prince charles paid tribute to his father saying he gave the most remarkable, devoted service to the queen, his country and the commonwealth. flags have been flying at half—mast as commonwealth and world leaders continue to send condolences to the royal family, including the president of china and the pope. activists in myanmar say soldiers have killed more thousands of people have been evacuated from the caribbean island of st vincent after a volcano on friday sent a cloud of ash and smoke high into the air. the prime minister said evacuees have been temporarily housed on cruise ships and in safer parts of the island. now on bbc news, dateline london.

hello. i'm shaun ley, welcome to the programme which brings together leading uk journalists, bbc specialists, and the foreign correspondents who file their stories from the dateline london. this week, 70 years of soft power. how prince phillip utilised his status to project and protect. and empty chairs and absent ones: how to interpret a week of diplomatic signals. with me to discuss all that, thomas kielinger, who's spent decades in this country explaining the uk to germans, including the monarchy, with his biographies of both queens called elizabeth. bronwen maddox, a former newspaper foreign editor, now director of the institute for government, a think tank which tries to improve the way government works. and here in the studio with me, james landale, the bbc�*s diplomatic correspondent. good to have you with us as well, james.

we'll begin, with the death on friday of prince philip. greek by birth, a royal who became a refugee, as republics emerged from the wreckage of europe's war—ravaged monarchies. philip spent 73 of his 99 years as consort to elizabeth, the princess who became britain's longest—serving monarch. thomas, you met him quite a long time ago now in a sort of different guise. tell us about that. well, it was an amazing encounter, a long time ago in my earlier years when i was a teacher at cardiff university, a language instructor, a lecturer, as it was called. and in those years, in the early 60's, prince philip was the chancellor of the university of wales, so in the summer he would come to cardiff and meet us and all the indivudual sections of the university.

we were the german department, we all lined up, and he came past us, and we shook hands with him, and after he passed the german department figures, he suddenly stopped himself. he had a sort of brainwave, and he returned and talked to the professor who had been teaching at the university for many, many years with a rather worn gown, and prince philip lifted at the end of the gown, looked at it and said, "you have been teaching here for a long time, haven't you, professor?" it was a typical moment where people would usually say, well, his remarks were politically incorrect and funny, but were supposed to make it easy for people, to make them relax, but the opposite was the case. the professor went bright red in the face, couldn't quite answer. and he was put out, as it were, but that was the philip i came to know quite early on. he was a courtjester, occasionally the buffoon, even, who follows the british instinct for comic relief, as we used to call it in this shakespeare's time, because there is something

double in the british character, it's an interesting mix of feelings. the british people, like royalty, pomp and circumstances, but they also like to deconstruct all pomp and all delusions, and so this is the role of philip. he is consort to the queen in many ways, he is complimentary to her. it's a double act, it was a division of labour between two. she represents the more stiff, and formal and traditional role of a discrete monarch, and he is anything but discreet. and he speaks openly, and that's what the people like about him. he is part and parcel of the british nature to go for comic relief and to say something funny in often rather stiff and serious circumstances. that's what i encountered early on, and i did not need many more lectures to understand the interesting and intriguing double nature of the british character. bronwen, let's talk a bit about his sense thomas alludes to, he had status

but he had no power. arguably, that is the role for a modern constitution monarch in democracy anyway, although the queen has perhaps had some powers we can talk more about later. he was never formally made prince consort. how did he kind of carve out some identity of value to britain? i think it was through his personality apart from anything else. he made it very clear that he wanted to be his own person, and that seems to be part of the point of his very quotable remarks, which i'm sure he knew were very quotable. it set him just that bit aside from the formality of the monarchy itself, or herself. he did, though, have a much wider interest, and i think we're just beginning in some of the recollections of life to see and be reminded of how wide that was. he was, of course, very involved in the military. the only regret he seems to have expressed about his life was that he would've liked more time in the navy. he did take himself across the uk, nearly 60 times in northern ireland, more than twice with that the queen did.

and i think that's often forgotten, ofjust how much he got about every bit of the uk. it was an interest that people dwelt on this morning, science and technology, really trying to modernise the whole country after the second world war. but also the monarchy itself. overtalk. sorry, go on. no, bronwen, please continue. one of the things that we are beginning to get a sense of very recently is how powerful the sense of the royal family as a family was. and this was very much a project that he and the queen, i'm not sure how explicit they were about it to themselves at the beginning,

but they very much chose for her reign to be, to put the royal family centre stage as a family, not just her, and obviously there are more difficult consequences of that if some members of the family decide they don't want to be part of it or something, but he was very much an anchor of that, and i think when you look at the whole area of queen elizabeth and the character of what the monarchy has been under her, he was absolutely central to that. james, your career has kind straddled the political and diplomatic, you were a political correspondent for newspapers for many years, then at the bbc, now a diplomatic correspondence, so both national and international perspective. it's interesting, this sense of "the family" or "the firm", as some people have characterised it, because it increases the chances of the monarchy surviving at a time when in a sense, he was born at the point when monarchies were being dissolved, not least the one of which he was a member of, hence the exile and so on. how important do you think that's been in terms of rooting britain's royal family at a time when its role has become more doubtful?

well, you have to remember that when he and the queen got- married, there was huge - uncertainty about the direction that this was going to... you know, the king had died early, as you say, i you know, the duke himself has come from royal families that l had ceased to exist - and ancestors that had been shot, the romanovs, in russia. his own family, he as a baby, the story has been told much| in the last 24 hours of how| he was picked up by british destroyers as an infant l and taken out of greece. there was huge uncertainty about, you know, this - institution that had been taken over by a very young woman, i supported by a husband - that the british establishment very was puzzled about. they weren't sure about where he was going. - and in many ways, as bronwen was alluding to, the role - that the queen made, particularly in terms . of the commonwealth, was a very personal, . self invented one. she was instrumental in transforming this l institution from this i sort of slightly unusual post—imperial thingl into what it is today,

in the same way that the duke invented the role for himself, i because as he said himself, he said "what do i do?" - nobody knew. so he created this role. of consort, of supporter of the queen, but also - did his own thing, in terms of the world wildlife fund and all the rest of it. - and together, it sort - of blended together into, as you say, a family that has, you know, survived| through extraordinary times. there have been bad i times as well as good. but that family unit, _ of which the duke and the queen were the head, has been the core of it. and if you hear the testimony of the children and the - grandchildren,, they all- constantly say it was the duke they turned to for l advice and counsel. thomas, it raises interesting questions, doesn't it, about the way the british system is structured, because it haa been a useful fiction — royal power — for politicians. they can cloak decisions they make, they used to do it under the royal prerogative, we had all this kind of business about the disillusionment of power under

borisjohnson, which was done in the queen's name, the queen was dissolving parliament, bu because the prime minister had asked her to do it, effectively it was his decision. the courts turned round and said "no, no, you should not have done that, you could not do it." in a sense, monarchy is in danger in this country are being exposed in that way, blame for things on the politicians simultaneously find that useful but at the same time want to protect the institution. well, of course there's no question the institution is there to put a brake on any authoritarians regime which might take hold in great britain. when there was a slight attempt by borisjohnson to be the authority prorogue parliament, the legal body, the supreme court disallowed it the queen first of all try to agree with him and she was saved from great embarrassment by the supreme court saying no, it's not going to happen. in a sense, you can call the consort is an institution the sort of indispensable job. it was one said about america that she was the indispensable power, and philip created the image of the indispensable consort, and i come back to whatjames said originally after the war, he was a man of many international connections.

he was homeless, stateless, but he was not british, originally, not fully, anyway. he would represent the international, as it were, application so to speak of royal authority. that helped the image and the projection of the monarchy enormously after the war. in fact, it was one of the reasons which attracted elizabeth, the young princess, to philip, who had international and european vocation on his shoulder, and that helped the british role expand worldwide, and it was quite useful, so i would use the term "indispensable consort" . he was essential to stabilise the monarchy, it will force in the world and eventually thanks to the graceful old age that he achieved, he became part of the furniture of the international diplomacy setup.

we have seen philip walk by our side as much as the queen, and we know all about the family and how familiar he was, he had the stabilising influence. partly because of his internationality to begin with but also because of the any authority is keeping the whole thing together. i want to talk about this internationale is because in a sense, bronwen, it cuts into ways. the british monarch is head of state for so many countries around the world, has up till now managed that transition from empire to commonwealth. for some countries, independence. we have the political debate, lively political debate of australia, talking not

so long ago about australians as a elizabethans rather than monarchies. making the distinction that the point that if this reign comes to the end, there might not be another way she is queen of australia. a government of australia in living memory was dismissed because the governor general took the view that prime minister was acting beyond his power, even as an elected prime minister. there is a heck of a lot of tension here, isn't there, in this institution and its role in a modern world notjust in the uk but beyond it. i think that's exactly right. we perhaps have not touched enough so far about the strength i think it has been for the uk to have a head of state who is not the head of the government.

you can attach all the pomp and ceremony to the head of state, and we have seen it outside buckingham palace this and so on. there is all that side of it, greeting other leaders. but the governments come and go underneath, such as the us president for example, people have very strong feelings about whoever is in power, all the ceremonies attached to that, that person goes and you start again. so i think there is a strenght, but when it comes to other countries, her role as head of state of other countries, i think there is a, as a long—standing movement, but i sense as it's getting more vocal about whether with australia, when her reign comes to an end, that's it.

really they feel they've come to a stage of maturity in their own identity, it seems inappropriate to have another country's head of state as your own. i would not be surprised if that group it is enormous affection for the queen you get a strong sense of countries not wanting to change while she is still there. it's interesting, that, isn't it, james, because it has become part of the debate even for scottish nationalist party talk passionately about the desire to be a separate nation. there is kind of still a remarkable attachment to the british monarchy. which after all, is the embodiment of two crowns coming together, the kingdom of scotland and the kingdom of england. if you talk to foreign - politicians and diplomants, they would give their eyes teeth for a monarchy- as the british have. we sometimes underestimate the potential it has overseas. i one should be overcautious before interpreting - and putting,... from the summits i have been to, and meetings, i the queen and duke open doors, they have convening power. - people want to come here. you know, the queen has a thing, a mystique, - that can overpower even. the ego of donald trump. that is not to be -

messed around with. there are incidents i in the past, if you talk to commonwealth specialists, there were very tense - commonwealth meetings over rhodesia as it was then called j and there were summits| where you talk to people and they said the queen played a direct role in calming - tensions and allowing i dialogue to take place, so that some kind of- progress could be made. there is that, but also just| this sense of the monarchy representing - the idea of britain. the fact there is continuity. the fact they have been there for so long. - the duke and queen since the early 1950s, it meansl they know so many people, . there are relationships there, diplomacy is often said to be about core relationships. - there are political leaders today who, his parents . when they were leaders in those countries, knew the duke - and the queen then, - and that process as you say,

in countries where they moved from empire to independence, and i think that longevity, - that convening power and that sense of, as bronwen said, i of apolitical, above the fray, is a huge strength, and i think the british government, - any british government - would try to use that as much as it can in the future. it does raises the question, this is at a time when even within our own country, we are debating our sense of identity, notjust about whether there's a future for the uk as it is currently constituted. but even the things that have been done in the queen's name and in the names of previous monarchs. for those who come from countries that were originally countries dependent on the slave trade for instance. you know, there is an ambiguous relationship to the monarchy, however much they make like the idea of her as an individual, to what she and prince philip stood for. i think that's exactly right. people aren't dwelling on it today, but that's something that could be discussed much more. i think it's very likely to be

discussed much more. the queen decided, it was her choice, to say very little as monarch and that was one of the reasons this mystique we are talking about has persisted. one of the reasons philips words landed so powerfully, because he and she said so little in public. that was not formal. but you do have a lot of questions about what, you could have a monarch, prince charles might indeed be that person, who decides to play it very differently, who decides to have more open opinions. underthe queen, it's impossible to overstate how much they did not want the predicament borisjohnson and the proroguing of parliament put them into. really didn't want to have to make some of the decisions it seems that she might have to make about choosing between the legitimacy of two rivals for prime minister.

the supreme court saved her from that one. you have got this very controversial question coming down the line of whether the uk is going to hold together, the four bits of it. it's something we know privately, the royal family have very strong feelings on, they want the uk to hold together. it may well be that it's the kind of thing where they have a temptation in the future to comment more. so i think the kind of comparative peace that we have had of a monarch who has chosen largely to be symbolic and have these private relationships with other leaders, there are a lot of forces, notjust the personality of the monarch that mean that that might change. one final thought on the prince. he spent not very long but a few months in germany as a teenager at school before he and his german headmaster — who wasjewish — left germany because he was there as hitler had come to power. i don't know if he ever spoke about that, but he did talk about being in exile, one of the things he said which is kind of slightly sombre thought, which is that those exiled always

feel their sense of difference all their lives and in a world with so many people spend their lives and have to make lives in the countries that they were not born in. it's a kind of rather reflective thought and not an entirely cheerful one. i would pick up your train of thought here, shaun, in using the word "distancing". we talk about social—distancing today. for very good reason because of the pandemic. but in philip, there was a sense of national distancing. he was british and he was close to the throne, he was consort and yet, as you say he was exiled himself, and as an exile you never quite belong with a country that comes to be your home. he was able to look at the very institution to which he belongs, like from outside almost. that's one of the strengths and one of the reasons why he became so adept at making jokes somehow or other,

which points to the fact that he could look at the institution, as it were, through foreign eyes almost. when you come to the longevity of the british monarchy as an institution, one of the things and james and bronwen alluded to, when you ask yourself about the future of the monarchy, australia is a case in point. they have voted on a referendum some ten or 12 years ago to change to, to remove the monarchy and go for a head of state, and they could not agree amongst themselves on who it would be, who would replace the institution of monarchy, which is such a strong force in the world. now why so many other pillars of society crumble before our very eyes.

the monarchy, amazingly and mysteriously, survives. that's one of the things why i believe even beyond elizabeth and beyond philip, it will continue as a force for good and stability, as an institution which people cherish because in comparison to other institutions, it is survivable, it has been proven to survive, and it provides a certain protection against the ills and winds of change. it has to change with the times, but it's also a recognition of the durability of life on earth as it were in institutions which is on perishable. thomas, thank you very much. now, "diplomacy is the art of restraining power", according to the former us secretary of state, henry kissinger. by that definition, it's been a strange week. in vienna, diplomats from tehran and washington have been trying to revive the nuclear deal, without actually meeting one another. in turkey's capital, ankara, the europeans were invited into the same room as the president, but there weren't enough seats for them. meanwhile, the un special envoy christine schraner burgener flew into myanmar this week.

but she's abandoned quiet diplomacy, instead warning "a bloodbath is imminent". bronwen, when deployments resort to denunciation, has diplomacy failed? no, thatjust shows the limits of diplomacy. she and myanmar's invoice you have both use that word, "bloodbath". and are asking the you end for intervention which goes beyond diplomacy. either for peacekeeping, soldiers or enforcement of a no—fly zone or clamping down on assets of key people abroad and so on. so, yes, that is a realm beyond diplomacy. but that doesn't mean it ends. it does not mean that people had not tried. the other two are a sign of diplomacy in action, in the turkish case... ..with unfortunate results of offending the commission president, but that may have been intentional.

thomas, in a sense, it underlines the difficulty of the eu, doesn't it? two presidents tunr up, two figures of supposed equal status, one the commission and one rep is politicians and the president only applies one chair. how do you interpret that? was it a deliberate snub to the eu? wasn't an attempt to put it its place? if it's deliberate, it's very ill placed in really the only goal of the part of turkey because she is not in a position to lord it over another president in her own right, and he may have hopes and dreams as a head of state of turkey to be recreating a sort of ottoman influence in the world, a turkish influence, but i think he is trying to crack too big a nut here, not only is ursula von der leyen representative of a pretty powerful body of nations, they are also pretty much against the current course of turkish policy.

and so that's why i call it an own goal. you cannot survive, as it were, in the diplomatic game by doing a solo act of offence like this. if it was intended, it was misplaced, and if it was not intended, it was an accident of history, and he would be well advised to ameliorate this and amended in some way orfashion. bronwen, on this question of trying to find common purpose, which the eu attempts to do, in the iran talks, are europe, european union and the individual countries represented, are they now on the same page? i think yes. we had this hiatus when donald trump pronounced the iran deal a "bad deal". and that really stalled it. and blew up, forgive the phrase, years of diplomacy,

successful diplomacy, that had arrived at that deal. which had disadvantages of both sides, but was in my view, the best deal that could have been done at that point and it did at first succeed in getting iran to hold its move towards a nuclear weapons capability. we then had these years of iran under intense sanctions, but also forging ahead with its nuclear power and nuclear weapons preparations, as it appears. something iran denies, but... probably. they do have enough you uranium for a wedding. on the policy, we are cautiously back on track. thank you all very much. just now, i quoted henry kissinger on diplomacy. let's end with the view of a diplomat from one of the world's rising powers, india. shashi tharoor, who spent years with the united nations says

democracy "is much like the lovemaking of the elephants — accompanied with a lot of bellowing and other sound effects, but no one can be sure of the consequences for at least the next two years". until next week, from dateline, goodbye. hello there, this cold weather is set to continue through this weekend, there will be some

sunshine around on sunday but again, more wintry showers, and we start the day with a widespread frost, colder towards the south—east and east anglia as the cloud breaks up, the lowest temperatures will in northern scotland at —7, and given the overnight showers, they could be some icy patches as well. many places start dry and sunny but the cloud will increase, more showers breaking out in the morning and those will turn quite widespread in the afternoon, they could be happy with some hail, sleet and snow. temperatures typically 6-8 , snow. temperatures typically 6—8 , a snow. temperatures typically 6-8 , a bit snow. temperatures typically 6—8 , a bit colder in northern scotland, a bit milder in northern england. sunny start across england and northern england on monday, it will brighten up in northern ireland is the damp weather moves away but continues to affect parts of wales, the midlands in southern england, and earlier in the morning they could be some wintering us as we engage from the cold air.

welcome to bbc news. i'm lewis vaughan—jones. our top stories: prince charles pays tribute to his father the duke of edinburgh, as details of the royalfuneral are announced. the prince of wales says he was a much—loved figure who gave the most remarkable, devoted service to the queen, his country and the commonwealth. my and the commonwealth. dear papa was a very spe( person my dear papa was a very special person who i think, above all else, would have been amazed by the reaction and the touching things that have been said about him. as france steps up its vaccination programme, the jab will be given to everyone over 55. the irish prime minister warns northern ireland must not go

back to its secretary and past