what's happened here is that these mutations seem to have really become fixed in the population very quickly. i think, unfortunately, the fact that london and the south—east was in a tier 2 restrictions rather than higher restrictions over the last month but hasn't helped that situation. but we are where we are, and we absolutely must all do as much as we possibly can to stop any further spread. what might we are out of time, i'm afraid. jim reed and professor nicholas stonehouse, thank you very much indeed for answering some of those questions. hello, good evening.

for most of us, the chances of a white christmas look pretty slim. at this puppy not going to be a particularly wet christmas either, drier, colderweather on the way by the end of this week. there is some wiring to get out of the way first. and on the earlier satellite picture, you can see this big hook of cloud. this will provide wet weather across southern areas, particularly through the first half of this week. this first press to enact frontal system bringing rain, particularly through northern ireland as well, something a bit clearer, still showers further north, chilly air across more than areas, but a of really mild air working in towards the south, a very, very mild start to wednesday in southern areas, but a cloudy wet start with outbreaks of rain pushing northwards across england, wales, some heavy rain moving through northern ireland, getting into southern scotland for a time as well. something about dryer following him behind, but probably still cloudy, furthering into southern counties of a glint, northern scotland will see some sunny spells, yes, but showers too.

some of these will be turning wintry at times over high ground through the afternoon. a rather chilly day northern areas, very mild one in the south with highs, perhaps a 15 degrees. now come as we go through monday night from you can see further pulses of rain pushing across on the areas into wales, the midlands, for the north, clear spells, still a few showers into northwest scotland, pretty mild towards the south, much colder night for the north, could even be a touch of frost here and there. into tuesday, cloudy, damp weatherwill continue across southern counties of england, maybe into south wales at times. further north, we will see more in the way of sunshine, again, scattering of showers especially across the north and west of scotland, some of these wintry over the hills and mountains. temperatures again 6—7 in the north, 12-13 temperatures again 6—7 in the north, 12—13 down towards the south. now, an area of low pressure is set to bring more rain on wednesday, especially across southern areas, but, as we head towards the end of the week, this area of high pressure

is going to start to build its way in. their christmas event into christmas day, high pressure will ta ke christmas day, high pressure will take charge, but without, some colder air working its way southwards. so, yes, temperatures dropping the by thursday and friday, christmas eve, christmas day, but by this stage, it should be mostly dry with just a few showers.

hello. this is bbc news. we'll be taking a look at tomorrow mornings papers in a moment with ali and maya — first the headlines. millions of people in england and wales are told to stay at home on the first day of tough, new coronavirus restrictions — as action is taken on a new variant of the virus the new variant is out of control, we need to bring it under control and this news about the new variant has been an incredibly and two a frankly awful year. and this news about the new variant has been an incredibly difficult end a frankly awful year. the health secretary labels crowded scenes at london stations last night as "irresponsible" — the transport secretary says extra police officers will be deployed to enforce the rules. france and germany become the latest countries to ban travel between the uk — as european officials prepare to discuss a coordinated travel response tomorrow morning. long waits for some shoppers — as only essential retail can be open in england's tier 4 and in wales.

hello, and welcome to our look ahead to what the the papers will be bringing us tomorrow. with me are writer and academic, maya goodfellow, and columnist for the article, ali miraj. tomorrow's front pages starting with the financial times who reports that the new coronavirus variant — that has hit the south east england — will mean tighter restrictions will stay in place for months the independent also claims the virus is ‘out of control‘ — as the number of daily recorded cases in the uk reached an all time high of nearly 36,000. the metro says the uk has been put into isolation

by europe — after a number of european countries banned travel to the uk because of the new strain. the guardian has a picture of passengers queuing for the eurostar at st pancras international before services were curbed — and also reports on the fears of the "devastating" effect on supply chains after france halted freight transport from the uk and the yorkshire post also leads on the europe travel shutdown — but also reports on the health secretary's comments after he branded the people who fled london for yorkshire before today's restrictions "totally irresponsible". so let's begin... ali, maya, the front page of the independence, maya, a more or less deserted regent street. this, of course, well, i guess that photo was taken earlier today. yes, so a lot of different pages are really covering about these new restrictions all across the

southeast and london, and specifically really thinking about the fact that these restrictions, with the government are saying may well have to be in place for some many months, and so obviously, this is another big change to our lives, although, we've sort of been living in forms of lockdown for some time now, these restrictions are obviously so much harsher, but necessary given this new variant, given the scale of how many people are testing positive for the virus, but also looking at those hospitalisation numbers, looking at the numbers of people who are dying. soi the numbers of people who are dying. so i think this is something that there's going to be a lot of focus on campus a lot of focus on the front pages or tomorrow because of how harsh they restrictions are. looking at the rally of the situation, it is very necessary. it's quite striking front page, isn't it, ali, may be less because of the photographs, and more for the headline, lockdown for months, as

viruses now out of control, and it's that common nation of isn't it? the idea of not only do we not know what's going on, and perhaps we are behind the curve on the new variant, but also that these restrictions could be in place for a considerable amount of time given the optimism of only a week ago, which seems like a lifetime ago, when the vaccines received their first approval. absolutely. matt hancock this morning made it very clear that we could be living with these restrictions for many months to calm, and other viruses out of control. so we are in a very serious position, and only earlier this week, 60% of england was put into tier3 week, 60% of england was put into tier 3 which is already very restricted. although, did mean that nonessential shops couldn't remain openin nonessential shops couldn't remain open in the run up to christmas which was really important because the front page of the independent showing regent street, this is a key time for retailers to make their big sales in the run—up to christmas, and everything is completely deserted now with this new mutant

strain, 35,000 cases, and if you put this in the economic context is welcome to the office for budget responsibility had already set a few weeks ago at the spending review that the economy had contracted 11.396 that the economy had contracted 11.3% this year, the biggest contraction for hundreds of years, we have 394 billion pounds of borrowed this year and 2 trillion in public debt, so with the economic stretch ration is diabolical. it's just absolutely awful, and this is what the government have been trying to do, they've been trying to balance and protect peoples public health with also getting the economy back up and running as best it can. this virus isjust so back up and running as best it can. this virus is just so unpredictable that unfortunately, this action has had to be taken, and i think certainly the prime minister really struggled when he could see that the other day, yesterday in the press co nfe re nce other day, yesterday in the press conference a really happy hearts, sony people's christmas is affected, but much more than the outcome of this is going to be a real problem and we are going to have to deal with in the weeks and months ahead.

maya, the ft, very mischievous but clever choice of photograph, that is, somebody walking past a window a christmas shop window with the word humbug. andi christmas shop window with the word humbug. and i suppose there are those not least we heard from sir charles walker, conservative mp today on the weekend basically saying he didn't believe that the government didn't know this was coming. he didn't believe that when the prime minister stood up on wednesday and one of the paper suggest that some conservative mps suggest that some conservative mps suggest that some conservative mps suggest that the announcement was left until saturday because the government didn't want to face parliamentary scrutiny. yes, so i think there is a number of key things here. the first is that, really, we shouldn't underestimate the impact of this potential impact of this new variant. i don't think we of this new variant. i don't think we should downplay it, i think we need to look and see what happens with it, but it does appear to be incredibly serious, so what i'm going to say next is not to ignore

that. i think we can look at that and also talk about the fact that there are some significant failings from the government, not least where some haphazard last—minute communications that we saw over the weekend, but i think as well as these criticisms that we see from these criticisms that we see from the conservative back benches, what we the conservative back benches, what we really need the government to do is learn from its past mistakes, and what i mean by that as we can look at two different things. one is the level of statutory sick pay, which is incredibly low in this country. the tuc estimate that people who have to rely on statutory sick pay well on average lose out £800 a week, and so what some workers are facing is the choice to self—isolate or going to work, even if they are displaying symptoms, and so the government, really come if it's meant to understand the scale of this crisis and the situation should be making sure that people can afford to self—isolate. it doesn't mean that the other thing is really key here that in terms of government failure is test and trace. the national audit office on the 11th of

december put out a report that said despite all the money that's been ploughed into test entries, we have seen repeated failings, missed targets, and when we are looking at things like schools, which has been a big focus over the last couple of weeks, test and traces really, really key to ensure that schools can stay open safely, and what i mean by that is in my local area in east london where the rates of the writers are incredibly high, we have a lot of property, and in the borough that i live, there is a local school that i know of that didn't get school—wide testing until the last week of turn, and on the second of last and the last day of term, age members of staff were asymptomatic but tested positive, the coronavirus, and so when we are looking at the way the government needs to respond to this going forward , needs to respond to this going forward, they need to recognise some of their big failings and they need to correct that moving on, so that doesn't mean ignoring the seriousness of this potential new variant, it does mean saying that some things really need to change in terms of the response, and they should be scaling up nhs local

capacity to do the testing and tracing in a way that means schools can stay open safely. ali, let's look at the front of the express, millions face locked on misery. yorkshire post which we will not look at this time, but to put it blu ntly, look at this time, but to put it bluntly, it's as far as johnson effectively cancels christmas for almost 80 million people on saturday night. however you look at it, from the government point of view, this is not the front page is the government would've wanted this weekend, and indeed of the beginning of christmas week. no, absolutely not. we know that the prime minister is at heart a libertarian. he struggled with this. he was battling to try and avoid this for weeks, he put us into a locked on only a few weeks ago, tier3, put us into a locked on only a few weeks ago, tier 3, a very restricted, and the whole idea was, after we came out earlier lockdown, then we went into tier 3, the earlier lockdown, the whole point of that was to try to buy us some time ahead of christmas, because, again, he has to balance the risks to lives

with also the risk to livelihoods, and that is a massive problem. he knows that there are going to have to be tax rises coming down the tracks. if the five fm the other week already voted against the imposition of a new tiered system, a lot of them didn't feel it made any sense at all, and tax rises are going to have to come to pay for all of us. he she soon echoes already extended the furlough scheme until april, and we have to, we are in this situation where they have got a few months to go until this vaccination programme is rolled out. at the moment, it looks like it's going to be 500,000 by the weekend, according to matt hancock. 30 million people are in the higher risk categories. it's a massive industrial scale roll—out that we need here. that's not going to happen overnight. so unfortunately, we are going to be living with this and the economic cost of all of this and the economic cost of all of this and the economic cost of all of this and the cost to mental health and physical health of people is absolutely immense. and i think

that's why the prime minister did his best to try and avoid this. i mean, look, he was criticised and you have the british medicaljournal and the national health service general both telling them to lockdown from raise the question of pm cues and the prime minister said it would be inhuman. so we didn't wa nt it would be inhuman. so we didn't want to do it, but i think the stats themselves are stark and he had no choice. you make the point why, of course, it's so important, these restrictions, because if doctors and nurses are to remain healthy and the numbers are to be manageable, you need the capacity to actually be able to do the immunisation, what you are not going to be able to do if people don't have that. let's look at the guardian. this is, in a sense, a different take on the same story, which is effectively than international impact, travel bands being imposed, not surprising, people are working out what's going on. and news tonight of a freight band which could be even more significant. yes, so, this is all going on with the brexit talks as a

backdrop. as eve said, what we have seen is the number of countries, including germany, italy, ireland, the netherlands, introducing bands on arrivals from the uk, understandably given the really serious concerns over understandably given the really serious concerns over this new variant, but one of the other concerning things is this news from france about suspending passenger and freight transferred from the uk for 48 hours from 11 p:m., and the haulage association is saying that this could be very worrying given thought supplied, what this means for the supply chain, and this has been on top of brexit and existing restrictions, and so i think there's going to be a lot of eyes on how this will impact those supply chains in making sure that this isn't something that gets much worse, and what we have already seen this evening, as i said, this is against the backdrop of the ongoing discussions around brexit. what we have seen this evening as nicola sturgeon saying that she is calling on the government to actually extend

the period of talks, ask for an extension from that the government can properly focus on this major issue of this potential new variants, potentially more infectious, so instead of attention being focused on brexit, that there is much more attention on exactly theseissues is much more attention on exactly these issues around things like supply chains. negative, sorry to interrupt you come up ali, getting a response to that, in a sense, the headline on the front of the metric could i must be a headline about brexit. uk put into isolation by europe. indeed. there will be appropriate meeting tomorrow, the cabinet office has been the operation capstone all week, but what they haven't gained is going into tier 4 and movements of freight and people being restricted right now, we are 11 days until we exit the transition period. that's on top of this current

situation is a complete nightmare, and we know that supermarkets keep very little stock, actually in their warehouses. it's on the shelves, so it couldn't happen at a worse time. think you both very much for now, i know you'll be back with a look at the papers just after 1130. know you'll be back with a look at the papersjust after 1130. thank you for being with us. ali and maya will be back at 11:30 for another look at the papers. it's the travel show next, but for now, it's goodbye from me. first up, traditionally, many of us love to travel around this time of year, but with so many restrictions currently, what's happening in those places where christmas is a year—round obsession? well, it feels like a long time ago now, but around this time last year i was in the village of thursford for the uk's biggest annual christmas show.

for over 40 years, people have been flocking here to see a traditional all—singing, all—dancing seasonal spectacular — that's broken records and become a regular fixture in the christmas calendar of many people here in the uk. 150 artists take part each year, and last year, for one night only, i was lucky enough to be one of them. of course this year, things will be different. but christmas is far from cancelled. sadly there is no show — instead the vast performance spaces and grounds have been transformed into a huge, dazzling light trail for people to explore. since first opening back in 1977, the cushing family have run the site and put on the annual christmas extravaganza.

this is your baby, you've built this up from nothing, this business. yes. how hard was it personally for you to take the decision not to have the performers here? well, it was rather like a bereavement to stop it, so yes you're right, i've worked on christmas here for over 40 years. it starts almost as soon as one show is finished, and to produce it, write it, and direct it has been a major part of my life. in theory you could have shut down entirely, kept hold of those pennies and waited until 2021, but you didn't, looking around you really took steps to do something different. really a new business. i was confident that it would work, and confident it'd be a success because of the loyalty we've had from so many people. i've had literally hundreds of letters to say "we're coming to yourjourney of light because we have been coming to thursford for years," and i think that when they get here they won't be disappointed, because we've been working

on this sincejuly. but of course, it's notjust thursford that's had to adapt this christmas. even for santa claus himself and his helpers up in santa's village in finnish lapland, things are a little different this year. i am antti nikander, the busy elf. my position is head of development in this village. santa claus village is an international tourism centre in the middle of the official hometown of santa claus, rovaniemi. we have normally more than 500,000 visitors in a year, they are coming from more than 100 countries. christmastime is the busiest time in our village, and we will receive, during the busiest days, more than 5,000 people, and now we will receive maximum one third of that amount.

2,260 kilometres from here is london! finland has imposed strict measures on incoming visitors, effectively closing the borders for international tourists, which means that almost all the visitors this year are from finland. santa receives around half a million letters each year from children around the world. the elves sort them for santa in the post room, and this year they've been as inundated as ever. so, i'm riitta, riitta the elf, and i'm working here in santa claus's main post office at the arctic circle. this is a real post office, but also i am helping santa claus with his letters. so children write to santa claus, they make wish lists, also they tell about their families. and the letters, they are a little bit different when they come

from western countries, then they have a little story about themselves, about the children's life and hobbies, but they have bigger lists. because of coronavirus, the post office was forced to close this year for seven months, for the first time in its history. people, they cannot receive now, theirfamilies, but they can send a parcel. it's like santa claus sends those, although it's them. but of course the real magic happens in santa's office. in grottos around the world, children traditionally meet santa and reel off their wish lists for presents. but this year, social distancing means santa has to do most of this virtually. although on the plus side, this does mean that a chat with santa is now open to anyone, like me earlier on today. oh hello christa! hello, santa! how are you today? so santa, tell me a little bit about your year this year.

of course it's difficult because we are doing it like this, people aren't so close, but this is the new way to do things and everybody should think about this way to do things, because you have to be close with people, and at the moment it's not possible in the normal way, so it is a very good way to do it. so i like it actually. and have you noticed any difference in the kinds of gifts that kids are wanting from santa this year? small changes — of course, the toys and those things, but quite many children want to have time with their parents, and that is quite heartwarming, i think, and this is the christmas to do that. and so this year, i imagine you've got lots of questions about what your activities are going to be on christmas eve — it's your big night of the year, how is covid going to affect you this year, santa? not too much, because that's the magic of christmas. yes. i'm going to deliver all of those presents normally, don't worry, they are going to come there,

but for social distancing, please stay in bed and sleep. this christmas, many of us will be spending less time with our loved ones than we would like and there are some couples who have been separated because of border closures and travel bans who are desperate to see their partners. well, tens of thousands of people in this situation have rallied together to share tips and advice as well as their own sweet successes, and we've met one of them. ryan ejezie ended up making the longest layover of his life when he was desperate to see his partner alina in america. and the only way he could get there was to fly to croatia and spend two weeks in quarantine before heading first to istanbul and then finally onto the us. all i was seeing all year was just news, you're just bombarded with covid news,

it's just like, this travel is not happening, lockdown's getting worse, cases are rising. so when i started to see other people, real human beings, in the same situation, tackling the same challenges, and being able to ask them just straight up on facebook, and get a response, then that planted the seed and then i could think yes, this is possible. love is not tourism is a grassroots global movement dedicated to reuniting binational couples and families who have been separated by travel bans and border closures, shutting down of visa processes due to the pandemic. it was very meaningful to meet people, even just online, and hear their stories, also to hear our successes and to collaborate. i wake up in the morning and then

i'm like, let's do it! let'sjust commit, let's go for it. so friday morning, book a flight to croatia, booked two weeks' airbnb. saturday i'm in croatia. flight attendant: on behalf of the captain and the entire crew, i'd like to welcome you to zagreb. i'm too deep, i'm too committed to this! i'm either going to go all the way and get there or it's not going to work. only the night before i actually flew to turkey did i then check on the website just one last time. i didn't get much sleep that night because i'm like, everything's running through my head of everything that could go wrong. but when the actual day came, it was just like a regular travel day. and once i finally got in, it was just like, finally! finally! it's all come, i've completed it. and felt like a good accomplishment, a lot of stress

was relieved from my shoulders. when i got to america, it wasjust relief. it was just relief that it's done. she's coming here tomorrow for a month, which is amazing. and can't wait! can't wait! she just has to still quarantine in england, as is the current rules, which is a bit nicer for her, no loneliness in croatia for her. but, yeah, i'm excited. it should be a fun christmas because of it, so... hey, travel show. we're currently at home quarantining and getting ready for christmas. it's been a crazy year but we managed to make it work. we're getting engaged and now spending christmas and new year's together. so from the both of us, merry christmas. that's all we have time for on this week's programme, butjoin us next time when andy's taking a look back at the year that was 2020.

a disastrous year for anyone who loves to travel, but among all the gloom, some moments of inspiration that give us hope for the months to come. laughs. i can't do it! until then, if you'd like to check out the longer version of the programme, you'll find us on bbc iplayer. we're also on social media in all the usual the places. now, from me christa larwood and the rest of the travel show team here in norfolk, take care and see you in 2021.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. european countries take action to suspend air links with the uk over fears about britain's new coronavirus variant. the health secretary warns london and surrounding areas could remain in lockdown for months to contain the spread of the virus. the new variant is out of control and we need to bring it under control, and this news about the new variant has been an incredibly difficult end to, frankly, an awful year. how a record haul of the amphetamine captagon has been destroyed in italy. we might i've seen the battlefields in syria, libya, but not in these quantities. queueing up for el gordo — the fat one.