prime minister benjamin netanyahu has warned that its biggest offensive against hamas in years is not over yet. rockets are still being fired towards israel from the territory. the head of the world health organisation has warned that the second year of the coronavirus pandemic is on track to be far deadlier than the first. doctor tedros gabruhyesus said the situation in india was of grave concern. britain's prime minister boris johnson has announced surge testing in 15 areas across england — saying the rise in the indian variant could threaten plans to end all restrictions injune. republicans in the us house of representatives have elected trump supporter elise stefanik to replace liz cheney as their third most senior leader. in contrast to ms cheney, she backs the former president's lie that the election was stolen.

at ten o'clock reeta will be here with a full round up of the days news. first newscast with adam fleming, laura kuenssberg, chris mason and guests. laura, i've come dressed as one of our guests tonight, because they've got a trademark look. 0h, isee... polo shirt done all the way up to the top button. yeah. kind of dad—like anorak. yeah, i think that's technically a cagoulle, isn't it? a windcheater? i've got a bit of new order playing on my phone on the way into work. have you got clarks on your feet? other shoe brands are available! ish, ish! who could it be? er... hmm... andy burnham! reelected as mayor of greater manchester. you do have a signature look, don't you, andy? you're missing the crown there. oh, the king of the north! king of the north, there we, are self—declared! do you listen to new order on your phone on the way to work? i do — not every day, but i do,

joy division as well. can you tell us, what was going on in this video that resurfaced this week of you, djing? # i'm moving on up, | you're moving on out. # time to break free, | nothing can stop me... adam is really dancing, by the way! doing dad dancing, here we. yeah, what was going on there? that was m people, wasn't it? yeah. i'm pretty sure it was when i challenged the mayor of the liverpool city region to a dj competition — i won hands down, by the way. i had manchester music triumphing over liverpool. ok, well, you line up some tunes for later on in this episode of newscast. newscast...from the bbc. hello, it's adam in the studio. and laura in the studio, two metres apart, but maybe not for that long.

i don't know. are you going to wear that for the whole show? i think i'll undo my polo shirt and take my dad anorak off. and, actually, i don't know quite how to dress. actually, i'd need ermine to dress up as our first guest. so fancy! yes, because it's a member of the house of lords. it's lord gavin barwell, former chief of staff to the former prime minister theresa may. hello, gavin. hi, how are you doing? and the reason we've got a former to a former on, is because the former former prime minister has been in the news a lot this week. it's day 200 of the greensill capitalstory, laura. just remind us why this relationship between david cameron and the australian financial services guy lex greensill and the government is such a matter of interest. ok, so greensill was a financial company that is now defunct, and its collapse has left behind lots of problems, particularly for liberty steel, which employs about 5,000 people in this country. so the company's collapse matters. number two, it matters in political circles, because it has emerged that

david cameron, who was working for greensill, was bombarding government ministers and officials with text messages, emails, also including to the bank of england, at the beginning of the pandemic, asking for greensill to be part of the treasury's emergency loans scheme that kept loads of people afloat during the pandemic. the ccff. now, that was turned down by the treasury — but two things. the company did then go on to take part in another scheme and had millions of pounds in government backed loans going out their door before it collapsed. but what's also emerged is the quite toe—curling nature of some of david cameron's communications and lobbying. and that really is what sparked the whole brouhaha over lobbying transparency at westminster, which pops up every now and again, but has been a huge issue

in the last couple of months. and it popped up again in a big way this week, because lots of things have happened. so you talked about the texts emerging, you call them toe curling. yeah, here's one. this is from david cameron to tom scholar, who is the boss of the treasury, and was sent at 10:42 on march 6th last year. and it says, "i'm riding to the rescue with supply chain finance — which is the business model of greensill capital — with my friend lex greensill." "my newjob, redacted, redacted, redacted, black, black." "see you with rishi for an elbow bump orfoot tap, love, dc." now, one of the things he was asked this afternoon was, why did you say "love, dc"? and actually we might hear that clip. we will, because then he was being quizzed today by two different parliamentary committees, so we've had about 19 hours of david cameron on television today. and it's the first time that david cameron has talked publicly and extensively about his role, which is why, if you've been following this story, today was a really important day. but i think really what was notable was actually the embarrassment level for him today, rather than it revealing a whole

cache of new information about exactly what's happened with greensill. so, gavin, just an opening thought from you about how awkward this is for a former prime minister, and then we'll have a listen to some of the things that he said. yeah, i think you summarised it really well. it will have been a really embarrassing day for him, and he was he was quite open about it, wasn't he, that he regretted some of the things that he'd done? what he said to the committee about how he signs off his text messages, that is true, i can tell you from personal experience, i've had a few "love, dc" texts in my time. have you got your phone there? could you show us what the last one was in the interest of transparency? i haven't got my phone here with me, so i can't show it to you. but i can tell you what it was about, i think. ican rememberthat when when i was in number ten once, he wanted to bring one of his children back to look at their old home. aw! and i helped arrange that, a perfectly innocent, sensible thing. but that is the style he uses when he talks. he was telling the truth to the committee when he said that.

but i think laura summarized the situation very well. it will have been a really embarrassing day for him. and he clearly regrets the level of contact that he was having on behalf of this company. you talk about embarrassing for david cameron. there's nothing more embarrassing as a british person than having to discuss your salary in public with several people watching. and here is when david cameron was asked about his salary from lex greensill, which bear mind it's rumoured that with his shares, it was worth 60 million. he says it absolutely wasn't worth 60 million, but it sounds like quite a lot. i was paid an annual amount, a generous annual amount, i far more than what i earned| as prime minister, and i had shares not share options, | but shares in the business which vested over the period of time of my contract. - you're asking, you know, what was my role? - how did i carry it out? was it appropriate to lobby? did i overstep the mark? you know, the broader questions of what ex—prime ministers - should and shouldn't do. the fact that i had -

this economic interest, and a serious economic interest, | that's important, but i don't think the amount is particularly germane to answering those questions, - and as far as i'm concerned, it's a private matter. - in otherwords, i'm really, really, really not going to tell you. nor would he tell mps how often he'd use the company's private jet, although he did say, "oh, i paid tax on it, the times that i had as a taxable benefit." but it really was quite the afternoon with some mps, you know, really wasting no time at all in piling in. and, you know, sometimes mps on select committees ask questions in a certain way that they know is then going to get people listening, like this. you will never be disassociated from the office of prime minister around the world, and even though you're not from my party, i have huge respect for the position of prime minister and a former prime minister and it's bitterly disappointing what's happened. this whole episode is appalling for our country and our democracy. do you not feel that you have - demeaned yourself and your position

by whatsapping your way around whitehall on the back _ of a fraudulent enterprise basedl on selling bonds of high risk debt to unsuspecting investors? i've read your 56 messages, and they're more like stalking than lobbying. looking back, aren't you at least a little bit embarrassed about the way you behaved? as i said, it was a particularly- acute time in the british economy. the government was introducing plans to try and help businesses. _ we thought we had a good idea. i was keen to get it- in front of government. but as i've said, there are lessons to learn . and lessons for me to learn. and in future, the single formal email or formal letter— would be appropriate. and that was david cameron being grilled at the treasury select committee this afternoon by angela eagle, siobhan mcdonagh and rushanara ali, who you may be able to guess are all labour mps. now, gavin, i actually thought

we didn't learn a huge amount more about what actually went on in all of this. but actually, david cameron did seem to be suggesting that there be some changes to how former prime ministers behave when they become former prime ministers, maybe a new committee that scrutinises their jobs, maybe a longer time frame before they can do stuff. do you think that is much needed? do you think that's what should be introduced? so i do think this is looking at, but i don't think it'sjust about former prime ministers, actually. i think that the whole system by which we regulate what people who worked right at the centre of government can do afterwards. and he's looking at the key, i think, is what laura was talking about earlier, which is transparency, first of all, that i think works both ways. it both enables you, your profession, to see what people are doing, and to ask questions if you think there's something inappropriate going on. but it also probably ensures that people think twice about what they get involved in — if they know it's all going to be in the public domain. so transparency, i think, goes a long way. and i think tony blair

and david cameron have both had a particular challenge, because they left number ten when they were still quite young. theresa has stayed in the house of commons, carried on being an mp, and you get transparency then, because obviously mps have to declare any outside income they have. but you've got someone who's been prime minister, and they want to go on to another career. we need to think through what do we want our former prime ministers to do. and i think the key to it is transparency about what they are doing. we could do some transparency now, because because you're should because because you're the b—1 system for people held should the b—1 system for people who held jobs are one system for politicians. you said the i dedicate system seems really crackers. somebody said to me they had to fill in the same form for going to sit and volunteer of their board of their local ipod station. actually taking on a bit of commercial work

for another company. you got i—size—fits—all that doesn't seem to be making everyone happy. but you have a clear view on the system is required? 50 have a clear view on the system is reuuired? ~' have a clear view on the system is reuuired? ~ ,., , have a clear view on the system is reuuired? ~' _, , , required? 50 i think the body needs more teeth- — needs more teeth. i think it needs to apply to a fairly wide group of people, politicians and senior civil servants. given, you know, they have access to very similar kinds of information, and businesses, ithink, would be interested in looking at both potentially to employ them. and it needs to be fully independent in terms of how it operates. we also need to think about the time that it applies, the restriction applies for. so at the moment, the restrictions apply for two years after you leave government, so in my case, the restrictions would end in a few months' time, injuly, which is the two—year anniversary of when theresa left number ten. ka—ching! so the money can start flowing for you! the next point i was going to make is there is a difference

between people who are still actively involved in politics. because i'm in the house of lords, i can't do lobbying under the code of conduct of the house of lords. whereas those people that have left parliament altogether obviously aren't constrained in the same way, either by the rules of the house of commons or the house of lords. kevin i just want to pick kevin ijust want to pick up on euro boss and when she was a backbencher. it's all very transparent. she got paid hundred and £36,000 for doing a speech in south korea last year. is teresa mae worth the hundred and £36,000? is not appropriate that that's the going rate for a former pm. well, that clearly is the rate the people are prepared to pay. that's not a question for you and i to answer. she is entitled to do those things. i think transparency is the key thing. people can see what she's doing and then can ask questions about the particular engagements

she's done or whether it's appropriate. so, to me, transparency is the key thing here, rather than trying to outlaw any kind of outside work while you're in parliament. the rules, ithink, in terms of the house of commons and the house of lords work well. the issue is more people that are outside that framework where once the acoba rules, once the acoba two—year period ends, then you're actually outside any kind of restricted period at all. gavin, do you think, though, that this kind of thing is good for the public�*s impression of politicians? you worked for the tory party for a long time, then you were an mp, then you were in downing street. i know you're somebody who cares about politics and public life and people behaving. do you think that this kind of story, or the greensill saga or anything else that's been knocking around recently, does many favours for people's view of politics? obviously not, obviously not. i actually think it's a perfectly legitimate activity for people that have been involved in government then to provide advice to people about public policy and how it's likely to develop.

personally, i didn't have any interest, and membership of the house of lords would have prevented me from getting involved in lobbying, but we need to accept that people, when they leave politics, have got to be able to go on and do other things. but we're entitled, i think, to place restrictions about what those things are, and have a proper independent body that can do that, and also to have transparency. because the reason this became a huge story is because nobody knew it was going on at the time. exactly, even though david cameron today was saying, oh, well, all the fabulous rules that i put in place made things much more transparent. except they didn't cover emails or text messages, and therefore, you know, that's where we've ended up, and that's why we know in particular about his little text message style, and i think we probably can't resist playing the clip of this today, as you can prove the "love, dc" message. let's have a listen. you signed off one of your texts to him, you know, "love, dc," which was the only one that you signed sort of, "love, dc." can you just help the committee understand, you know,

in particular why you used that to him, or do you have a closer or a wider personal relationship outside the formal one that you've just described? i think i've seen him perhaps once or twice since since leaving office. j i mean, anyone i know even at all well, i tend to sign - off text messages with, "love. dc" _ i don't know why, ijust do. my children tell me that you don't need to sign off text messages i at all and it's very old fashioned and odd to do so. _ but anyway, that's what i do. well, gavin, what did you sign off to david cameron when you texted him back? i don't think i really sign off at all my text messages, ijust send the message, and that's it. you're like david cameron's kids! you're down time with the kids, literally. gavin, thank you very much. it's been great to chat to you on newscast. lovely to chat to your again. let's go back to andy burn him recently and elected mayor of manchester. hat

recently and elected mayor of manchester.— recently and elected mayor of manchester.- millions l recently and elected mayor of. manchester.- millions of manchester. hat hi. millions of thins to manchester. hat hi. millions of things to ask— manchester. hat hi. millions of things to ask about. _ manchester. hat hi. millions of things to ask about. shall- manchester. hat hi. millions of things to ask about. shall we i manchester. hat hi. millions of. things to ask about. shall we start with covid and the indian variant i had to call it that because it's not india's fall. it seems to be in an increase in of cases and quite a few bits of your area. what's the situation and how worried are you? yeah, you make a good point of the name _ yeah, you make a good point of the name of— yeah, you make a good point of the name of these variants. it's no more the fault _ name of these variants. it's no more the fault of— name of these variants. it's no more the fault of the people of kent that we had _ the fault of the people of kent that we had a _ the fault of the people of kent that we had a kent variant. but, yes, obviously, they have to be given an easy name. and we do have a real issue in bolton particularly. but there is some evidence of spread around other parts of greater manchester and the north west. so it is a worrying situation. of course, we've had stubbornly high case rates in parts of greater manchester all the way through. and the call we're making on the government is let us get down the ages more quickly now with the vaccination programme, because that's the biggest tool we've got in the locker now to

to do something about this. and as things stand, we're recording at quarter seven on thursday night. there was a suggestion this afternoon that this was going to start happening actually, and that anyone over 18 would be eligible in blackburn. so not a million miles away from where you're talking to us. but then it seemed that that wasn't the case. so what kind of conversations have you been having with government and do you think it is actually going to happen? well, the situation you describe, laura, is how i've experienced it this afternoon. we were getting noises that it was going to happen, and then the opposite. so it's a bit confusing right now. what worried me today was the prime minister raising the spectre of local lockdowns. i can show you my view on those has not changed at all. we would be very concerned about the government putting blackburn, bolton, anywhere, to be honest, on the local restrictions when the rest of the country is unlocking.

what i would say to the government is move in quickly. let's not have this uncertainty about whether we can or whether we can't vaccinate younger people, let it happen and not threaten the wider roadmap, which we've always said we support. it's one of the things that local leaders around the country have got very used to using their voices loudly, as you have done on day and as we saw over the weekend, fascinating set of elections where one of the winners really was devolution. we saw a pattern where politicians who identified themselves very much with their territory and arguably defined themselves against westminster did well. i mean, do you do you think devolution sort of came of age at the weekend, or is that a bit of a pompous way of describing what happened? i think the message from the public, not just in greater manchester, but around the country was, 0k, we weren't sure in 2017 when these mayors first arrived, we thought they might be this extra layer. but i think for the first time, the british public was starting

to say, you know what, we quite like this and we'd like a bit more of it, please. and the onus is now on both the conservative party and the labour party to respond to that. talking about getting a lot more of, we're all getting a lot more of angela rayner now that she's got four jobs. so she got fired as as party chairman on saturday, stayed as deputy leader because she's elected in her own right. and then she's now shadow first secretary of state and shadowing michael gove as chancellor of the duchy of lancaster. and she's doing this thing about the future of work. and she did an interview with laura earlier this week where she said this about her boss, keir starmer. what i heard on the doorstep is they didn't know- what keir starmer stood for. so that's what i think our challenge is, actually, not people briefing - saying keir thinks this and keir thinks that. i but actually about i what are we doing? i'm not going to discuss— what the conversations that mean. i haven't always had you know, we've had a very frank - relationship and i welcome that. actually, i think it's really constructive. | and if one of your deputies said that about you after an election

campaign, he wasn't that good. people didn't know what he was on about. would you tolerate that? or would you kick them out? you'd fire them, wouldn't you? no, i think it's a reflection of the difficult circumstances in which of keir and angela have come into their roles and not be able to set out their stall as a leader and a deputy leader would be able to do in more normal times, you know? i don't think that's what she was getting at, though. she was getting at his failure to do it, not the difficult circumstances that prevented him doing it. well, i don't know. i think that might be an assumption you're making. but if you had to tell our viewers in a sentence what he stood for, which angela told told me people didn't know on the doorstep, what would it be? i think it is for a sense of fairness, justice, a country that works for everybody. keir is somebody of real compassion. i know because he joined my shadow home team when he first came into parliament,

a man of complete decency. i think he's very in tune with the british public's values of fairness and decency. and i think when people do get to see more of him as he can set out his stall, i think people will respond to him. but clearly, there is an issue here, a big issue around connection that the labour party needs to address. but it does sound like you're not quite convinced about how keir starmer has approached thisjob so far. and i know that you want to say part of the solution... you've said very strongly that parts of the solution is from the labour metro mayors around the country. but the labour party has this tendency, when things go wrong, for people to pop up, to start looking inwards, to be squabbling and all the rest. i know that you always say it shouldn't happen, but you yourself, with a tweet at the weekend were sort ofjoining in. you were out there on the airwaves talking about about the problems, not ruling yourself out for maybe one day, answering the call if keir starmer doesn't get to be the next prime minister

and things work out. what are you really up to? because some people in the westminster bubble, as you now describe it, your former haunt, think that you were actually, you know, maybe quite happy to have a bit of speculation running about your own role and your own importance in the party. i've just been reelected, laura, with a fantastic result. i won every single ward in greater manchester and honestly, i'm so humbled about the support people have given me. and i was wanting to celebrate that result on saturday night with steve rotheram, and i see instead briefing in newspapers against, as i say, a wonderful northern woman, angela — and i didn't support that type of behaviour and i made that clear. that wasn't a manoeuvre or to suggest anything about what i'm doing. it was just simply to point out something that i believed to be wrong. so no, i'm not an mp. i can't be leader of the labour party.

i'm doing myjob as mayor of greater manchester. i want keir to succeed, as i think i've made very clear in this interview tonight. but given my experience and my position now in the party, in my kind of once removed from westminster, i think i can say things that are meant to be helpful, and not intended to be kind of sending sending coded messages as sometimes people in westminster do. and people still interpret what i say as though they are those codes. it's meant to be helpful to the leadership that you tweeted you couldn't support a decision that he'd already made? that's public criticism. you're trying to be helpful? wouldn't it have been the done thing to give him a call or send him a message saying, i think you might want to reverse out of this one? no, because it would have been the wrong thing for that to sort of keep running and there needed to be a change. but you sent a tweet which made it run even more. well, i'm not rung up regularly now by people in the labour party. so, you know, i don't get that type of access. but occasionally i feel the need

to make my views known. and when it concerns somebody that i have such a huge personal regard for as angela, then i'm going to intervene. in an election where there was a concern about our connection with northern working class communities, why would the finger be pointed at a proud northern working class woman? i didn't understand at all what was going on. no, but when you sent that tweet on saturday saying i can't support this, which was a retweet of a report to angela rayner was being fired as party chair, i mean, were you still in the pub celebrating your victory? how many pints had you had by that point when you sent that? i wasn't, i was... i'd come on the train home, having been looking after all of my family. and i was very, very clear minded. it wasn't a long tweet, because if i wasn't as clear minded, i probably would have said no. but you had been in the pub, though, because i'm sure

i'm sure you tweeted, someone tweeted a photo of you in the pub. outside the pub. they did. of course, that was much earlier on in the evening. no, ijust made a clear, short statement. and it was not to prolong an argument, but ijust wanted it to be known that i didn't like what i was reading and i didn't think it was the right thing to be reading on a night where we'd had a really great victory in liverpool, in greater manchester, in other parts, in other parts of the country. but i made my point and we moved forward... you certainly did! but let's see where we go from here. i think this does need to be a reset moment for labour. you can't go through results like that and alljust keep quiet and say, oh, we'll hope it turns round. you have to, you know, to say what you think about what needs to change. but i do believe it will change under keir, and i wish him well and he's got my support. andy, thank you for telling us what you think and being so candid with us tonight. it's great to have you on newscast. and that's it for this edition, thank you very much for listening.

we will be back with another episode very soon. newscast... newscast from the bbc. i think skies will look a lot like this over the weekend. sunny spells interrupted by occasional downpours. some with hail and thunder and gusty winds as well. the showers really will be quite widespread across the uk. this is the rain fall accumulation map for saturday and sunday. it tells us how much rainfall we are expecting. you'll see deep blue colours there indicating heavy rainfall across many parts of england and wales. onto the forecast, early as of saturday the weather fronts splashes its way across the country. by the end of the night the weather front across central southern england, the

midlands, wales, showers further north as well. basically through the morning into the afternoon that weather front will move northwards and then behind date you see that volatile atmosphere that will build big storm clouds and that spells the downpours with thunder and lightning. but also some sunshine so it's not all bad.

a warning from the prime minister — the rise in the indian variant of coronavirus could threaten the plan for england to come out of all restrictions injune in response, the planned second vaccine doses for the over 50s will be cut from 12 to 8 weeks. the prime minister gave this assessment. i have to level with you that this new variant could pose a serious disruption to our progress and could make it more difficult to move to step 4 injune. with restrictions staying in place next week for glasgow and moray, we'll be asking how much the new variant is likely to disrupt plans for exiting lockdown. also tonight... a fifth day of fighting — israel intensifies its attack on gaza, as palestinian militants

continue their rocket assaults on israel.