and its ultimate leader, decided to take up to three months of unpaid leave in order to appear on television. dancing the samba, _ jacqui smith and anton du beke. jacqui smith has since said she agreed to take part because it looked like the pandemic was more or less over. this was not the case. numbers were actually surging. in the midst of people risking their lives to come into work. so i worked on the front line throughout. i can remember the first time i came in and saw that the visitor car park was empty and it was just the staff car park. and it really hit me then, that each one of us were risking our lives by working through this. and jacqui was on strictly come dancing.

gerry moynihan was a uhb trust governor. he was appalled atjacqui smith's absence from her three days a week job at such a crucial time. to me, that was an indication that back in 2020 there is something strategically wrong with the board allowing the chair of the second largest trust in england, when doctors and nurses were under extreme pressures because of covid, they allowed the chair to go off to do strictly come dancing. i expressed my concerns over that. they weren't listened to. the only thing i can do then as a governor is resign. and i resigned. now, anton was eliminated from the competition in the first week with his partner, former home secretaryjacqui smith. jacqui smith was voted off strictly in the first round, so her absence was only for one month, not three. she has declined our request for an interview, but has defended her decision to go

on strictly during a podcast. lots of people at the trust who talk to me about it were really chuffed, one that strictly was happening in a covid year, and two, that i was on it. some people weren't, but i didn't work full time. i took unpaid leave. i had a deputy. i carried on working anyway. it's old news, and it's not even really news. but people, some people think it, so it's up to them if they want to say it or not. althouthacqui smith left uhb just a year after the samba and the sequins, this isn't strictly historical. she went on to become chair of this trust, barts, as well as another in east london. some question whetherjacqui smith has learned any lessons from what we now know were some serious failures of governance during her time at uhb, and whether she herself is a fit and proper person for nhs leadership. according to the cqc...

a fit and proper person must not have been responsible for, privy to, contributed to or facilitated any serious misconduct or mismanagement. it defines mismanagement to include... failing to learn from incidents, complaints and when things go wrong. failing to model and promote standards of behaviour expected of those in public life, including protecting personal reputation or the interests of another individual over the interests of people who use a service, staff or the public. unison have not seen any evidence whatsoever that jacqui smith has accepted that the problems occurred on her watch. we haven't seen anything that says she believes that she bears any responsibility for it. all i've heard is her being quite defensive about it, and really she's got to be able to say, look, these things happened on my watch, things went wrong. i want to listen and learn. and i'm committed to making sure that these problems don't occur in the trust that i'm currently leading in a merger. and i've not heard that. and that's what we would expect from any good leader who's faced these problems.

jacqui smith told us that her board decisions on the fit and proper person review had been overseen by the health care regulator the cqc, which had alsojudged leadership at the trust during her tenure as either outstanding or good. david rosser criticised the methodology of the review into uhb, arguing it was based on "input from a self—selected group of disgruntled people representing less than 0.2% of uhb staff." he said his management style was not overzealous, adding "i strongly believe that if other hospitals had taken a similar approach to dealing with the tiny proportion of health care workers whose behaviour endangers patients, then there would be fewer hospital scandals and fewer preventable deaths."

his lawyers said that the gmc found that his failure to inform them that tristan reuser was a whistle—blower was unintentional. they told us that mr rosser didn't accept the gmc�*s original warning because it did not make this clear, and that he had no control over the timing of the hearings. meanwhile, uhb has accepted that things did go wrong, and say they have strengthened their procedures around governance and fit and proper person reviews as a result. it appears the few people who still don't accept that serious mistakes were made are the people who were in ultimate charge at the time. that's all from us. kirsty�*s here tomorrow, tilthen, goodnight.

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seeks to take on president biden in 2024. seeks to take on president biden in 202a. helena, thank you so much for that update. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news. let's look at some other stories making news. a 15—year—old old boy who died after being stabbed near a school in leeds has been publicly named as alfie lewis. emergency services were called to the incident in horsforth on tuesday. alfie — a former student at horsforth school — later died in hospital and police opened a murder investigation. a teenage boy has been arrested. possession of nitrous oxide — which is also known as laughing gas for its "psychoactive effects" — has become a criminal offence in the uk. now categorised as a class c drug, it'll carry a sentence of up to two years in prison. the government says the ban will combat anti—social behaviour and reduce damage to users' health. nestle has confirmed it is discontinuing the popular british sweet, caramac.

the company said it was "a difficult decision" to stop production of the caramel bar, but pointed to slower sales in recent years. caramac was launched more than 60 years ago, quickly gaining popularity thanks to its distinctive red and yellow wrapper and caramel flavour. you're live with bbc news. there were more revelations and apologies at the uk's covid inquiry today. lord sedwill — a former head of the civil service — said he joked that sacking the then health secretary, matt hancock, would save lives. our deputy political editor vicki young reports. by borisjohnson�*s side, mark sedwill saw first—hand how this group of ministers dealt with a crisis no one seemed to be prepared for. today he admitted he and other officials should have done more before the pandemic hit. there was an assurance that plans were in place to manage it. and in hindsight, it would have, as you suggest... those plans should have been

interrogated more carefully by me and at the cabinet level. in the weeks before lockdown in march 2020, scientific advisers felt it was inevitable covid would spread. lord sedwill admitted he suggested chickenpox—style parties. it must have come across that someone in my role was both sort of heartless and thoughtless about this, and i genuinely am neither. but i do understand the distress that must have caused, and i apologise for that. and what about his relationship with the downing street team? in this whatsapp exchange, another senior official, simon case, wrote... lord sedwill replies... and a diary entry by the chief scientific adviser, sir patrick vallance, included this... "sedwill came back saying this administration is brutal and useless. " did you say those words?

i don't doubt sir patrick's memory. it must have been a moment of acute frustration with something, i don't know what. not for the first time, there were questions about the honesty of matt hancock. mr sedwill revealed he had suggested borisjohnson replace his health secretary. i don't think i would have used the word sack with the prime minister himself, although i acknowledge i said it to mr case. but he would have been under no illusions as to my view about what was best. lord sedwill was critical of the way many decisions about covid were made. next month, senior politicians will have their say. vicki young, bbc news, westminster. let's take a look at some of the stories in the headlines in the uk. pro—palestinian demonstrators are due to hold a protest in london on saturday, which is also armistice day, when there are formal events to mark the anniversary of the end of the first world war. prime minister rishi sunak has described the march

as disrespectful. he's met the head of the metropolitan police and asked for assurances that remembrance events will be safeguarded. there will be a protest this weekend. parliament is very clear about that. the law provides no mechanism to ban a gathering, a static protest, a rally, anything like that. there is no mechanism whatsoever to ban such a thing. the rmt rail union has agreed to give its members a vote on a deal with 14 train companies, which could mean the end of national strike action for at least the next six months. the offer includes backdated pay rises and job security guarantees in what the union's boss has called a "welcome development". 400 years ago an extraordinary book was published. the first folio contained most of the works of william shakespeare, compiled by several of his friends a few years after his death. without it, many of shakespeare's plays would have been lost.

our culture editor katie razzall has been talking to david tennant — who's about to play macbeth on stage in london. but here, upon this bank and shoal of time, we'd jump the life to come. david tenna nt�*s macbeth. but in these cases, we still have judgment here. macbeth wasn't printed in shakespeare's day. around half of his plays would have disappeared after his death without the decision 400 years ago to publish the works together in the first folio. my husband! i have done the deed. didst thou not hear a noise? i heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. i without the folio, we would have been robbed of renowned performances and timeless words. i'm sitting here at the end of my first day of rehearsals for macbeth. it wouldn't exist. we wouldn't have a copy of it. that's true of antony and cleopatra.

that's true of twelfth night. a bunch of the plays wouldn't exist at all. soldiers, break rank! now, the royal shakespeare company has chosen 37 new plays to celebrate shakespeare's 37. the writer of this history play is just 11 years old. the rsc picked new playwrights to reflect our times, with staged readings here at the new vic theatre in newcastle—under—lyme. blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! this winning entry, called the doris effect, gives a king lear speech a modern twist. until you have drenched our solar panels and drowned the council who put them there! 0h, hello, jerry. it's based on the playwright's own experience of how a renewable energy company's plans split his west midlands farming community. it's a sort of microcosm for what has happened in the nation, as it were, happened in our community, which is divisiveness, and divisiveness is everywhere. annie? no! another play, life goes on, is about grief.

it's written by an a—level student from northampton. on this anniversary of the first folio, around 1,700 of the words we still use were invented by shakespeare. it just goes to show that that's probably an even better reason to immerse yourself into shakespearean plays and see what he's written, because he's really impacted not just the words that we speak, he kind ofjust amplifies the importance of the words that we use. to be or not to be, i that is the question. i think what shakespeare managed to do is he managed to capture the human experience, and it feels weirdly modern, actually, that he writes about the moment he was in, which seems to, by dint of his genius, also be the moment we are in. and the moment for a surprise. a replica of the first folio.

this is, like, a present? yes, and this is a present for you from the british library, who own the first folio. wow! how amazing! has he signed it? no, he hasn't! shame. sadly not. katie razzall, bbc news. you have been watching newsday. hello there. wednesday brought us some pretty big weather contrasts across the country. for the southeast of england, we have a persistent band of rain was raining for most of the day, bringing these rather grey skies quite windy as well. most of the uk have actually managed to see something a bit brighter through the afternoon with some sunshine shower clouds getting in here to northern ireland. and here are the showers on the radar picture from wednesday. the speckled shower clouds extend right out into the atlantic to near greenland. and all of those shower clouds are coming our way. so it is going to be quite an unsettled looking weather picture over the next

few days, really. now, over the next few hours, a bit of rain crosses northern england, a few showers here and there. most of them will be across western areas. these are the kind of temperatures that you'll start off thursday with. so quite a chilly start to the day, cold enough for of frost across northern scotland, mostly eastern scotland, central and eastern england, east wales starting off on a dry and sunny note, the showers across western areas. but as we go through the day, you could see an odd shower just about anywhere. they'll always be most frequent, though, towards wales and south west england where they could merge to give some slightly longer spells of rain. and as well as that, it'll be quite windy around the coast, gusts of around 40, perhaps the low 50 miles an hour. now, friday is another kind of showery day, but this time the winds are generally coming in from a north westerly direction. and that means the showers are going to tend to be draped around coastal areas. if you live away from the coast, you've got a much better chance of it being dry and sunny as well. temperatures running quite close to average for the time of year, about eight to 11 degrees. now as we head into the weekend,

saturday looks all right sunday. the big question mark isjust how quickly this band of rain comes in off the atlantic. at the moment saturday, the better of the two days of the weekend, plenty of sunshine around, maybe a few early morning mist and fog patches. but for the vast majority, it's a dry day. perhaps just one or two showers rolling in to the far north east of scotland. temperatures not really changing too much, around 8 to 11 degrees celsius. the big question mark on sunday is just how quickly this band of rain gathers and moves in from the west. it might be a lot slower coming in. and if that happens, well, sunday could also be a dry day with plenty of sunshine around as well. so there's a bit of a question mark about sunday's forecast in terms of whether we do see that band of rain spreading its way in.

this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines at the top of the hour, as newsday continues straight after hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. the us is still the world's most powerful nation, but its ability to shape geopolitics, to suit its own interests is under severe strain. president biden portrays america's backing for ukraine's war

against russian aggression and israel's war on hamas as a twin defence of a values based international order. but much of the world isn't buying it. inside america, too there is significant pushback. my guest is fiona hill, former us national security council expert on russia. how dangerous is this new world disorder? fiona hill, welcome to hardtalk. thank you so much, stephen. as we speak to each other, the world's headlines are being made

by the conflict in the middle east between israel and hamas.