hello and welcome to the programme which brings together leading british journalists with foreign correspondents based in the uk who write, blog, podcast and broadcast from the dateline london. ballot papers will be sent out in the coming week to the 160,000 or so people who will, in effect, choose the next british prime minister. the candidate debates have not been without incident — the host of one brought it to an abrupt end by fainting. has it sent our panel to sleep? has europe yet woken up to the prospect of energy rationing this winter? and are the democrats slumbering whilst donald trump is back, thundering?

here in the studio are... the french author and journalist, agnes poirier and adam raphael, who has been commentating on british politics since the 1970s. and jef mcallister, an american lawyer, who was london bureau chief for time magazine. thank you very much for being with us. adam, let's start with the british conservative leadership contest. in effect the beauty contest for britain's next prime minister. it's been 1 on 1, blue on blue in some of the attacks. how revealing or interesting has it been? well, it's an odd election as you rightly pointed out.

0nly 160,000 in the electorate, we think anyway, nobody knows what the conservative membership is. 97% are white, half live in london or the south—east, half are over 65, i know i'm even older than that, but there you go. itjust is not a representative election. there are 1a million conservative votes in the last election. you have this tiny number who actually decide not only who the party leader should be, who the prime minister should be. so it's odd. and the other odd thing about it, is the election is also over before it is begun. you've got liz truss, she so far ahead of rishi sunak that unless there is some incredible stumble along the way, which is possible but unlikely, she's going to have an even bigger majority than borisjohnson had over hunt at the last election, jeremy hunt. these debates i find rather demeaning because they are just really contest for bidding up for votes. neither are discussing policies seriously. neither actually acknowledging the seriousness of the situation in the country finds itself in. they arejust bidding for this 160,000 votes.

rishi sunak in particular is very much on the defensive. he knows he's far, far behind. so unless there is some amazing strike or revelation about liz truss and i'm not about to reveal that here, this is over. that is happened before with mrs may before, with her leadership election. these things tend to get decided very early and indeed the conservative membership to their credit, they vote early. yes, vote early vote often is the old joke, isn't it? you know there is a tendency candidates to pitch to the activist —based and therefore we had a lot of the old tune, taxation, margaret thatcher, immigration, not terribly surprising do you feel any sense of confidence that these candidates whoever wins will actually realise the way you win votes in the party may not be the way you secure your

premiership when you are facing the public and almost certain to face an election at most into your premiership when you are facing the public and almost certain to face an election at most in two years on? this is of course the hypothesis of the centrist voter and the need to appoint to appeal to the centre, which is the traditional way that parties you get in and retain power. it's been a little jumbled up both in the us and in the uk in the last years. the republicans in the us going very much for the base, polarisation, don't really try to make a pitch for the centre. there is a whiff of that in ourjohnson estate in power, going hard right on brexit, insisting how his mps have fealty to him if they didn't vote for him they got kicked out and they did things against the constitution. and he didn't really seem to pay much of a political price because labour was so disorganised underjeremy corbyn. now with the opposition that does seem to have a pulse, although it doesn't have that kind of inevitability that somehow tony blair had 15 years ago

of a young man who knew what he was doing and had the sole system going with them, it doesn't feel like it's quite caught on the air. it doesn't feel like it's quite caught on there. but they'd better play for the centre because the labour party is 13 points ahead in the polls now. even though the ones who brought them, the conservatives are so used to doing that now they may not know how to appeal to the centre very easily, there can have to do it if they're going to win. yes. just across the channel we see a president beleaguered because he lost his parliamentary majority. whoever becomes prime minister of britain has the security of a big parliamentary majority, that might be deceptive in terms of their power and the ability to get things done. it's difficult to compare the two countries because we have a presidential system, you have a parliamentary one. to think that 160,000 or so people are choosing the next prime minister, it's interesting we are talking about primaries because this

is something the french political parties did. first, internally, but then they opened it in 2011 to all citizens. it was quite extraordinary. so you don't have to be a party member? you needed to actually say the first to do it was the left in 2011. and it was such a success. they said, ok, everybody who embrace, you need to sign something saying 'i'm embracing' basically. 97% of the world population will be able to say yes. it was something like, do you embrace liberty, equality, fraternity? and people were really excited to be asked their opinion because they were doing it for the good of their country even if they didn't belong to the left. did it make for more electable candidates? no. laughter

but now it's interesting when you are talking about appealing to the centrist. the tory party has changed so much in the last few years. it used to be a very broad church. there is no centrist left in the tory party. there used to be the party of a realist party but now it's a party of fairy tales. tory members only want to be told fairy tales, you need to be a believer or not a realist. so rishi sunak who isjust saying look, ithink would be responsible, there is inflation so therefore i will lower tax. but in a second phase he seen as a socialist, not seen as a hard realist and all they want is liz truss to say, i will lower taxes.

but they also want something in the opposite. they want more investment in public services, lower taxes. more help with fuel bills or things like that. boris johnson called it cakeism, i believe! having your cake and eating it. it's really sad. listening to you both i think, oh, i'm a bit ashamed actually that we should be having a leadership contest like this for a major party. it is actually disastrous for the conservative party to be on display like this, taking lumps out of each other in a totally unrealistic way. this is not the best of the conservative party. the conservative party is a great party, has a huge history and will revert in time to what it has been. i think a lot to blame is borisjohnson. he promoted a lot of really inferior people to his cabinet, he chopped off a lot of the very best brains in the party. and you're quite right, it is no longer a party of the centre, it is moved to the far right. the danger for liz truss is that all her backers are on the far right or most of her backers are on the far right. she does have some centrist backers but most of them,

are far right and i hope they're not reflected in the cabinet, because if they are, the party will move further and further away from the electorate as a whole. but they are not going to stay powerful long, i think. in power for long, i think. there's quite a comfortable margin. look, wait for the winter when a lot of people suffer from the cold, inflation. i don't disagree. i don't think brexit is going to undo them in the end although brexit will also show its real face, even though they don't want to see it. but wait for the winter. let's talk about the winter in terms of the energy crisis. we saw this week a few measures in germany, measures in germany. hanover, ithink, is turning off the hot water. if you go to use the pool and shower afterwards it's going to be a cold shower in public baths. it's a small measure but symbolic. do you think europeans, whether in the uk or the continent

have yet grasped how difficult a winter in terms of energy, particularly gas supplies, is going to be? i think we will phase it in a few months' time when we all have by government to agree to lower all the buildings will have to do that. the schools, the swimming pools as you were saying, but for us here around this table it will be just one or 2 degrees less in our homes. but for a lot of people it be much worse than that. there are already strikes, discontent, there is inflation which in the uk is made much worse by brexit. of course we all suffer from inflation but it's worse in the uk. and recession is looming and we're not there yet. this is how the government in the late 705 here felt. that's why i think reality and the end will have the upper hand. this tory government will fall. also liz truss and boris johnson

as seen from paris, berlin and brussels is the same. jef, the mention of the late 1970s, you live through the energy crisis in the state. yes i did, i'm that old. i wasn't going to say that. as a mature and experienced journalist and observer, other any lessons at all for most britons? it was a pretty horrible one for americans and jimmy carter who left soon afterwards. and joe biden is facing more. he's desperately trying to find of keeping the price of fuel for cars and other vehicles down. it's a lot more complicated. it is. it's inflation, it's all the supply chain problems, it's ukraine. there are lots of headwinds in the economy. interestingly, the average price of gasoline has gone down, a0 cents a gallon in the last month. all the republicans talking about how this is the beginning of

the end for him. is the beginning of the end for him, now they have something else to talk about now. saw this in the carter era with higher energy prices leading to stagflation, high interest rates i remember my wife's grandfather had a significant deposit that paid him 18% because that was what you can get in the bank for in interest rate in those days. but you had to pay 30% for a mortgage. the whole thing was a mess and it just took the steam out ofjimmy carter. 0n the other hand, it was the first big effort to get conservation and alternative energy sources into the infrastructure system. it had long—term positive consequences but i thinkjoe biden of course has to be worried. joe mentioned a west virginia senator who allowed a big bill to go through, a stimulus bill, health care, energy which was a surprise. it's been a no man's land for the last two years. yes, all this talk that democrats can't do anything, are all lost.

but, actually, their numbers are getting better in the polls. the republicans have picked some very strange senate candidates who are trump—fealty type people. it may not be as awful for biden yet. it could be if everybody gets cold and miserable in the wintertime. there is some very striking things about this when jef talks about energy conservation. because germany has made some peculiar decisions of the last two years for the gas prom was suddenly going to do maintenance work on ignored stream one, the surviving gas line which is mysteriously reduced 20% of what it would normally be put germans are 50% reliant on gas from russia. their nuclear power stations are due to ship in december.

they banned fracking even though they used it quite happily, but banned it under the merkel government. they've kind of put themselves in the worst possible position. i suppose they have. ijust come back to britain all the time on this because this autumn, people are going to be faced with really horrendous price increases in their energy and even worse injanuary, another price—cap raise. so at that stage the government is going to have to intervene in a major way. i think agnes is quite right, most people can survive perfectly well, 80% of the population will survive pretty well. at about 20% cannot and will actually seriously either be short of food or be cold and really dangerous conditions. any government right, left, centre, any thing will have to intervene at that point. and i don't think people quite realise the degree of intervention is necessary. and the degree of mutualisation. what is going to have to happen is 80% who may be suffering a bit

and always borderline on these things are going to have to support that 20%. they're totally ill—prepared at the moment. i really didn't answer your question because i wasn't capable of doing so. it's interesting to see how different countries reacts also, the picture in europe is so diverse. that's why there was this agreement at least, it's not mandatory, it's not compulsory for the 15%. if you look at austria, it's dependent 100% on russian gas and spain, none at all. so of course there will be national opt outs. it's interesting to see, a law was passed back in december orjanuary in france to cap energy prices by 4%. for households, not companies. so they will pay the full price. and there will be packages, governments will need to help people. also france has nationalised or is about to nationalise edf. in order to help through the crisis,

all utilities and a lot of it, utilities going under and effectively government having to step in and support the companies and move people across to other suppliers. and big suppliers. to the big suppliers. butjef, when you look at the situation, russia is sitting pretty at the moment. oil is a problem for it. it can't afford to be not selling oil and it's found lots of imaginative ways to get around sanctions to sell oil. but gas only represents 2% of its gdp. it can turn off all the guess if it wanted to and europe will pay was up is done it with a number of european countries, a hefty price. it's done it with a number of european countries, and a few in ukraine. the solution to this for europe to take longer than the amount of time available to get to the winter to change energy infrastructure, natural gas building, you need to build terminals and more ships. it's there, you can do more

windmills, you could do lots of things but it will take two to four years to get that done. i think this is putin's game forthem in the meantime, the money he's getting for the oil that is selling isjust as much is what he was getting before even though they were sanctions because the price gone up. so he's able to shield the economy from some of the effects of sanctions. it doesn't mean it's all rosy for him, of course. a lot of the tech sanctions are apparently affecting industrial and weapons production. in particular, they can't get the chips to do the fancy stuff they need to do to fight effectively. i think he figures wait long enough, maybe it will cause disruption in germany and france and england and america and maybe trump comes back again. his buddy in the white house. everybody will be able to turn off the pressure. i think it's going to be more difficult than he certainly thought

he was getting into when he got started in ukraine. i'm glad you mentioned ukraine because i was struck by a quote from the german foreign minister who asked, what happens if gas is cut off this winter and she said we won't be able to provide any support for ukraine at all because we will be busy with popular uprising. well, that's the thing. it's going to test and challenge european unity on ukraine. you could argue it's two different things. we need to send weapons and make sure that ukraine is fast tracked to become a member of the european union. but look at italy. their leader is going and he was really instrumental in convincing business leaders in italy to back sanctions because italy's political clout... and also in france as you say,

president emmanuel macron doesn't have the absolute majority or even the majority at the national assembly. and it's stuck between a very potent far right, far left for them and they have in common a lot among others to be very lenient on russia. so if politics change then macron is in difficulty because in berlin the german chancellor is trying to findm — the german chancellor is trying to find...his marks. if he goes he's quite alone. he said something interesting, it was during a trip in africa in the last few days. he said that putin was waging a new world war, a hybrid world war made of weaponizing food and energy and he talked about in imperialistic continental war. this is putin?

this is macron on putin. and popular unity for supporting ukraine because i do think it be tested by this? it will be tested by this? because people think our energy is more expensive because of russia's sanctions therefore if we take pressure off at your bills will drop. it's as simplistic argument. what liz truss has been saying, i think she recognised that johnson did very well by the support of ukraine. and it's deeply embedded there. so i can't really see any future conservative leader dodging that. the rhetoric will always be pro—ukraine. as for the gas, in the end it's a world price which decides this. it's not as though some country is cut off altogether, everyone will be paying a world

price and the world price dictates huge leaps, astronomic sums being paid for the gas. actually, it isn't really a cut off point, it'sjust a matter of how much you're willing to pay for gas supply. gas at the moment for the winter is running at seven times the long—term trend, which is pretty frightening. one final thing to talk about, donald trump back in washington this week. i wonder, what is the dilemma for the us government about how it handles donald trump? is it contemplating the possibility of charging him in some way for his alleged involvement in the january the sixth riot last year? the newspapers are well informed and saying that the justice department is actually investigating him as well as the underlings in the january six riots. i have been an addict of the congressional hearings on the subject, i have to say. when you look at them and they say of course, they don't have cross examination, some procedural difficulties but it's an extremely careful explication of the evidence.

lovingly and very carefully laid out and told mostly by republicans in donald trump's inner circle. and there is no doubt that he knew that he did not get reelected that he did not get re—elected and he was determined to hold onto power and use all sorts of chicanery to do it. and that is sedition. it is a criminal act. he did try to interfere with the congressional session by having the rioters go, knowing that they were going, summoning them to washington, saying he was going with them and not doing anything when mike pence was calling for help and came very close to running into the crowd, could've gotten killed. lots of people could've been killed, it was terribly dangerous. so this is the dilemma, it has to be a political decision, you can't charge a crime of the former sitting president when you are the current sitting president. going into an election. of course it's political. but you can't do it, also if it's

just going to be a throw away, i'm mad at you and going try to throw some charges which we see in other countries do to its former leaders. i think this is the dilemma for biden who doesn't like this stuff. he wants to be a forward—looking moderate for them and his attorney general, very moderate, very by the bookjustice department lifer. this is the most agonising decision they can possibly take and they're going to have to get a damn lot of evidence or knowing can disagree with it except trump's core supporters who will always disagree with it. gerald ford faced this dilemma. although it did a lot of damage, he pardoned richard nixon, his immediate predecessor from the same party. and he made the distinction

between the man and the office. in other words, what he might not have liked the man and what he'd done but it was more important to protect the credibility of the office. in a sense the dilemma is the same now, isn't it? i supposed to some extent it is. 0n the other hand, there is a rule of law. if someone has committed high crimes and misdemeanors as trump appears to have done and the evidence is really... likejef, i'm a total addict to the hearings, the evidence is overwhelming that he has committed criminal acts. now whether a jury and judge will find out that he is guilty of them all or not but the evidence is there, sufficient to charge them. i suppose coming from the british tradition with politics is not meant to enter into judicial decisions, i think he should be charged in the interest of a law—abiding country. america is a country of laws. and that's what he should be charged and i hope that particular nettle... ..and i realise how difficult a decision it is for an american president to do, but i think the rule of law should take precedence.

we've got less than one minute left. the risk i suppose is if he were to win the case, it would even more strengthen his campaign. yes, true. but the evidence seems to be devastating. and the cause ofjustice should run. i was fascinated by liz cheney who is the vice chair. also the former us vice president. she had a fantastic point in having dozens of republicans making the case against a republican. it means that it's not democrats against republicans. ten seconds, jef. will biden be the democratic candidate? will trump be the republican candidate? i'm beginning to think no on trump because polling is showing people are getting tired of him. a lot of democrats are tired of biden but i don't think he wants to go anywhere. thank you all very much. thank you all.

more dateline next week. bye— bye. is, today after to morning's allowed the afternoon is looking brighter, some sunny spells developing as we go into the evening. there is the chance of a few showers were still close by to wembley by the time we

get to kick off, we will now have... still a humid feel on the pitch. things will turn a dryer here, if there are any showers around, those showers mainly across eastern england, but they will ease through tonight. central western areas, and afresh than last night, especially in the west, glasgow city centre, 7 degrees, in the rural parts of scotland, north—west england could down to about four or five celsius. at any site for many here, eastern parts of england, starts cloudy, but brightening up comic sunny afternoon to come, in the west, that sunshine, tony went through northern ireland and by the evening, that rain into the south—west of scotland, and western areas of wales, 1890 degrees at the highs, but warm in the centre and further east, we have lost a humid feel but it still feels quite pleasant. a feel returns as we go through none monday night. dragging up through none monday night. dragging up the airfrom through none monday night. dragging up the air from the mid—atlantic a lot of cloud around, outbreaks of rain and drizzle, quite extensive to start tuesday. not much rain in the

southernmost counties but we will continue with some damp conditions, tuesday afternoon. most places will feel pretty muggy, temperate as climbing to the mid to high 20s. through the second of the week, weather fronts will sweep away a lot of the flat, high—pressure starting to build its way in, still a few showers around, for many, we are looking at a dryer second half of the week with a lot more sunshine, so very dry in the south, but here turning a bit fresh.

i'm martine croxall at wembley — the headlines in the uk and around the world. england's lionesses will attempt to make history later — when they take on germany in the final of the european championship — and they've been receiving some royal support we both want to wish the lionesses the best of luck for tonight. you've done amazingly well in the competition and we are rooting for you all the way. good luck, i hope you win. bye. i'm lukwesa burak in the studio — the rest of your headlines from the uk and around the world. the two candidates to be british prime minister set out new promises on health and education. ukraine's president, volodymyr zelensky, has reiterated the order for residents of the donetsk region to evacuate as soon as possible.

authorities in kentucky say 25 people are now known to have died,