borisjohnson has boris johnson has been borisjohnson has been to kyiv. mr johnson and president zelensky also discussed weapons supplies and further economic support for ukraine. police in brazil have confirmed that the remains of one of the two body is found in a remote part of the amazon rainforest is that of the missing british journalist dom phillips. it's understood he was identified using dental records. parts of europe are

on heatwave alert, outdoor public events have been banned in an area of france, spain, italy and the uk have experienced high temperatures. those are the headlines. at ten o'clock, huw edwards will be here with a full round up of the days news. first, it's newscast. hello, i'm the studio. i should accet hello, i'm the studio. i should accept i'm _ hello, i'm the studio. i should accept i'm growing _ hello, i'm the studio. i should accept i'm growing a - hello, i'm the studio. i should i accept i'm growing a moustache because i— accept i'm growing a moustache because i didn't mention it last week — because i didn't mention it last week. , �* because i didn't mention it last week-_ no. - because i didn't mention it last week-_ no. it - because i didn't mention it last - week._ no, it unfolded. week. didn't you? no, it unfolded. yet another— week. didn't you? no, it unfolded. yet another benefit _ week. didn't you? no, it unfolded. yet another benefit of _ week. didn't you? no, it unfolded. yet another benefit of listening - week. didn't you? no, it unfolded. yet another benefit of listening on | yet another benefit of listening on bbc sounds. it yet another benefit of listening on bbc sounde— yet another benefit of listening on . bbc sounds._ you bbc sounds. it sounds the same. you not a bit bbc sounds. it sounds the same. you got a bit sweaty _ bbc sounds. it sounds the same. you got a bit sweaty in — bbc sounds. it sounds the same. you got a bit sweaty in the _ bbc sounds. it sounds the same. you got a bit sweaty in the heat. - bbc sounds. it sounds the same. you got a bit sweaty in the heat. really i got a bit sweaty in the heat. really swea , got a bit sweaty in the heat. really sweaty. my tip _ got a bit sweaty in the heat. really sweaty. my tip is — got a bit sweaty in the heat. really sweaty, my tip is not _ got a bit sweaty in the heat. really sweaty, my tip is not to _ got a bit sweaty in the heat. really sweaty, my tip is not to grow - got a bit sweaty in the heat. really sweaty, my tip is not to grow a - sweaty, my tip is not to grow a moustache during a pre—heatwave. that's enough about me. the news.

moore has emerged about the resignation of lord geidt who was the prime minister but my independent adviser on the ministerial code. vicki, you have been following the story on the news and we've learned more about what was going on, we think, so we'll come to that in a second but chris, for people for whom the ministerial code is not an important part of their life, like it is, for us. why is it such an important thing, the ministerial code, and what does the independent adviser do, why is this such an important figure? well, it matters because it kind of sets out the rules, | the conventions about how ministers, including - the prime minister, should go about theirjob and overseen. by an independent adviser who looks at, when askedj by the prime minister, - the behaviour of a particular minister to determine - whether or not they were in breach of that code. but ultimately, it comes back to the prime minister- to determine whether or not someone remains in office l or not, and that really gets to the heart of all of these

tensions — not least. because in the essence of the exchanges that we've seen between the outgoingl standards ethics adviser and the prime minister, j needless to say, he was rather — the adviser — i rather keen- on the importance of the ministerial code| and it's his view was that the prime minister was much less so, - and we saw that at the end - of may when, when we saw that lord geidt really didn't - like the idea that the prime minister hadn't outwardly, until that point, said - that the ministerial code mattered, in his view — i borisjohnson's view — he hadn't breached it when he was fined over. the whole partygate thing. and we've seen it in these i letters of in these exchanges of letters following i lord geidt's resignation. yeah. and that's the thing that's happened today, because vicki, when we were doing the last episode of newscast — which is available on bbc sounds, the news broke in the middle of us having a chat about something else and we both were just like, "whoa!" and stopped talking about that and started talking about this. and then as chris was saying, today, we got the release of the letters that went between lord geidt resigning and borisjohnson saying, "ok, thanks, bye". and this is where we've learned a bit more about what was going on. so, if you look at lord geidt�*s letter, he says:

what do we know about what the government's intention was? well, this is what's so strange because when we talked last night, we said, "well, what has happened between him "giving evidence to those mps where he was asked "about resigning? "what's happened between that and now?" and although we have a little bit more of a clue, it's not entirely clear but it does seem to be about a trade issue. it seems to be about the government's desire to basically extend tariffs on — we think, but we don't know for sure — steel imports to protect british industry. now, the question is, does that potentially break international rules — trade rules? and if it does, is that breaking potentially the ministerial code or not? so, it's a slightly odd one, actually, probably not the answer we would have come up with when we discussed it yesterday because, of course, the other things have all been

a bit easier to understand about the prime minister's behaviour. there's also a discrepancy i between what he — lord geidt — is saying in this letter about i what were the government's, to an extent, pre—ordained intentions around all- of this— and what those in number 10 are saying where they're saying "no, we merely asked i for "his guidance on something | that we are contemplating". and there's clearly a sense from some in number 10 l that they feel he was looking for a pretext to resign, - having 24 hours previously said to the prime minister he wants| to carry on until at least christmas. . well, and let's see what borisjohnson�*s letter to lord geidt then said, because there's a hint of that there. he wrote: that's the clue that it's to do about tariffs on imports of chinese steel. then the pm goes on: and then there's a later bit in the letter where he sort of hints that maybe lord geidt was finding the pressure of the job a little

bit too much. so, that's. .. the problem, is because whatever conversation they may or may not have had — and because we weren't in the room and we don't know about that — you just don't know what it is still, that actually prompted lord geidt to go finally, because if it's the case, he was simply asked his advice, well, why would that prompt you to leave unless you thought that maybe your advice might be ignored. because it's more of a sort of straw that broke the camel's back sort of thing. it said in the letter| that it was hanging on bya margin, wasn't it? so it was maybe just the last thing. nina, as a businessjournalist, it must be great seeing the trade remedies authority name up in lights! i know all about it, obviously. so in terms of what the government's been saying about it today, we've got the letter from the prime minister and it was simon clark, the chief secretary to the treasury — he's been on newscast a few times — who had to front up to the cameras and he said there was nothing to see here, basically. obviously, we thank lord geidt for his work and we're sorry i to see him go. i think it's very important i to reaffirm that this appears to be a decision connected to a very specific tasking l that the prime minister asked

lord geidt to undertake - in regard to support for british industry. that is not connected in any. way to a personal ethics issue and i think it's importantl that's widely understood. hmm. although three quarters of the letter was actually about all the other stuff and not about the steel stuff. yes. now, this is actually not the first prime ministerials adviser to resign. the previous one resigned to was sir alex allan. and he doesn't do a lot of interviews, but because he listens to newscast, he came in and spoke to us. you do many interviews on apart from this being an amazing podcast you wanted to be on, why did you feel the urge to speak out? i felt upset that christopher geidt, who was a very honourable man, had been put in a position where he felt he had no option but to resign. i've known him for many years and he is a dedicated public servant, a man with lots of integrity and he wouldn't have taken

this decision lightly. it's very sad that it has come to this. can you help decode his letter because it's written in a very kind of behind the scenes operator kind of way. what does he really mean? well, i don't know the details but i mean, it's clear that he was asked to advise on something which, as he said in his letter, would have involved deliberate breaches of the ministerial code and he felt that put him in what he described as an impossible and odious position. and it was something that he just could not live with. as somebody who has worked in this world, that word odious, that is a pretty nuclear word, isn't it? yes, absolutely, which shows the strength of his feeling and think this was the final straw coming on top of, for example, his concerns about the fact that the prime minister had not said anything about the ministerial code in all of his explanations of the partygate saga. of course, this is not the first time this has happened, lord geidt's

predecessor resigned, and that of course was you, so you have your own personal experience of working in this role. did you share lord geidt's frustration with what has been going on? in my case, it was slightly different in that there was a considerable investigation in the cabinet office and they did a lot of work and produced a very long report which i then advised on and advised the home secretary had breached the ministerial code and the prime minister said, "no, she hasn't" and ifelt well, if the prime minister will reject the advice of his adviser, there was nothing for me to do but resign. there's a bit of speculation that lord geidt may be was finding the role a bit difficult or the public scrutiny of the role a bit difficult and the prime minister, in his letter to him, sort of hints at that. what do you make of that? i don't know — i thought he handled the constitutional affairs hearing pretty well.

i mean, it was honestly not easy for him but he played a pretty straight bat and as i understand it, that hearing wasn't the reason he resigned or pushed him over the edge — it was much more the combination of the issues around the partygate and the aftermath of that and then, this particular issue about ministers — potentially at any rate, deliberately breaching the code. did you and lord geidt swap stories over the past few weeks and months? "how is it going for you?" i have been in contact with him, mainly to offer him support, but he's been grateful for but hasn't needed it particularly. and i have been in contact with him since he resigned, to say, you know, "i think you were right to stand up "for your principles". how is he doing on a personal level — not to breach

your private conversations with him? i didn't get the impression he was feeling it particularly. i think he found the actual issues this week quite stressful. but as i said, he is a man of great integrity and would inevitably have found it very difficult to get in a position where he had no option but to resign. do you think borisjohnson is a man of integrity? i'm not going to answer that! as you say, this is about the personal behaviour of the prime minister — that's not something you had to deal with — so this does take it to a different level, doesn't it, which means there is more scrutiny. there was more attention on lord geidt. so are you surprised we are in this position, notjust once but a number of times now that the prime minister's personal behaviour is being scrutinised in this way? one of the things lord geidt

has said is how difficult it is for an adviser to advise on the prime minister's conduct because, as he put it, there is a sort of circularity there, where he can advise that the prime minister breached the code, the prime minister says he didn't and therefore, the advisor has to resign. it is a sort of circularity which means, for example, lord geidt did not want to actually rule on the issue around the breaching of the law with the fixed penalty notices and asked the prime minister to explain — which he did in his letter back to lord geidt. but the public will look at this and make that point. in the end, it's not an independent process, the prime minister is effectively marking his own homework, so the system itself is failing? there are real problems with the system. it is not that easy to work out what to do.

i mean, i do think it is important that the prime minister has the ultimate right to decide who his ministers are. i mean, i think to get in a position where somebody else says "no, somebody must be sacked" or something like that is very difficult, but no, there are obviously issues. and i think one of the things that has made sense in the latest version of the ministerial code is the issue of graduated sanctions. so, it is not that every breach of the code automatically means a minister has to resign. there's apologies and suspension and fines and so on. which that makes a lot of sense. some of the things in the ministerial code like, i don't know, lobbying for lottery funds projects in your constituency — i mean, if you breached that, it's hard to see that is a resignation issue necessarily. so, i do think...

and i quite often see that the reason i resigned was because the prime minister would not sack priti patel. i mean, that's not the case. i put my view to the prime minister that the home secretary had breached the ministerial code. it was then up to the prime minister to what decisions he took as a result of it. the issue for me is he rejected the advice that she had breached the code and it wasn't that he hadn't sacked her or anything — that was entirely up to him. do you think priti patel is a bully or was a bully? i think that the — as i set out in my advice — i think she had, in some of what she did, bullied some of her staff and i did also set out a lot of mitigating factors, like it had not been brought to her attention, there were sort of — she did get frustrated

sometimes with some of the staff in the department. and the other bit was that since it was brought to her attention, she had taken note of it. so, i set out some mitigating factors but i did think actually, the evidence was there that she had bullied some staff. there are lots of tory mps who say to us that they are worried the prime minister is tarnishing notjust his own reputation but that of the government and the conservative party and also institutions, the actual office of prime minister. are you worried that this pattern of behaviour — and we pointed out that you resigned and lord geidt has resigned — that it is dragging down that office? there have been quite a lot of issues. i mean, there were, for example, there was the original attempt to overturn the ruling about the committee on standards rulings,

there have been a number of issues like that which, rightly, cause concern that issues around standards in public life need to be reaffirmed. is borisjohnson capable of doing that process? i'm sure he's capable of doing it. it's whether he wants to. we will have to see. who is doing the job next? will you offer to go back? i will not offer to go back! it will be hard and i gather the cabinet office are talking about re—casting of the role, and who knows exactly what they mean by that or what will emerge. i think it's — clearly it took them five months to find a successor to me, to find lord geidt. i don't know —— i saw chris mason saying something last night hat he wandered up and down whitehall and didn't see

a queue of applicants and i think that's very true! the ministerial code, those of us in westminster, we know bits of it off by heart? we know how important it is but i wonder if the country as a whole gets just what a key document it is. so can you give us a quick summary of why this document is so important. it has a long history, it grew out of something that was just called procedures for ministers i think in 1945 but the core bit of it is the standards that are expected of ministers. as you say, in my case, it was investigating an allegation of bullying. partly some members of the public will say ministers should not have to be told the right way to behave. it should be pretty obvious you don't bully people or that — you uphold the law. it should be obvious but i think it's quite helpful to have it set out clearly in a single document. you are still relying on those

people to do the right thing? oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah. did you have a nice bound copy or is itjust a normal printed copy? or an online copy! i'm not a great fan of printing things out. i had a spell as the e—envoy at the moment. you a big fan of the grateful dead? i am, i first saw them 50 years ago when they toured europe and i've been to every concert they have played in the uk since then. what is your favourite song? i think ripple has to be my favourite song. i will listen to that on the way home! and there is a myth that during a rail strike you surfed to work one day. sort of! my neighbour did some freelance work for the evening standard and he and i were having a beer before a rail strike and hit upon the idea that it could be fun to do this and he got his editor to agree to hiring a boat.

there was absolutely no wind. i hired a bowler hat and jacket and striped trousers — the image of what a civil servant should look like — and a rolled umbrella but there was little wind so he had to two me all the way from putney to westminster! and i sailed up and down for a bit while he took photos. and i said, "would you like me to fall in?" and he said, "yes, please, do so!" one, two, three, jump and i flopped backwards into the thames and got quite a big splash in the evening standard and he got a staffjob as a result! this is what you could do on the next rail strike! on tuesday! the bowler hat and moustache would go perfectly. thank you very much for coming in and it is a privilege to hear your thoughts on all this. you don't share them that often. no, but i'm a huge fan of newsnight. newscast! i'm so sorry!

first thing in the morning i take my puppy for a walk and listen to the previous night's newscast. i have been a big fan every since brexitcast. laura kuenssberg was here she would want to know the name of the puppy and what kind of breed it is. it is a cockapoodle called cassie after a grateful dead song called cassidy. wow. i'm sure you will be listening to yourself tomorrow morning! i will have to see. and any potential headlines from the interview! thank you very much. he looks really fed up but when you look at the interview, you think about lord geidt, you joked about carrying around the ministerial code, but think about the by—election is coming up, when i'm out and about, if i showed someone a picture of lord geidt,

people don't know. do people care or how much do you think next week will be a test of whether this matters? i have this thing i've said it before, there is a genre i of westminster story about a bloke of that is a bloke i you've never heard of resigning from a job you didn't _ know he had. existed. there is a bit of that in this, and i was conscious of this i when you hear from alex allan. but it's back in the headlines again after a week when he i moved on to policy stuff. a lot of people go like that. this, it feeds into the pattern of behaviour ponder there is a lot of talk about people moving on from all that. i think on that, people have moved on but they have not forgotten it. they made up their minds, made a decision and they are thinking about other things which we will come onto, but i don't think it means they have forgotten it, or forgiven it necessarily. business journalists like yourself have had a busy day because interest rates have

gone up to 1.25% which compared to many years before, it seems really high. it seems high, the highest since 2009. it's not that high but the fact it has been incremental leap going up since december, and i remember being in darlingtonjust before covid broke and interest rates drop 20.i%, hoping we would all start spending because the economy seem to be slowing down with the fear of this virus — you might not have heard of. at the moment, we know inflation is at 9%, predictions it will go up to io%, ii%. the idea is increase interest rates, look at our bank accounts and say, i don't want to spend too much because credit is expensive and i don't want to get into more debt and if i save i'm making it up so it slows down from spending. but we can charge a bit more because they are buying at the moment but were not buying. the reason inflation is high is because of scarcesity of resources,

gas and electricity getting higher, war, momentum from the pandemic, and we are not out there doing that so it's a bit of a gamble. and what businesses have been saying it's really bad timing for us and borrowing is the last thing we have in terms of making money, take new people on, make new products, investing in r&d. is a bit of a gamble from the bank of england. how long does it feed in, in theory, to bring down inflation? especially when it is 0.25%. it's not significant enough for people to really feel it overnight on their mortgages or credit cards. it will only have a slow and incremental effect point what happens in the meantime and it is something we have talked about is the impact on wages. if you are in the private sector at the moment, a lot of businesses are looking out towards talent and saying, we have to offer big bonuses.

i heard last week about graduates and the first year in business getting £10,000 handshakes in order to retain them and at the same time, you have public sector workers, that we stood on the doorsteps and clapped for earning 2% increases in their salaries and the chancellor is saying we are listening and work hard for people employed by the state but at the same time, we have seen this exodus of really skilled people from the public sector because they look at their bank account and saying i can't cope on this salary. loads of things to ask but i wondered what you feel, chris, you do you feel you have become political editors in the 1970s or 80s?! looks like there are loads of strikes on the horizon, a huge rail and underground one on tuesday next week and it's about people not being paid enough. exactly that and you have seen the political row i between the conservatives. and labour on that and then you have the government. wrestling with what they do. and we have seen with these big interventions from - the chancellor in the last five or six months, with colossall amounts of public injection l of cash but a fear from some

of the first one and the fuelj duty cut, didn't really touch the sides in terms of what i people notice because prices overtook it straight away. what we are going to get, | perhaps in the next couple of weeks or months before i the summer is the government trying, it won't be easy, i but to kind of set some sort of framework, economically, perhaps hearing from - the prime minister or- chancellor in the next few weeks, some kind of guiding principle about what is that i will drive them between now and christmas or the next 12| months. and doing that when the two people who would write the economic policy don't seem to be on the same page always. this is it because there are rumours about tax cuts being part of the stimulation of the economy but would that be the right answer when the public deficit is so high? do businesses share that critique of the government? chris says he hears from inside the government that it's not a big story about how they are managing the economy. businesses like certainty and they want to know something in the next two years or five

years or ten years conduct the business as i have spoken to have said and recognised the support mechanism in place over covid. they were really helpful and supportive but they feel slightly as though the net has been taken from beneath them and the biggest issue facing people at the moment is vacancies, they can't get talent. we heard on tuesday that there were 1.3 million vacancies at the moment, there aren't enough job—seekers to fill the jobs out there. and that affects your business. that is the problem, if you run a pub, shop, and you are having to squeeze your hours, your capacity to make money isn't there and that is the biggest concern, getting bums on seats. nina, you are part of the bbc doing one of these big days on friday looking at an issue which is the cost of living. we have done some research, talking to thousands of people about how they are feeling the squeeze, a bit of a cliche but the kind of decisions they are having to take in order to make sure they can survive and with some people it's a case of survival and for some on full—time

employment you might have to people in the house in fulltime employment struggling to get by point that a specific bit that looks at the impact on mental health which has been really interesting and quite significant. lovely to see you all. thanks for watching and listening, we will be back soon. bye bye. hello again. it was the hottest day of the year so far, temperatures earlier in the day reached 33 celsius in suffolk. clear blue skies here and across much of england and wales as well but not like that everywhere. we did have some low cloud, some mist and fog rolling

towards the southern coast of wales and south—west england and as the murk rolled in temperatures came down. it was quite a gloomy afternoon for a few of you. after such a warm day, where it was warm, temperatures very slow to fall. still about midnight, 2a degrees in london, 22 in norwich, fresher conditions across the north west and for many it's a dry night but a weak weather front will bring an odd spot of rain and they will be showers in the north—west scotland. saturday, the north—west scotland. saturday, the weather front still on the chance, not bringing much rain initially but it gets reactivated. outbreaks of rain turning heavier perhaps with thunder spreading across wales, the midlands and eastern england. still hot towards the south—east of england but otherwise fresher weather for many.

tonight at ten, yet another record high for prices of petrol and diesel, as the cost of living crisis takes its toll. as prices increase sharply, stretching the budget in millions of households, the advice from government is not to demand big pay rises. what we can't do is have unrealistic expectations around pay, which do in turn prolong and intensify this inflation problem. but a new bbc survey suggests the vast majority of people are increasingly worried about the cost of living. myself and my partner, we work full time. i thought i would never have to worry about, you know, food. but that's my main worry every day right now. we'll have more findings from the survey, which suggests many people are skipping meals to save money. also tonight...