this is bbc news — the headlines: italy's prime minister says her country will support ukraine — in its war with russia — for as long as necessary. giorgia meloni made the comments at a joint news conference with president zelensky. he's already met the italian president and will later have an audience with the pope. turkey's leader — recep tayyip erdogan — has addressed supporters on the last day of campaigning before sunday's presidential election. he accused his secularist opponent — kamel kilicdaroglu — of planning to sanction russia on the orders of america. his party has been in power for more than 20 years. final preparations are taking place in the english city of liverpool for the eurovision song contest�*s grand final. the event is being held in britain

on behalf of ukraine — last year's winners. the pop band tvorchi is presenting this year's ukrainian entry — entitled heart of steel. now on bbc news amol rajan interviews richard branson. hi. yes. hello. my goodness. wow. the shy schoolboy who became a global celebrity. sir richard branson is a very british bundle of contradictions. the dyslexic who set up a student magazine, the record label founder who didn't listen to music, the 60s hippie who became a multi—billionaire. today he's got his own island and his brand has dozens of companies to its name, from virgin atlantic to galactic. but after five decades in business, reinventing whole industries,

sir richard branson has been tested as never before, both financially and emotionally. the pandemic left the 72—year—old fighting to save his empire and his reputation. he's faced questions over how he's used women to promote his brand. and sceptics have asked why someone who campaigns on climate change is sending rockets into space. the original rebel entrepreneur continues to grab the headlines and confound his critics. i've come to miami to hear the whole story. sir richard branson, thank you so much for speaking to me and to the bbc. how are you? i'm good. i always think sitting down to do interviews like this is a bit like, i've never been in

a psychiatrist chair, it's a bit like being in a psychiatrist chair just to be clear. you've not seen or approved the questions in advance. nothing's off the table, right? i'm afraid that's the case. if you google richard branson, the thing that comes up in the author search is net worth. i mean, people are obsessed with the fortunes of the rich and famous. it's very rude to ask a man how much he's worth. so i'm not going to do that. so let me ask sid, how much did you lose through the pandemic? did you lose a lot of money personally in trying to save your companies? the answer is yes. i mean, obviously it cost us a big percentage of our net worth, maybe a billion and a half. and yeah, so there was a time where it really looked like we were going to lose everything. we had 50, 60 planes all on the ground at heathrow and gatwick and in sydney and melbourne and brisbane.

and the health clubs all closed, the hotels all closed. and the worst would have been 60,000 people out in the streets. we sold shares in companies that were public, and that was one way we managed to find money and most jobs were saved as a result. but personally, i was fortunate in that our kids managed to get to the island and our grandkids got to the island. and so although i experienced maybe a couple of months of what people must feel when they're pretty low, and i never experienced that before my life. do you mean that for the first time in your life you were depressed? yeah, i was certainly certainly a little depressed. but, you know, talking about net worth, i mean, you know, one of the things i suppose, if i resent anything in life is the tag billionaire. i think people don't address you by your net worth they call you by your name. yeah. and what i've spent my lifetime

doing is building ventures that hopefully will make a really positive difference to people's lives. in the past, you've written in your book that reputation is everything, and your reputation took a bit of a hit during that early phase in the pandemic because senior members of your team had written to the government saying that they needed hundreds of millions of pounds in a government loan to save the company and save your airline. and yet there was coverage, people saying, hang on, branson is a billionaire. he lives on an island in the caribbean. you know, surely he can find the money. i'd never really had any coverage, quite as painful as that, really. and it's complicated. so it's difficult to explain to people when everybody�*s hurting. i mean, there were pretty well no families that weren't hurting. but what we were concerned to do was try to get government support, as happened in america, as happened in france, as happened italy, not gifts from government, but underwriting loans

so that the cost to the airline going forward was not going to be prohibitive. it's interesting, given the given your very interesting relationship with the media over 50 years, that you should say you've never had such sort of negative coverage. do you think that's just because you're the face of your airline in a way that british airways doesn't have a face? do you think that's why they said, let's go after richard? i think there's an element of that. i mean, i get you know, i would say that 99% of the coverage i've had in my lifetime has been fair. i mean, i've occasionally had criticisms, but i would say they were fair criticisms. and it's quite rare to have had a major knock. but i think i remember freddie laker once saying to me, the way to deal with press backlash is prove them wrong. and what we ended up doing was just getting on and proving that our teams were good enough to come bouncing back. someone who i who i spoke to, who you worked with said if you hadn't called the company virgin, you might have called it phoenix because you've often

phoenix from the ashes, like you have bounced back and you flew into space. three, two, one. release, release. release. in a life full of extraordinary experiences. where did that rank? i've had a lot of pinch me moments in my life, but that definitely culminated them all. that incredible moment where you just unbuckle and you just drift out of your seat and float up to the ceiling and look down. and there are other young people just going swimming, swimming through the air beneath you. and then beneath them is the earth. and that spectacular view through those spectacular windows. and obviously, look, we'd had 18 years to get to that point. we'd had tears. but this was definitely a day ofjoy and incredible moment, having spent so many years building it and realises that, you know, there will be in over

the next hundred years, thousands of people are going to be able to have that same experience. is that the thing? because i was going to ask you, why is space travel a good use of your time and money? prince william says when he launched the earthshot prize, he said we need some of the world's greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live. i've just been to kenya with bill gates, your dear friend. he's quoted on the front of your book, and he said that spending a lot of money on space travel, when you can save a kids life who's got malaria with $1,000, was not a good use of money. what do you say to them? and would you say also to those who say that given climate change is one of your top priorities, why are you sending rockets into space? i100% agree with them that we've got to concentrate on dealing with a whole lot of issues in this world. and most of my life is now spent on tackling a whole raft of different issues in the world. and i think some of those issues are made easier to deal with by the fact that i have been

to space so i can now pick up the phone to pretty well anybody in the world, get through, cut through the red tape and hopefully get things sorted. but having said that, space travel itself is incredibly important for this earth. communication between people is being transformed because of space travel and satellites up there monitoring things like the depredation of the rainforests or illegal fishing, has been transformed by satellites up there. all these, the kinds of benefits that come from space travel. critics say the environmental impact of space tourism could undo decades of work to repair the ozone layer and have a greater effect on the climate than the aviation industry. what virgin and our principal competitors have managed to do is bring the environmental costs of space travel down dramatically in terms of carbon cost. now, that is a thousand times less than it used to take nasser "nasa.

..to put people into space, and that will come down even further. you can't and shouldn't stop progress through progress. you get the breakthroughs. you can never be quite sure what breakthrough you're going to get, but you get these breakthroughs and that will benefit the earth. let's come down to earth then and go back in time to your to your childhood. you've often talked about its comfort, and i think maybe it's because you don't want to hide the fact that you were born into a comfortable and bucolic childhood. but your childhood did have huge challenges, didn't it? and you were sent away to boarding school at seven. you know, my son winston is seven in a few months and he could barely tie his shoe laces. i mean, he's a great kid, but the idea of him going off to boarding school at seven seems rather cruel in retrospect, doesn't it? i know that my parents sent me to boarding school because they thought that that was the best thing. best thing for me. and that was the way to bring us up tough. and my mother would say not to modelling you at home, but i think it was wrong. i mean, we would never do it with our kids or our grandkids. i remember distinctly,

i was seven and a half throwing up the first night and the matron coming in and telling me i had to mop up the sheets myself. and that is a bit much for a seven and a half —year—old. yeah, not good. fortunately, i think things have changed a little bit since those days. they have, notjust in terms of where we send kids away, but also our understanding of minds. when you were growing up, the word entrepreneur had barely entered the lexicon and the word dyslexia even less so. you talk now about your dyslexia as a superpower, which we'll get onto. butjust before we talk about it, as a superpower, people should understand when they're thinking about your story, that at school you were beaten, you received corporal punishment of beatings for being stupid. what happened exactly? oh, yeah, we got beaten all the time.

and yeah, as a dyslexic, i thought, i must be stupid. because, you know, they'd never heard of the word, dyslexia didn't exist. you hid those beatings from your mum, didn't you? i don't know. i may have. yeah. i don't think i don't think i would have mentioned it to her. most likely. greta thunberg told me that her asperger�*s was her superpower. why is dyslexia your superpower? with people who are dyslexic, they're apt to succeed at things that they are good at. and they become very good delegator as at things that they're not not good at. for me, one of the best things about being dyslexic was that the things i was good at, ie finding out what was going on in the world,

reading about the vietnamese war, the biafran war led me to decide to start a magazine, which is quite strange for a dyslexic person to have done. launched in 1968, student was a national magazine for young people to help overcome his dyslexia. so richard would interview some of the most articulate people in the world, from jean—paul sartre to james baldwin, and then publish those recordings word for word. when the headmaster said to me, "you're either going to have to run "the magazine and leave the school or not run the magazine and get "on with your schoolwork." it was an easy decision. i decided to say, thank you. i'm off. so if i hadn't been dyslexic, i most likely wouldn't have left school at 15—16 years old, and my life would have been very different. dyslexia has become a superpower because i think i've become a really good delegator. i find great people. i surround myself with wonderful people. hello, how are you? nice to see you.

more than 1,000 of branson�*s people were on board one of his cruise ships, the valiant lady, when we joined him hours before the boat set off for the caribbean. good to see you. nice to see you. richard entered the cruise ship business in 2021 with the first sailing of virgin voyages. one of the big things that you've spoken about throughout your career is about hiring, well, you know, bringing together the right people. and you've got a very particular, i can see it walking round here, you've got a very particular philosophy of hiring that you hire from within. why did you do that? well, we look we look for character rather than, you know, somebody�*s cv. obviously, if you hire from within, you're going to know somebody�*s good points and bad points before you take them on. and there's a danger that if you bring somebody in, a so—called expert from outside, they will be a horrible mistake

and they will be bad with people and they'll mess up a happy company. and that's the last thing we want. it's so interesting you say that about cvs, because i think you may know i've got a big interest in social mobility and helping kids from poorer backgrounds try and get into elite professions. and the story they all they all feel that they're sold is that if you really want to make it as an entrepreneur, if you want to come to a place like miami, you need to pass ever more exams. you need to go to university, you need to graduate. that's not true, is it? i think it depends what profession you're trying to get into. obviously, if you want to become a doctor, you know you had to go to university. but if you want to be an entrepreneur, being an entrepreneur is simply coming up with an idea to make other people's lives better and then getting on and. ..and doing it and trying it. and universities are not going to be able to teach you that that well. so people who can't get into university, a really good alternative for them is to just try

try setting up a small little business, you know, see how it goes. if it doesn't work out, try again until they succeed. and the young people from all around the uk who say to me, because they're not from london and they've got strong accents and they're very paranoid about their accent, they may come from rural somerset or hull or mansfield, and they say that they're worried that if you sound like them, it's going to hold them back. honestly, will it hold them back? no, i really don't think so. anyway, my wife's glaswegian accent is half of what i found so attractive about the other half. i won't go into details of it. but anyway, i think honestly it shouldn't matter. i don't think it does generally matter. there may be some snooty british companies still left that that where it might make a difference. i doubt it. nice to meet you. good to see you. hello. how are you? have a great voyage for having us. nice to meet you.

this guy's a rock star. and is it any wonder? he's learnt from the best. by the early 1970s, sir richard was immersed in the music world, first with a mail order record business and then a virgin store. before long, he had his own label and recording studio. the manor. mike 0ldfield's tubular bells was the first big hit, selling more than 5 million copies. in the following years, everyone from the rolling stones to culture club to janet jackson were laying down tracks for virgin records. just to evoke that era for us. would you? what was it like? mike oldfield turns up and the sex pistols walk in and phil collins and genesis are down the road. because it must have been exhilarating. it was exhilarating. it was a wonderful era of bands could come and record all night and sleep all day. and that was just tremendously exciting. it was great to be to be young

and alive at that time. it was at the manor that sir richard met his future wife, joan, with whom he would have children, holly and sam living on a houseboat to save cash. he was on the hunt for something bigger, much bigger. in 1978, he bought necker island in the caribbean sea for $180,000. it would eventually become his home and a holiday resort. but it proved controversial, with some claiming that by making it his place of residence, sir richard has been able to avoid taxes. his critics argue he should pay. you've lived in the caribbean on your own island. necker island for some of the year, for many years. and you've also been open about using legal means. and they are legal means, to keep your tax bill down so that your companies remain competitive and you've contributed millions in tax over the years to many differentjurisdictions. but still, tax avoidance, which is legal, may not be

illegal, but is it immoral? just your question. i slightly resent. to tell you exactly as it is. i started with £200 from a necklace that my mum found and we sold. i have paid literally billions and our companies pay billions in taxes over the years and we've created over the whole time maybe a million and a halfjobs. and obviously a lot of those people have moved on to other otherjobs. but a lot ofjobs. the reason i live on necker was i fell in love with a lovely lady when i was 28. and i fell in love with a beautiful island. and i live on necker because it's the most beautiful place in the world to live. i've worked extremely hard for many years, and i now now use necker as a base. the personal money that i earn, i give all to charities, you know. so, like, all i can say is we have paid billions and billions in taxes

over the years and we'll continue to do so. and our companies pay taxes in whichever country and whichever jurisdiction they're based. you've taken on some very powerfulfigures. how does somebody know when you dislike them? is itjust that richard branson comes after their business and sort of really pursues them very aggressively? how does someone know when richard branson is coming after them? we're a fairly open book. i think they'll know that we're coming. and generally speaking, i think you'll find that the bigger business benefits from the smaller competitor coming after them, because they have to respond. they have to react. i remember, you know, british airways once sent out a memo saying whatever virgin does, we must we must copy it within a month. and, you know, i respect that. i mean, that's good business sense because we were innovating all the time. i mean, like, you know, seat back videos. we were the first to put seat back videos on our planes. but it wasn'tjust innovation that got sir richard branson attention tonight with richard branson back

in london after his record breaking transatlantic run, the virgin publicity bandwagon is under full steam. from speedboat crossings to record breaking balloon attempts. his adventures secured him headlines and more than a few brushes with death. good evening. richard branson's transatlantic balloon flight has ended - in high drama tonight. he and his co—pilot, per lindstrom, had abandoned the giant _ virgin atlantic flyer and landed in the sea off the west - coast of scotland. why are you so addicted to danger? i'm certainly not addicted to danger and i'm certainly not craving death. richard, how can i put this to you? i mean, it was at the back of your book, you've got 75, no, 79 near—death experiences. i think that's the first thing you say, which i'm going to actually go so far as to say i disagree with and i am going to correct you on that.

someone who flies air balloons across oceans... i don't need to tell you, but somebody does. some of the things that you've done and that you're famous for is a bit addicted to danger, with all due respect. so i will still take issue. i'm not addicted to death and i'm not addicted to danger. what i am addicted to is to actually say yes to things. and i'm addicted to challenging myself and seeing what i'm capable of. and if somebody comes along to me and says, "nobody has crossed the atlantic in a hot air balloon before," there aren't any world records left. and, you know, i've neverflown a hot air balloon before. you know what fun it would be to learn to fly a hot air balloon and then to see if we could across the atlantic in it. and then you try to work out all all all the things can go wrong and you try to make sure that you can come back to tell the tale. today, branson's adventures might just be for fun, but for decades, they played a vital role in promoting and growing the virgin brand. as too did women. his publicity stunts, often involving women partially clothed,

were highly effective at getting him media attention. but times have changed. just recently you said in the early days of virgin society it was very different. i doubt you'll see me turning girls upside down or picking up ladies today. whereas 38 years ago, if i didn't do that, i wouldn't get in the newspaper. when you look back at some of those campaigns, it's very dangerous to judge historic periods through modern mores. but when you look back at some of those campaigns, do some of that stuff make you wince? would you just think it was fit for the time? i think it would... it would make me wince if i felt the women would be were uncomfortable at all. i don't think that i ever made anybody feel uncomfortable. it was just in those days... in those days, it made them smile. like kate moss, for instance. she laughed. she knew what was coming. but today, obviously, i think people would feel uncomfortable or something like that. so it's changed and

i fully accept that. and i've changed along alongside everybody else. and what advice would you give to a billionaire in his 70s who's having trouble slowing down? my own feeling is that i'm in an extraordinary position and not to waste the position i find myself in. there are a lot of issues this world needs dealing with. you've got politicians who can do so much, but then there may be only two years maximum in a particular department before they've moved on to something else. i've had 55 years of experience as an entrepreneur and businessman and travelled the world and i think i'm in a position to help politicians and try to address some of the bigger issues of the world. and that's what i enjoy doing. and i'm not, i'm not going to sit back and not make the make the best of that position. i've heard that you're quite competitive. vaguely true?

yeah, that's definitely true. you're quite into chess, aren't you? i enjoy a game of chess. before we have a game, but if you're up for a game of chess, i'd be very up for it. and you don't have to let me win. let me ask you one final thing. for 50 years, you've been so synonymous with virgin for so long, probably more than any entrepreneur with any company in the world. where is and what is virgin after? you must think about succession planning. yeah, ido. and we have serious discussions as a family about how the how the company can transform, hopefully thousands of people's lives in the years to come and hopefully in the centuries to come. how good are you at chess? seriously? because i'm a bit worried that we've set this thing up and you're going to smash me to pieces. i don't read any moves. no, no, no. now we... i'm going to distract you with some quickfire questions.

who's your greatest hero? living or dead. a cross between mandela and archbishop tutu. but we will say mandela. favourite film? it has to be the godfather. which one? 0ne. what do you fear most? i think a family member being unwell. it's not checkmate yet. maybe it is. oh, that's terrible. oh, no. well played. yeah. oh, dear. we'll have to have a rematch. i would look forward to that. thank you so much. it's been a pleasure.

for much of the uk, a lovely touch that we and plenty of sunshine around, some eastern and south—eastern parts of england remain pretty grey and cool and breezy. but for most it will stay sunny under this area of high pressure, with light winds, winds still feature across the far south—east. there is cold front will introduce some addict of rain across scotland and northern ireland at the end of the night. head of it, most places to stay dry under the high pressure, but that low cloud starts to roll back in westwards across much of the midlands and eastern

england. some clearer slots in between the grey clouds and in the east of england and the weather front bringing outbreaks of rain to the north—west of the uk. so a different picture for sunday, we will start off grey and chilly again across east england, the climb should melt away, burn back to the coast, scotland, northern ireland star cloudy and wet, advancing southwards and eastwards into england and wales into the afternoon i had a bit it could set up a few showers. another warm day to come across england and wales, you have the sunshine, maybe 20—21 but chilly across scotland and northern ireland behind this weather front, despite there being some afternoon sunshine, a few scattered showers. then sunday night, if you blustery showers continue in the north—west of scotland, otherwise much to the north and west of the uk will be quite chilly behind the cold front, whereas ahead of it, cross the east and south—east of england and other mild dish nights to come. that weatherman clears away, takes cloud and the way down migraine with it. leaves a legacy of northerly winds

and also showers for monday, particularly across northern scotland, showers also affecting eastern part of england, probably the best of the sunshine toward central, southern and western areas, closer to the centre of the high pressure. we will all notice on sunday it is going to feel a lot cooler, temperatures below the seasonal norm, ranging from 10—111. you can see the blue hue, cool air hangs around through tuesday and wednesday, particularly across the north and east of the country, but milder air will start to push back in towards the end of the week. so it starts off chilly for the upcoming week, mostly dry, thanks to the high pressure, a few showers towards the end of the week, temperatures are slowly recovering.

live from london, this is bbc news. betting on ukraine, italy's prime minister says her country will support president zelensky for as long as necessary. reaching the final hours of turkey's presidential election, campaigning goes down to the wire. and a celebration of song, liverpool prepares for the final of eurovision. hello, i'm vishala sri—pathma. the ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky has arrived at the vatican for a private audience with pope francis. president zelensky is on a one day trip to italy. this was the moment he arrived at the prime minister's residence in rome, where he was greeted by italian president

sergio mattarella.