hello. this is bbc news. the headlines: the man suspected of attacking author sir salman rushdie has been charged with attempted murder and assault. hadi matar, of newjersey, pleaded not guilty. the writer remains on a ventilator in hospital. he's been subject to islamist death threats since 1988 following publication of his novel the satanic verses. french firefighters have been tackling wildfires raging across the country, including a very large blaze near the south—western city of bordeaux. fire crews are exahusted from the unrelenting heat that has driven the worst wildfires for decades. experts say the extreme conditions are being driven by climate change. droughts have been declared in eight areas of england. the environment agency in the uk says that after the driest summer in nearly 50 years, it

would take "weeks�* worth of rain" to replenish water sources, while experts warn england's drought could last into the next year. now on bbc news, dateline london. hello, and welcome to the programme, which brings together leading uk commentators with the foreign correspondents who write, blog, podcast and broadcast from the dateline london. this week, a meeting between boris johnson and the energy companies about the ticking time bomb which is the capping of energy bills. the cap will rise further in october. the meeting achieved nothing.

the british have a government that apparently must wait for action until the conservatives have chosen their leader, the country's next prime minister. there was another meeting which ended without result too, new york's attorney general summoned donald trump to quiz him about his tax affairs. he pleaded the fifth then repeated the words "sa me a nswer" to every question she put to him. the former president, who would be president again, hadn't kept shtum when the fbi had raided his florida home. to discuss those events in the studio with me are eunice goes, a portuguese academic and writer who teaches comparative government. janet daley, born in the united states. a �*60s progressive who by the 1980s was a conservative, now writing a weekly column in the sunday telegraph. and thomas kielinger, who has been a foreign correspondent for german media, including in washington, during the carter and reagan presidencies. he has written biographies of churchill and of both queens elizabeth. lovely to have you all in the studio with us today. let me start with you, eunice, on the question of energy. how busy a summer has it been for governments in continental

europe in terms of trying to address the energy crisis which is upon us and which will loom ever larger as the winter approaches? well, it has been extremely busy managing not only the expectations of voters but also managing the acrimony between member states because of course when there is a crisis then there is going to be a competition for resources. and we saw that with a little bit of blame gaming, southern europe saying a few things to germany in particular, saying a few things about germany's dependency on russian oil. with the spanish government saying, well, we do not live above our means energy—wise. but eventually there is a kind of an agreement to ration or reduce energy consumption by 15% at least. there is that request. and then you also have action at the domestic level. and across europe, european governments have been putting in place packages that involve from cuts to vat

but like drastic cuts on vat to energy bills, subsidies to help families to face those incredible energy bills. in germany, i think they are increasing by five times from what they were last year. there is also plans to ration the use of energy. in spain for instance there are plans to reduce the temperature at which buildings should be. so kind of a more efficient and clever way of using energy. and i think everyone is praying that the winter will be somewhat mild, so that we don't use overcapacity. there is also the whole issue around ensuring that europe has enough supply. that was a very big concern because 12 member states essentially were cut out almost, in some cases completely, of the supply of gas from russia. so now they're getting it from other sources. and i think reserves are at the moment around 70% of what it should be, the normal... trying to build them up

before the winter hits? before the winter hits. so we are getting there but the situation is very dire. in france, for instance, it has a lot of nuclear energy. nuclear power stations are now closed down, they are in maintenance because, well, they were not sufficiently maintained during the pandemic. and of course drought conditions, heat waves and so on do not help for the maintenance of those energy. so it has been very, very, very busy. even for the italian government, which was simultaneously collapsing as it was trying to work out this deal. yes. because of course the situation is very, very dire for italian voters. the dilemma that we have in britain for many families, eating or heating. it is something that many european households are facing too. and italy, the situation is particularly dire because it has been 20 years of economic stagnation. we have 10 million italian... we have 10% of the italian population living below the poverty line, so the situation has

been extremely hard. so the energy crisis was a kind of a trigger for the collapse of the draghi government because they were seeing that not enough support was been given to families. and of course these are populist, right—wing parties that of course want to create instability, to create, to trigger a new election. and now they are poised to win the forthcoming italian election. janet, there was a headline in one newspaper in the uk on friday, pm turns up for meeting. yes! that was a joke. give us a bit of context for that! well, i can't honestly see what the point was of that meeting because boris is now a lame duck prime minister. he admits that he has no political and moral authority, so why did he have the meeting? i mean, one hopes that in the back channels, you know, there are plans in whitehall, there are plans going on. but the plans that can be offered are pretty makeshift.

i mean, nobody actually has an answer to this problem in the short and medium term. and, as you say, it is bringing into light all the political problems that have been nascent in all these european countries. italy doesn't have a government at all for all intents and purposes. macron is absolutely paralysed between the far—right and far—left. yes. the german government is in a rather sticky coalition and all of these problems have suddenly come into sharp focus when there is a crisis. and it is an odd sort of crisis because governments themselves can be blamed for not making the preparation that was necessary, for not seeing this possibility coming. unlike a war, for which your own government can't be blamed. sure. so they are going to carry the can and the risk is that populist parties will benefit from this. it is easy in a sense to create a kind of rhetorical blame for the present government, insinuation that the interests of ordinary people, especially the poorer elements of ordinary

people, have not been considered. you can make a really sort of impressive populist platform and we could end up with some really dire consequences. i mean, this could be, you know, the analogy with weimar germany. i mean, when there is a crisis and people can't eat or they can't heat their homes, they are going to perhaps do nasty things, led by people who are quite unscrupulous enough to exploit that situation. thomas, that fear always is at the back of minds in germany isn't it because of 20th—century history? yes. but in terms of how germany is approaching this at the moment, they are at least having a debate about rationing. they're having a debate about it and i doubt - whether this dire picture that janet is painting might- actually come to pass. because even alternative - parties on the right and those parties that you describe, they know fully well - that the crisis before us almost insoluble. |

in fact, i am reminded - of what the queen is supposed to have said to borisjohnson when he came to ask for her| permission to be prime minister. i she is supposed to have said, and he himself circulated this| remark of hers. "i wonder how anyone can - want to be prime minister these "days? " and that was only 2019. | this is far more difficult. and the accumulation of these i problems have led to some very welcome rethinking about policy in the energy sector because, i i mean, the sins of the merkeli era are coming home to roost. our dependency and the allies are rubbing it in. _ they don't need to rub it in, we know it fully well! - it has led to the most i astonishing about turns in people's thinking. fortunately, germany has a large gas reserve. - we have 75 capacity, which is good. - germans are traditionally good savers! _ of money or energy! but that will not tie . them over the winter. so we are hoping also i

that the winter may not be too stark. sorry, it's worth bearing in mind that the united states is energy self—sufficient and they've still got a problem and it's because the price of the commodity has gone through the roof. even if you have all the stores and all the capacity stored up, you still have a problem dealing with the present price of the commodity because of world demand. yeah, curiously that is aiding the current people in power. because people understand what a hard situation - that they find. and we need to come to our senses to really allow- ourselves a bit of patience, a bit of, you know, - understanding - that it takes time. for the new prime| minister in britain. and it will lead, in europe, to a new reckoning in terms of economic policies because the subsidising of energy prices, you know, from price caps to the cutting of vat and so on, this will have an impact on national budgets. subsidising energy, all the things we wag our finger at when we see it in latin america or in sub—saharan africa.

but it's happening. we say governments shouldn't do this, it is appalling. but in europe, governments have been subsidising energy for companies and for private consumers because it's essentially unsurmountable. also, something must be done about the profit levels of some of these companies. but we have just had two years of governments subsidising everything. in this country... through the covid pandemic? yes. i mean, the economies of the west were put into induced comas and governments printed money to create the wealth that would have been created in the real economy. now that in itself is a very dangerous situation and if you're going to add to that additional subsidising of energy through money printing, because that is the only way that you can do it, it is a terrifying prospect because money, the currencies are going to become ludicrous. they're going to become valueless, like the old ostmark. you're so right. in what you say. i have a biggerfearl and that is about the relationship with russia. people might be beginning to understand, well, - is it a good idea to- continually support ukraine in their fight with russia? i mean, the mother of all

destructions is the war. in ukraine and i'm worried| about the consensus in my country, which is still holding firm about... j but will it hold through the winter? the sacrifices we have to make. if they all claim that this - is due to this war in ukraine, people might begin to - politically change their mind. i hope not. because russia is in danger of economic collapse. if people actually do find... just wait a little longer, . it will collapse, hopefully. yeah, but if we, if western countries find alternative sources of energy then the oil and gas which are russia's only exports, russia's only income... we'll be less dependent on it. well, they will go down the pan. janet, ijust want to pick up on what you were saying about the concerns about covid and putting the economy into deep freeze and printing money and so on. does that mean that you think probably liz truss is on the right ground when she says, look, i'm going to rely on cutting taxes and growing the economy? i'm not prepared... you're smiling away! even despite the kinds

of pressures that voters are under. is that going to hold very long? well, i can tell you that raising taxes at a time of a cost—of—living crisis is notjust politically stupid, it is evil. people are going to be wondering whether they can afford to heat their homes, whether they can afford to eat three meals a day, whether they can afford to feed their children. that is not the time to raise tax. but by the same token- you can say lowering taxes, as she is suggesting, - is not going to put money in their pockets - to pay for the bills. well, it will leave you more of your disposable income... yeah, but not enough. ..if you're not losing it in tax. but she is not actually talking about, apart from corporation tax and vat, she's not talking about lowering taxes. she is talking about not raising them, which is what rishi sunak is suggesting. the national insurance rise... or reversing the cut that is coming on national insurance. yes, the national insurance rise, she was going to cancel. does it engender enough capital to pay for the bills? _ no, it doesn't engender enough but the point is, if you take even more money out of people's take—home pay...

well, of course, yeah. ..that is wicked. rishi sunak has a different approach. he wrote an article on friday saying he is going to effectively, he is prepared to subsidise the entire additional cost of energy bills, which is quite something to hear a conservative former chancellor say. and a thatcherite. is itjust desperation? somebody who started his political career claiming to be a thatcherite. who has nigel lawson's portrait... had nigel lawson's portrait in his office when he was chancellor. i think he is essentially trying to make, kind of, distinguish himself from liz truss in the hope that he will sound more sensible than her. but i think it is going to be, i think he is so behind the conservative, liz truss, in terms of leadership contest that he has no chance, unless something terrible happens. but he's not saying that in response to what liz truss was saying. he was the one who instituted the rise in the national insurance contribution and she is saying she would reverse it. that was his idea.

and those of us, some of us, commentators criticised him at the time for kind of gordon brown economics. but he did not do gordon brown economics, janet. no, no, but hang on, let me make the point. he is not saying what he is saying in response to what she is saying. he was the one who started it and she is saying that she would counter his policy. what he's trying to do is try to come up as somebody who understands economics, as opposed to the solutions of liz truss. well, i'm sorry... cutting taxes to sort the cost of living crisis. she's not... 13% inflation. yeah, but... that's the inflation you're going to have in october. all right, let me go back to your figure about inflation. taxes in this country are now at the highest they have been for 70 years. now, that is a figure to reckon with. and i cannot see how, faced with a cost of living crisis and faced with the energy crisis, you could consider, even consider putting up direct taxation. let me just end that thought on just observing exactly what was being said earlier in this discussion.

energy doesn't appear to be very fashionable for politicians out of a crisis. i can remember talking to the then—energy minister in the brown government, in the early part of the century, telling me we've really got to do something about gas storage. how does that look now? let's move on and talk about donald trump. janet, we have had three significant legal moves, you could say four actually with the intervention of merrick garland, the attorney general, saying he is prepared to actually release the details of the warrant and why they were searching mar—a—lago in florida. what do you make of the week's events between donald trump and the law? well, everything in donald trump's presidency was unprecedented, from the moment that he arrived for his inaugural address waving his fists in the air like a tinpot dictator, to the moment that he refused to accept the normal transition of government from one elected government to another. to the moment that he cheered on an army of people ransacking the capitol. i mean, none of this, including the arrival of armed

fbi officers at his home, has any precedent in american, in modern american history. it is absolutely staggering. now, it sounds as if, i never bought the theory that the fbi and the department ofjustice were doing some sort of vengeful attack at the behest of the biden government. that was absurd, they would never take such a risk because if nothing else it would canonise him and his followers are like a religious cult, so that would not be a very clever thing to do. so clearly they had something specific in mind. and it seems now, they're hinting that the documents that they're searching for involve nuclear classified information, which it would be very, very serious if he was holding those in his private, in his own private property. and it is particularly ironic that he attacked hillary clinton repeatedly for using a private e—mail address to do government business and implied that she was risking classified information by doing this on a private e—mail server. and do you remember the chant "lock her up"? yes. i mean, now, and he used

to say terrible things about the people who took the fifth amendment. the fifth amendment is a guarantee by the constitution that you will not have to incriminate yourself. he just took the fifth amendment god knows how many times in this four—hour session he had with the attorney general in new york. you wonder what it would take to dent the following, the faithful. but i'm sure, on the hardcore faithful, trump faithful, this will have no impact, just as nothing had any impact. and they won't believe whatever evidence is produced. but i am dying to see the evidence that is produced. both sides feeling energised ahead of the midterms, eunice. you have got the democrats thinking roe v wade will allow them to win some independents, who will be unhappy with the effect, we say it no longer has a precedent to guarantee abortion rights in every state of the union. and you've got republicans, in a sense, kind of fired up by this attack on trump, which, conveniently for mr trump, has forced a lot of prominent

republicans to kind of rally to his cause again. i'm not sure that both parties have reasons to be happy for those very same reasons. the republicans on the one hand, i don't think an association with donald trump is quite excellent for the republican base because of course, as janet mentioned earlier, the followers of donald trump, it is a cult but they are not the majority of the republican voters. and they will need to attract moderate republican voters in order to win an election. and for other republicans to be re—elected in the mid—term november elections. so that association with donald trump and in particular with his unlawful, his complete neglect and disrespect for the rule of law because that is essentially what it is, for the presidential office. because that is essentially what is. when all these discussions around nuclear power and nuclear weapons programme information that he was holding in mar—a—lago are starting

to be discussed more widely, a lot of sensible voters will be quite worried and they will not think that it is a good reason to support him. the democrats on the other hand, it is not clear either that they will make wins out of the roe versus wade. because the opinions there are very volatile. we saw for instance in kansas there was a referendum which, to everyone's surprise, the referendum on guaranteeing... the protection remains in the state constitution, yeah. but in many other republican states, the situation has become much, much harder. what i think will help the democrats is the inflation reduction act that has been signed, is about to be voted in congress. because this was going to put money into people's pockets. this is a good story for democrats to go to the mid—term november elections. so much so that lots of republican senators supported the bill.

and so that is i think what is going to help democrats. but ultimately, both the parties are in deep trouble. there are some plausible alternatives to trump. ron desantis, you know. the governor of florida, yeah, if he gets re—elected. even mike pence conceivably. there are people who are on the right of the party, politically, who can attract for sound principled reasons those republicans, those sort of right wing republicans. but the democrats, who are they going to choose? biden cannot possibly run again. and his vice president, kamala harris, is a complete disaster. so she would normally be the inheritor, the vice president. so who are the democrats going to propose? let me bring thomas in because you watched a beleaguered democrat administration in an energy crisis. do you feel when you look at biden it isjimmy carter all over again? not really because the two periods are so different. i yeah. carter had the oil crisis, j which was the prevailing problem of the 705.

and that compared to - the multiplicity of the crisis that we face nowadays - is chicken feed as it were. what i think, and i come back to what janet said, | when you add all these things which are in balance - in america, i think- donald trump is the one accident that i wishedl had never happened in american history. yes, yes. he has really completely upset the apple cart. - he has ceased traditions of political behaviour- which were still in place under reagan and have completely i fallen by the wayside. and it is such a disastrously divided nation now that - i grieve for the country that i used to love - for its stability that i we used to look up to. yes, they had their problems. but ronald reagan and so forth, but trump, the degree of his otherness as it l were is frightening. the thing is, it could only happen if the culture war was there. i mean, he didn't come out of nowhere and he could not have been elected if that

terrible schizophrenic sort of cultural... and he doesn't have a creed that you can propose - to the people as - something to follow... he doesn't even understand the constitution. he knows nothing about america. i don't understand that. he went to a very good private school. i went to a perfectly ordinary american high school. i had to learn the constitution. i don't understand how somebody with his background, coming from his family, can manage to be quite so ignorant about the political culture that he is supposed to be presiding over. it is astonishing. let me end, we've got about a minute each for you to pose a thought for us on other stories. eunice first. about a minute on the pressing issue of, the british are talking about and europeans too, drought. drought, yes. i think it is a growing concern. every year gets worse. now it is france, southern europe, portugal and spain have faced drought for many years. every summer there is a very agonising debate in the iberian peninsula about what we are going to do

to tackle drought. there is the wildfires because this essentially half the country is on fire because of those drought conditions. now it is france and we are seeing now in northern europe. and this is climate change and we still have a lot of governments, including in this country, in denialism about what to do to face climate change. we had the contender to become the prime minister in the united kingdom complaining this week about solar panels at a time when there is energy shortages and that is essentially the things that you need to do to prevent these drought conditions. it is very, very serious. thomas, let's talk about realism in politics and the position of the greens in germany. well, it is something to do with what people think- the invasion of ukraine has benefited our thinking - in the west. i know it is a bit immoral- to think about it when you look

at the suffering of. the ukrainian people. but the turnaround in current international history has - brought some good changes of opinion and inward - introspection and rethinking. amongst them i would count the greens as the most as it| were beneficiaries of the situation. l they have begun to say goodbye to some of their beloved sort. of creeds and what have you. sacred cows and so on. green, wanting to painti the world green virtually in every aspect of the word. and they're now having to learn the reality of how you deal- with the crisis when - you are in government. and they are in government, which is a huge challenge - for a party which used to thrive on protest i and protest marches and so forth. - janet, last thought on globalisation. can you sum up the threat. yes, one of the situations we have learnt from that situation, the dependence on russian energy, the dependence on cheap manufactured goods from china is that maybe globalisation has hit a wall. that the idea after the cold war that we were all friends now, we were all relatively

democratic, free societies, not china, could somehow reach accommodation with each other and trade goods for everybody's interests, that is over. and we now realise with china's threat to taiwan and hong kong that it is not a great idea to be buying all our cheap manufactured goods from china and it is certainly not a great idea to be dependent on russia for energy. janet daley, eunice goes, thomas kielinger, thank you all very much. i mentioned that headline with borisjohnson in the paper from friday saying "pm attends meeting." it reminds me of a headline from the 1930s, when ramsay macdonald had been prime ministerfor many years and was so fond of trying to achieve international peace that it is said that there was an english newspaper headline prime minister visits country. i hope you'll visit dateline again next weekend. from all of us, goodbye.

hello. the heat will be easing in the week ahead. there will be more showers in the forecast as well but in the short—term we have the met office amber warning for extreme heat in places, valid until the end of the day on sunday. still likely to see some impacts from the heat on both health and transport as well. a good deal of sunshine around through sunday morning, showers developing though across northern ireland, pushing their way through the day up into parts of scotland, likely to be heavy and thunderly. through sunday night and into monday morning, more showers activity pushing across into scotland, into parts of

northern england, wales and south—west england. further south and east mainly dry, another muggy night with parts of southern england not seeing temperatures lower than 20. in the week ahead, the temperatures do start to ease as an increasing chance of many of us will see showers.

hello. welcome to bbc news. i'm simon pusey. our top stories: the man suspected of stabbing author salman rushdie pleads not guilty to attempted murder and assault. fires, drought and heatwaves — we report from france, where exhausted firecrews have spent weeks battling wildfires. the ground around me is smoking. there's smouldering embers here which very easily can be whipped up into yet another fire. hello. the man accused of stabbing

the author sir salman rushdie has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault.