the former uk prime minister sirjohn major has accused borisjohnson's government of acting in a "shameful" manner over the owen paterson row. the organisation which enforces human rights laws warns it could take legal action against yorkshire county cricket club, as another cricketer comes forward to say he was the subject of racist abuse while playing for the county. president biden has welcomed congressional approval of his trillion dollar infrastructure plan as a monumental step forward for america. people living in england will be able to book their covid boosterjabs a month in advance, under new plans to speed up their rollout. now on bbc news, it's time for dateline london with shaun ley.

hello and welcome to the programme, which brings together bbc specialists and the foreign correspondents who write, blog and broadcast for audiences in their own countries from the dateline: london. this week: is china putting power before the planet? a fishy end to the british—french stand—off; and sleepyjoe just biding his time? to discuss that, we're joined by the american journalist ned temko writes for the christian science monitor. david shukman, the bbc�*s science editorjoins us from, where else this week, glasgow. here in the studio, stefanie bolzen, uk and ireland correspndent for the german news site, welt. welcome to you. let's begin with china. we knew that china's president xijinping wouldn't attend cop26, the climate change conference in glasgow. what we didn't know

was that his country would absent itself from many of the key agreements, too. a pledge to cut methane by 2030? not there. a pledge to phase out coal? not there. as for agreeing that global temperatures should be allowed to rise no more than 1.5 degrees above pre—industrial levels, forget it. you're in the heart of things up in glasgow. tell us what china has and has not signed up to? china is the biggest polluter. something like 28% of global emissions come from chinese soil. any effort to tackle climate change has to involve the chinese. so far, they have actually stuck to their guns in terms of existing policy. there were high hopes, especially from the uk presidency of this process, in the run—up to it, there might be some breakthrough in chinese initiative. that didn't happen. there were some minor concessions.

for example, the president said they would no longer fund coal power stations outside of china. they planned to be carbon neutral outside of 2050, later than many western countries. there were hopes that they would do more. they've continue with the line, which they always have had to be honest, which is other countries industrialised first, notably the united states. they've been chucking carbon emissions into the atmosphere for 150 years or so and the chinese like to point out so much current emissions, of which they are number one, but historical accumulative emissions, and under that reckoning, the us is the number one with about one quarter of emissions in the air at the moment is coming from us

soil. so, with that in mind, they say the richest nations, the western nations that industrialised first, they have got to move first when it comes to climate change. ned, china as we heard made this argument. i can imagine it's quite a seductive argument. it is shared presumably by a lot of countries in the global south. in the end, the west caused this problem and in historical reasons, they are mostly western countries, many western european. your country as well. it is their problem first to solve. how would you rebut that argument if you are face to face with a chinese diplomat tonight? well, i think the gist of the argument is absolutely true and i think one of the ironies is that it is increasingly acknowledged by the united states, certainly post the _ trump administration again and by the west, who have redoubled their efforts

in the last six years since paris to try and cut emissions, try and develop new technologies. as climate scientists will tell you however, far too slowly and far too little. recently, there has been a new focus on making good on a commitment of several years to pour something like $100 billion a year into developing economies precisely as a way of subsidising a greener transition without forcing developing economies to sacrifice economic growth. but the chinese line here is essentially political, and i think david alluded to, is from an old playbook. what i would say is that that playbook has become gradually less credible in the last ten or 15 years. that is to say back then it could be argued that china was a big economy

but it was essentially a developing economy. now it is the second—largest economy in the world. it is a modern economy, it's a fully industrialised economy, and as david says, is responsible for more than a quarter of all global emissions in and i think more than half of coal emissions and it's pretty clear that — without active chinese participation, even tighter western targets are not going to be sufficient to meet the aspirations of the paris conference. stefanie, the eu delegation is united on the challenge. even countries like poland for example are signing up to things that are difficult for them, not least because poland is so dependent on coal still. in china, there isn't one voice. it's a dilemma how best to influence china. when countries like germany

are reluctant to challenge it on human rights and other countries have been jumping up and down on issues like that. this is not only when it comes to climate change but - on many other issues, it's - a challenge for the european union, due to investment that china has in europe. i generally, the eu is leading - in the fight against climate change and rightly so because it is a very powerful i continent and also the _ europeans understood that the pandemic canj be an opportunity, so _ when they adopted this massive i recovery package plus the budget until 2026, which is 1.8 trillion - euros, a third of this is earmarked for investment into the fight - against climate change, so there is a big will to do this on paper- but as you say, poland, hungary... poland might have pledged to the phasing out - of coal but actually in

brussels there are a lot of rows i about this because these countries are saying, we depend on coal, - we have massive economic problems because of the pandemic, we cannot spend more money on this. and on top of it to phase out the cold, _ and on top of it to phase out the cold, which _ and on top of it to phase out the cold, which we _ and on top of it to phase out the cold, which we urgently- and on top of it to phase out the cold, which we urgently need. i david, you outline some of the things that president xi jinping has said. you could argue that a lot of this, we talked about the old playbook, is exactly that, it is the official chinese institutional pathological view of the west as the humiliator of china on many occasions, most notably during the opium wars. how the british is the kind of chair of this event handling this? do you get a sense as you talk to officials of the record that they have a strategy in engaging china on this issue? it's a great question and it's very sensitive and very difficult.

however you look at it, relations between the uk and china are not brilliant. you could pick a long list of topics that cause tension. hong kong, for example. the fact that the royal navy has just sailed its new aircraft carrier from the south of china. these are all issues that create a difficult atmosphere in the run—up to this event, and the fact is that the man chairing cop 26, the british minister, only managed to get to beijing once in the run—up to the summit, whereas on previous occasions, for example the head of the paris summit in 2015, there were multiple visits by all kinds of world leaders to beijing. clearly covid—19 is a factor but i think it illustrates how difficult it has been for the uk to have any influence and they can't really control. i think they are trying to look at other parties like the eu, perhaps the americans,

to bring some influence. there has been a phone call between borisjohnson and president xijinping but there is limited influence and the hope is that others can bring some influence to bear on china. who knows, maybe some of those countries that benefit from china could have a quiet word in that year. it was donald trump, who nicknamed his democrat rival for the presidency "sleepyjoe". some in mr biden�*s own party may be wondering whether the president has been asleep on the job. as congressional democrats continued to squabble amongst themselves over how to pass the president's signature infrastructure reform, the results in gubnatorial elections in two states suggest voters may be losing patience. the democrats lost virginia and came petrilously close to defeat in newjersey. just on virginia, ned, i think i'm right in saying thatjoe biden won that state a year ago by 10%. on wednesday night, they lost all three state offices.

what is the explanation and why does that result, why does it matter? why is it causing such jitters? the first thing to say is that the two governatorial results probably matter less, including us in the press have suggested. if you go back to the 1980s, since then, every new president, republican or democrat has lost these two state governor offices in the first year in office. you could argue that democrats and biden didn't do well but they did less terribly then the historical barometer would suggest but that doesn't mean it's good news and the _ reason it matters is this...

first, as you say, it wasn'tjust the governors office, it was other offices around the state as well. but more seriously for the long term, well, for the next year because this is all about the mid—term elections for both houses in congress, almost exactly a year from now, and the bad news in that context is the polling and it seemed to suggest that while the democratic base held up pretty well in both newjersey and virginia, two key constituencies that the democrats had peeled away during the four years of the trump administration because of the toxic antipathy that he generated in these areas and that is to say the suburbs of major cities and independent voters, in both those areas, it seems that the democrats are losing their appeal, and without being able to reinstate that connection and perhaps build

on it, it is hard to see how things look good for the midterms and the democrats. historically, the trend is that first—term presidents of either party almost always lose the seats in the midterms. joe biden hoped to arrive in glasgow with its legislation signed and sealed. it didn't turn out that way. how do the us green credentials look? the best the us green minister could say was, well, the market is transitioning. presumably, all the scientist would say, yes, but not fast enough. i think that's true. there was a very neat narrative earlier this year.

president trump gets elected, comes into office, very quickly reinstates america's membership of the paris agreement, which donald trump had taken american out of. on that day, in april, announces his own plan for america to halve its emissions by 2030, extremely ambitious, absolutely in line with the latest climate science in terms of what's needed to stop the worst of global warming and then the hope is that he would turn up here and having got everything sorted out in congress, and of course, that hasn't happened and i think it has raised the question here. people talk about this summit as a delivery summit. it's a summit where people have made all of promises to do all kinds of stuff, net zero by 2015 all that kind of thing, but actually, what everyone is looking for, what the science is looking for, is action very soon in the coming years and until the building blocks are in place in washington, it's hard to see howjoe biden can deliver.

i see there are ways and mechanisms and so forth but at the moment, and picking up in the corridors here questions about how america can deliver. there is no question that it's serious about the agenda but can it deliver? stefanie, this must seem strange. from the perspective of politicians in germany where they negotiate across party but have been governing and are trying to construct another governing coalition to look at a system where it seems impossible, almost treacherous for people to work with one another. i was in glasgow at - the_ of the week, when the head of state and _ government with there, _ and as david says, there was a lot of tension around joe biden because america is - back, that is what was l promised and now there is so little time left

to deliver, especiallyj in climate change. if you follow the cop26 in glasgow, you know that every pledge - makes a massive difference - but they also have to deliver it, and by this time next year, maybe joe biden _ can't decide and legislate for anything anymore. . he may not have the votes. yes, so coming back to germany, they promised the voters to - come back before christmas with a new government hasi a christmas present but things are not looking very— rosy. two weeks ago, they were doing cool i selfies of themselves but now theyl are starting to bicker and that's not a good thing but i hope by. christmas we will have a new - government in germany and i'm sure we are going to talk- about that in quite a bit. it will all be over by christmas, where have i heard that before? it looks like to fault angela merkel might become the second longest chancellor. until the 19th of december, -

if it's afterwards, angela merkel will be a historic decorative. that is some upside. on that negotiation, part of biden�*s pitch is look, i've spent my life time in congress. i'm the man, i worked across the aisle or my political life. i'm the man who can deliver. he hasn't been able to get unanimity on his own side. the idea that anyone crossing the arm to vote with him. that seems to be for the birds. hearing stefanie talk, ijust wish from an american perspective that politicians could bicker. they barely talk to each other or look at each other these days. the short answer is, this isn't biden's old congress and certainly not the senate any more but if i could come back to the significance... of these two elections. this is a wake—up call for the democratic party. the clock is ticking now. there is

real fear~ — we will see whether this works among a critical mass of democrats in congress, we'll see if they can get anything done and they have broadly got a core agenda on which they agree, they had better do it now because even with the majority, narrow though they are, in congress that they now process, the reason of— the current party is stalemate and if the republicans were to hold or take back control of congress, basically, biden should turn out the _ lights, because in terms of modern or major infrastructure getting through congress, it's going to be a tough call. and the nightmare scenario briefly as he finds himself in that position, he can't legislate, he tries to regulate that but is blocked by the supreme court, which has a conservative majority

and then he is facing donald trump again in three and a half years' time. anything is possible. i am, for my sins, quite the optimist in the sense that the alternative is worse, and i like to think there is enough institutional fibre left in american democracy that we will get through this. it will be tested, i'm sure, over the next few years. i can't help thinking about gershwin song, i'm biding my time. that's the kind of guy i am. let's move on. borisjohnson and emmanuel macron had what diplomats call a "brush past" at the g20 summit at the weekend. that is an informal meeting. perhaps brush off would be more accurate. the two leaders were at loggerheads over fishing. unless the uk issued licences to french boats which had been denied them post—brexit, declared president macron, from tuesday british boats would be banned from landing their catch. the british government warned this would breach its trade and cooperation agreement with the eu.

yet on monday night, paris backed off. stefanie, i was in the studio monday night, when i suddenly saw that the elysee palace had announced it was suspending the deadline and there won't be any action on tuesday. what is the explanation that lies behind that, do you think? it's not quite clear. there have been briefings and counterbriefings. - not only they would ban british ships from french waters, - but also they might make trade - between calais and dover, where most of the trade goes between britain and ireland - and towards the continent. they might not block it - would make it more difficult. also you have to see not only from the british side but- also from the german, slovak, i

hungarian, they all sell their stuff to britain and that was quite - something that raised some eyebrows out there. so, borisjohnson, he kind of had a word with ursula von der leyen. do you think he may have been pushing an open door to a certain extent? yes, to a certain extent. but what i hear in brussels j as well is that the europeans have| shown their toolbox and because, i think we will talk- about it in a minute, because of the northern ireland protocol, there was a kind - of thinking that maybe the french . overdid it but in a way, the brits. also need to know what could happen if they don't stick to the _ agreements that they have signed. so, there may be some value in it. david, you have been diplomatic editor of the bbc. you're science editor now. the science of fishing and the politics of the fish industry are really complicated. why is it something that provokes such passions given that it's a tiny industry in global

terms and in european terms as well. well, the first thing it provokes in me as a shiver down my spine because when i was based in brussels, the worst thing any of us ever had to coverjust before christmas were the annualfish talks. they went through the night, they were highly sensitive, highly... the details were incredibly complicated, as you say. which fish type, which species, which area. it came down to high politics. every minister, every fishery minister wanted to leave with victory. they wanted to be able to go on camera on their own national tv networks and say, i have won. i have secured us more fish.

almost every year, with almost every species, the agreement amongst the politicians for the quotas was always greater than the marine conservationists would advise. there would be a number from the scientists about what we think is safe, and then, the politicians during the fraught early hours of the morning would always grant each other as it were momre fish to take. i think you have just got a number of proud fishing nations. it has become a political touchstone in the uk. it was a key issue in the brexit referendum. it remains an issue now. i think it's very easy for politicians from either side of the channel to light the blue touch paper over it, rightly or wrongly, and get some good headlines and i wonder if that's what we're seeing now? ned, the british government were very sensitive not to appear triumphant on this and the temperature has lowered accordingly.

what would ould you think the best way forward is now quite? one could almost argue let's give licences to the boats... it's a finite number, is there a way through this do you think? even the french were saying, could you let us know what the criteria used were please? as if this was all an administrative misunderstanding. your suggestion is fantastic. the problem is, it makes much too much sense for it to happen. this is essentially a political row and on the british side we have a highly ideological government, who's powering credo is brexit and making britain great again and we must not forget that emmanuel macron has an important re—election date early

next year with the voters of france and he does not want to appear weak or basically taken advantage of. so, there is relatively narrow scope for manoeuvre. neither side wanted a blow—up now. although i hope it is the case, i doubt _ although i hope it is the case, i doubt we — although i hope it is the case, i doubt we have seen the last of this. just in the last 45 seconds or so. this could almost be a warm up act for the main event? yes, it'sjust to be continued. now, they'll talk. about fish and next week they will talk| about the northern ireland protocol, where the _ british side wants _ the european court ofjustice to be taken completely out of the picture and that is impossible, legally for the l europeans. the court ofjustice decides on matters of the single i market and northern ireland is part of the single market, so the - . suspicion is that the brits put it . in there because they know that you i can't solve it and it's a political.

game for the domestic audiences. watch this space. i'm glad you mentioned next week. that could well be a subject on next week's programme. we don't decide until the week of the transmission. so do come back for next week. we will be back and we will know what we are talking about. from everyone, have a lovely week. goodbye. hello. not as chilly compared with the past few days but because we have the milder weather, few days but because we have the milderweather, it few days but because we have the milder weather, it usually comes with plenty of cloud and that is the case with lots of cloud around and there will be sunshine here and

there will be sunshine here and there but from the cloud comes rain and it will get windier as we go through the day and it's all due to this low pressure between us and iceland. the heaviest of the rain is on the northern half of the country going into the early afternoon but the weather for a move southwards and will bring clear skies to scotland and northern ireland so after the heavy rain this morning and the rain we have at the moment, that will gladly push into northern england and turning wetter here. the south and east will see splashes of light rain and drizzle but many places will be dry and a bit of sunshine at times but the best of the afternoon sunshine is later on in scotland and northern ireland and there are showers in the north. temperatures up on recent days and that will be tempered by the strengthening winds. a blustery evening and outbreaks of rain and drizzle and if you are off to any displays, be careful, because very windy weather further north with frequent showers in the far north of scotland. because of the breeze picking up, temperatures shouldn't drop a way that it will feel cooler thanit drop a way that it will feel cooler than it has done on the nightjust gone and the winds really are a feature at the end of the night in

tomorrow morning. effectively between two weather systems as we go through sunday but the one from todayis through sunday but the one from today is only slowly clearing away and on the back edge we will see the strongest winds in the morning. maybe 80mph across parts of northern scotland which could cause travel and power disruption and even damage. gail is as far south as the north—west coast. a windy day on sunday and outbreaks of rain continue on and off in the north of scotland on the ocho elsewhere but overall a drier picture than today and a brighter picture with a better chance of sunshine although it will stay cloudy for some in the south—west and the north—east of scotland. a cooler day tomorrow with temperatures down to the north—west breeze but after a frosty night across eastern parts of the country, dry and break through eastern england and elsewhere early morning sunshine gives way to cloud and rain across parts of scotland and northern ireland but temperatures are lifting again and a bit cooler along the eastern coast. the week ahead the temperatures around average if not a bit above and one area of low pressure in the north is

tying into the remnants of a tropical storm across the country and only a bit of rain on that and then high pressure builds for the end of the week. see you soon.

this is bbc news ? these are the latest headlines in the uk and around the world. at least eight people have died and dozens are hurt — after a crowd surge on the opening night of a music festival in houston, texas. the crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage, 0k? and that caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries. former uk prime minister sirjohn major accuses borisjohnson�*s government of acting in a "shameful" manner — over the 0wen paterson row. the organisation which enforces human rights laws warns it could take legal action against yorkshire county cricket club — as another cricketer comes forward to say he was the subject of racist abuse while playing for the county.