at our most vulnerable, in the push and pull of all that makes us human, in the battle for the soul of america, unity is our greatest strength. this is the scene live in new york as the sun rises over the 9/11 memorial. memorial events for the british victims are taking place in london, with the uk prime minister borisjohnson insisting people refuse to live "in permanent fear" of the terrorists. we can now say with the perspective of 20 use that they failed to shake our belief in freedom and democracy. -- 20 our belief in freedom and democracy. —— 20 years. they failed to drive our nation apart. in other news, lawyers for the woman who's accused prince andrew of sexual abuse claim they've successfully served him with legal papers.

now on bbc news for you, it's dateline london. hello and welcome to dateline london. i'm martine croxall. this week our discussion is all about money. here in the uk the government has announced the biggest set of tax rises since the second world war. the imf, the world bank and in fact banks everywhere are trying to decide whether they will release afghanistan's frozen assets and thereby try to avoid humanitarian disaster. our guests this week... the guardian columnist polly toynbee, mina al—0raibi, the editor in chief of the gulf—based the national newspaper, and still suitably distanced, here in the studio with me is the bbc�*s

business editor simonjack. welcome to you all. so to begin with, borisjohnson�*s government has announced the largest tax increases in the uk for decades to try to fix the nhs and the social care sector. some say that the £36 billion it will raise over three years won't solve the crisis. 0ther critics say that the tax rises are unfairly distributed. let's begin this conversation with polly. to what extent, polly, do you believe that what the government is proposing will solve the problem with social care, which we have been discussing in this country for years? yes, government after government has failed to grasp it. at least this government has come up with something, but the something isn't nearly enough and it doesn't begin to be a plan. most of the money it is using will go to compensating richer families who are paying at the moment so that they pay a bit less.

they will still be paying. i think a lot of people will be quite shocked to find they are still paying up to £86,000, but at least they get some compensation. lots of people will still have to sell their homes to pay for their care, though borisjohnson had promised that nobody would. and there will be very little left over for what is really the most important question, which is the very low quality of care. nearly 2 million people who are not getting any care who would have qualified a decade ago, but the threshold has been raised so they no longer qualify for any care at all, and the care home owners and people who provide care are desperate. they cannot keep their staff, they can't pay their staff enough. what the state pays for each person is much too little and i am afraid it doesn't solve any of those. it's a little bit, but probably about the same little bit that's been given every year as a bung to keep it going. and to begin with, the money

is going to go to the nhs anyway, rather than to social care, because the government thinks there is catching up to do because of the backlog of cases brought about by covid, where only covid patients were really being seen in hospital. simon, we have got this rather unusual situation where we have got a conservative government in favour of tax increases and a labour opposition who don't want to see them because, as polly alluded to there, they don't regard them as being fair, they're being regressive, so what's the alternative? well, the phrase that is doing the rounds at the moment is, i good politics, bad policy, i in the sense that the politics of it is that by increasing national insurance, which uk viewers - will know has a mythology about it, which is that it's some kind - of piggybank you put money - in and that means you'll be looked after in your retirement and beyond. in fact it's just another tax - and therefore politically raising that is much easier, i less problematic than raising income tax.

the other part of the problem of the policy is it is generallyl being seen as a tax on the young, working population to pay- |for an elderly population closer| to needing the kind of services, whether it's in the nhs or in social care, then the peoplei who are actually being forced to pay for it, and therefore _ it's being seen as looking after the grey vote, - which the tories have think| they have a strong hold on, and neglecting younger voters. that's why the labour party is in such a difficult- position, in a way. a lot of people think, - you know, how can you vote against this when basically- government after government, generation after generation, - have failed to grasp this nettle? and even some labour leaders, like andy burnham in manchester, who i spoke to yesterday, - who's the labour leader there, - said you know, they've got to have some credit for trying to take this on, but the mechanism _ by which they have done it is very, very difficult to justify. _ the other thing is that it is a huge political moment, i because as polly would probably say more eloquently than i will, - the tories have sold themselves as the business friendly, -

low tax, value for money, making. sure you get reforms along the way, and many of their own backbenchers are saying this marks _ the end of that era - and in retrospect, will be looked back on as a very significant moment- in british politics. the chancellor of the conservative government, rishi sunak, surprised a lot of people in how he approached the pandemic, didn't he? by spending huge amounts of money to keep people afloat who were furloughed and keep businesses alive who couldn't open. i don't think there are many people out there who would say _ that was wasted money or he had much choice in doing that. _ interestingly, i was speaking to one senior business leader with tory- affiliations who said, - if you had presented this tax rise as a covid and furlough - payback tax and said to the business community, "we've just spent hundreds of billions of pounds paying the wages of most of your staff and keeping | businesses afloat, now we need some of that money back," _ it might have flown a bit better than this social. care health service one. and as you pointed out, -

originally it was about social care. most of the money is going to go to the nhs and some people - in the tory backbenches say the nhs i is a very effective sponge to soak i up money, it always does, - and if you don't do it with reform there might not be much left for social care... - hang on a minute, we are in the middle... we'vejust had one huge reform and they're about to do another reform. the people who say that are mostly people who don't like the nhs anyway, so they say it's a black hole, it's a sinkhole, it's a sponge. those are really people who are anti—nhs. the truth about the tax situation is really interesting. people abroad might not know this, britain remains a low tax country compared to equivalent european countries. also, the amount of money that we spent on furloughing in the covid crisis, where every country had to reach into its pockets deep and spend

a lot, we spent actually less, about older people who we put into homes and care homes, where they are understaffed and under resourced, what would their reaction be to how we are dealing with this? it's a great question, martine, because it's about, how do societies take care of their older citizens? it was interesting, earlier on simon was referencing how politically, this is about the grey voter, what happens to the young voter? whereas i think you'll find in other societies there'll be a sense of obligation to take care of those who are older, who would have worked and paid taxes under different circumstances,

and now need to be taken care of. i think the context of social care is not always really understood outside of the uk, but what is understood is the nhs and the idea of free health care, when it's compared to other systems around the world, there's a lot of respect towards the nhs and a sense that yes, they should, the nhs should be protected. but i think the point about, if this is put within the context of covid—19, the entire world is looking for ways of how to have their economies recover after covid—19. however, this is being put more in a political context, very uk focused domestic politics, and it is interesting to see the initial polling that has come out, the first polling after this, that the tories actually, since january for the first time, have taken a bit of a hit and are at 33% popularity compared to labour, that has gone forward with 35%, again the first time leading since january. for outside voters and overseas observers of the uk, that is really

interesting because you would think that the tories saying that they would take care of others, the social care aspect of this, the nhs aspect of it, you wouldn't expect labour would actually get a bit of a bump in saying that this is not good enough, more has to be done. but i do think that ultimately, the reference to grey voters often is seen as somewhat derogatory for people who are older and actually do deserve a little more care. and actually bother to turn out and vote in rather high numbers. how much of this though, polly, is down to us, the electorate? that we need to be treated like adults, but the politicians are fearful of doing so by saying, look, if you want the services you're going to have to pay for them somehow. you know, you can only make the current amount of taxes stretch so far. well, it's a tiny bit of honesty to have raised taxes at all, so give them a little bit of credit for that, but they absolutely, as simon said, they have been absolutely dishonest as to what kind of tax it is.

i mean, the national insurance is nothing that it says it is. and it is the most unjust tax where what they have ended up doing is getting young, low—paid workers to pay for preserving the wealth of richer, older people, so that they can keep their homes and pass on their inheritance, and that is mostly paid by people of working age, a lot of whom haven't got homes, haven't got assets and capital. this country is incredibly wealth heavy, particularly in the older generation and the obvious thing to do is to go for reform of wealth tax, which labour had proposed back in 2010. it wasn't popular then, might not be again, but i think people are coming round to the idea that actually, where the wealth is, the broadest shoulders, is where the tax should fall and i wouldn't be surprised if within a short time, labour party has its annual conference coming up, we don't hear some more talk about labour putting forward taxes that will affect those who have the most assets.

i have got a quick questionl for polly, if i may, which is, do you think the conservatives are storing up a problem - and a rod for their own back, given what is happening - with education and the allocation of these tax rises for the future? j i think they are going to be in a lot of trouble because it is notjust... the money isn't going to cover health and people really worry about how long the waiting times are to have an operation and this isn't really going to cover that, but they made it sound as if they will. they should perhaps have said, "these are very hard times and this is going to be difficult," instead of which they have made rather wild promises. education is still 1% less than it was getting in 2010 and really, all the other departments, apart from defence, are going to be hit very hard over the next few years and this government is pretending to be a spendthrift father christmas kind of government, not back to austerity, but austerity is exactly what most government spending is going to feel like in the next few years.

ijust wondered whether, simon and mina, you have come across many places in the world that would take out insurance policies. you can only do that for your social care if you have got the money. mina, do see that around the world? i do, and i think there is also a question about public debt. the uk's public debt exceeded 100% of gdp last year for the first time since1963, but there are many countries around the world that are having to deal with public debt, but not coming up with solutions because, to polly's point, there are tough political decisions to be made in the long term and unfortunately too much of politics in the uk and in too many countries are based on election cycles. people already here are talking about an election, but it really isn't due until 2024, and yet people are thinking about, how will this reflect on the ballot boxes, rather than long—term reforms that will be tough politically. there are voices on the left, i would say, who would -

say that actually this _ is a false debate, the rishi sunak position that we have to keep public debt within 100%, - which is the highest, - as mina pointed out, for many decades, that actually, the reality is we have l got our own currency, - we can print as much money as we like and the bank- of england is actually tacitly funding the uk government, so this is a false choice, - that is one point of view which is quite prevalent| at the moment. the treasury would say that's not the case, and you have _ to pretend you've for a plan i for public finances just to keep international investors, - who by the way, lend the uk government this money, - you've got to keep them believing that you still believe in fiscal rectitude and cutting - your cloth according to your means. that c word again, confidence... i think the danger is, today we have just had figures showing that growth is practically flatlining. the danger is that by tightening the belt now, by the treasury winning out in his argument and cutting most of the spending in most departments, you do great harm to the economy. it's exactly what george osborne did after the great crash of 2010.

we need the government to be spending until growth is really well established and then perhaps pulling back a bit then. thank you. let's move on. afghanistan is, to use the expression, too big to fail. warnings abound about it being a safe haven for extremists. there are worries about human rights violations, and a deepening crisis of hunger and hardship that will concentrate many minds on trying to find a way to work with the new government, the taliban, which was announced this week. a government with no female representatives. and top of the list of those seeking to help are the world bank, the imf and banks across the globe planning, or perhaps thinking about, unlocking afghanistan's frozen assets to avoid what the secretary general of the un has described as an impending humanitarian disaster. simon, just how much money belonging to afghanistan is locked away and where is it? 0k, well, there are twol different strands to this. one is that the afghan government was dependent for 40% _ of its national income on foreign i

aid, so that's day—to—day spending. so if you cut that off, _ you have got a serious problem. the other one is that they had about $9 billion to $10 billioni of foreign currency reserves - and what countries generally do with that is they use it to manage the value of their own currency. in international markets. that has been frozen - and what that can do is send currencies into freefall- and you get hyperinflation. now, we have seen a bit of that, but perhaps not| as much as we thought. so the question - for the international community now is exactly how. economically do you approach the new taliban government? if you play hardball and say, we're going to freeze this, l you risk a humanitarian crisis. if you don't, then you risk in a way economically - legitimising and recognising the government in place. i so they do have some leverage. how you play it is an incredibly difficult diplomatic position, i which i don't think countries around the world are...there's any- consensus about that yet. indeed. what are the opinions

you are hearing, mina? because if you don't release these assets, it is the general population that will suffer, they are going hungry, many people have tried to leave the country because they don't want to live in that regime. as simon says, the leverage is there, but it is not obvious how you use it. well, what are the levers that are there? part of it is this recognition element and that if assets are released, it is a recognition of the government, implicitly. but also there is the leverage of aid and where aid is being sent and actually the one point that the taliban should be hearing is that aid is going directly to afghans who need it most. half of the afghan population relies on aid from abroad and 75% of that population are women and children. and frankly, there are ngos, local afghan ngos, that have been working for over the last 18—19 years, and they should be the ones that are enabled.

if the international community wanted to think of a way to get aid to those afghans who need it, they should say that those ngos... what remains of them, of course, some of them are in hiding, some of their members have fled because they are concerned, but many are still on the ground, so they should be enabled, be it the uk or us or others, they've worked with some of these local entities, they can turn around and use some of that leverage, turn an air bridge of aid. the uae, for example, has already announced it's sent seven flights with medical aid and humanitarian assistance, and said they will continue.

and there are other regional countries who are saying they will continue with humanitarian aid until there is a clear international position. polly, a lot was talked about hopes of a different type of taliban. we have seen journalists beaten up for trying to report about these peaceful protests, where women have bravely gone onto the streets to say, what about us and our position in society? how realistic is it, though, to attach good governance, make human rights principles central to the taliban receiving help from the international community? yes, goodness, aren't those women astoundingly brave? you look at them with such admiration, but they will be intimidated and sent home. for the time being, we don't really know, and i think the evidence from the reporters on the ground is that the taliban itself isn't one thing. there are those who want to be taliban...

more moderate, and there are quite a lot of people who have just been fighters all their life and have very sort of primitive views, really, about revenge and... ..and a very austere and puritanical kind of government. certainly no women visible. so we don't know. but what really matters at this moment is that we don't let there be a humanitarian catastrophe. if there was a mighty famine now, it would be very hard to heal anything in afghanistan or to, you know, try and help the people there, to whom we do have a strong moral obligation. i think that in britain one of the things we can offer is some of our experience of making peace in northern ireland, where you have entirely opposed groups and bringing them round the table and eventually coming to some kind of power—sharing agreement. some kind of modus vivendi. it won't be satisfactory, it

won't be everything we would want, but just about enough so that they can get the aid, they can have the money released. there will be some reckoning about, you know, a more widely acknowledged, broad—based government, notjust a taliban government. i think that's within the realms of possibility, but only if we act very fast to help now. if we are vengeful and allow a terrible famine to happen, there will be no influence left, it will be too late. i don't think it is in the taliban's interest to have a famine - or a massive food shortage. they want to be seen - as a competent government and at the top levels, _ as our colleague lyse doucet put it, they want to move - from guns to government. they have some sources of revenue, lthere's obviously the opium trade, i potentially selling mining rights to china and some of that has l been done in the past. that was enough to runi an insurgency, possibly. it's certainly not enough to run a government. i

but the idea that i think. the taliban might be very sympathetic to the idea of a multinational- humanitarian assistance programme | because they do not want to be seen to be running a government. that is failing catastrophically to the detriment of its own people. immediately as soon as the taliban took over, it was pointed out by a lot of commentators that china and russia see opportunity in afghanistan. there are huge mineral resources, big marble deposits, _ there will be no shortage of people queueing up to examine _ the opportunities there. i think one of the i other problems is... i am no afghan expert, believe me, | but one of the things we have seen| in terms of the conflicts we have | seen over the last few decades, | the idea of a centralised government i which knows exactly which bits, . which extremities, - what they are doing... some people have compared it. to a kind of narco gangster state, or what have you, and certainly it is full of regional people - who often have different i agendas to anyone talking to the international| press at the centre. so the idea that you can reason.

with one entity which has control over the whole country, - i think is probably a bit naive. mina, how concerned are...? can i just say this one quick thought? audio cutting out: t’rrt, said...narco gangster state... we could deal with that very quickly, if we had a sensible non—prohibition attitude towards drugs in the west, you could cut into that trade immediately... polly... inaudible. we are struggling to hear you a little bit. i am hoping the picture and the sound will settle down, so we can hearfrom you again in a moment. mina, in terms of the concerns about proxy conflicts within afghanistan, regional powers, neighbours looking into the country and thinking that they could use the chaos to their own advantage, how big a concern is that? it is a very big concern, but ijust want to go back to the point about russia and china. russia and china decided

to keep their embassies open. russia and china have already continued talks with the taliban, but so has the united states, in terms of continuing talks with the taliban. they were the ones, let's not forget, who started talks with the taliban without any of these assumptions about human rights or what sort of representation, so i'm afraid it is a little late to be talking about some of these points. the british government and other governments could have chosen, from western europe and of course the us, could have chosen to at least have kept some diplomatic representation in kabul. instead they all left and so if the chinese and russians are to take advantage of that, i really think we have to pause before we blame them, where on the contrary we have countries like the united states that just decided it was time to leave, regardless of what the consequences would be on the ground. as for the regional powers, of course not only is everyone going to seek their own interest, but they are also concerned about security development is on the ground. there are reports already of different foreign fighters possibly heading

towards afghanistan, but at the same time those regional entities who are already wreaking havoc inside afghanistan for the past two decades and even before that, so it is not something new, so to speak. what is new is, as simon was saying, is the taliban are going to try to prove they can govern and they are going to have a very difficult time doing that. they could have shown a bit more goodwill with the cabinet they uncovered. it seems that no, the cabinet is going to be filled with hardliners and people who don't really seem to believe in power—sharing at this point, but also because they feel they have won. the way the united states conducted its withdrawal and its talks with the taliban allowed them to have that sense of success, but also not really feel that there is a need to negotiate, at least at this point. so again when we look at the aid issue this is the time to say, local entities on the ground, the regional, domestic

different governance, give them a bit more autonomy by having aid delivered there. if that is possible, that could be a way to get back to some sort of negotiation process, but also enable some of the local actors there and give them a bit more agency. simon, very briefly, if the leverage with the assets doesn't work, the americans are already talking about drone strikes if terrorism starts to flare up again? that is the unknown question. the taliban have said they are not going to be a place, _ a tent under which terrorist organisations can gather. l obviously the invasion in the first place was because al-qaeda - found succour and shelter within taliban—controlledl afghanistan. we just don't know. that is all we have time for this week. our thanks to polly toynbee, mina al—0raibi and simonjack. do join us again next week, same time same place. it will be me again, i think. thank you for watching and goodbye.

hello. for many of you after a pretty cloudy start the day, the weather will cheer up later on with some sunny spells breaking through, and we have already seen some sunshine earlier today around north—east england quite widely. but to the north of this, northern scotland, a different story. extensive cloud here, some mist and fog patches and rain. that rain is due to an area of low pressure. the worst has cleared through the central belt, it should be dry here through the rest of the afternoon, but staying wet across parts of northern scotland, especially the north highlands and probably 0rkney as well. along with that it will continue to be murky with mist and fog patches around the coast and hills. to the south, england and wales, cloud breaking, sunny spells coming through, often quite a bit of cloud, mind you. temperatures

reaching a high of 23 and for many you it will feel a little on the humid site. 0vernight, a weather front from northern scotland changes its mind and starts moving southward, rain returning to eastern areas of scotland, quite light and patchy, eventually reaching north—east england by the end of the night. elsewhere, a lot of power, if you mist and for patchy developing, the odd patch of rain or drizzle across the coast of england and wales and probably the peaks and pennines as well. sunday, pressure building behind this weather front, starting to get northerly winds feeding in, it will feel cooler and fresher across the northern half of the uk. some of this light and patchy rain first think comics from scotland, north—east england. 0therwise, scotland, north—east england. otherwise, a largely dry start to the day save an orb spot of drizzle falling from the cloud sheet. later, figure cloud working into wales, bringing more persistent rain. —— thick cloud. temperatures 13 in aberdeen, 15 for newcastle, still

quite humid across the far south, where temperatures will continue to run into the low 20s in the warmest spots. monday, ourarea of run into the low 20s in the warmest spots. monday, our area of high pressure is still with us. weather front still with us, as well. this rain is most likely to be affecting parts of wales and perhaps midlands, eastern england probably staying dry with breaks in the cloud and sunny spells, but the best of the dry weather and sunshine will be across scotland and northern ireland and the far north of england. temperatures for the most part into the high teens. the warmest spots given some breaks could reach the low 20s. that's your weather.

this is bbc news — these are the latest headlines in the uk and around the world. as dawn breakes across new york, the world remembers the 2,977 people who lost their lives 20 years ago in the 9/11 terror attacks. president biden has now arrived in new york to visit ground zero. he calls for the country to come together. at our most vulnerable, in the push and pull of what makes us human, in the battle for the soul of america, unity is our greatest strength. memorial events for the british victims are taking place in london,

with the uk prime minister boris johnson insisting people refuse