russia's foreign minister has said moscow wants equal, mutually respectful relations with the united states and its allies, as tensions continue over ukraine. sergei lavrov accused russia's rivals of infringing its security on a daily basis. russia denies planning to invade ukraine. spotify says it's working to add a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about covid after a row about misinformation. the musiciansjoni mitchell and neil young asked for their songs to be removed from the platform in protest at its work withjoe rogan who has interviewed vaccine—sceptics. north korean state media has released photographs it says were taken from its biggest missile launch since 2017. the pictures show parts of the korean peninsula and surrounding areas seen from space from a camera on the missile�*s nose.

now on bbc news, it's time for dateline london with shaun ley. hello and welcome to the programme that brings together leading uk columnists with the foreign correspondents who write, blog and broadcast for the dateline london. this week an inspector is called — from russia without love — and mr breyer goes from washington. but is it the wrong one? joining us this week steve richards who writes, broadcasts and even takes to the stage with his take on life at westminster — rock n roll politics. stefanie bolzen is uk and ireland correspondent for the german newspaper die welt and its associated website. and i'm delighted to say that in the studio with me is michael goldfarb, formerly foreign correspondent with public broadcasting in the united states and now presents the podcast the first rough draft of

history. now, the parties are over but the memories kind of linger. they are about to be tested too, thanks to the commissioner of the metropolitan police, dame cressida dick, who announced a police investigation into gatherings in downing street during the coronavirus lockdowns. to those who may question the use of police time, dame cressida said the met wouldn't normally investigate retrospectively. in this case, though, there is evidence of, to quote her, "the most serious and flagrant type of breach". that whetted the appetite of many for the report into the gatherings being compiled by the civil servant sue gray. on friday, though, the police asked her to make only minimal reference to events that the police are investigating. steve, this is all getting very, very complicated. what should we make, do you think, of this police intervention on the grounds of not trying to prejudice something? it's not clear what it is they are not trying to prejudice.

no, it's not at all clear, and as you suggest, shaun, the choreography of all this, the publication of the report and whether bits of it — the key bits, actually, will be in the report because of the police investigation. and all of this is important because timing in politics is significant. but if you step back from this never—ending, "when will the gray report be published and in what form?" the situation is as clear as it can be. which is a prime minister stands accused of setting rules, breaking them and then lying about breaking them in the context of the biggest national emergency since world war ii. and in the end, whatever the complexities of the current choreography, we can all have views about these allegations. but it is conservative mps, they know really what's going to be in the gray report when it's finally published in its full form. and it's up to them whether they want to carry on backing this prime minister or removing him. it's a big call, but over to them. twitter erupts every second with views about it all, but they are the agents,

they can decide. they could do it now, really. they know enough. but it's up to them, and i think many of them haven't decided what to do yet. that sounds like a political slogan from somewhere. "you are the agents of change!" well, they literally are. it's in their hands. and what is so interesting, when you speak to some of these conservative mp5, is firstly it's wrong to talk of them as some sort of collective group — older conservative mps have experienced the drama of trying to remove a prime minister. the younger ones, the new intake from december 2019, this is all new to them and it is a big thing to do. and frankly, they are the ones who are all over the place, as much as the metropolitan police and the fate of the sue gray report. and for the rest of us, stefanie, it sounds like it's

going to be a case of, when sue gray finally publishes, we have to read between the lines. yes, it's been a very confusing week and days. and on tuesday, the metropolitan police said on tuesday downing street said it's fine, we can publish some parts and then suddenly the metropolitan police came back and said, no, you can actually publish everything. and today there is just another turn. what i think is really difficult about this, and toxic at the end of the day, is that now everyone can make his or her own interpretation, what is actually going on in downing street. and of course i think it is very toxic that there are no allegations that there might even be a political stitch up, why the metropolitan police has now intervened and said the report cannot be published in full. there have even been accusations by the leader of the liberal democrats to say that might be really mingling. i think all this contributes to a feeling... i mean, what do the people

on the street make of this? first they had to suffer, i think really suffer now for so many weeks, hearing day by day about parties, and now this is all a complete... very difficult to understand confusion about where the police investigation goes and what the sue gray report still means. so i think this is very much eroding public trust into politics and politicians, and therefore i think it would be best if that sue gray report at least will be published as soon as possible. i don't envy you trying to explain this to your readers in die welt. no, it's not, actually. the headline today i think we picked was, "borisjohnson gets helped by the police," which i could imagine that people are even confused by that headline, but at least they might read it. it's true, i suppose, michael, is that one thing you can say about borisjohnson is he does translate internationally. people at least have a grasp of who he is. i have certainly seen it

reported on us networks, but is there much kind of understanding of this? does it translate well as a story? well, the thing is it's not. the first time a conservative prime minister has been - in trouble in recent memory. i mean, theresa may was deposed only a few years ago, _ and people with longer memories do remember what happened - to margaret thatcher- and that she wasn't defeated at an election but was - deposed by her own mps. the thing about boris . in america is, you know, he and donald trump in so many ways, i mean, on the surface - you think they are entirely- different because donald trump can't quote latin and greek. at you, but on the other hand they're both rich kids, - who are privileged, and clearly possessed of some kind - of socio— pathology where guilt and shame that would floor- a normal person has no purchase on their souls. and so it's interesting - to hear steve talk because,

you know, before i came - on i was looking and i see that i roger gale who is a very seniorl backbencher and has been around for some of these deposing of prime ministers is still. calling forjohnson- to resign, and yet i know that the precedentl that we should look at is the donald trump i precedent, where a year after losing an election was still saying, "it was stolen. and i'm the real president." and i think that whatever - happens in these coming weeks and possibly months leading up to the may elections, _ ijust feeljohnson holding . on to office using everything he possibly can, and that's why i think twitter is full _ of ideas that maybe he brought in the met at the last minute, i the metropolitan police, - to kind of gum up the works on the release - of the gray report. intriguing conspiracy theory, that one. stefanie on this question, there was a resignation this week. it wasn't a prime minister, it was a junior minister who,

if i'm honest, most of us and even he would accept hadn't heard of him, but he left in the most extraordinary way. resigned at the dispatch box and in the process accused his government of being indifferent, uh, arrogant rather, indifferent and ignorant about something like £4 billion worth of fraud that had taken place over money given to businesses that apparently didn't exist but people were given money by the government, taxpayers' money, during the covid lockdown. it's an extraordinary state of affairs, and yet in truth that seems to have attracted a lot less attention than this business. yes, it does, and i think maybe that's also a bit of the nature of the british lobby or the journalists reporting on politics in the uk, because they are all now very much concentrated and focusing on what is happening in downing street and not so much what is happening in the lords — that was in the lords. but i must admit, i heard

the number, i thought "four billion is quite a lot," but probably it's normal because of course in these times, in these really very extraordinary times when the government was propping up businesses, four billion might be something that is normal. but then i went back and looked at germany. of course they also have the same numbers of fraud being done with subsidies paying by the state for businesses suffering in the pandemic, and they had, in 2020,150 million euros fraud that was found. so it is a very, very big number in the uk. and you are right, there's not much headlines about this, but i think it feeds in the wider question and that's also something that came up in the debate in the house of lords and around it, that there is a systemic failure of legislation that can really track down fraud. whether it's money laundering in london, and i know we are talking about ukraine in a minute and about russia, but there is really not enough hard legislation and that's

the wider point also, that this government is stuck in so many scandals and problems that the real work which should allegedly improve people's lives is not being done because there's so much destruction and so many other things going on. steve, last thought on this. yes, the reason that didn't get more publicity, it got quite a lot, is firstly because as you say he's not well known, the minister who resigned, but also because this whole saga over whether a prime minister broke his own rules and then lied about it is accessible and is significant. i'm one of those who thinks these things can be overplayed at times, but not this one. so yes, the four billion is another story. it was quite widely reported actually, and the speech in the house of lords he gave as he resigned was scathing. and there are still implications i think for rishi sunak and the treasury about all of this. but rishi sunak, the chancellor, is keeping a very low profile at the moment. for all sorts of reasons!

thank you, steve. now, behind the drumbeat of war, did wejust hear the faint sound of brakes being applied? on thursday, the united states rejected russia's central demand that ukraine should neverjoin nato. sergei lavrov, the russian foreign minister, said that although the biden administration had not addressed its main concern about the western military alliance, its expansion, there's, quote, "hope for the start of a serious conversation on secondary questions". a fortnight ago, just a fortnight ago, the kremlin said, "we will not be satisfied with the endless dragging out of this process." and russia's representative at the organisation for security and cooperation in europe, the 0sce, warned, "we will have to take necessary measures to ensure strategic balance and eliminate unacceptable threats to our national security." and so they thundered largely over the last couple of months, stefanie, but do you think there is a sort of a shifting now in the russian position? well, i'm not sure. i mean, we had president putin talking to france,

president macron today, and there were some positive notes coming out of it. i mean, moscow is saying that, yes, there has been some movement. the foreign minister or foreign secretary said there were some rational elements in what the us had said to...or what the us had proposed. but of course, it doesn't change the fact that there are still more than 100,000 troops on the border of ukraine. the russians have also agreed, or there might be another meeting in the so—called normandy format, early february. so there is some, if you want to call it positive signs, maybe stability, a little bit of stability, but it's also at the same time it's very much that you see that the russian president wants respect, he wants attention. but what he really plans is still very, very unclear. but i think what... president... sorry, stefanie, carry on. i think what is also making

the situation even more difficult is that, of course, there are also very different actions being taken by the us and by germany, for example, and the ukraine itself. i mean, the president has said actually, the situation is not as dangerous as some outside ukraine are saying. yes, i mean, that'sjust what i was going to quote. he was sort of saying to everyone, michael, "calm down". joe biden is still saying he expects military intervention by russia, he now thinks next month. has he kind of positioned things well in this particular crisis after the embarrassment of afghanistan? he does at least seem to have got almost all the allies singing from the same hymn sheet. even germany, that we thought would be an outlier, was saying, "no, no, we're pretty much going to back the americans on this." well, you know, this is very — let's just go back in this - crisis. it's two months, which is l a long time in twitter time. the first anybody heard i about it were unattributed briefings in the washington post, new york times - about this troop build—up. this was not coming from kyiv.

i mean, we didn't hear cries for a little international- support because the russians are going to grab — _ look like they want to grabj some more of our country. and i think people need _ to remember about whojoe biden is. this year marks the 50th year that he will be in public life. l he was elected to the senate — i think he wasjust 28 — - in 1972 and he has always been a very, very staunch _ atlanticist and in the days - of the cold war, cold warrior. and i — my podcast this week is about how, 30 years ago, i when yugoslavia disintegrated in violence, the us lagged - behind. britain, france, germany- couldn't agree on when to have coffee, much less how to, you know, monitor this. situation. joe biden worked with bob dole in the senate, and it was theml who actually forced - bill clinton's hand to finally bring an end to that crisis.

i think he likes to. lead from the front. he's very comfortable i in dealing with russia — i mean, at this moment. the question is, - has he overblown it? to what degree has this been, you know, a massive - disinformation effort by vladimir putin, i who is a master of it? "yeah, i'm going to. put 100,000 troops. "now everybody's paying attention to me." - and what happens next? is this is a way of trying l to destabilise the west? will germany really — - will its new government really switch off nord stream i if russian tanks roll into ukraine? will 'londongrad' suddenly, i you know, with a conservative government with close ties to many russian oligarchs, will they shut off the city. of london and their access to their money? so these are questions that are all out there. i as forjoe biden, i suppose the fact that he raised - the question is- the important thing. steve. yeah, i mean, the —

there are many issues which we don't know yet, including what putin is aiming to do, but what i would say is that while it is relatively straightforward for the west, in inverted commas, to come round with a sort of broad condemnation for what he has done so far, it's much harder in practice. i mean, michael's mentioned london and the russian wealth in london, which is, you know, various governments have thought about extracting in various ways or making it harder for them, but never do in the end, because the money — well, they need the money. and each country has got self—interest. there's also domestic politics at play, inevitably. we've got president macron with a presidential election, stating that he's playing a big role in this. i think we had at one point this week borisjohnson supporters saying he

is the pivotal figure in organising the west's response, not biden — and that's because he wants to use ukraine partly to save his own job. so there are all kinds of factors playing into this at the moment. but the fundamental one, i think, is no—one knows for sure — maybe putin doesn't — whether he is going to try and move into ukraine. and i think no—one knows for sure that if he were to do that, precisely how the west, the us — obviously, crucially — but others will respond. germany, stefanie, is particularly exposed on this because of its energy dependency and so, in that sense, it may have surprised people that, actually, chancellor scholz said pretty much, as americans would have hoped he would say, "look, you do this and this new nord stream project, nord stream 2 is dead." but i suppose the interesting is he didn't say it to existing

— the existing project, the existing link, because presumably, they can't really afford to do that, can they? well, actually, it wasn't even agreed by scholz, the now chancellor of germany, that there would be sanctions on russia involving nord stream if russia uses energy supply as a weapon — that was already agreed by angela merkel last summer. so there is a paper which washington and berlin agree because, you remember, there was a pretty big row between washington and berlin around nord stream 2, and you can read it there. it says if moscow uses energy supplies as a weapon, there will be sanctions involving nord stream. i mean, the situation now in germany is much more complex because you have three parties in the government — the so—called 'traffic light coalition'. the spd, of course, also has some domestic stakes because where the nord stream pipeline ends is in mecklenburg—vorpommern and their prime minister is spd politician and is very keen for this pipeline to start

going and because it's supplying with a lot ofjobs, a lot of money, of course — and then, i mean, don't forget more than 50, i think 55% of german gas consumed comes from russia, and the german industry needs gas. the gas prices have already gone up 30%. so, of course, there is a big fear what might happen. but then again, it's a very german, a very complicated, almost schizophrenic position that the german government is taking with a lot of historical references and that they are not supplying weapons and so on, so forth. but i think the understanding is that if you don't speak clearly to russia, it will — putin willjust play on that weakness. and that is presumably at the heart of the biden approach is that — you've got the message has to be clear and consistent — the message needs to be a clear one and consistent one. exactly. but you know, clarity — i clarity is very hard and it's

behind—the—scenes stuff — and what worries me, - i think, is far too much. of this now is happening amongst our colleagues. it shouldn't be being leaked to the press. | yes. the diplomacy should really be in secret - and behind the scenes. and that's why, you know, one isn't sure where this is going. i but i myself remain slightly. sceptical that it's going to go into a hot place. i'm with president zelensky in kyiv — i think everybody. should cool down a bit! chuckles. good. well, let's hope they're listening, wherever they may be, the voices whispering and the people doing the briefing. now, abortion and voting rights — two of the most divisive issues in american politics — being shaped not by the elected arms of government, but byjudges. the united states has a written constitution and someone has to decide whether the laws passed in congress and the executive orders issued by the president are consistent with it. two of the nine justices of the supreme court whose task that is were appointed in the 20th century. soon, it will be one. stephen breyer is reported to have told the white house

that he's about to announce his retirement. although president biden has another three years in office, this may be his last chance to shape the supreme court and, with it, america's future. excuse me. the odd thing about this, michael, is that he is a liberaljustice — small l liberaljustice — and yet, it's the liberals who've been pressing for him to retire! could you explain that odd paradox? the history is it has to do- with how — how supreme court justices and all federaljudges are vetted by the senate - and requires a senate vote. the senate is not functioning now. i it's a totally partisan body. where republicans will only vote for republican stuff and democrats are kind i of forced on the back foot. what happened was ruth bader ginsburg, who was the senior. liberaljustice — terrific- woman — stayed on the court. she was ill. and there was a moment early in the last decade l as she approached 80, - where the democrats controlled

the senate and a lot l of people said, "well, maybe you should step down. "you've already had cancer. "maybe it's time." she didn't, she — because it's an appointment for life — - she stayed on the court- until the very last moment. she passed away and the . republicans were in charge of the senate and they put, within days, they put - a hard—right young justice on the supreme court. i brett kavanaugh? no, this was amy coney barrett. i mean, before that, . they literally — i mean, 0bama, in his last year in office, had another. opportunity but by then, i the republicans had control of the senate — he couldn't - get his nominee even a hearing — and that's how- brett kavanaugh got on. yes. so it's critical at this _ moment, where there's a 50—50 senate with a tie—breaking vote with vice president kamala - harris, that if you're - going to try and maintain a liberaljustice — - and it won't make much difference because the court now is essentially six hard .

conservatives and three j liberals — it's a question of whether it becomes seven hard conservatives and two l liberals, and liberal is not political — - i mean, this isjust a way of interpreting the law. l it's not... it's, yeah — yeah, it's not a political thing. i it's become terriblyj politicised, though. but the other thing is, steve, that's most interesting to an outsider, i heard an american network on thursday night debating, "well, it's going to be a black woman "this time becausejoe biden has said that, and maybe it "should be a hispanic man or woman the time after that" — there's a sense in which almost the culture wars that they are supposed to try and stay above are being translated onto the court itself. well, is it? i mean, this term 'culture wars�* is pretty imprecise, it seems to me. i mean, president trump used patronage to put in all kinds of people who he felt reflected his kind of views and i imagine biden will use this space to do the same. now, there might be some

tokenism in it in terms of whether it's hispanic or whatever but presumably, whoever gets appointed will broadly reflect that liberal perspective — which, as michael has just outlined, is now in quite a striking minority. and so, you know, ithink people get too worked up applying this term 'culture wars�* when it's actually a sort of liberal versus small c conservative divide which is the more significant one. stefanie, you've got about a minute just to sum up on this. you know, it will be a significant thing, won't it, to have a black woman on the us supreme court? there's only been two african—american justices, one still serving, clarence thomas, and there's never been a black woman on the court. yeah, absolutely. i mean, i — the politicisation of the constitutional court is something that i'm absolutely fascinated

by in the us, while in germany, we have something that's a german word for you — verfassungspatriotismus — so it's a nice, long german word, which is actually 'constitutional patriotism' and that has meant that the constitutional court is probably the institution in germany that germans have most respect for. stefanie... and luckily, yet, it is not so politicised as it is in the us. i'm sure they're very much relieved about that! it's just — going to say thank you all very much for being with us. thank you for your company. ben brown will be in the chair next week. i should just say to you that when stephen breyer was nominated, 87 senators voted for him. funny how times have changed. goodbye.

hello there. storm corrie continuing to bring some damaging gusts of winds during the overnight period and to start monday morning. met office warnings remain in force for strong winds across more eastern parts of the country and we'll also have an ice risk to start the day across northern scotland — some cold air digging in behind the storm as it moves out into the north sea. but you can see a real squeeze in the isobars still across eastern coastal parts of scotland, down towards the wash and norfolk, so the yellow warnings remain in force through this morning for further gusts of 50—60 mph. eventually, the strongest of the winds will pull away from the east coast, and then it'll leave a blustery day for all. after that icy start across northern scotland, temperatures will rise a little bit, but it's going to be one of sunshine and blustery showers. these showers again wintry over the hills of scotland, some of these showers also getting into parts of north west england, the midlands, wales and south west england. probably the best of any sunshine will be reserved for eastern england, but a fairly cool day to come and temperatures of 5—9 degrees — particularly

when you factor in the strong north—west wind. as we move through monday night, we'll see a more substantial area of patchy rain pushing into western scotland, perhaps western wales, north west england, tending to stay drier across eastern areas, but it will turn a bit murkier because we're starting to import some milder airfrom the west. lows of 4—8 degrees. and you can see that here on the pressure and air mass chart. into tuesday, it's a lot milder. it's fairly strong winds again from the west but this air source coming in from the mid—atlantic. it will still be quite chilly and breezy across the far north of scotland, for the northern isles with showers here but elsewhere, some sunshine. more cloud for northern ireland, large parts of england and wales. could see a bit of murkiness, some drizzle over western hills, but it's the temperatures that'll be notable on tuesday — in the low teens celsius for many. wednesday's another mild day. rather murky again, rather cloudy, too. it'll be another breezy one. and those temperatures will range from around 11 to 13 degrees. then some changes as we move out of wednesday into thursday. this cold front spreads south—eastwards across the country and introduces much

colder and fresher air, which will reach all areas by the end of friday. so temperatures will be coming down on thursday, particularly across the north. into friday, could see some wintry showers across northern areas, although we'll hold onto some dry weather in the south.

this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm david eades. our top stories: as the diplomatic standoff continues, we report from the frontline in eastern ukraine, where government forces have been fighting russian—backed separatists. and this is about more than the future of ukraine. it is about the future shape of nato, about the security of europe. battle lines are being drawn now in a new cold war. spotify responds to protests by some music stars, and others, by announcing it will act to combat covid disinformation. north korea is thought to have tested one of its most powerful ballistic missiles in years. the us urges pyongyang to join direct talks without preconditions.

record breaking rafa.