's it for dateline london for this week. we're back next week at the same time. goodbye. hello. sunday gets off to a wet start for many of us, but for many, it will brighten up. but following the rain, don't put the umbrella away because there will be further showers. some of those could be heavy on what will be quite a blustery day for many of us, a bit cooler than it was on saturday. now the rain courtesy of this area of low pressure. it will start to pull away from easternmost parts of england by late morning. still has to push northwards through scotland, though, in the morning and then across the northern isles as the day goes on.

now, this is how the day begins temperature—wise. we're looking at temperatures around 10—14 degrees. a very blustery start, particularly where you're still seeing this rain. and, again, it clears from eastern england late morning, still has to push on northwards across the northern isles during the day. but notice behind the rain, brightening up very nicely. there will be decent sunny spells around, but quite heavy downpours running in towards northern ireland, scotland, parts of northern england. it could be thundery. showers scattered about elsewhere through england and wales. it will move through quite quickly on these brisk winds. these are average speeds. there will be gusts, though, around 30—a0mph in places. and for many, it will be a bit cooler, but there's still some spots in eastern england creeping into the low—20s. now, still some of these downpours around initially on sunday evening, but they will tend to fade. so actually, for many of us, there will be increasing sunshine to end the day, and largely clear overnight and into monday morning. will allow temperatures to dip down a little bit lower,

some spots down to single figures as monday begins. your eyes may be drawn, though, to our next weather system coming in, these weather fronts that will head in through parts of northern ireland and scotland in particular. and with fairly strong winds still associated with the next spell of rain moving in here. so, here's a look at how monday's shaping up, some rain into northern ireland, parts of scotland mayjust brush parts of north west england and wales as well, especially north and west here, but elsewhere in wales and across the rest of england, it looks to stay mainly dry, variable cloud and sunny spells. and here, temperatures will creep up a little bit higher, and higher still as the week goes on because this is the picture mid—week — we'll have low pressure to the northwest and this weather and northern ireland, so here, we'll keep temperatures closer to average, bit of warmth in the sunshine, may see a bit of rain at times. closer to the high pressure, though, across large parts of england and wales, it'll be mainly dry with a feed of air not from the atlantic but coming in from a hot continent. this is where temperatures will be heading up. hottest weather of the summer so far and some spots reaching into the low—30s.

welcome to bbc news. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: three people are killed and others are critically injured after a multiple stabbing in the english town of reading. president trump addresses thousands of supporters in tulsa in oklahoma, but the indoor arena is far from full. brazil's covid—i9 crisis. a day after passing the one million mark, the death total reaches 50,000. and if you're a parent coping with home—schooling, spare a thought for one south korean foster dad trying to teach ten children who've never used a computer.