this is bbc world news. the headlines... the ukrainian president, volodymyr zelensky, has clarified remarks in which he appeared to call on international allies to make "pre—emptive strikes" on russia to stop moscow using nuclear weapons. this year's nobel peace prize has been jointly awarded to three human rights champions — the belarusian activist ales bialiatski, the banned russian rights group memorial and the ukrainian centre for civil liberties. ales bialiatski is currently imprisoned in belarus. the king of thailand has visited survivors of a knife and gun attack in which 36 people were killed on thursday. in a rare interaction with the public, he met the victims being treated in hospital. five months after a mass shooting that claimed the lives of 19 students in texas,

the school district in uvalde has suspended its entire police force responsible for campus security. at ten o'clock, reeta chakrabarti will be here with a full round—up of the day's news. first, newscast. newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello. it's chris in the streets in south london. james cook, scotland editor, here in the studio. and it's alex forsyth, also in the studio. so, chris, you are currently in a street, but you've just come back from the labour and conservative conferences. i'm amazed you're still standing, albeit in a street. i mean, how were they? what was your take on the whole thing? it's a little smidgeon, alex, of domestic kind of decompression between two of the conferences, labour and conservative, and then the snp, which i'm heading to tomorrow.

and then there's still the tuc, the trades union congress, rearranged after the mourning period to come, a little after that. how were they? they were both extraordinary and for completely opposite reasons. so, labour was extraordinary and newsworthy because it was kind of quite serene, really. and it was a party that was upbeat. there weren't sort of fires breaking out in the corners or fights breaking out in the corner, political fights, which in the last few years at labour, frankly, there have been, frequently, and the conservatives' was extraordinary for the opposite reason, which is that there were kind of political scraps breaking out very visibly in public. and then the kind of briefing that was going on in private, from senior figures down, was also volcanic as well. so, you have a conservative party, which to put it at its gentlest, is not at ease with itself at the moment, with a new prime minister and a new cabinet, and you have labourfeeling upbeat and chipper and

beginning to believe, in fact really believing, that they can win the next general election despite losing the last one by a margin as great as, you have to go back the best part of a century, 1935, their last performance as bad as the one in 2019. so, extraordinary conference season so far. and it's not over yet. i mean, it certainly looked extraordinary cos i was out and about doing this round—the—country thing where you're speaking to voters and you're kind of watching it all unfold. chris, i've actually been talking to a couple of your colleagues/rivals in the friendliest sense. so, we had beth rigby from sky news and robert peston from itv, who were also at the conservative and labour conferences doing the circuit. and you missed out on a brilliant chat with them that we had a little earlier. so sad you couldn'tjoin it, chris, but have a listen. this is what they had to say. i'm shattered, but i'm trying to get energy off beth here, who is literally fizzing. i'm fizzing cos i've just recorded... . i've just been doing telly stuff today, so i'm all fizzing, - but i'll probablyjust sort of drop in a heap when i get home. - is that like adrenaline,

just nervous energy, exhausting? well, i've probably got post—show torpor because mine was last night. and, james, yours is still to come. it's not mine as such. yeah, well, you're the one at which you will play a significant role. exactly. the snp's conference is just about to happen. i'm going to take a train from here in london up to aberdeen tomorrow. very early for that and quite an interesting time which we will come on to later. but i mean, you are veterans of the conference circuit. from watching them from afar, because i was doing the roving reporter what—do—people—make—of—it thing around the country, and when you are sort of looking at them, i was thinking, god, these actually feel like really significant conferences for both parties, particularly compared to recent years. but what were your takeaways? one things that was quite striking about this labour conference is actually it was not only less divided than those conferences during the corbyn years or indeed the previous year, but actually it was less divided than during the blair years in opposition, cos people forget that although blair was a spectacularly

successful leader, i mean, there was a lot of opposition, even from what would now be thought of as the relative centre ground of the party, to what he was doing. so, the discipline at labour, not only, not only the desire to win and the confidence, but the discipline was extraordinary. another little kind _ of "from the notebook" as well was, another shadow cabinet minister said to me, "i have been doing this- for years out of power, just grinding it out- in shadow cabinet, not - being able to make policies, working really hard, just in opposition."| and they said, "i cannot do| another term in opposition. and i think the thing - is is that now the hope of, like, it didn't look... 2019, 80—seat conservative majority, borisjohnson, - like, completely dominant, - you just thought this is a two—term programme for labour. and i think now because they,

they can see it in their grasp, | they're so worried that they're - going to mess it up or throw it away that i think it's really- concentrating the minds. and it was it was astonishing to me or, not astonishing, _ but it really stuck in my mind. | i thought the conservatives are, j you know, infighting and divided and split and almost, like, in disarray when they are i the party of government and then . the party of opposition are suddenly unified and really organised as if they are, or would be, | the party of government. and it was such a contrast. so, has everybody written off the possibility that liz truss's strategy of trying to restructure the economy and generate growth might work? i mean, does no one think that's going to work? even at the tory conference? 0k. so, look. we live... and we have done for a few years in astonishingly volatile times. and, you know, if you just look at the most astonishing number of both political and economic events of recent years,

the past has not been the guide to the future that it always has been, but nonetheless, she has an astonishing mountain to climb when, you know, when you have a debut as chaotic as that, you know, when you fall behind in the polls to that extent, when millions of british people are currently both angry at what they thought was an unnecessary and unfair £2 billion giveaway to the wealthy that you've had to reverse, when they are holding her personally responsible for mortgage rates soaring and a possible housing market crash, i mean, these are pretty big negatives to overcome. now, let's be absolutely clear, and i'm sure beth would take the same view, of course i'm not saying it's impossible for her to win in these circumstances, but what i am saying is it's astonishingly difficult.

it's fundamentally dependent on growth, though, isn't it? i mean, she's staked everything on that, hasn't she? yeah, one really senior tory who's | not a fan of liz truss, i must say, | i was talking to them about exactly this and they said politics - is always about chance. don't write anything off. they said they thought it was sort of 3—1 on that labour— would win the election. but there is, therefore this senior conservative who's i been around a long time, was saying there's - a chance of recovery. and actually, when you talk to cabinet ministers, and l i'm sure you had this, - robert, as well, what they were saying was there have been some | mistakes in how we've done this| or presented this or because we're going at speed because we need . to get the programme out there, because then we need _ to bring the growth before the general election. - and there are people, i and some might say that clutching at straws, - that think that the growth could come through. her growth policies might bring the economy out of recession l earlier than the bank-

of england was anticipating. well, i think... there is a slim chance, . you know, so, you know, and i have long stopped trying to predict what will happen. i i suppose it's the point you made earlier, beth, about if you look where borisjohnson was in 2019, when people were going, this guy's got an 80—seat majority, and you think we're now what kind of three years down the line? and things have changed so dramatically. so, if i said to you a year ago, - borisjohnson is going to be ousted by the conservative party, you would've said... - actually, bizarrely, my christmas prediction that year, a year ago, was that he would be ousted and i was wrong by about three months, unfortunately. we have the visionary in the room?! that's notjust the moment when things were all right. but anyway, let's put us to one side. but the point you're making is nonetheless completely correct that on the night... you know, i remember in the itv studio on the night of the election

saying to tom bradby, you know, it's quite clear the tories have got ten years. right? and so, it's back to my original point. you know, we live in, a time where what you would normally accept as a given based on past history no longer is as certain as it was. but that doesn't mean... i mean, look, here's, i just want to sort of also just sort of pick up on what you were saying about, you know, how important growth is to her. look, the economy's flatlining at the moment. she's got a whole range of fairly controversial policies that may or may not boost the growth rate. if you want a mark of, you talked about clutching at straws the way that cabinet ministers are clutching at straws, one of them said to me, look, the thing is, ok, it was a car crash, that mini budget. interest rates up, mortgage rates up. housing market looks as though it's going into a slump. but because of global interest rates, actually the interest rates were going to go up. they would've gone up a bit later, maybe a bit less.

and all that's happened is that the housing market slump has been brought forward. and actually, with two years to go before the election, it's better for us to have the crash now than in nine months because if it happens in nine months, then no chance of winning the next election. but if we have the crash now, maybe in two years' time we'll be through it. i just want to get your thoughts on something that one of our newscasters sent in. have a little listen to this, which came from matt. dear newscast, did you notice that in her speech, liz truss alluded . to margaret thatcher, _ the iron lady, when she said she was holding the economy in an iron fist. and later she said, wrong, wrong, wrong in the same way that - margaret thatcher used to say. "no, no, no." i mean, it was... it was, you know, she does i mean, people who denigrate her, you know, describe it as a bit of cosplay. i thought it worked, actually.

truthfully, the people in the hall loved it. and, you know, these things are always about theatre. i mean, the best bit of theater was obviously, you know, greenpeace, who did her an enormous favour by basically getting the crowd on her side. i'm sure greenpeace didn't mean to whip up support for her, but that's what they did. but i also just think - with this thatcher analogy, the most famous phrase that springs to mind for me is, "the lady's- not for turning, yeah? " that's what you think about, because it's this projection l of determination and strength. and i think that the fact - she was turned by the party on the abolition of the 45p top rate of tax for the top 1% of earners, i the fact she had to u—turn on that, you can use all the language - and the rhetoric that you want, the truth of the matter is, - if she cannot corral her party| to back her in the commons, then as prime minister she's going to be quite limited - in what she can do in the next period of time that she leads. j

but isn't part of the problem for her that there are basically two conservative parties now anyway? there's a small—state libertarian conservative party and a levelling—up red wall conservative party. i mean, isn't that fundamentally the challenge? and there was one one senior conservative that said to me, j they don't much like her small—state i libertarian party, but there's a big i band of them that don't like it and can keep her in check- in what she is doing, _ ie that through the backbenches they can organise in order to limit her version- of conservatism, of which many of them don't like. _ look, it's been conspicuous that, you know, she didn't want to take advice. they didn't listen to the office of budget responsibility. they rejected any analysis by them, which because theyjust didn't want to hear any negatives about what they were planning to do, they sacked... kwasi kwarteng and sacked the chief, excuse me, the permanent secretary of the treasury, tom scholar, again, because he thought he'd probably

give him advice that he didn't want to hear. they were just so determined to get these tax cuts through. but i would say, and this is a sort of sort of slight counterpoint to what beth was saying, that over many years, her opponents have underestimated her. right? and, you know, i mean, you know, let's be absolutely clear. she did really badly in the first round, for example, of the parliamentary vote. she may have only ended up with about a third of mps supporting her, but she got through to the final round and she basically humiliated rishi sunak within a couple of weeks. but... i just... but all the way along her career, basically, particularly men, have underestimated her and mostly she's seen them all off. so, i'm not saying, however, that she isn't now in the deepest hole any prime minister has ever been in, because i do think she's basically in the deepest hole any prime minister has ever been in. but she is a... you know, she's a formidable person, formidable. and when i interviewed her, you interviewed her, you know, i mean, let's be clear.

you know, i was amazed... you know, she wasn't... it wasn't the most brilliant performance by a prime minister, you know, in an interview. but, you know, you wouldn't believe that she'd just had the worst week of her entire political life, which she had. it doesn't come across, does it? she doesn't seem to show that? she's incredibly resilient, and i do admire that. - how was she? her resilient is quite astonishing. it's astonishing. how was she off—camera, without giving away anything confidential? but, you know, how was she? she was, you know, i've known liz for quite a long time _ because she was a new mp i when i firstjoined the lobby. so i knew her as a backbencher. you know, i knew her when she was doing the free enterprise... - like, all she's doing — - all the things she's doing now doesn't surprise me. this is the stuff she was talking to me about in 2011, 2012. - i would say that she seemed... i mean, i don't see her much off—camera, like, we... - but i mean, evenjust before and after, you know,

you get those little hints as you start or end an interview, don't you? she's always... she's always quite upbeat, isn't she? and she'sjolly... she's jolly. and fun. one of the things that... she laughs, and she's... she's quite personable in private and much more personable than you would think, just based on some of her interviews. actually, in the old days, and i don't know if she was like that with you in otherjobs, but in the old days, in interviews, she was a bit of a laugh and she took the odd risk. yes... but i think she's currently got the sort of cares of office on her shoulders, and she's finding all of this a bit... as you would. i mean, even her instagram's calm down. now she's become prime minister, it's become a bit more serious. robert, but you couldn't come because you had your show, . but we went to new york and we — and chris did as well — _ like we all did an interview, her first interview, - up the empire state building. and even from that interview two iweeks ago to the one i did this. week, she has changed. so, in the first one i did, - she did answer the questions.

she did answer the questions. i mean, i had to push hera bit, - but she would answer the questions. in this one, she would not answer the questions. - and what she did, it's a classic technique, . was you answer a different question or you divert and you just do not. answer the question. and i wondered whether that is a kind of fallout of... _ it's what they all do, it's what they all do when they're under pressure. i mean, you remember, i mean, you know, theresa may was the absolute master of it. you could ask any number of different questions. you know, about the weather or cooking and you just got back whatever it was. you know, like a rolodex — question, brexit... - hmm... find your answer. ..that one, and then the answerjust came out and i was like, _ that wasn't quite the question. quick final thought from both of you. i mean, going into this conference and coming out of it, did keir starmer, did liz truss go in weaker or stronger and how did they come out the other side? they laugh. i can't believe you're asking that question! i'm doing one of those things, though, where i want you to answer it. you can't go through your rolodex!

no, no. but i mean, we've already answered it. i don't mean between each other, i mean, so did keir starmer go into this conference season weaker and come out stronger or vice versa? yeah... and what about truss, because there are some people who say, actually, she pulled it back. at the end, didn't she stabilise things with her speech at the end, a bit? so, i think she... ok, the way i did it in my piece was i said she didn't come outl of the speech any weaker than she'd gone in. - right? | but in terms of the conference, | she definitely came out weaker. and the reasons i would give for that was... - the massive u—... she predicated this whole - premiership, her premiership, on the fact that she was going to stick to her goal. _ she said to me at the top, - "i am prepared to be unpopular, to follow my policies. i'm going to follow this through. i am the lady not for turning." i mean, the mail and the express, two key backers of her, _ on sunday night into monday morning splashed on the fact she was not - going to turn on that policy. and they pulled it overnight, l

and they turned on that policy. and that, for a prime - minister, that is trouble. and there's a... and also the rebel alliance kind i of burst forth in that michael gove on laura's show on sundayl wasjust astonishing, right? and then set the whole tone. and there's just one related point. when mps, and in this case ministers, get a taste of publicly not following the leader's line, it's incredibly, you know, basically, you're liberated. once you've basically said, "i don't want to do that," and you've got away with it. penny mordaunt said got to put up benefits by the 10% rate of inflation. i asked liz truss, i said, "are you going to sack her?" she laughed at the idea she could sack penny mordaunt. and so once you know that as a minister or an mp, you can basically dissent with anything the prime minister is saying and get away with it, it's very hard. you know, we all like expressing ourselves. actually following the party line is really dull, but it's much more fun to be

a rebel, right? and she willjust... she will really struggle to re—impose discipline, even if these people know in their hearts that a disunited party is a party that loses an election. so it's very difficult to argue that she came out of... the piece... certainly the speech stabilised things a bit, but it stabilised things, shall we say, at a pretty low base for her. 0k. thank you so much for coming in after the conference season. i'm glad to see that you're both still standing. i hope you get a bit of a rest. after... i should be clear, after labour and conservative conferences, not after conference season. there's more to come. there's more to come for you. still more to come. so, chris, really interesting that wasn't it? really interesting to hear your rivals, as you say, rivals, friendly rivals' views. and i was interested to hear their behind—the—scenes chat. do you have any behind—the—scenes chat? what was the prime minister like and, indeed, the labour leader like? how would you describe their mood when you saw

them behind—the—scenes? i was really struck listening to the conversation about liz truss and her demeanour and her capacity to keep going. because you do see leaders in the immediate moments before you do an interview and the cameras aren't rolling and you get other opportunities at conference to see them, not in a private setting really because they know that we're journalists and we know that they're the prime minister or the leader of the labour party. but in moments that aren't as formal as an interview and the prime minister's capacity to just keep going and actually to keep smiling and be chipper when the overall mood of her conference was one of being winded because of the about turn over the tax rates, the higher tax rate for the best paid in england, wales and northern ireland. and then the row about benefits was really quite something. as for keir starmer, he kind of — it's hard to kind of measure this, james, but you can kind of feel it. it seems like he's kind of walking a couple of inches taller at the moment. i've noticed that for the last

couple of months, even before the difficulties that the prime minister's got into. so, in that sense, i thought it was a fascinating conversation and it does give you some sense of how the leaders and their parties feel about themselves at the moment. but the most striking thing, given the political mood at the moment, is how the prime minister manages tojust keep on going. well, chris made the point, of course, that we've had the labour and conservative conferences, but it's far from over, right? i mean, it's the snp next, we've got the tuc. it's an obvious question, i suppose, james, but what is the overall expectation about how the tone of the snp conference is going to be? well, i think it's going to be quite an interesting conference because it happens on the eve of the supreme court considering whether or not a referendum can be held in scotland, whether a bill can be passed in the scottish parliament, authorising a referendum to be held on independence. a second referendum, of course, on independence — the last one having resulted in 55% against and 115% for it in 20111.

so, everything at the conference is going to be coloured by the fact that we're waiting for this decision, waiting from the supreme court. we won't get the decision next week. we'll have the hearing next week, and then... and the arguments. and very few people, including in the snp, i have to say, think that they're going to win that. most people think that what's going to happen is that the supreme court is going to say, no, without the agreement of westminster, you cannot hold a second referendum yourselves. and liz truss has made it abundantly clear, "we will face down the separatists," was her line in her conference speech, that she will not be agreeing to transfer the powers to hold that referendum on independence. so, that is going to hang over everything, even though there will be a lot of discussion as well about domestic issues and domestic policies, because after all, the snp have been in government for a long time and continue to have to run the country, as well as thinking about their long term vision for the constitution.

i'm just quite interested in this fact that, as you say, there's a sort of period of waiting. so the supreme court hearing and then the judgment will come later. but we already know that nicola sturgeon said that if the supreme court says the scottish parliament can't go ahead and hold this referendum without westminster being involved in that, that she would view the next general election as a de facto referendum on scottish independence. i'm just interested in when you're talking about how snp conference, you've got the independence question and the domestic question, how does that play in a general election? if you think about, you know, cost of living, the situation in ukraine, i mean, when you're talking about having a de facto referendum as the election, how does that work with all the other pressures people are going to be facing? and how can... well, the answer is it's really difficult to see how it works. and the question for the scottish national party in the next general election is, ok, if this is going to be, in your view, a de facto referendum on independence, how can you be sure that that's what people are actually voting for? people vote in general elections for all kinds of reasons and all kinds of motivations

as they go to the polls. and, you know, a question i would be asking and i have been asking, in fact, people in the party is — is it a one line manifesto from the scottish national party in the next election from the snp just saying — scotland should be an independent country and if you vote for the snp, you're voting for us to open negotiations with westminster to secede from the union? now, i was speaking to someone quite senior in the party who was saying they don't think that's likely, but they think the entire manifesto, if this goes ahead, if this happens, if we end up in this scenario, will be based around that and will be a manifesto drawn up to describe why independence would be, in their view, the way forward for scotland. now... but to come to your point, it's a time of extraordinary turmoil and i think that cuts both ways, because opponents of independence will say, are you mad? you know, at this time of economic turmoil, you would ladle on the extra uncertainty of scotland leaving

the uk and everything that would entail and setting up a brand new state? but the snp, i think, are increasingly coming to the view, alex, that they are embracing that and saying, well, their argument be, how bad does it have to be get? how bad does it have to get before, in their view, scotland jumps in the lifeboat? well, there we are. snp conference to come. chris, i do believe you're going to snp, and are you doing tuc? are you going to be standing at the end of it all? i'm going to the snp tomorrow, which i'm looking forward to, and probably going to the tuc. we think keir starmer, the labour leader, might be turning up on one of the days, and if he does, i think i might end up being there. so, will i still be standing? probably not. but, hey, they're all good fun, i love them! conference season is fun, even if it's exhausting. chris, lovely to speak to you. make sure you get some kip in between your conferences. now, before we go, ijust want to tell you about something else. there is an extra episode of ukrainecast on bbc sounds at the moment.

the host of that is vitaly shevchenko, and he's reflecting on the destruction in his hometown of zaporizhzhia. it's obviously something that, you know, a lot of us have been following, but that is really worth a listen. so, that's on bbc sounds at the moment, if you want to take a bit of time to have a listen to that. but from us at newscast, that's it. thank you and goodbye. bye— bye. bye. newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello. the weather's been very changeable through the week, but this weekend, for many of us, it's looking fine. lots of sunshine on the way. rain clears the south—east this evening. that's the weather front that swept across the country today and brought some very heavy rain and gusty winds. by the end of the night, it's clear in most places. however, a few showers and a brisk wind still affect western

parts of the country. five degrees in many towns and cities first thing on saturday, so quite a chilly start. high pressure is in charge of the weather, so light winds, fairweather cloud building up. that's pretty much it. perhaps a few more showers there in western scotland, but particularly the north of scotland. here around 13 degrees, but further south, around 15—16, should feel fairly pleasant in that sunshine with the light winds. so, a fine saturday for the majority of the uk, but come sunday, we are expecting rain to sweep into northern ireland and scotland. so, wet and windy weather second half of the weekend in the north. bye— bye.