this is bbc news, the headlines: the british prime minister has been forced to carry out a reshuffle after two of his most senior ministers resigned over his leadership. the chancellor of the exchequer, rishi sunak, and the health secretary, sajid javid, both said they could no longer support borisjohnson. mr sunak said the public rightly expected the government to be conducted properly. he's been replaced as chancellor with nadhim zahawi, the former education secretary. the leader of the opposition labour party, keir starmer, said the government was now collapsing amid sleaze, scandals and failure. prosecutors in the american state of illinois say the suspect in monday's mass shooting

at a 4th ofjuly parade near chicago has been charged with seven counts of first—degree murder. lake county state's attorney said these were just the first of many charges yet to come. now on bbc news, it's hardtalk with stephen sackur. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. rugby at the grassroots or elite level should be a joyful celebration of athletic prowess. but there is no joy in learning that rugby may be doing irreparable damage to some of the players on the pitch. that may be the case too in other high impact sports like american football. my guests today are steve thompson and his wife steph. he is a former england rugby international who won the world cup in 2003.

he has recently learned that he has early—onset dementia. seemingly linked to years of high impact collisions. what happens when the game simply isn't worth it? steve and steph thompson, welcome to hardtalk. if i may, i want to begin with that moment when you were diagnosed. an elite former sportsman, rugby player, told that you had early—onset dementia. for both of you, i imagine, that was an extraordinary moment. steve, what was your feeling at that time? er, relief, i must admit, at first. so many things had been

going on, i'd changed... so many different things sort of happening in life thatjust didn't seem right. it came to a point, suddenly being tested and that, you sort of go into denial and say no, i'm absolutely fine, there's nothing wrong with me. you do the tests, suddenly, there's a memory test i had to do, and ijust fell apart in the middle, got upset and started crying. that was the moment i thought, "i'm in trouble here." and just after that, it's like guilt. for the first day, wasn't it, it was like, "oh, there's something wrong with me, we can get it fixed." then the reality hits, you can't fix it. it's not necessarily fixable, that's the problem with dementia. and that's when the guilt comes in, towards steph and the kids, i've got them involved in this, and that was the hardest part. steph, how did you deal with that, apart from anything else, the fact that your husband, who married at the tail end

of an extraordinary sporting career has now learned he has a degenerative brain condition which does not have a cure? i wasjust devastated at first, wasn't i? just... didn't believe it at first. it was like, yeah, it makes sense actually. ijust thought i was going to lead you straightaway, didn't i? and then... trying to explain to them, it's not your fault... you just thought it was your fault and you shouldn't have done this to us. we are going to work through it together, aren't we? in a way, steph, it's important to understand from your point of view how steve had changed. and how what we now know is a form of dementia, how it was actually effecting him on a day—to—day basis. what did you see? it started

with the mood swings. and then little things, like he'd forget... little things, and it was like, no, he's stressed, you'd make excuses for why he didn't want to do something. anything that he forgot, it was like, oh, he's forgot because he is under pressure, it's not a big thing. it started really with the mood swings, wasn't it? was it anger? yeah, yeah, some of it was anger. some of it was frustration as well, probably because he knew already before i did that he forgot something. you didn't want to tell me, did you? so he'd hide it, that's when the frustration and the anger would come out. i was convincing you that you were the one going mad... for ages, i thought it was me, am i forgetting things? but no, it was you, wasn't it? at what point, steve, did you make the direct linkage between your changing patterns of behaviour, the fact

you were feeling rubbish a lot of the time, and not remembering things and had the mood swings... at what point did you make the linkage with your rugby career and what you had been through as a player? it wasn't until i got diagnosed and we got talking. i spoke to alix popham, a player i played with when i was in france, played with wales. a great bloke, he phoned me up one time and i was away, working on the water, and he was explaining what he was going through, memory loss, he got out on his bike and forgot where he was. and anger issues and stuff. and he was one of the most laid—back people off the field you'd ever known. i was thinking, you're talking about me, that's exactly what i'm going through. he said perhaps i should get tested. at first it was a bit, "oh, i think i'm alright." and suddenly you think, "i'm not all right, actually," and that's when i went through the testing process. that's only when we link to, when they started saying, "this is why."

it is the sub—concussions, not the big concussions, it's the little concussions have caused this over so many years. working out 80,000—100,000 subconcussions at least. that's been slowly killing off your brain while each one's happening. because we trained a lot. you have written this very frank memoir of what happened to you, and you talk about england training camps. i think you used the phrase �*beasting', that they beasted you. i'm not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds gruelling and rough and tough. what was the mentality? big periods of that, i can't remember, but they were saying, rugby, you should be doing 15 minutes a week of contact training. we were doing two hours a day, sometimes more because you had the morning session and afternoon session. if you lost at the weekend, the defensive coach would go,

"right, you lot are soft," so monday, back in there, tackling drills... it was full on. the real hits and collisions... the difference is you shrink the pictures to make them smaller so there is more contact. you see people going, "oh, the game is going soft, 15 minutes." but when you are doing a tackle drill, they might ask you to be on the ground, one tackle, back, next tackle, back. imagine how many tackles you can do in 15 minutes or contact in 15 minutes, and we were doing it for hours on end, and boys were coming off and training in bits. you were in bits in the game, and suddenly itjust went on and on. and during the week. if you were playing for the second team on a monday night, you could be in northampton and then having to travel to manchester and come back early hours, and suddenly you are told, "right, you are back in with the first team," and full contact again. there is a lot you don't remember about your playing career. do you remember getting knocked out? the concussions, the

serious head injuries? i can remember being knocked out a couple of times. it's like a sense of, you are on the floor, it's like you have an amazing dream, and then suddenly it's like someone put a seashell on your ear, and you come to and you are on the ground and cold... then you sort of dizzying around, or you get the lighter ones where you just get the white lights, so you are not quite right, you're trying to focus, but there is these little white lights that are up there, and you know you're not quite right, you feel like you are sort of stumbling around... they are the sort of lighter ones that you sort of get as well. but the expectation with those is that you carry on playing. there were lads that were knocked unconscious and they get up and running the wrong way, and you see them finishing the games. the likes of lewis moody in an england game one week,

he was all over, couldn't stand up, and he carried on and played in the world cup, and the week after that. i've got to ask you about the world cup. �*cause you are one of the heroes of one of england rugby's, well, its greatest moment, 2003, winning the world cup in the last moments of the game against australia. every england rugby fan will remember it forever. you were part of it. do you remember it? no, not at all. over the last few months, everyone says, "watch this, you must remember that moment." not at all. i don't get goose bumps, i don't get feelings... it's just... i can't even remember being in australia having a coffee. i met up with ben cohen and lewis moody, they were showing me pictures of them, we were in coffee shops together and things like that. there's nothing there, it's just like it never happened. people say, "how do you feel," and stuff? i feel like a phoney. i've said to you a few times, haven't i?

it annoys me a lot about myself, it brought so much to so many people. but i feel like i am rude to people because it'sjust like, no... i don't get any tingling, any happiness about it at all. does it, in a sense, make it seem like your entire rugby career was a waste of time? you can't remember it, and obviously we are making the linkage between what happened on the rugby field to you and what happened to your brain and the injuries that your brain has suffered. does the fact you can't even remember the greatest moment of your career must make it even harder to deal with what rugby did leave you with? people say, like, straight question, "would you do it again?" i wouldn't do it again. i don't understand the... i've said this, some lads saying, "oh, i'm devastated

what i'm putting my family through, i can't believe this is happening to me," and they get asked that question, and like, "yeah, i do it all again." well, you can't be sorry for what you're putting your family through because you would do it again. i wouldn't. do you wish you had never picked up a rugby ball? it's hard to... now, yeah, iwish. i could have done other things as well, had health, and perhaps life would have been different. i wouldn't have met steph and have done this and done that. standing now today, i wouldn't want to be like this, i wouldn't wish this on anyone, the way it has changed life, your life just disappears. so we need to dig a bit deeper in the linkage between the brain injury and the sport. let's just talk about the care and protection that was offered to you as an elite rugby player at the time.

now you reflect back on it, and obviously it's partly about memory, but with you it's about talking to other people as well, do you reckon you were offered real care and protection by your club side and by england rugby? head knocks and that weren't talked about. concussion was talked about, literally, if you were knocked unconscious and you were in an ambulance going off, it meant you couldn't play on because you weren't on the field. if someone got knocked out or they had a bang to the head, it's like, "at least you haven't pulled your hamstring because you can still run." that was the whole scenario, the whole feeling around it. "you haven't pulled a muscle, you have banged your head," you finish games with headaches and stuff like that, it was like, take some pills, have a sleep and see you at training on monday. steph, i'm interested to know if there is anger in you as you have seen steve deteriorate over time.

now you've learned, really, that there is a serious problem with his brain, do you feel that he, as a player, should have had better care and protection offered? yeah, ido. it makes me feel sick. because all these poor men now, having to have their lives ruined, basically. well, it could have been prevented. it should have been. it's not fair, is it? what about the argument that, ultimately, people like steve made a choice, they earned good money, it's a sport, and it was a sport which obviously from the very beginning carried physical risk, and it was all voluntary? i don't think anyone really volunteers to get dementia or lose their memory and has brain damage. i don't think anyone would sign

up for that, really. we knew we were going to get bumps and injuries and stuff like that, but the head was never even talked about. all the lads, everyone has talked about it. that's the way it was. pulling your hamstring, don your knee, people blowing their knee and stuff, they were out for six or nine months. people knocked unconscious and playing the following week. they have onlyjust to change the rules on bat, it was three weeks, years ago, then they changed it to six days. how can someone return to playing after being knocked out of the six days? then after 11 or 12 years, they have changed it back to 12 days. i think it should be longer but we have to take the little wins as we're getting them. but... that's what we've got to try and do. 0bviously there's something in it because they've changed it up to 12 days.

absolutely. it should never have gone down to six days. why were people being allowed to be fit after six days? you can be knocked out on saturday and passed fit the following friday, then you play on the saturday. if someone has a tight hamstring, you are not allowed out to play again because you don't want to injure it even more. how important has it been for you to learn from, for example, what american footballers have done in the united states? they have dug deep into the science, they have launched legal actions against the nfl. in 2015, there was an agreement to make a major payout running into many hundreds of millions of us dollars to former players who had these brain injuries. in soccer, football, there is an ongoing study into the impact of heading. someone yesterday was diagnosed with cte after dying at 44

years old in the american football league. 44 years old, he has died. you are talking about the chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is the diagnosis for a deeply damaged brain, which we can't be sure you've got, and this is a terrible thing to say, but we can't know until you die. i've pledged my brain to the concussion foundation. it's the right thing to do. it's only in an autopsy... it's probable, the way they are looking at the diagnosis, they are quite far ahead in america. symptomatically, you, like these nfl players, look as though parts of your brain have been destroyed or profoundly damaged. it's the sub concussions, they call it, the small concussions.

someone going on your arm and doing that 80,000 times, your arm will still work probably, because it will teach itself how to work over time because it's not happened in one big blow. if it was one big blow, your arm would just go. but doing it over time, our brains have learned to work. when the specialist gave us the diagnosis, wasn't it? he said it was like if you drop an apple, it will still look like an apple, but the inside will be rotten from the damage caused. in the united states, the players and their legal representatives organised, and they have won compensation. they can change the game so to speak. is that a feeling that you and other rugby players now have? you've got to look at it... i don't want to hold out the begging bowl and ask, there are lads with epilepsy. having all different types of symptoms, struggling

to work and their lives change through it. some people not doing what they said they should have done. to be clear, you are one name among many. launching a legal action against english and welsh rugby, world rugby, and you are determined to push for what you would regard as fair compensation. we want to make it safer for future players as well. it's not fair, you can't keep carrying on, future players can't end up... and they are getting younger as well. you could be looking at 20—year—olds in a few years, if it doesn't change... bill beaumont, a very senior figure in world rugby, he said a lot has changed and they are continuing to change. as you have already said to me, they are changing the rules now about when players can come back after a concussion,

a serious head injury. they are looking at other rules changes, may be changing the rules on substitutions, that's an active debate in rugby. they say they are doing all they can to maintain the spirit of rugby, but ensure player safety is put at the top of the agenda. a lot of these changes, when did they start being put into place? when we spoke out and we came out. it was horrendous when we first came out, because people just... some people were thinking we were attacking the sport. we were not attacking the sport, we're trying to make the sport safer. people were just being, you know, disgusting and horrible. calling us selfish. but what i like about it now is the truth is coming out, what's going on. they are changing the rules now because we came out. if i asked you if there is a little part of you that hates rugby, what would you say? hate is a strong word.

you know, it's. .. probably what is better to ask me, would i let by? 'ds play rug my k| no, i wouldn't at the moment. touch rugby? yes. we go down to the junior rugby club? yes, because we love it, the people and the environment around it. do i think it's safe for kids to do tackle rugby? i don't. is there a lot that can still make it safer? yes, that's the truth. i say that to people at the junior clubs. are they changing things now? yes. are people becoming aware of concussion? yes, they are. and that's because alix popham, myself, people really talking out. short we ruined it. because we can't getjobs. struggling. but i love it, like, i walked through the village on the other day and a bloke came up to me and went, steve, thank you so much.

i said, what that war? he said, my son got a knock to the head the other day in the game, he wasn't quite with it, but we thought, he's all right. two years ago, he would have played on. they said, no, bring him off. he had to have three weeks out. he was apparently find the two and a half weeks, and it was only towards the end of the third week that he started showing symptoms. that was him done for the end of the season. otherwise he said, we would have made him play, that would have been another half of rugby and two more games before the brain injury showed. i came back to you, and it sounds weird, but i was buzzing, this is brilliant... that's what i get the goose bumps from. we are helping. a lot of people, down at twickenham, so many people... steve, thanks so much. because the truths coming out now and people are starting

to see what it's for, we are not trying to ruin the game, we are trying to make this game so it can last and go on for ever and young kids can enjoy it. steve, something i read after the book came out was a reviewer who said, actually, this is a very different kind of sports book, and it's one of the most important sports books that's been written for a very long time. not because of the way you described the great games and the sporting achievements, but because of how you describe coming to terms with profound mental illness. and the honesty you have in dealing with that. in a funny sort of way, maybe that is a bigger achievement than winning a world cup. it is, like, a few people have contacted me on linkedin and things like that. they have said, you know, it's not a sports book, really. they said they weren't going to read it because, oh, it's another sports book. but they read it and they're so happy they have, they've

told other family members who don't even like sport to read it, because like you say, it's so much more than a sports book. and that's what i wanted, i wanted to be honest on there. how many people go to a funeral and it's the best person in the world over that has died? it's not true. its warts and all and stuff. i want my kids to have that when i'm not here so they can see everything i went through and know that what i try to install in them now is there as well. steph, it's an amazing thing. you married a guy who was known as a sportsman but he's turned out to be something a lot more. mm. my world, so he'll always be more than a sports person. he's my world, so he'll always be more than a sports person. aren't you? fat old man! he is everything to me. it's been a real pleasure of meeting and talking to you both.

thank you very much for being on hardtalk. hello. we have some warmer weather to come for the uk in the days ahead, notably warmer for england and wales. it was a pretty chilly start to tuesday. it's going to be a much milder start to wednesday. we start as we mean to go on. we've sourced our air around an area of high pressure all the way from close to the azores.

so through the night, we're actually going to be pulling in mild air all the while on a north—westerly breeze behind a warm weather front. and that weather front will bring some quite heavy rainfora time for scotland and then some quite persistent but lighter rain sets in across western scotland for the day on wednesday, perhapsjust fringing into northernmost england as well. northern ireland hopefully brightening up as the day goes on. best of the sunshine will be across england and wales, but 20 degrees in aberdeen is up on the highs that we saw earlier in the week, and i think we'll see 2a, maybe 25 in the south—east of england. very high levels of pollen still across some parts of england and wales, with the cloud and rain at much lower levels for northern and western scotland. it looks like we'll continue with uninterrupted play for wednesday at wimbledon. here, again, temperatures up a little on those earlier in the week. thursday looks like it will offer up another fine day as well. lighter winds on thursday. it's going to be pretty windy wednesday across scotland. we'll have a little bit of a northerly breeze down the east coast. that takes the temperature down for norwich on thursday, but notice there, 25 in cardiff, 26 in london, that warmth building in the sunshine

across england and wales. scotland and northern ireland always losing out to those higher temperatures thanks to thicker cloud. could be quite grey and gloomy around some of the coasts and across the hills. some rain for western scotland on friday. but still we're seeing some of that warmth just pushing up towards belfast, edinburgh and aberdeen, but the really high temperatures, the significantly above average temperatures, are always likely to be further south across england and wales, even on into the weekend. we will see fronts continuing to push towards scotland and northern ireland, so the cloudier skies here, the slightly breezier weather story, some patchy rain, possibly, across western scotland, but temperatures still not too far off the mark, actually, for this time of year. the average is the low 20s. butjust take a look how they soar in response to the sunshine, the light winds across england and wales. i think on sunday, we could see somewhere in eastern england nudging close to 30 degrees.

this is bbc news. i'm sally bundock, with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. can borisjohnson cling to power? britain's prime minister is forced to reshuffle his cabinet after two senior ministers quit. a police operation across europe leads to the arrests of more than 100 people accused of trafficking migrants to britain. us police say the july 4th shooting took weeks to plan and the suspect dressed as a woman to escape. the 2i—year—old's charged with seven counts of murder. and england's lionesses hope for a winning start as the european women's football championship gets under way. hello and welcome.