we see settle start for many before we see more persistent rain putting into the south—west a little later on. that's it. take care. hello. this is bbc news. i'm shaun ley and these are the headlines. as the british prime ministerfights for her political life — her new finance minister admits mistakes were made in rolling out the government's new economic policy and that some taxes will now rise. at least a0 people are known to have died in a suspected gas explosion at a mine in turkey which left dozens of others injured. exchange of fire — ukraine continues to push back russian forces — but the invading troops aren't giving up. now on bbc news dateline london.

no, no, that's not too sombre. but hello and welcome to the programme, which for the last 25 years has been the place where the uk's leading political commentators debate the big themes of the week. ,broadcast and yes, even today still write for audiences back home from dateline london. it may be our final edition, but we're still looking forward, not back. leaders and their future. after liz truss told her finance minister, the chancellor kwasi kwarteng to go, how long before british conservatives force her to do the same? biden or trump, who will win a second term in the white house? or might someone else get the chance of a first? and can china survive a third term for president xi? in the studio, jeff mcallister, time magazine's white house

correspondent during the clinton years and then chief of the magazine's london bureau. he and his wife now run their own international law firm. eunice gersh is a portuguese writer and academic, lectures on comparative government, which i guess is how countries learn from each other�*s mistakes. and steve richards, who arrived at westminster just as the conservative party was evicting margaret thatcher from downing street. the latest episode of the rock and roll politics podcast is entitled the next labour government and the power of markets. have events of the last few hours, perhaps, certainly in the last few weeks, steve, provided you with an insight into those two thoughts, the power of the markets and the prospects for a change of government? well, the power of the markets is such that there are few iron laws in british politics. it's wild, as we all know. but one of them seems to be that although england, not the whole of the uk, but england tends to vote for conservative governments, they turn away when conservative governments get

into trouble with the markets. they did it withjohn major. they're always doing it with labour governments and that has happened now and it is striking. we've had many dramas over this 12—year period of tory rule with borisjohnson and brexit and everything. it's the markets responding almost immediately to that mini budget, the turmoil that's followed has led to this extraordinary position where liz truss, who sought definition and purpose through that mini budget, is having to scrap it all because the markets found it unacceptable. so yeah, there are there are bigger lessons to come if there is to be a labour government. but for now i think it is just remarkable to reflect on something that's never really happened before in british politics. a new prime minister comes in, they nearly always get a honeymoon and there are questions whirling with great intensity amongst conservative mps as to

whether she can survive. we'll talk more about that in a moment with eunice. looking at your own country's history in dealing with economic crises, i mean, it sort of has had turmoil through the first part it had to deal with before things calmed down. and assuming liz truss was a student in your comparative government lessons, what lesson would you hope she would take from what other governments have had to endure when they've been challenged by the markets, when their economic policy has not convinced them? well, i think the main lesson is that you're not in full control of your agenda. there are constraints. the portuguese government has dealt with constraints for a very long time. the european union is a very big constraint, so it forces a kind of fiscal responsibility to the government. now, liz truss, she came in and thought that she was able to set up and implement a radical agenda for which voters had

not voted in 2019. so if she was a student in my class, i would be... one of the first things that i tell my students is that they need to learn is the constraints. so first of all, power matters and the fact that if you don't have powerful supporters supporting your agenda, you're not going to be able to implement it. timing also matters. so to start to implement an agenda that is essentially to support the 1% at the time of a cost of living crisis is cognitive dissonance of a high magnitude. and thirdly, there is the whole question of timing, the question of power, but also evidence based politics. so are you trying to implement an agenda for which there is no evidence that it's going to work? it is all very laudable to want to implement a pro—growth agenda, but there is no evidence whatsoever that liz truss's agenda would lead to growth. giving tax cuts to millionaires,

at the most what it will help is those millionaires to buy another yacht or a second home abroad. it will not promote growth. what will promote growth is investment in infrastructure, in education, the health care system as well. the fact that you have thousands of people sick at the moment is a huge disadvantage to the british labour market at the moment. so if you really are serious about pro—growth strategy, these are the policies that you need to invest in. jeff, i was struck listening in the last hours of friday to some of those people who had previously supported liz truss, now saying, as one backbench conservative veteran, conservative mp told us at the bbc, "i don't doubt her sincerity." he said it as somebody who voted for her and was supporting her almost from the start. "but i am concerned about her lack of resolve." so she's disappointed the people who supported her by compromising in this way, but by slinging

the chancellor over the side, she's not perhaps persuading some of those who didn't support her that she can do it. well, she's not widely known for her persuasive powers. i she did not have very many mps on her side when she started - the leadership contest. it was about 50 out of 200 and something. and i mean, really, if you look this incompetent, this quickly, - in a party, which, i mean, after all, has a reputation| for being ruthless . at staying in power, i mean, thisjust. is not a good look. iand it's also particularly perverse i that here she was giving the banks, giving the financial sector - lots of kisses in bankers' bonuses and lower corporation tax rate and other lower tax rates, - and they reject it. so, i mean, where does she go from here? - it's crystallised, i think, this sense _ about the british economy that

eunice is talking about. in 2016, britain's economy was 90% of germany's. i it's now under 70% of germany's. that's a pretty short time. there's been covid, - but there's also been brexit. there's been low productivity that's been a consistent problem - for the british economy. just lowering taxes doesn't do that. she actually thought . she had the programme election to make it - have anything happen. and now what is she left with? so i think, i mean... is she a dead woman walking? i mean, i wouldn't go that far, - but she has to pull something out. and the press conference today, it| doesn't look like she's got an awful lot of bright ideas. how could she? i mean, she had them all last week land she's had to kind of, i mean, i as several people have said, steve, she's effectively had to say, look, my idea is, as she put it, the budget in certain places went further and faster than the markets would tolerate in the sense that they were frightened

by what she was doing. if she has now moved with these compromises, not after all cancelling the corporation tax rise that had been put in by rishi sunak when he was chancellor under borisjohnson, not, after all, scrapping the 45% tax rate, it's 46% in scotland, that would effectively say, my ideas kind of don't work, but i'm still worth having in charge of them. yeah, it's a fascinating example, as eunice was suggesting, of the constraints of power and someone wholly misreading those constraints. so if she had begun by saying, look, i am a low tax tory, my aspiration is to lower taxes over time, and hadn't done what she's now not doing anyway, she would be in a wholly different position, you know. and if she had brought in some of her internal opponents, which prime ministers who haven't won an election have to do, they may not like it, but they haven't had the electorate�*s authority—enhancing boost,

so why she didn't see that is a really interesting question. i think they've been in powerfor so long. it is utterly intoxicating and mesmerising. when you become prime minister, you think, wow, i've done it. all the others i know who wanted to haven't. but maybe some of those people i might have thought were better than me or more likely to succeed, and they've all failed. here am i, and i'm just going to go for it. and she didn't dare speak and no one dared to tell her, hold on a second, you've won a leadership contest. the tories didn't vote for you by a majority. you haven't had the electorate�*s support. the markets are hovering tentatively. at that point, she was constrained and boy, does she realise it now because she's having to i mean, to sack a chancellor who wasn't, is another vivid example of the constraints of power. and yet you mentioned john major, who was prime minister in the 19905

when black wednesday happened, when that big attack on the pound and it fell out of the european exchange rate mechanism, despite the chancellor throwing... in those days, there wasn't an independent bank of england. the chancellor threw british money at it. he failed. things calmed down. a few months later, he was sacked as chancellor, butjohn major remained as prime minister for another three and a half years. yeah, and that is an important sort of cautionary guide. who knows what's going to happen? but there was speculation that major was about to fall from the day britain fell out of the exchange rate mechanism until the election in 1997 when he was slaughtered. but he stayed in for that that five year parliamentary term, in spite of all the feverish speculation that it was going to be michael heseltine never happened. it's very difficult to remove a prime minister. now, tory mps this weekend are talking about nothing else but how and with whom. there are protective

shields for her. i'm not predicting she's going to survive. it seems to me unsustainable. but how they do it and with whom are problems. that means quite often prime ministers do stay on much longer, the media orthodoxy might suggest. let's talk about what's happening in the united states, jeff. we've got the us mid—term elections coming up, what, kind of a month from now? slightly less. it's not a time for politicians in the united states to adopt brave positions. they have to adopt positions that will guarantee that their supporters are behind them. but we had joe biden kind of taking the bull by the horns this week and saying, i am up to thejob. i turn 80 next month. i'm up to the job. if donald trump stands again as republican candidate, i will beat him. i mean, it was a confident message. and at the moment, at least, it feels the democrats have got a bit of a spring in their step. but is thatjustified, given that donald trump remains a live political threat to mr biden? there's two sets of problems.

one is the larger trump problem and how he does in presidential terms. the other is the immediate political problem of the midterms. midterms generally are not widely voted on. they're bad for the party in power, and there's high inflation and all the things that we know about that would be dragging down the democrats. and they seem to be. but on the other hand, the democrats are energised because they're scared of trump, and they remain so. and there's been the ruling about abortion and fear of what the supreme court's going to do next time. so the, you know, the smart money now says the republicans will retake the house, after which they'll do a million investigations of the biden administration and try to slow everything down for the election. and the democrats may retain the senate, but it's still anybody�*s guess. it's volatile. then the question of the interesting question of what does that mean

for who runs, for president trump is definitely giving every sign that he's going to run, and biden is now giving every sign that he wants to run and is going to run. even though the cap harris poll last month suggested that 67% of voters thought he shouldn't. well, that's right. but trump's only slightly less. yes, 57%. yeah. and we have this problem of getting rid of a sitting prime minister. difficult, getting rid of the sitting president. impossible. and when you are the sitting president, how anybody comes up in your own party to try to defeat you, it'd be a bloodbath. and so if he wants the nomination, it's probably his unless it's such a drubbing, let's say, in the midterms, that itjust looks like no one buys thejoe biden argument, which is that kind of normal joe is enough to beat the abnormal donald trump. it worked the last time. he won by 7 million extra votes. and there's an argument that he can still have this coalition going.

the democrats are not any less scared of trump. now, trump also has internal opposition. ron desantis, the florida governor, does really look like he wants to run and just positioning himself as as angry and as much of a cultural warrior as trump, but without the possible indictments and the other kind of competent trump, that's the one who isn't going to find the whole business government too difficult to do and and find it hard to focus on the boring stuff. no, that's right. but trump's acolytes still are dominant. and you can't get very many republicans to say anything bad about him, even, you know, in the wake of all the january sixth hearings where it's clear that he had the plan to denounce the election months in advance and then did everything he could to keep himself in power. and to be fair to... i mean, maybe we weren't all looking, but he denounced the 2016 election as well. he, you know, this has been a line he's pursued for four years,

and you could argue usefully, but we perhaps didn't pay as much attention to it when he used to say we thought it was, you know, kind of flimflam, but actually it was perhaps actually a strategy. yes, it was. he was laying down a possible escape route then. and when you're president, it's a lot easier to use the... keep yourself in power when you're the candidate. so i think it's still, i mean, i can't see how any republican can support donald trump. honestly, i think he's treasonous, he's seditious. he's dangerous. he's shown himself to be totally beyond the pale. nevertheless, he was right. "i could shoot somebody on fifth avenue and they'd still vote for me." and that is a continual problem that is going to give him an advantage. i have to give him the pole position for the republican nomination in those circumstances. what's slightly surprising in another poll, abc news, washington, only 35% of democrats and democrat leaning independents want biden to run for a second term. and it's odd to think that here's

the man who defeated donald trump, which is what they said they wanted, but they just don't think he can do another term. whether it's because they don't think he could defeat trump again or they just wonder whether he's up to the job at all. i think it's more the latter rather than the former, because he has, biden to the surprise of many people, he has ended... he will leave the white house with a much more transformational legacy than 0bama because he has the legislation that he has approved this summer on climate change, on gun control, on child poverty, on infrastructure building and so on. this is actually what any democrat voter would want and support. they would also be energised by the whole, the debates around abortion, because democrats have said that they are going to or they want to create a federal law that protects abortion rights. and biden also came across as the person who is defending american democracy and democratic institutions.

so i understand the the doubts of democrat leaning voters and floating voters, but democrats actually have a lot to be happy about with biden. and there is no one else in the horizon who can claim it and say, "well, here i am, lam going to do this." whereas biden, "well, i've already done this. and if i am elected for another four years, i will do and i will achieve more. i will try to have an even more democratic legacy." so a bit of a surprise, but i think the concern is mostly about his age and mostly about his health as well. steve, it's paradoxical, isn't it? we're talking about people's health and age at a time when on average people live longer, certainly in wealthy western countries than they they have done, and where health care allows them to maintain a good quality of life. america has had aging presidents. it had ronald reagan, famously. it's now had trump in his mid 70s and biden in his late 70s. is it an obsession of the media

or does it cut through to the... through to the public? i think this, ageing, i mean, i will make a prediction here, which may prove to be totally wrong. but i'd be very surprised if the next presidential election is biden versus trump and age will be an issue, certainly with biden, is my guess, obviously on the eve of the midterms. and indeed, even if there were no midterm elections, a president can't sort of hint that he's going to go because then or she he obviously... as it is, as it usually is... yes, always, always is... because you become a lame duck and power seeps away and we've already got the indication of power, you know, with the midterms, if the republicans win, talk about constraints of power, he's going to really feel, well, if you've sort of hinted you're not going to be there, that power seeps away. so you can't even hint that that might happen. but i suspect age is a factor and health to contemplate another four years in two years' time. and trump, it's very hard, i think, for these performer politicians to pull the trick off again.

i mean, jeff, you're much more in touch with the solidity of his support, but i kind of, i doubt whether he'll be able it will be fascinating to see whether he takes up the the challenge that's been set down to him by the 6th of january committee and uses that as an opportunity to to kind of showboat on the question. but if he does, it'll be a fascinating, fascinating and tricky and not necessarily one that will work for him. yeah, we will as viewers of all of this, wait and see. thank you very much. for now, let's talk about another leader apparently not facing constraints, but perhaps there are some constraints because we had these protests in china at the end of the week, which were to do with people putting up banners, effectively saying, we don't want the lockdowns, we don't want the restrictions. some of them said, we don't want them, we want freedom to speak out and all the rest of it. i just wonder what you make of of this as president xi prepares to face

the communist party's twice decade congress, in which most people think it will be a kind of foregone conclusion that he will be given a third term? well, if he's going to be given a third time, it's pretty much unprecedented because normally they change the chairmanship of the communist party after two terms. so it would be unprecedented to get that third term. i don't think that the dissent is interesting, but it's been happening. and you hear occasionally about protests in different parts of china, in particular in beijing, and then you have immediately the suppression of those protests and nothing comes out of it. he actually has been able to consolidate his power, but i think what will happen... so i think the problem is not so much the people protesting because the chinese state has developed very sophisticated ways of monitoring and suppressing dissent in china. what it will be is, what will be the dissent within the chinese communist party, because by now he should have had cultivated a successor.

he should have. there's a whole coterie of perhaps younger potential party leaders who would take china on for the next ten years or so. he hasn't cultivated them, he's essentially preparing for a third term, a third unprecedented term, chairing the communist party. and we know what happens when authoritarian leaders overstay their welcome in power. there is this perception that authoritarian leaders, and it's a very wrong perception, that authoritarian leaders, their rule is more stable than democratic. and it's completely false. and aristotle actually had already noticed that thousands of years, thousands of years ago, that tyrannies actually are very unstable and even more unstable than democracy, which at the time that he was writing was proper democracy. it was not the democracy that we have now. because what's going to happen is he has perhaps collected, yes, a big line—up of opponents,

of people who want essentially to replace him. the fact that he suppresses dissent, it means that essentially, he is surrounded by yes men and yes women. so he's going to make mistakes. the economic situation is deteriorating. and it's essentially in those circumstances that authoritarian leaders very often lose control and everything essentially collapses around them. but i think we are still a long way away. and xi jinping, he won't go quietly. there will be, i think there will be quite a lot of trouble before he leaves. the economist magazine, steve, was picking up at exactly the point eunice was making in terms of the covid policy, saying, look, here was a policy that was imposed, but because the political culture is that whatever president xi says is the truth revealed truth is not even contestable. the policy hasn't adapted at all in the last couple of years. it's frozen.

and that's really where the strains begin because most people can adapt policy to events and circumstances. sometimes they have to as liz truss has discovered. but if you make it absolutely unchanging, at some point something has to give and in a way that undermines the economic growth that was so potent in china before, though i must say that i have no idea what his fate will be in the coming months. but for a commentator in the uk to comment on the instability of his leadership, when we here might be getting the third prime minister in about four weeks suggests that maybe for very sinister reasons, he looks a bit more secure than some of the british prime ministers. but yeah, if you impose a policy like covid on a country without any capacity to adapt and revise and to change the circumstance, i think that is unsustainable over a period of time.

and you will get dissent perhaps at this twice a decade gathering. but i don't know whether any is the dissent normally at these conventions. i don't know. they are certainly not visible, on the broadcast version. jeff, a quick last thought. well, problems are mounting up and the fight with the americans is heating up. i mean, we have the, you know, whether they've made the right bet on backing russia with ukraine is one matter. the americans are now actually taking it quite seriously, cutting them off from the semiconductor world, which they need to do their most advanced military equipment and to stay involved in the world economy to the extent that they are. and this is actually a much more severe sanction than the trade wars that donald trump introduced. this is going to be very significant and it's going to affect their entire supply chain in the information technology industries, and the americans are going to do it. so i think that is actually serious.

jeff and eunice and steve, thank you very much. thank you, terry, very much. just a word from michael goldfarb, who is normally here. he was recording a programme in lviv in ukraine last weekend, fell and fractured his femur. he was driven over the border to poland after treatment and then put up on twitter a photograph of the sun setting. five minutes later, he says, someone i don't know tweets to invite me to krakow for wine. i ask how she knows who i am and follows me on twitter. it's because she watches me on dateline and the lady can send help get him further medical treatment. so dateline is seriously good for your health. that's it for all of us. and farewell to dateline london after 25 years. our thanks to our editor, nik guthrie, who's been with us since day one. from all of you to all of us, goodbye.

hello there. i'm aware the story will improve as the weekend progresses, but so far we've seen some rain, some of it heavy. this has been the progress of the wet weather this morning. we have seen around a quarter of an inch of rain in parts of north—west england, and that wet weather will continue to drift its way steadily northwards. it will be replaced by some blustery showers for saturday. a much quieter story for most of us on sunday. the morning rain confining itself to the northern isles by the end of the afternoon. sunny spells and blustery showers around an area of low pressure, driven by strong south—westerly winds. was he gusts in excess of 30 to a0 mph. the most frequent showers are exposed west

facing coasts, perhaps the driest and brightest weather in eastern areas. highs of 17 degrees here, a little cooler further north and west. this bodes well for the opening match of the rugby league world cup. yes, it is in newcastle. hopefully those showers will stay away. as we go through the evening and overnight, the area of low pressure driving though showers in what drift its way steadily northwards. it will allow a brief ridge of high pressure to build for a time, and that will quieten things down for sunday, before another weather front gradually pushes into the south—west. with those clearing skies, it will be a chilly start to sunday morning, with single figures here. still some showers lingering in the far north of scotland. will continue to see some showers nor of the great glen. for most of us, settled with more dry weather. with

the sunshine comes a little more warmth. also we'll see lighter winds during the day on sunday. highs of 18 degrees. as we move out of sunday into monday, that frontal system is more of an overnight feature. it will push its way through quite quickly, again quite a windy spell of weather to go with it. once it clears away will see a quieter start to the new working week, before more wet weather threatens by thursday onwards. that's it.

this is bbc news. i'm shaun ley and these are the latest headlines in the uk and around the world. as the british prime ministerfights for her political life, her new finance minister admits mistakes were made in rolling out the government's new economic policy and that some taxes will rise. we are going to take some tough decisions. notjust on spending, but also on taxes, because we have to show the world that we have a plan that adds up financially, and that is the way we will get stability back into the situation. at least a0 turkish miners are now known to have died following an underground explosion — dozens of others were injured. manchester united footballer mason greenwood is arrested for allegedly breaching bail conditions that were set after he was taken into custody on suspicion of rape and assault injanuary. exchange of fire — ukraine continues to push

back russian forces, but the invading troops aren't giving up.