as it and not may be just as cold as it was last night, but you will see the temperature starting to dribble away into single figures. monday is a decent day indeed. if you have an outdoor plan, i don't think the weather will get in the way. goodbye. hello this is bbc news, the headlines. calls for students in the uk not to go back to university in case it sparks a second wave of coronavirus. we are really worried that we could see universities becoming the care home of any second wave of coronavirus in the uk. european countries are urged to offer "a place of safety" to hundreds of migrants — rescued by ships in the mediterranean — including one paid for by the street artist banksy. tight security in belarus ahead of more expected protests. the government there is accused of cracking down on foreignjournalists.

the 14—year—old who started piano lessons at the end of last year, spent lockdown learning, and has just achieved the highest piano grade possible. time for dateline. hello, i'm shaun ley. welcome to the programme which brings together leading correspondents in the uk with those who write and broadcast about this country to the folks back home. after a week in which republicans and rioting vied for the headlines in the united states, will president trump get the law and order election campaign he's hoping for? and a resignation in brussels

and a sacking in london — has the pandemic changed the way those who govern us are held to account? joining us this week for dateline london are thomas kielinger, of die welt in germany, and the canadianjeffrey kofman, who's given us audiences an insight into the world beyond. and here in the studio with me isjo coburn, presenter of politics live, which reports the uk political scene, and which returns — along with westminster‘s mps — in the coming week. welcome to all of you, it's good to have you with us on dateline. now, let's begin in the united states, where donald trump — reality tv star turned us president — made his pitch for a second term, hitting back, and hard, against his democrat rival, joe biden. "no—one will be safe in biden's america," he thundered. he was speaking in the precincts of the white house on thursday night, marking the end of his party's pre—election convention. republicans had to compete for news coverage with the more compelling pictures out of kenosha, a city in wisconsin. there, last sunday, another shooting of a black man

by a white police officer sparked protests, then three nights of rioting. a white teenager has been charged over the killing of two protestors. well, let's speak now first to jeffrey kofman about that. jeffrey, a very strong message from the president and, indeed, a pretty sharp rejoinderfrom joe biden saying, well, how safe do you feel in donald trump's america right now? who benefits if this is a law and order election? listen, i don't think trump has a lot of options here in terms of the messaging. we have three massive crises in the us and globally in terms of the pandemic, in terms of economic collapse and, related to that, unemployment. trump doesn't have a record to stand on that is persuasive on those topics, so he is going to the old song, going back to richard nixon's 1968 and saying, are you safe?

and trying to play on insecurity. the kenosha pictures, those riots absolutely play into his hand. the question is, does this really, are these the biggest concerns of americans today? and the evidence is pretty cloudy on that. people are very concerned about the pandemic, we are seeing 1,000 americans die per day, 182,000 so far. by the election, it may well be over a quarter of a million americans have died, and trump's response is patchwork, at best. unemployment — 57 million americans have applied for unemployment, it's five times where it was at the beginning of the year. he can't really stand on that, he really has to say insecurity, which is obviously the thing that plays to our fundamental concerns, is the thing that you need to worry about. and those kenosha pictures absolutely are playing into that. but the idea that biden

will make us unsafe, it's one that may or may not resonate. the times have changed since 1968. thomas, nonetheless, the president taking a very combative approach to the campaigning, the nine weeks that are left until polling day, saying in particular that joe biden would be capitulating to extremists and capitulating to coronavirus as well. i mean, he says his administration is battling with the coronavirus and saying, we're the ones listening to the science, people like joe biden and the democrats want to shut down the economy, in defiance of the science. well, i don't know why trump is called a reality tv star, anything that he says is an absolute slap in the face of real life. he said in his acceptance speech that he has done more for black americans than any other president since lincoln. he says that he has acted swiftly when the coronavirus

broke out. it was the opposite that was the case, he slept on the issue and completely negated its importance. and so, i think eventually, this is more a fight about law and disorder. trump has increased the sense that americans live through a period of disorder and that comes basically from the fact that he refuses to accept reality as it is and be a more—down—to—earth, sort of real—life president, rather than living in this cloud cuckoo land of his own imagination. i think that is the greatest danger here. and i am beginning to think — or hope, rather — that americans by and large are waking up to it, that he is really not a reality star, as it were, anything but. that they need someone at the white house who grapples with the world as it is and doesn't make up stories about his successor or otherwise which are simply not true. he flirts with untruths, and i think and i'm hoping americans will see through it.

thomas talking about how the world will respond, jo, what about the uk government? there were some stories this week from nick timothy, theresa may's policy adviser, about how difficult the president was to deal with. will there be unalloyed relief if it isjoe biden and not donald trump in the white house? i think the british establishment would breathe a collective sigh of relief. that would be privately, of course. just because of the unpredictability. that would be the first priority for them. they think that a joe biden administration would be a return to some kind of normality when it comes to diplomatic relationships. but what you have to remember is that boris johnson and many in the conservative party have always made quite a lot of the connection between boris johnson and donald trump at a personal level. you may remember, and it was some months ago,

that borisjohnson said donald trump has many, many good qualities. but when it comes to the dealings between the two countries, look, the uk—us trade deal has gone completely quiet. the british government and establishment will be thinking of foreign policy going forward, maybe a return to some multilateral institutions, the disengagement that they have seen from the donald trump administration, they hope would return underjoe biden. i think there is a cautionary note because we don't know what would happen ifjoe biden is successful. and it may be he is a little bit more like his predecessor, obama. and in that sense, when it comes to dealing with europe, where would the uk sit, would there still be a bridge between the two? the henry kissinger phrase, "who do i call if i want to speak to europe?" well, angela merkel, it certainly has been. would it necessarily be the uk? even with a joe biden administration, there is no

certainty that the sort of uk—us special relationship as it was once formulated would return. and no guarantee, of course, jeffrey, not least because of where the polls are. i saw douglas brinkley, the presidential historian, quoted this week, saying the polls are beginning to tighten in key states like the midwest. and because of the electoral college system, that could be enough to lead to the re—election of donald trump even if, for a second time, he didn't win the popular vote. listen, i think everyone was humbled by how wrong the polls were last time, although it is important to say that trump did lose the popular vote by 3 million in 2016. i want to go back to law and order for a moment. one of the things that is very interesting about the trump campaign is this appeal to so—called suburban housewives. and when you match that with the law and order campaign, it's perceived to be a veiled racism, saying, we have got to protect white suburbs

from black people. and what's interesting here is that the polling does suggest that first of all, the suburban housewives of nixon's 1968 don't exist in the same way, most women now work. so that kind of ‘leave it to beaver‘ view of the suburbs is no longer in existence. but also, the black lives matter campaign has changed perceptions and there is an increasing recognition amongst middle—class working women, suburban women and americans in general that there is a systemic problem with racism in america that is not going to go away and does need to be acknowledged and addressed. trump is trying to scare these voters, who have been a part of his base, that they need to support him or there will be black housing projects in the suburbs. he's quoting a part

of the fair housing act completely out of context in saying this, but it's a game to play people off using kind of veiled language. it's not clear it is going to work. hillary clinton, i think, describes racism as the original sin of the us political system and one of those issues that has yet to be successfully confronted at any stage in us history. let me finally ask on this question, thomas kielinger, how much would be left of the republican party if donald trump loses? because it was very striking during the convention, we had a lot of trumps, a lot of speeches from members of donald trump's family and we had a sense almost that this is a kind of wholly—owned subsidiary of trump inc, as it were, and i wonder what identity the republican party would have after donald trump, if he loses in november? the same question we ask ourselves in britain, how much of the conservative party would be left once boris johnson is gone? the problem is with most countries and most conservative parties, they are so identified

with their leading person, the leading figure — trump in america and johnson in great britain — if ever either of these two, or both of them, lose, the question is being begged, well, what future is there for the rest of the party? we are going through a time of total unpredictability. the personality cult that has evolved around trump really spells a disaster, should he lose, to the rest of the party. the republican party will virtually have to reinvent itself in order to rid itself of the image of trump and then try some middle ground on which to put their feet and re—establish their credentials. the same will go at the end of the day in great britain. so, i think your question is very well put, what future for the republican party if donald trump loses? i think it will be a party totally in disarray,

totally in search of a new raison d'etre, what they want to do in america. and that of course is a chance for the democrats to take their place and establish their own credentials, which is also difficult because, at the moment, we don't really quite know where they will be going under biden. we don't have a clear indication. we are in limbo as to what kind of presidency it's going to be. it looks like we'll have to reinvent the wheel altogether. what america stands for in the world. but as far as the republicans are concerned, i think without trump, they are a party without any sense of being, and so they'll have to reinvent themselves. now, it'll be back to school for many this week, and back to work for the uk's mps. not, though, forjonathan slater, who was the top civil servant at the department of education. on wednesday, he was replaced, after the false starts on getting children in england back into school and a fiasco

over exam results which led to mass revision of grades. some students are still waiting. mr slaterjoins a growing list of senior officialjohnson's government has found wanting. jo, under the uk system, and it's a model copied by other countries around the world, westminster systems, you have advisers including the senior officials who tell ministers these are the options and this is what might happen. ministers decide, and then ministers have to answer to those mps for the decisions they make. and ultimately, they have to stand or fall on them. this seems to be a different approach. is something changing? it's difficult to say just at the moment. there is no doubt that there has been a huge furore, certainly in westminster and all of the areas around it that support the political system, about what has happened, particularly to jonathan slater. the permanent secretary, as we call him, the senior

person in the department for education. now, the fiasco over exams was on a pretty unprecedented scale. but your question about whether the order of things has changed in terms of that age—old relationship between a neutral, nonpartisan civil service and ministers of varying political stripes, governments that come and go. now, it is absolutely, as you say, ministers who decide on policy, ministers give instructions and the civil service delivers it. i don't think that has changed. i don't think that is changing. the question mark remains is on accountability and responsibility. now, ministers historically, and underother administrations, have complained in the past that only ministers lose theirjobs when things go wrong because civil servants — quite rightly, probably, in the minds of most people — are not public figures and they are not elected and they are there throughout. the question is, why is it the top person in the education department has lost theirjob

when the instruction from ministers was, devise a system, devise an algorithm, because exams were cancelled, that won't lead to huge grade inflation. i don't want to get too into the micro—detail of this. it didn't lead to grade inflation, but it meant pupils got their results rather less than their teachers had predicted. exactly, so was the instruction wrong, or was the delivery and the execution wrong? they obviously decided it was the delivery and execution. the head of the examination qualification board has gone, but the education secretary is still very much there. interesting phrase that number 10 put out that the prime minister has concluded there needed to be a change in official leadership, not in leadership. so the ministerial leadership is fine, but the civil servants, the people doing the advice in delivering the policy, that is where they think it was at want. right, and many people would say, all right, arguably, that might have been the case and maybe someone in officialdom takes the rap,

but surely the person who delivered the instruction... if you want to talk about some of the discussion around this, perhaps it wasn't the idea of gavin williamson in the first place, and perhaps the instruction came from elsewhere in number 10. and therefore, it would be very difficult to blame it on gavin williamson. it comes back to this idea, it's not the first time tension between the civil service and a government has taken place. think about a former education secretary david blunkett, who used to complain endlessly that he wanted to deliver radical policy and he was thwarted. but that is slightly different from who ultimately loses theirjob if it all goes wrong. it is interesting coronavirus is the undoing for education policy, thomas. we had the situation in the european commission, of course, where for several days, phil hogan, the irish trade commissioner, was resisting efforts to get him to go. he had attended a golf dinner

and had 80 people there, and the social restrictions because of coronavirus had been introduced and it proved a huge embarrassment. the irish government could get rid of their agricultural minister at the dinner and just sacked him. the prime minister and the deputy prime minister spent days privately and publicly urging mr hogan to go, and he dug in his heels. eurosceptics would say that's one of the things we didn't like about being in europe, the european commission was unaccountable and it took a long time for that accountability to kick in. well, you know, let's get back to the british case. while i admire jo for her expertise in trying to disentangle the row in the education department, we have a simple fact to keep in mind. borisjohnson is a prime minister with an 80—plus majority in the house of commons. he can almost do anything he likes with impunity. he can stick to his friends through thick and thin, even though they have totally disgraced themselves, as secretary of education mr

williamson has and he did before, as he was secretary of defense also. he can afford some kind of, as someone said the other day, macho flexibility. day, macho inflexibility. this huge majority in the house of commons gives him a kind of teflon certainty that nothing much can happen to him. he can continue to debase the professional level of government and continues to ride out the storms that may afflict his colleagues in government. eventually, we are going to have to deal with the problem that nicolas soames expressed once when he said, "this is the worst cabinet in my lifetime." if boris johnson continues to completely protect through thick and thin his own political friends in government and exposes someone else in the civil service, i think it is going to do huge damage to the civil service, but nothing much will follow to his own standing in the country because he has a huge majority, with impunity.

it is interesting the issue thomas raises about the majority because he is absolutely right, you can to some extent do what you like when you have a majority of that size, 80—plus. interestingly, it has not prevented boris johnson performing a list of u—turns on some policies. during the coronavirus pandemic, which is ongoing, and also on key domestic issues like the one that we saw over the exams, over gcse and a—level results. so, despite this, interestingly, much of the opposition has come from within his own party. and many of them, from what they call the red—wall seats, the former labour seats, had persuaded borisjohnson to do a u—turn which, over time, has a cumulative effect of looking like a government that is not as strong as it should be with a majority like that. or arguably, that is the flexibility, the opposite of what thomas was calling it, when they realise the mistake has been made, they turn it round. jeffrey, might this be a case

where an administration comes in, like in the us system, and it appoints the senior officials who will deliver the policy and, therefore, it gets quite a lot of things done? i noticed for shinzo abe injapan on friday, the one concrete achievement people pointed at was he had just got control of the upper bureaucracy finally and that could have a transformative effect onjapanese politics, not least in finally promoting some prominent women in the civil servants who have been unable to get a look in. i'm hesitant to use the us system right now as an example of anything stellar in democracy. i think it has been tested in ways it wasn't designed to be tested. i think to go to the point thomas makes, of course there is no election in this country until 2024 and, yes, there is a massive majority supporting johnson, but i think what you are seeing is this erosion of his moral authority as a leader.

and that can be crippling, even if you're not going to be defeated in the house of commons. and i think the u—turns we were just talking about really do undermine his ability. and i think you see it in all sorts of ways. we haven't talked about dominic cummings. i think the behaviour of dominic cummings during lockdown really undermined the government's moral authority to say... he is the chief adviser to the uk prime minister. yes, and in defiance of the rules of lockdown, he went on a private sojourn with his family that was completely out of line with what the government were saying, yet he didn't get punished or suspended. and it was really that sense that there is a rule for us as leaders, and then the rest of you should do as we say. and i think that that continues, along with all these u—turns and the broken promises about 100,000 tests a day,

about the refusal to give school meals to children and then the u—turn, all of these things really do undermine the moral authority of the johnson government. and you can't ignore that as a leader. it's one thing to say, i'm secure, but if the people aren't following, it starts to hit the members of your caucus. and at some point, it does threaten your own leadership. let's spend just a couple of minutes before we leave you today talking about some of the other subjects of concern. some other thoughts have been thrown up by this week. thomas, you've had a thought about the contest between the systems we've been talking about. yes, there is a fault in the line at the moment. in other words, the benefits of the german coalition system. yes, well, it is interesting because there is a book out at the moment in line with lots of what people say

in britain about germany praising their success, there is a great love affair going on with the current success story. there is a book about what the germans do best and do better. there is one thing that has been overlooked, that germany has coalition government as a stable form of managing that is unique in the western world. most people have a government, parties and opposition parties, and they hit each other over their heads in some disgraceful scenes that we know in westminster and elsewhere, and germans don't do it. they save their energy by forging a common policy — almost like a national emergency — which, in a sense, we do have with the covid crisis. they save themselves a lot of sort of disagreements between the two factions, they come together in the same boat. i wonder, though, over the long term whether that is good for democracy, whether you suspend the traditional game of opposition, opposing the government and put them

all like two elephants in the same sort of cage, as it were, and make up. it helps germany. it has really created stability, in a sense. but i wonder to what extent it can be transported to other sort of democracies. and i wish we would discuss that more, how certain countries live in a different sort of world of systemic politics from others. and that would help understand better the german success story, i believe. questions of history being asked by some of those big parties in germany about what the effect has been on their level of support with the small parties that have started to lead them. jeffrey, you have travelled back to canada to visit family and you have come back to the uk, so you've had a sense of the changing attitudes to the pandemic and to the restrictions being imposed. yes, i am just finishing my uk quarantine now and i was in canada

for five weeks. it's really striking, the cultural difference and attitudes towards currency and the coronavirus in canada and in the uk. the consistent message from the prime minister in canada, the fact he wore a mask very early on, isolated himself early on when he was sick. i don't like wearing masks. in the uk, i'm always torn about it. in canada, everyone does it. you go into a supermarket and they wash the handles of the buggy when you return it. there is a sense of common, there is a common enemy out there. we're all coming together. and no—one that i encountered as i travelled around the country was rebelling. i mean, clearly, there are people who aren't following, but the cultural difference is really profound. one of the things that will come out of this when it's over is that we will see how different cultural attitudes, different national leadership messaging, affected the epidemiological outcome — that is the number of deaths, the number of infections, and how it spread.

the kind of patchwork here, the kind of on—again, off—again travel rules, masks on and masks off rules really confused people. and i think they're not helping. it is true that you have to be flexible, but in canada, everybody in the country has to go through a two—week quarantine. it is very clear and the police check up on you. there are phone calls. and so, people abide. picking up on that point, you have thought about how different the travel experiences are and our commitment to the environment, as a result of coming out of lockdown, jo. picking up on some of the points made byjeffrey on culture and the differences, i am interested to see whether or not people's habits that changed during lockdown — partly because they had to and partly because we weren't travelling to work and many people are still not travelling to work and schools are not taking place, the environment in a general, broad sense is starting to improve. people talked about birdsong, fewer planes, less pollution, is that going to be sustained? we will see extinction

rebellion protests again in cities as a reminder — timely, many people think — that if everyone goes back if not immediately, but eventually, to their old habits, then the environment will suffer. jo coburn, thomas kielinger, jeffrey kofman. thank you for speaking to us. that's it for dateline london for this week. we're back next week, at the same time. goodbye. the rest of the day fairly decent in many areas, just the chance that the onshore breeze will still generate one or two showers as the cloud roles

in off the north sea. the wind is still quite noticeable on eastern shores, further west, light breezes for the most part. a dotting of showers across the north of scotland, one or two for northern ireland and coming across the irish sea, drifting on this northerly wind, at its strongest towards east anglia and the english channel. those temperatures, not surprising, 12 or 13 celsius in one or two spots on the east coast, 17 or 18 celsius inland. it should stay dry for many, and not maybe just as cold as it was last night, but you will see the temperature starting to dribble away into single figures. monday is a decent day indeed. if you have an outdoor plan, i don't think the weather will get in the way. goodbye.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. university lecturers warn a million students due to return for the autumn term should study from home because of coronavirus. we are really worried that we could see universities becoming the care home of any second wave of coronavirus in the uk. european countries are urged to offer "a place of safety" to hundreds of migrants rescued by ships in the mediterranean, including one paid for by the street artist banksy. tight security in belarus ahead of more expected protests. the government there is accused of cracking down on foreignjournalists. the 14—year—old who started piano lessons at the end of last year, spent lockdown learning,