this is bbc news. the headlines: after days of queuing at the pumps — the army will begin delivering fuel to petrol stations across the uk from monday. the home secretary says police must �*raise the bar', by taking the harassment of women more seriously — a view echoed by health secretary, sajid javid. what the metropolitan police have said about the reforms that they will be looking at, i think it's absolutely right. we also need to be looking at what more government can do to help build that confidence. the queen officially opens the sixth session of the scottish parliament at holyrood. an experimental drug for severe covid which could cut

the risk of hospitalisation or death by about half. and, to new streams of lava pose a further threat of destruction as the la palma volcano forces more to flee. now on bbc news, it's the media show. hello. this week, sir keir starmer delivered his first speech in person to a packed labour party conference. today, we want to explore keir starmer and his current relationship with the media. does he have the same level of newspaper backing that tony blair, for example, enjoyed? do the newspapers still hold much sway on public opinion anyway? and what about those new outlets that emerged during jeremy corbyn�*s time? with power shifting to the centre of the party — how do

they see their roles now? let me introduce you to my guest. jane merrick is policy editor at the the media show newspaper. before that she was political editor of the independent on sunday. you've been on twitter today with the assessment of keir starmer�*s speech for all your readers. i was tweeting a very long thread it was a very long tweet actually, so i ended up tweeting about 70 tweets. i guess it's a mix. the first take is a few tweets as he's speaking, but i'm a chilly going to be writing a piece. about what his policy agenda is and whether that's enough to him to win the next election. erin bastoni is co—founder of the barnett media

a left—wing media company. i've been looking at the navarro website, you've got an op—ed saying that keir starmer isjust as dishonest as borisjohnson. there is another headline — starmer rigs the rules. is that the kind of dramatic statement the reason your readers go to your site and not the mainstream media? well, i would say it's dramatic. the first speech is an op—ed. people have opinions. the thesis of that op—ed is available for anybody who wants to go and read it. in terms of our coverage no, we do sustained reporting, we have reporters — in terms of the first port of call for the people who consume our content, it won't be an article generally it will be through a youtube channel. we have a show tonight at 7pm and our youtube channel which will look at the conference as well as other stories across the day. we have three of those a week. principally our footprint is audiovisual. that doesn't mean it's based

in twitter, increasingly it's on youtube and instagram. but we do try to cover multiple spaces, podcast, arctic tools, explainers and video. jack pete is the founder of the london economic, another digital only outlook. i see you have a piece — headlines brits are flogging petrol on facebook for quadruple the pump price. a survey found nearly half of britons hold the media most responsible for petrol stations running out of fuel. what do you say to that, what you think? i think there is obviously chaos at the pumps. - we were ticked off about a story about how people are brazenly i attempting to sell 10l of petrol for 50 quid. | it's spiralled into a huge story. there's no smoke without fire.

yes, the media has had a role in perpetuating that, - however what sort of media — social media will have videosl of long queues and fights, - whereas in the media i think that a lot of people certainly _ we would be saying make sure that you consume petrol sensibly. and that we think about carers and front—line . workers as the priority. we also published a story at the same time. - i was looking back to a select - committee report from 2016 where it puts in quite clear detail how - the government was warned about all of this happening within a month of the brexit referendum. - no smoke without fire. and they knew. lara o'reilly is media editor at insider.

before we get into politics, let's start with you. netflix's ceo a former media show guest has been speaking to the press this week. what was he saying? what's quite interesting is this week netflix has released some data that it doesn't usually put out. what this data shows is to do with its most popular shows. there are two surprising findings from that. i guess the big ones was that its new korean language series called squid game, which is basically a korean version of hunger games. not only could be its biggest non— english series of all time but it said it could be its biggest show ever. and it's really interesting — it's an interesting show, it got great reviews but it's

a real feast for the eyes. why do you think he is giving out this day to? they have been accused of being quite opaque before. tv executives and other people in the media have often grumbled that netflix doesn't release its viewership numbers, and can basically say whatever it wants about the success of its shows at a time when it's plain to see that traditional tv ratings are failing. also at a time when netflix is spending billions of dollars and out—bidding those tv companies and getting exclusive access to content and so on. another big gripe for tv execs is when they've done their outside research into netflix shows in the past, the shows that it says are most successful, it usually bases on a metric which is essentially the number of households that watched at least two minutes of a show within the first month of its release. what they say about that is that's all well

and good, but what happens if you've got a very strong first episode and everybody hates it later? this time it's released data on a different metric, which is the number that actually watched, i'm sorry, the total hours that were viewed within the 28 days. it gives you much more of a picture. ok, that's the streaming giant that's been shaking things up. let's turn to the political news outlets that have in their own ways been shaking things up. jack, you've been on the media show before back in 2017 at that point you had the most shared piece of any news outlook during the 2017 election. for listeners who don't know, what is the london economic? the london economic was born seven years ago, largely of the financial crash, and it was a paper that was trying to explain

to regular people what just happened, really, and why they were suffering the effects of a great market explosion without the jargon and the complicated bids. we've effectively grown into what i would describe as a metropolitan publication with a metropolitan mind—set. it's progressive and liberal, with inclusive viewpoints, but we also promote entrepreneurialism. we understand how businesses can provide solutions. you say you're metropolitan — does that mean that you're not interested in appealing to readers who are from the traditional red wall areas, that's not of interest to you? i wouldn't say that viewers

per se, we wouldn't draw a line under any sort of audience anywhere, really. we are a newspaper. we are here to serve quite a clearly defined demographic and so i guess in some regards that may be true, yeah. 0k. you do also have a deliberately tabloid feel. i was very tempted in the office earlier to open the story "watch a naked man stroll down london street before his semi—clothed pal knocked a cyclist off bike." fantastic. but that's click bait, isn't it? is that how you make money? no, not at all. to touch on the tabloid nature of the newspaper, i agree, i think that tabloid has become sort of like polluted sort of like polluted by the red tops.

what we were doing right at the start was trying to make more complicated matters such as politics and economics accessible. obviously, like any newspaper, we are notjust a politics newspaper we have food and sport and lifestyle pages. we obviously try to cater to a broad audience. i think using the tabloid format to communicate with people is not a bad thing. what is your business model? how do you make money? we make money through advertising and that comes through a various range of forms. effectively we've been self sustainable for a number of years and have been lucky enough to build a team on the back of now stuff which is becoming popular. remind us how navarro media covers its costs.

on practical terms you do practice what you preach, don't you? well, i hope so. yeah. we have 18 staff and we also have lfreelancers, we have the net payl —— pay our freelancers more than we pay our| because they don't have pensions and holidays. i that sounds quite hard - in a temporary environment. how do you do that? we have advertising revenue coming in. i the overwhelming majority of our- income, 85 plus % is from supporters who are quite happy to make a regular payment _ to support our work. and that's not that unique - when you think about for instance the guardian, which is free to read but they say, would you like to - support ourjournalism - because we produce something quite distinct from - the mail or the express. there is a significantly large audience that isl willing to pay for it. they're willing to also pay- for the idea that other people

can read this content - without there being a payoff. we operate something quite similar. yes, it's worked and my message to people who are sceptical- about that, or want| to enter the media, is there is a huge appetite i for new ways of doing things, different kind of content, - for what you might see in media. you can find your audience, - this great essay by kevin kelly, about 20 years ago. many of the lessons in that essay, highly recommended, _ are still pertinent. we found our audience, - is growing and we are growing and were very happy to be able to do that while being core _ with our values. like the london economic did very well under thejeremy corbyn bounce so what has happened to your traffic since then? last year was the best year for us by far. - 0ur youtube audience doubled — i think you can put—

down to many people i getting content online. obviously they were stuck indoors because of lockdown. _ for me i don't thinkjeremy corbyn is why we have grown. _ look at the sun - newspaper for instance murdoch comes into the british - market in the late '605, early '705, he identified baby boomers- and is really been a contentjourney with those people his entire career. i i think for us in media we look. at millenniums and look at gen 2 and say we know where you are, l we want to craft stories and offer insight where you like to see them. and we are going to go on a journey with you. i we have an audience right now in their 305 and '205 - but we want to grow. yes, these sites are doing pretty good traffic and still having a healthy following. how have papers like yours changed

in response as a reaction? i think it's really interesting that there are websites like navarro which did really well underjeremy and corbyn they were quite disruptive in an interesting way. i think no matter what their politics is there are a mix of really good politics and generational readership, followership and people going online. our newspaper is read by a broad scope of ages. we have young readers, student readers, older readers, they can get the newspaper for 65p or go online. what legacy newspapers have done is really improve our online offering. maybe not so much in direct response but just an awareness of where this media is going.

we have a much fuller online offering i think than we did five or ten years ago. i think that shows the website today. let's go back to the political events of this week. keir starmer in the party conference. how well do you think starmer and his team handle the media? i would have said before today there have been teething problems. i think they have been on the eve of the conference on the eve of the conference we would've expected a big interview say with the guardian. i think he struggled because of the pandemic and because ofjust where we are with the labour party. i think he has struggled to have a proper hearing from the press. and i think that part of that is because he hasn't been able to break through due to covid, but also because he hasn't really, as he said today,

got his house in order. i think today that's been a slight game changer in terms of how the media regard him. i'lljust read another tweet the political editor of the sun who said long road to go but at least the opposition are finally having a crack at credibility. that's a really interesting response from them. i think, a long way to go but i think he delivered a speech today that shows that he is serious about winning the general election. we will develop that a little bit more. do you agree with jane? i think he's been in post now for about 18 months. i think the majority of that has been a shambles. you look at the local elections, hartlepool. in a way covid should been a gift. but he had a real opportunity, he was given time, most

it is incredibly difficultjob, he had time to get his policy messages right and i think we need to understand, strong communication, whether it's brexit, starmer now, tends to be because of policy. and i think politics and policy are separate — if he could get the comms right, i think it's set you up for a hiding to nothing. in terms of the strategy now — their approach which was adopted 20 years ago, and i think it would be foolish to say that it can't work. i think that would be foolish. however, i think it was considerably changed last 20 years. what is the policy offer from starmer, we don't know. i think the conclusion i had leaving conference last night was people were having this debate — one way or the other £15 for minimum wage, for the care workers, that was the original point. we have been fighting in the labour party.

and i look at my phone and am getting videos of people having scraps on petrol forecourts. it does feel to me that this conversation of electability and presenting himself to the country is kind of disassociated from the reality. i agree, i thought it was an adequate speech, it wasn't a bad speech. but i don't see him mastering the media in a way that will be necessary for labour. we know labour in this country has structural faults which favours the tories it will take something really special from keir starmer to do with the majority to and right now surrounded by the people he is, i don't see it, i don't see it. importantly i don't see it at all with new media at all, not one bit. let's talk about how that much change. do you think he needs a political big hitter from the press to work with him? blair had campbell — what you think? yeah, that's an - interesting question.

he's got matthew doyle, who when i started - in the lobby 20 years ago, - matthew was running the rebuttal union in the labour press office. he's got real experience. he worked for tony blair. after tony blair left power. and i think that's allowed some jeremy corbyn supporters - to say it's a tony blair tribute act. | but matthew doyle is a professional, he understands communication. - i think aaron's right, . he could've done much more with the pandemic i and getting things in order. but i don't think you really need a kind of lobby name _ or a big tv name any more. i don't think it matters as much as getting the message right i and getting that through. i i think it is about credibility. and i think he's made a big step today in making that credibility. so names banded around like kevin maguire, you don't think that's necessary?

idon't think it's necessary because i think that where tony blair- was when he took alastair campbell on, in the early days, ithink- it was sort of a different sense... tony blair was seen - as an ex— prime minister. i think the jury is stilll out with keir starmer. i think there's such a long way to go. l i think we may see keir starmer needing to fight two elections . if his party will allow him that. because borisjohnson- is still pretty popular as we've been discussing, despite the terrible pandemic, . despite the fuel crisis. i i don't think he can attract big. names at the moment but i don't think he necessarily needs to. i think he needs to get his own position and his own policies . and his own team right to then be able to say right, _ we can win the election. that takes me to your relationship and your colleagues' relationship with jeremy corbyn. did you in any way help shape policies do you think or test media lines? no, and this is something that has

been thrown at us repeatedly. the frank reality was corbyn and his people were so over stretched with the challenges they faced internally and externally they didn't even have the time to do that kind of stuff. the kind of intricate rebuttal, building relationships, they didn't do it. they should've done it. do we feed into policy? i think some of the stuff that came in 2017 and 2019 certainly fed into some of that. but i don't think it was ever really in encouraging way. one think about keir starmer and i agree, if his party gives him

two bites of the cherry, the big difference between starmer and blair is when they brought in alastair in the mid— �*90s and the mirror image within the last week they had john prescott. they got the trade unions on their side. and people forget that blair took people on a journey, it was a popularjourney with mass consent. i think starmer overstepped the mark last week in his initial proposal which collapsed. and i think he needs to learn a lesson from that. you can't bully people in a way that wasn't even being done by tony blair at his peak. there was a little bit of hubris. i think starmer and his team may beg to differ with you. we won't get into politics too much.. jack, tell me, in terms of corbyn and his team did you have contact with them, were you allied with them? no, not at all. as a newspaper i think we were born out of a lot of the same things ideologically.

but we were never purposely, in fact we were never aligned with the labour party then, we're not aligned with them now. we're just as likely to talk to rory stewart and sean berry as we are to talk to any of corbyn's shadow cabinet and indeed any of keir starmer's cabinet. so the short answer is probably no, no. jane, we do assume that the papers on the left, the mirror and the guardians, will always support the labour leader and the papers on the right — the daily mail and the telegraph etc will support the conservative leader. but it's not always that simple? no, obviously in the late l 19705, murdoch supported no, obviously in the late - 19705, murdoch supported 19705, murdoch supported blair famously — a very close relationship there. i think that's slightly

different now. - i don't think the labour leader. needs that murdoch press now. i don't think it's crucial. it's obviously important but it's not that crucial. j the guardian i think didn't explicitly act i the labour party the last election, the election before. _ it's more complicated. i think that's the difference - because of social media you don't just need newspaper backings. and i think it's much more open. what about on the conservative side? will every paper support every tory leader? i think they will. i think when it comes down to it. i had to raise a smile a couplel weeks ago when boris johnson brought forward his social care plan and there was l comment piece in the telegraph saying that they couldn't - see how this could ever pass and it was sort _ of the end of conservatism. and interestingly enough - it was a good debate there that borisjohnson started - about whether he could get

tax rises passed in his party. going back to the question at the top of the programme, how much sway do you think the press hold over public opinion anyway? i think we still do. but not to the extent where in 97 and 2001 it really didn't - matter sort of getting i the sun's support did.... i wouldn't say swung - the election because i think the sun always saw the way. i think it's more diffuse now because of social media. . it evenly spread out. that's all we have time for today. thanks to all my guests. to lara riley, to jane merrick, the media show will be back next week at the same time. for now, thanks forjoining us.

hello. for large parts of the uk, today has been a wash—out. so things can only get better. as we head overnight, we will see the wetter weather moving away and skies will tend to clear. tomorrow, the promise of some sunshine. still some blustery showers, but at least it will be a bit warmer than today. these showery air streams are coming in from the atlantic into western areas overnight and behind this thick cloud that has been bringing the rain north and eastwards today, and there is still some wet weather around this evening, vertically for the east. the winds will finally drop in the south—east, and that rain gets swept out into the north sea and up towards shetland, whereby the end of the night the wind could gust up to 70 mph. blustery showers towards western parts of the uk and clearer skies continuing further east, allowing temperatures to dip away. a cooler start to sunday. for

the london marathon, better weather than today, and it will be a lot drier. hopefully the showers will hold off. breezy, with temperatures up hold off. breezy, with temperatures up to 16 celsius. elsewhere, we have got showers from the word go across many western areas, which could be heavy and thundery for a while, and the winds will push the showers eastwards through the day, but they take a long time to reach east anglia and the saudis. more persistent rain and strong winds in the far north of scotland, and temperatures will be higher than today across the board, peaking at 17 celsius. low pressure bringing the wet and windy weather at the moment is getting swept away. we are left with showery air stream on monday. a similar day on monday to sunday, and again the bulk of the showers towards western parts of the uk, and they could be heavy and thundery. blustery winds around as well, particularly the northern parts of scotland. those temperatures again up to 16 or 17 celsius. notice some rain arriving towards the far south—west by the

end of the afternoon. that's because we got another area of low pressure developing here, and that will bring some wet and windy weather into the uk. still not sure how far north that rain will get. it looks drier for scotland and northern ireland. mainly affecting england and wales, where the winds will be strengthening as well, particular towards the south—west where gales are likely. some rain could nudge its way into southern and eastern parts of scotland, and a top temperature of 15 celsius.

this is bbc news, the headlines at five... after days of queuing at the pumps, the army will begin delivering fuel to petrol stations across the uk from monday. the home secretary says police must "raise the bar", by taking the harassment of women more seriously a view echoed by health secretary, sajid javid. the queen officially opens the sixth session of the scottish parliament at holyrood. an experimental drug for severe covid which could cut the risk of hospitalisation or death by about half. and two new streams of lava pose a further threat of destruction as the la palma volcano forces more to flee.