this is bbc news. the headlines: president biden and the first lady have visited uvalde in texas to meet families who lost children in last week's school shooting. mr biden paid his respects by a memorial site at the robb elementary school. thejustice department has announced it will investigate police delays in confronting the gunman. president zelensky has visited the front line in eastern ukraine for the first time since russia invaded. after witnessing the devastation in the city of kharkiv, he greeted front—line troops. tens of thousands of people have marched through jerusalem's muslim quarter on an annual parade organised by nationalist jewish israelis. some made their way through the narrow alleys of an arab neighbourhood,

waving flags and chanting slogans. the palestinian red cross said more than 70 people were injured in clashes. now on bbc news, dateline london, with sean ley. hello and welcome to the programme which brings together columnists from uk newspapers with the foreign correspondents who write, blog and broadcast to audiences in their home country from the dateline london. this was the week when sue gray delivered her report

into whether there were downing street parties during the covid lockdown. did the report itself deliver? we learnt the likely impact of surging energy prices and a doubling of the numbers in fuel poverty in the uk. the government's answer to it? throw money at the problem. is it proportionate or inflationary? and what about those other sharply rising bills? is inflation stalking the globe? to discuss all that, we have the american journalist stephanie baker, a senior writer with bloomberg markets, steve richards, a political commentator who presents the podcast �*rock n�* roll politics�* and ian martin who founded and edits the news website reaction and is a columnist for the times. nice to have you all with us, thank you very much. let's head straight in. ian martin, at the end of the week much predicted, much debated, where is the prime minister's position now do you think? on one level he has survived. there was all this hype about sue gray who is an official inside the government conducting a report into these parties which people have heard about and in the end, the report really, not exonerated him but let him off the hook

and it's a classic boris situation where he just sort of delays, creates confusion, we felt we knew what was in the report by the end, her conclusion was fairly bland and he's free again. in that sense, he has survived what was supposed to be a week that a month ago you might have said it �*might bring him down�* but he just gets away with it again, which borisjohnson always seems to have the knack of doing. underneath the surface it's more complex than that. you can feel big shifts in british politics going on. i think, personally, that you can start to see a beginning, not a settled a consensus but people starting to say to each other in and around whitehall, the media in the uk, that there is a labour government coming because even though it is not finished off boris johnson, it has trashed the tory brand and trashed his personal brand and i think it will be very, very difficult for him to recover longer term. he may attempt to fight the next general election but boris, remember,

is a personality. i used to work with him years ago on the telegraph and he thinks always very much in terms ofjust getting through the next day and getting out of a particular scrape. at the end of this week, he will be pretty pleased that he survived. steve richards, should he be? in my view, no, but my view, frankly, is uninteresting and irrelevant. but we would like to hear your view. my view on him is that it's obvious, he made the rules and broke the rules and lied about it, in the view of many. but the more interesting question is why has he survived, given that? it is worth remembering that british prime ministers rarely offer their own resignation. harold wilson did it and no—one else in modern times and therefore i think it is wholly unsurprising that he's still there.

prime ministers, when they're in deep trouble, reach the conclusion that it is in the national interest that they carry on and he has reached that. the questions then is why those who are in a position to not share that view, why have they not, as they have done before, acted, even though...? that is the other interesting question. they have done it before, with margaret thatcher. she had won three elections by then and had ruled for 11 years. this is just 2.5 years after he won a huge majority so, again, i think it's unsurprising at this point that — tory mps have not moved to topple him. and this is a weird conservative parliamentary party. lots of people are there new to national politics and it's a very big thing to topple the prime minister. so i am not surprised he is still there. i don't think it is that he is a genius of getting out of holes. he follows a pattern very familiar in british politics and that does not mean that tory mps might still move

against him because, in my view, trivial though that element of it is, what he has done is so transparently appalling, voters will notice and that may lead to things. let's see. the tory tribe is divided. it doesn't quite know what to do. the reason he is there and that mps have not moved against him in sufficient numbers is that they don't know who will replace him. a few months ago, that may have been rishi sunak but he has taken a huge knock in the last few months and faces enormous economic problems. so who really wants to take over? there are potential successors but no obvious frontrunner. they're watching and waiting. but there's a part of the tory tribe that believes that, ultimately he's a winner and that boris, in the past, has always got away with it and somehow he will come through these problems. don't remove someone who has extraordinary charisma and has

proved himself a winner in the mayoralty, he won brexit, won a stonking majority in 2019, so give him one last go. i think that approach is misguided because i think the view that's settling in with voters of distrust i think is so serious that ultimately i think it can be very hard for him to bounce back. as ever, polls are a snapshot of the public at a particular time but the financial times published figures after the sue gray report that suggested 65% of voters think that borisjohnson should resign and this is all voters, regardless of which party they normally support. 76% thought the prime minister misled parliament. with those figures, if it is a snapshot of a passing mood, it may not matter but if is there a shift, stephanie, if there is a shift in the perceptions of the prime minister should that ought to worry his party? what surprised me was that - you did not have more tory mps standing up in parliament

criticising him. _ given what we all know . is the public mood on this. you know, you had mps come out afterwards to make these - statements and criticise him but using the floor - of the house of commons, they seem too shy to do. l i think the real test| will come when this parliamentary - committee convenes. this is the privileges committee. to determine whether or not he deliberately and wilfully i misled and lied to parliament and, um, he will have - to testify in front - of that committee and... it kicks the can down the road. we don't know how long that will take. | that could take a very long l time to come to a conclusion but he will try to wiggle his| way out of it and like usual, he will parse his words - and fudge it and hope that by the time it comes around, people will have forgotten. . what about the culture of government? i was interested by something

that a veryjunior in british politics, paul holmes, said when he gave up his unpaid ministerial advisory role on friday. he said he felt a deep mistrust in both the government and the conservative party. he talked about a toxic culture that seemed to have become active in downing street and he worried about that long—term. i wonder whether this report, i mean, for example, the criticism of civil servants is arguably as significant as it is of politicians in the sue gray report. whether there's a sense that maybe this has damaged notjust an individual or a party, it has damaged practice of government. it has. that is a reality of the british system. essentially it tends to reflect the personality of whoever is prime minister and boris is, let's face it, a fairly shambolic figure and i think what the sue gray report revealed is that ultimately those officials who may quite

like boris in a chummy way, but they do not fear him. it is impossible to imagine that culture or that behaviour under, say, gordon brown, theresa may or margaret thatcher or anyone since the war. goodness, churchill drank during the war but the staff in number 10 really respected him and felt that they were doing something important. my colleague heard an interesting story this— week about, given the excruciating detail of drunken parties going on late i into the night, maybe there should be a ban - on drinking at 10 downing st and a source said that - boris johnson dismissed that idea, saying britain - never would have gotten through world war ii without drink toi take off the strain. so... what i find very disturbing is that this is just part - of a broader pattern. an alarming number of tory mps have run foul of the law-

and i think it's a real sign of a party that has been i in power for too long. this is supposed to be - the party of law and order and this is what we get? that culture that i described means that you do not necessarily have, and this sounds hysterical, but britain does not really have a functioning government at the moment. by which i mean the system only really works when the person at the top knows exactly what they are doing, can transact business, can command respect and authority. peter lloyd hennessey, a man who wrote a lot about the operation of government. he's a journalist and academic and helped expose the fact that we now have an ministerial code of conduct, said in an article last week he said he thought it was the good chap version of british government, that it works provided the person in charge is a good chap or good chappess, a good woman. that they have the right values. otherwise it can be distorted by anyone who has the authority

to do it. in other words, there are not enough checks and balances. because of that majority, borisjohnson, because the election is relatively close, still has quite a lot of authority. to go back a bit, there was an attempt to get rid of harold wilson in 1968—69 when he won an even bigger majority and we'd have been sitting here talking about... "i know what's going on. i'm going on." we would be talking here about whether he survive for another eight years. so they tend to survive. what makes this interesting is there are lots of moving parts. you have number 10, which is both a neurotic, paranoid place but also very cocooned. you go back after that grey day and think oh, hurray, we have done it and got through it. but then you have tory mps going back to their constituencies at a weekend, speaking to constituents and party workers and that might provide them with quite a cold reality. and you have, i think, stephanie mentioned

the privileges committee report coming up. and two important by—elections. and the by—elections. so there are lots of moving parts which i'm sure number 10 will brief the sunday papers through it. and then we have the economic crisis but it is fascinating that propelled this self—proclaimed fiscal conservative chancellor leftwards, so that's another fascinating ingredient which makes it all incredibly hard to read. so is the consensus when we sit here in a month's time that it could look the same or it could look very different? i've given up making predictions on borisjohnson. the other factor of course is ukraine and that is really the biggest factor and if i were to defend borisjohnson, not something i've done very often recently, his response and the uk response in alliance with the us and canada has been, if not exemplary

than close to it in terms of standing up for ukraine and arming ukrainians. so a defender of boris johnson would say well, what about ukraine where he is leading well and it's the middle of the war, a geopolitical situation which he and his advisers have called broadly correctly. so that is a factor. but does the british - population care about that? i agree he has done - an exemplaryjob in terms of leading the british response but isn't the salient issue, - isn't it the nhs and the cost of living? i ukraine will not decide the result of the next general election. good. let's talk about the economy then. you both refer to rishi sunak and ian, you said his reputation is not what it was. he may have hope to salve a bit with the announcement this week, and it's certainly an important announcement for everybody in the uk who has

been worried about the massive increase in energy bills and the rise — the general rise in the cost of living. what do you make of that announcement and the implications of it? because even on the conservative side, there seems to be a bit of — "well, we are grateful "for the money but we don't like to be the party "doing this kind of thing — throwing money at the problem." the response is fascinating because it is has split the tories down the middle with what you might call a kind of one nation wing and actually the sort of boris red waller wing as well, liking the fact that the government is throwing money at the problem. ultimately, i think those on the other side, the free market thatcherites who sare saying that this is a ridiculous splurge, i think they are missing the point. the scale of what is about to be felt by the poorest in this country — not a situation which is unique to britain — butjust the scale of what is coming merits some kind of response. also on the windfall tax question, well, margaret thatcher did windfall taxes in 1981 and 1982 in the depth of the recession then, when people were hurting,

so i think there is a logic to it. but the party is kind rootless now and doesn't quite know to respond. hence perhaps the schizophrenic response from the government, which was just a few weeks ago — you know, "windfall tax — disastrous idea, unconservative, "we won't do it"... not going to happen. "and now, we're doing it." or give it a different name, but actually, in essence, that is what it is. yeah, but it is a slightly chaotic approach to the problem and, as you say, that's the other problem with the party's business, is that they have been very preoccupied with the war in ukraine. it is followership, rather than leadership. you have a vote on, for example, whether or not there should be — your neighbour should be building — changing their house next door to you, the idea well, this is a good idea because it is too complicated for us to do it, too controversial, so that sense that if there is enough public anger about something, we will — policy will follow that. i think it's deepened that. see, you have, in rishi sunak,

as we said earlier, you have this— self—proclaimed fiscal conservative. and his spring statement, a few weeks ago, which was a sort of minimalist approach to the economic crisis, was him. boris johnson was weak. he couldn't be this sort of "call me a rooseveltian — "spend, spend, spend" — and — and sunak didn't. and within weeks, he's had to come back with a big package which has been acknowledged by the institute for fiscal studies as being pretty redistributive at targeting poorer incomes, and spending a lot of money. and it seems to me a reverse of the 1970s, where you had the then—prime minister jim callahan saying "you can't spend your way out of a recession", thatcher living on it, and the tidal waves were moving rightwards in her direction. it seems to me... crosstalk. so, even the party that would normally have argued differently was arguing the same? yeah, yeah. now, whether labour are supple enough to seize that moment is one of the big questions in the coming year or so.

but that moment is here is fascinating, i think. can we talk about the economics of it? because stephanie, where you sit at the bloomberg market picture of these things, rather than from a domestic political perspective, what are the — what are the markets making of thejudgement the chancellor's made? what are other policymakers faced with similar problems, how are they react into exactly the same — not the same problems, similar problems — inflation seems to be stalking the globe. right, so i mean, ithink. that there is a feeling that if he hadn-t — acted, the risk of a recession would have been higher- because you're taking so much money out of the economy- because those people wouldn't be able to spend money on other things. - anything else. so, broadly speaking, . we're in this, you know, big debate right now — are we for stagflationl a la the 1970s? you know... which is where you get high inflation, little growth. high inflation, low- growth, orare we heading for a recession? and, you know, ithink it's too early to say. i i think the outcome of the war

in ukraine and how central- banks respond will have, - you know, a bearing on that. but one of the hallmarks of stagflation in the '70s| was high unemployment, - which we don't have right now. so that's a positive. we don't have it in the uk and they don't have it in the united states. exactly. the federal reserve in the us is basically saying we want to hit that sweet spot where we up interest rates to curb inflation but we don't drive out businesses, and therefore start to see joblessness go up. right, and so, i think some economists are looking - at saying, you know, - inflation is already having a cooling effect on the economy in some respects and so, - maybe— inflation has peaked. but it's a very — it's. very hard to tell how it is going to play- out, and i think globally the big question mark- is what happens with china. the chinese economy is slowing down in a way that we haven't l seen for years. bloomberg has actually -

projected that china's economy will grow by only 2% this yearl and that the us would actually outpace chinese growth for the first time - since the mid—1970s, - so that just turns the whole global economy on its head. we haven't been here before. the global economy... we've all counted on china - as the world economy's saviour and it's facing some - really tough challenges. a big one is the demographic challenges, right? _ yes. which is a result of. their one—child policy, which, of course, they reversed... i it will take years before that... but you still have i falling birth rates. and then, you have a broader structural change, _ which is china - is shifting from coal to gas, which is going to keep energy prices high. _ so, that whole prediction of, l oh, china is going to overtake the us— as the world's largest economy, i think. that's looking very uncertain right now- and i think we're probably a period of volatile inflation, and if you look at the 1970s,

inflationjumped up and down quite a bit over— a numberof years. yes. so, even if it comes down in the next few months, l it could pop up. again fairly soon. and i think for the uk, and for rishi sunak, . what i would expect. is in six months' time, he may have to come back and spend more money. i think he will. the interesting thing right now about the uk economy is that there is a labour shortage. so, in the early '80s, margaret thatcher could use high unemployment as a way of controlling inflation. people were desperate to go into jobs and would take low—paying jobs to just get back in. that mechanism is not available now. it's the opposite. they need to get people intojobs. crosstalk. which would drive the economy the people want to come from this, and the kind of economy that would make it more resilient to international pressures. it is a big dilemma. you might find some of the people who opted out of the labour market during covid coming

back into it. do you think they will? they might do. this has been a feature of the covid economy is that people just stopped driving things like cabs and opted out of the economy. they might start to come back in. i think you are absolutely right when you make the china potht— because it isn'tjust that there is this huge shift happening with the war in ukraine, which undoes the global order, you've also got the end of, essentially, a sort of 25—year process or what— of how western economies run. this is — crudely, the globalisation. from globalisation to deglobalisation. going — and they're connected to the ukrainian thing, so you will start to see countries that are allies sticking together, silo, shorter supply, lies of supply... crosstalk. and that disurption, plus inflation, which is something which, you know — i remember going to hear alan greenspan lecture,

you know, nearly 20 years ago, and we lived in that period with the end of inflation, which is something that had been banished. you know, a method had been found where the economy was never too hot, never too cold and that was just the reality. that is now over. i will do one sentence only, i promise you. no, we have time. trade, a bit closer to home? crosstalk. i know it's not and ian diagrees. brexit is another factor that the british economy — it was going to be a seismic shift. everybody acknowledges that it was good to be a big, bit shift. and that is another factor. we have opted not to maintain trade with people closer at home in the same way. so — and i think that is another factor that you might disagree with the shortages in the labour market. and to be fair, some brexiteers were quite candid about this at the time, saying, "look, there would be changes and it "will be a period of transition.

"we think there is a sunnier land ahead, but we don't know "how we can chart the next bit." but this is an added complication, i think, what's happening everywhere else, to how that path looked six years ago. it would be ridiculous for brexiteers — but as some brexiteers do — to not admit that it has created difficulties. it's essentially creating trade barriers. for me, it was never really about that, it was about democratic fundamentals and greater autonomy. i would say it is balanced. i say there is an economic issue, obviously, and the deal needs to be improved, but if you look at two disasters that have happened since brexit, in both of them, covid with vaccines — and i wouldn't wish to overstate this — but with ukraine, but you see evidence there of the benefits of greater national autonomy. a bit of national self—interest. crosstalk. if it's a state of mind in the way of sort of pursuing geopolitics. just one — the issue then is, as an island, if we are seeing this deglobalisation, how best we cope with that? because islands are inevitably dependent for getting things —

people, skills, whatever — from outside. well, i would predict that at some point in the next 5—10 years, the deal is going to need re—examining. britain's going to have to try bring down some of the trade barriers. now, it's very difficult because the labour party will be accused, if it tries that — and i think they are, it is looking at there will be a labour government at some point in the next few years — if they attempt to do that, they'll be accused of trying to reverse brexit. but i think the direction of travel is probably back towards some of renegotiated deal. brief last words, stephanie? what i was going to say is that| rishi sunak is under enormous pressure because of the big i spending, that he is not a true tory, he is not proving that he is a low tax - tory, but one thing - that he can do to try to show that he is different from, say, a labour spending l government is to change the tax system in this country— so that it encourages investment. -

and he did that — took one step towards doing that i with the windfall tax - on oil and gas companies. yes. but there is so much more that he can do to change l the incentive system in the tax system, so that companies - are incentivised to invest. because the country's hadl a terrible problem with low productivity, and that is one of the reasons causing it. i so, he could be bold - and come outwith, you know, of proposals to try to encourage investment. a theme in his autumn budget, i suspect. one would hope. let's see. there you go. well, you heard it here first — a labour government, interestingly, a balanced budget, and, by the way, the end of globalisation on top of everything. what a half—hour. we need another a half—hour! that's it from dateline london. we'll be back at the same time next week. goodbye.

hello. i'm sure it'll be all eyes on the weather forecast this week with the platinum jubilee celebrations just around the corner. the week certainly begins with some heavy showers in the forecast, some spells of sunshine in between, but those showers, driven by this area of low pressure wobbling its way westwards, and that will take up residence across the uk as we head through the next couple of days. it'll be quite a chilly start to the morning across some southern areas, but that's where we'll see the best of the morning sunshine. quite a lot of cloud to start off for scotland and northern ireland with some patchy rain but by the afternoon, we are, essentially, all in the same boat. we'll see some spells of sunshine developing but there will also be some showers, some of which will be heavy and thundery. quite a few showers across parts of southern england, the midlands, east anglia, across this eastern side of england. maybe not as many showers across parts of wales. northern ireland, turning brighter into the afternoon, sunny spells but still scattered showers, and just 12

degrees for belfast, 11 at best in aberdeen, and these heavy showers across scotland will be quite slow moving, given we will have very light winds. now, through monday night, some of the showers will continue. the area of low pressure just sits on top of us and so, the showers just continue to circulate around, and we will see this band of cloud bringing some slightly more persistent rain, perhaps into the far west of scotland. a bit of mist and murk across parts of scotland as well. quite a chilly start again on tuesday morning. it's another sunshine and showers day for most but we will see this area of more persistent rain dropping its way southwards into parts of northern ireland. it may well be that across wales and the south—west by the afternoon, there will be fewer showers and more in the way of sunshine and temperatures will nudge upwards a little — 12 to 18 degrees. increasingly become confined to northern and eastern parts. further west, more in the way of dry weather, some spells of sunshine and again, slightly warmer — 17 to maybe 20 degrees across parts

of the south—east. now, as we head into the long weekend, this area of high pressure will try to settle things down but this little weather front threatens to bring some showers in from the north—west. this low spinning to the south threatens to throw some showers across the channel islands and into southern counties of england so, certainly, there is the chance of a few showers as we head through the weekend. it should often be dry and where we see some sunshine, it will feel relatively warm.

this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm david eades. our top stories. president biden visits texas to meet grieving families after last week's school shooting. thejustice department says it will investigate police delays in confronting the gunman. a first visit to the front line since russia invaded — president zelensky visits and decorates troops in eastern ukraine as intense fighting continues in the region. translation: i'm greatly honoured to be here. - i want to thank each one of you for your great service, for risking your life for our sake, for the sake of our country. heightened tensions injerusalem — with thousands of israeli jewish nationalists marching through the old city's muslim quarter.