this is bbc news. the headline israel says the three hostages who were mistakenly killed by israeli troops in gaza were holding a white flag when they were shot. the families of israelis still held in gaza have intensified their calls on the israeli government to resume negotiations with hamas to try to secure their release. a spokesman for israel's prime minister has defended his government's approach. if there is an opportunity to free hostages, we will take that opportunity. but we think the application of military force on the hamas military machine, on the hamas leadership, is the way to expedite the release of the israeli people. and the aljazeera tv news networks

is one of its camera operators was killed by an israeli air strike in southern gaza. italy's prime minister giorgia meloni is hosting a four—day right—wing festival. british prime minister rishi sunak and elon musk are among those attending. now on bbc news it is time for newscast. chris, the prime minister was at a primary school today. he was. a disappointing lack of embarrassing moments, though. there was, but there was detailed scrutiny from the pupils, wasn't there? rapid fire questions. i was thinking i need to be quicker when i'm interviewing the prime minister. you know, they kind of, you know, allow five seconds for an answer and they're in with the next question. let's have a listen. what do you want for christmas? what do i want for christmas? yes. oh, gosh, i haven't really thought about that, actually. _ i'd like to have a day off. what's your favourite ice cream? what's my favourite ice cream? my favourite ice - cream is probably... it's quite boring. it's vanilla ice cream. i like vanilla! but with chocolate i pieces in the middle. so, chris, the big question for you as political editor of the bbc is, what do you want for christmas?

what do i want for christmas? you see, i think, on both ice cream and presents i'm with the prime minister. a day off, that would be good. and i'm a vanilla ice cream man as well. i suspected nothing less. anyway, what i want for christmas or pre—christmas is a panel of three wise mps to help us talk about what's happened this week, this year, and what might happen next year. so that's what we're going to magic up on this episode of newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello. it's adam in the studio. and it's chris in the studio. and, as promised, we arejoined by a panel of three wise mps. that's how they describe themselves. no, that's how i've described it. no, that's, yeah, i'll take that back. sorry. thangam debbonaire, newscast superfan and shadow culture secretary. hello. kirsty blackman from the snp. you are the cabinet office spokesperson. i am indeed, yeah. and luke evans, who's a conservative mp.

hello. so what do you guys want for christmas? are you up for revealing that? i want a nap. just a nap. this shadow culture brief is turning out to be quite hard work? bit of a nap. and i want to read my book and, . well, a book and a general election, i've got to say that, - i want a general election. what, on christmas day? oh, my god. maybe not on christmas day. i'm a political geek, but... kirsty? i want to spend the day with my kids. that's what i want to do. aw. even if they get up at 4am? they won't. they're not allowed. we've got very strict rules. you can't get up before 7:30am on christmas day. how would you enforce that? i would never have signed up to that as a kid. well, if they come out of their room early, santa might not, might be there, might not have been yet. 0h, busted, 0k. so that's the key thing. 7:30. i'm quite liking that. it's quite good. and so normally, i'm up at 6am sitting in bed going, "come on, come on, 7:30!" and they sleep till 7:30am. luke? for me, it's to make _ sure my whippets don't get hurt. they've got a propensityl at the moment whenever

i'm going on a dog walk to have a leg injury. - so i've got ada and roux and ada particularly loves to run, chasing i hares and anything else, - and we live in the countryside. i'm hoping she doesn't do this because i spend the summer. carrying her out after heri running into barbed wire. so these kind of things - i want to avoid because it's very expensive at the vet. right, before we look back at the year and look forward to next year, let's just look back at this week, which is obviously dominated by the not government defeat on the rwanda legislation. luke, were you at this christmas party in downing street that rishi sunak held for mps to sort of bring everyone back together? the one yesterday? yeah. lwas. — and he was in good spirits. he had some cracking jokes and actually it was nice to see everyone there from all across the conservative party having a chat and having a couple of little bits of finger food. it's very, very christmas party, as you might well expect. yeah. and so, does that mean all these divisions about rwanda have been put behind you all? well, i think you saw the result, actually. there was, you know, constant talk that people were going to fall all over the place, do all sorts of rebellion. not one tory mp voted against it. so, you know, it's a healthy,

good discussion, a big debate to get sorted. we're going to come back in the new year to face it off and do it all again. absolutely. but i think there's a direction there that we understand what the public want. they want it sorted. it's how you get there that's the hard point. and we're in uncharted territory, aren't we, across the world trying to sort this out. so for me, i think it's fairly pragmatic across that and i think all my colleagues that i speak to are in that same boat, they'd like us to put up, shut up, keep quiet and get things sorted. and especially when we're not really seeing any other option come forward, i think for me that's the biggest thing. what is the alternative? thangam, i thought about labour's policy on the small boats today, which is basically to beef up the system, clear the backlog, hire more people to process the claims. and the reason i was thinking about that is because we got lots of stats yesterday from the home office aboutjust how hard it is to process some of these claims. so ijust wonder, are you confident labour's plan ofjust kind of like ditching rwanda and beefing up the current system actually would be enough? because it shows the system, even when it's beefed up, still has problems. well, first off, there's other elements to the plan.

but also, when i first came to parliament as an mp in 2015, most claims were heard within six months. so obviously it is possible. it was rare that i couldn't say to someone, a constituent, "you will get a decision within the next six months "and if you don't let me know and i will be able to find out." nowadays you can't even find out what's going on as an mp for, certainly not on the same day, you used to be able to. and you can't tell your constituents, "i'm pretty sure you will get a decision within six months." but also, we need a proper family reunion. that really works because, you know, think about the afghans and just... explain how that works. so how that works, family reunion, but also other safe and legal routes, and safe and legal routes means people who will be entitled to be here not having to make a dangerousjourney. so, people like afghan interpreters and their families, we promised that we'd look after them and a lot of them have not been protected. and if you have a safe and legal route, that means that the united nations, the commission for refugees, can process people either in or close to region and actually make sure they get here safely. now, we could do that, but family reunion is when you've

got a member of your family who's already here legally have their claim processed or it was already here legally and you are allowed to join them without having to take a dangerous journey. now, those things are possible. if you do that, you clear the backlog and clearing the backlog obviously is possible because it didn't used to be this bad. and at the moment we've got a government that seems content to spend £8 million every day on hotels and not sort out that problem. that's not the asylum seekers' fault. that's the government. that's on the government. i mean, don't their actions prove that they're not content to spend £8 million a day? whatever the view about rwanda. but it has gone up and up. it was 6 million a day i think only a few months ago and now it's eight. you know, this isjust not, it's not working. whatever it is they're doing, it's not working. and there used to be an asylum claim system that, you know, at least got people decisions. luke, did you want to come in there? well, it's christmas.

i'm trying to be festive, - but a little bit disgruntled at this end on the basis that, _ you know, the processing power has gone up by 4000 cases in a week. now, being able to get that through. you've also got to - remember that, well, let's open up the question. you say, so you said, open up routes. - how many routes, which countries, where from, how many numbers i are you going to have in? because i understand the principle of what you're putting _ in place, but we already have a scheme as well. | but there are 100 million people, that there are 100 million - people who are displaced across the world. - so even if 1% of them, - which is a very tiny amount, 1 million people tried to come to the uk _ the albanians? but where would you open up? you can't do this on your own. so it's all about - building that process. and i think deterrent has. worked because our figures have gone down by 30%. albania is still part of it as well. | but you look at what's going on in| greece and italy and their numbers are all skyrocketing. i so this is a global problem thatl

needs a global solution and we're trying to build part - of that global solution. i don't have brussel sprouts ready to throw yet. at no point did i say, you know, we take everybody. we take a fraction of the world's refugees. most refugees, as i'm sure you know, luke, either stay in their own country or go to the one next door. that's where most of the world's refugees go. what i'm really pleased to see - the governments come out and said they're going to have a cap. you know, they've gone. to all the councils to say, how many people do you think you can reasonably look after? _ which ones? i've got my council writing to me - saying, we can't house those people. that's a really pragmatic solution to take up and is part— of a wider solution. so i agree with you about processing | power, but i agree with also havingl a deterrent in the place, - also making sure that we know the numbers that we can say and having that support - across in other countries to do so. i think that's really important. i saw that you'd written an article recently saying an independent scotland. it would be limitless immigration. what does that mean? i did not write in that recently. correct me. one of the newspapers used that phrase and put it in. ok, quote marx, even though i didn't see it.

ok, what did you say? so nicky campbell asked me whether there would be a cap, and i said, no, there would not be a can — i mean, there's not currently a cap in the uk. i think caps are arbitrary. i think they don't work. what do you do when you hit the cap? do you say, right, that limited the new what? no, it said limitless is what it said in the quotes and basically give the impression that i was saying open the doors to anybody that wants to come. and i wasn't. and what i was saying is you need controls, right? you need controls to encourage the migration that you want and to discourage the immigration that you don't want. scotland's got a very different demographic profile to the rest of the uk. our population is growing more slowly. i remember, one of the first political things that i remember wasjack mcconnell, who was the first minister of scotland, saying, "the population of scotland is going to drop below 5 million and we don't know what to do about it." and i rememberthe kind of fear that there was, there was. and actually our population's got a tendency to dip. the only reason that that went back up was because of immigration. and we have done what we can in scotland. actually, if you ask people in scotland, if you poll people in scotland, the views are totally

different on immigration to certainly what the, you know, the conservative mps are telling me that the biggest issue for their constituents is the small boats. the biggest issue for my constituents is the cost of living. but, you know, in terms of the small boats, right, illegal migration accounts for 3% of the immigration. we need people to come and work at the nhs, we need people to come and live in our rural areas. we need people to come to scotland. the immigration system that is in the uk already doesn't work for us, actually tightening it up and trying to make it worse, changing the salary levels, for example, is going to be really disastrous for scotland. so i mean the key thing for me is that this is, these are not ourvalues, right? these are not the values of the people of scotland, the things that are being passed by westminster right now. i think there's something interesting when we talk| about we need people to come and work in the nhs. - and first off, i'm _ the daughter of an immigrant. my dad came over on the boat. and i've been treated by people of all sorts of national origins. but i think there's something really questionable about us deciding - that we will sort out our nhs - workforce problem by going to other countries who have spent their own | money training up nhs specialistsl and health specialists and saying,

|"well, we'll have some of those. | and health specialists and saying, | |"well, we'll have some of those." i think we have to have - something better than that. and i think that's reasonable - because countries across the world in the global south, - for instance, where we just basically go and say, "right, i well have some of your nurses, we'll have some of your nurses, "we'll have some of your doctors." i think we have to question . whether or not that's actually ok for those countries, i as well as for this country. and so, you have to have a workforce training plan because people say- to us it takes years. if we'd started in 2016, _ we might actually have some of those specialists. luke, you're a doctor. pick up on the thought that thangam was suggesting that around that whole question because there's an ethical and moral dimension to it, isn't there, around the recruitment of health professionals from abroad and whether that is right. and you're absolutely right. there's an element of aspiration as well. people want to come to work in the uk because we have some of the best health learning, the most cutting edge technology that you would ever see. so this is a really good opportunity and we export that back to the rest of the world. the classic one that you see at the moment is lots of doctors go to australia,

many of them do return. so this is a really good side, from my professional background. in answer to the workforce, the problem actually is this isn'tjust a uk problem or a europe problem. you know, across the western world you've got an ageing population. hinting at what you're talking about, kirsty, that has many more ailments, that's costing much more. and so actually, you know, there's a report only done just recently that across the world gps are really in short number and you're seeing that across canada, australia, south africa, all these countries. that is the state of play we're going at the moment because people are ailing and having more co—morbidities than ever before. so on that basis, you're always going to be trying to play catch—up. now we have a workforce plan to try and match that. the problem you're going to come across is how do you match that? across is how do you match that, as technology changes, as our needs change? the pandemic flipped everything on its head in the way in which health care is done, so it's really quite hard to try and plan against it. and having sat three years in the health select committee, i'm really pleased jeremy hunt has implemented this. but we did hear the evidence on the counter side to say, well, how do you give specific numbers when you're not specifically sure

what's coming along? there is a bit of a christmas film angle to this story. bear with us. die hard? not die hard, tory death wish. in love actually under which, some people love that christmas film, some people do not like that christmas film. somebody on social media was working out which of the relationships in love actually could now not happen because of the salary threshold for marrying a spouse and bringing them in from abroad. so, luke, are you ok with people, like, who they can marry, based on how much they earn? well, we're still waiting to see what the guidance would be published in spring on it. it's a tough balance, isn't it? it could be different when they've announced that they're looking at the guidelines. what they, actually i haven't seen. so i don't know because i've not asked that question because i've got so i don't know because i've, asked that question because i've got constituents who are going to be potentially caught in this. so are they still in the old system? are they going in the new system? these are the pragmatic questions

that need to be asked and looked at. you don't sound super enthusiastic about it though. kirsty? thinking about things i like care workers, right? we did a report in the scottish- affairs committee a few years ago where we said that actually if you look into the future, | i if every school leaver in scotland . was to go and become a care worker, we still would not have enough care workers. you know, that's the kindj of demographic challenge that we are facing now. working in care, i i've worked in care. it's hard, right? it's a hard job. i i can understand why- people don't want to do. i can understand why— people don't want to do. people don't want to do it. it's massively rewarding. but it is difficult and you don't get paid very much. _ so, you know, if there's care workers in the uk that - want to marry their partner abroad, |they're going to have to go and live j in another country because there's no way they're going to make - a salary threshold. are labour supporting that bit or opposing that? the proposed new salary threshold, i think, has more than doubled. what was the one before now? it hadn't gone up for some time. but i think we need to involve the migration advisory committee for, the clues in the name. that's what they're there for. and i think that's the place on which we should start, but we should also start

from a place of thinking about workforce. and rather thanjust thinking, whenever we're short of a particular profession, let's go abroad to a different country. i mean, i agree with luke's point on how our soft power works, but that does seem to contradict what we're now discussing. but i don't think we should just assume all the time that when we're short of a particular profession, we just go and go shopping somewhere else. so where exactly are labour on the sort of salary threshold? it should be a bit higher than it currently is, but not as high as the government is proposing? it needed to go up, but we need to have the advice of the migration advisory committee. we need to have that special expert advice in order to be able to make informed decisions. for us, it feels pretty arbitrary, right? - you know, the current i threshold feels arbitrary. the new threshold feels arbitrary. actually, if you focus on ensuring that you've got, you know, - people doing the jobs that you want them to do, if you focus on that - . rather than the salary, for me, . that would make much more sense thanjust picking a random number. so when you say arbitrary, you'd get rid of it, would you? you wouldn't have a salary threshold at all? in terms— of the specific salary threshold, so, i don't honestly knowl what the party position is.

i don't like the idea of that kind of picking a number for it. - i think it'd be much better to do it on kind ofjob titles or, _ you know, that direction. but in terms of, you know, marrying somebody from another country, - i think you should be allowed to marry somebody from - another country, no matter what your salary is. - i don't think it should be relevant. right. very quickly, what will you remember 2023 for politically? working 29 hours a day? well, there was a bit of that. going to rwanda for four hours? a day trip to rwanda. you were with the home secretary? i went to report on the home secretary's trip to rwanda. yeah, it was a day trip to kigali. well, we got through a year with the same prime minister and leader of the opposition. that's pretty unusual. change of first minister in scotland, of course, and the change of snp leader at westminster. labour in wales at the moment, yeah. although he will see the year out in post, will mark drakeford. but actually, it seems to me, by the standards of recent years, we've actually had a kind of, i hesitate to use this word,

but kind of a conventional political year actually, where you've had a party political battle between the various parties making their arguments. of course, you've had turbulence within parties, i mean, not least within the conservatives in the last couple of weeks, albeit with that victory in the end for the prime minister for now on rwanda. so compared with 2022, it seemed more kind of normal—ish, i think. ok, we've got crackers, pass these along and because there's a newscast twist, what we've done is we've taken the crackers apart, put in our own quiz questions, and then sealed them back up again. oh, so the rubbishjokes have been taken out. yeah. been replaced by trivia questions. i was always taught that when i go to christmas that i should always bring a gift if i'm with the family. so i've actually brought mince pies for everyone. he never gave us a heads up. we didn't bring a gift! - anyway, save the mince pies because no one wants to see or hear eating. right, do your to your crackers. right, do your crackers. i got a spare one.

right, go. oh, i can't do that. right. to who do i ask this question? just ask to the group. oh, here we go. how did i get this one? did you do this on purpose? l did you give us specific ones? no, because you saw that the crackers just went out randomly. here we go. it'sjust fate. oh, this. there is a crown as well. here goes the question. you've got the hat. you've got to wear the hat. oh, yeah, that will sit well with the headphones. i know, right. i've lost my hat. no, it's here. here we go. just to say, if you come and visit us in our other newscast studio next year, which is just having a refurb, there are no headphones any more. here we go. anyway. right, exactly. exactly. how much in kilograms did the sword that penny mordaunt carried at the coronation weigh? oh, can we talk about the frock, though? it looked quite heavy. you don't know the answer. i really don't know the answer, but it was heavy. well, take a guess. and the person closest... what are we thinking? ten kilograms? would it be more than that? ten? that's very heavy. it's, like, two hours long!

you couldn't hold it. but seriously... you know, i think three and a half. i was going at two and a half. i only do stones and pounds. you're exempt. 3.6 kilograms. next question. next question, please. everyone remembers a protester poured glitter over keir starmer — and frankly, i think he rocked it — at the labour party conference. but what were they calling for? it's funny because i was there and it was quite tricky to tell. i think there was something about democracy. i think it was about proportional representation. i think more complicated than that. was it pr? no, it was called the people's house and it was where you randomly selected people to be mps. that was not clear. and besides, we were all a bit worried about keir, to be honest, at the time. next question. do i read it in a voice or... it's up to you. what would you do? i don't know. in the snp channel 4 leadership debate, . who was suggesting an alternative head of state for scotland - instead of king charles? ooh... come on, kirsty. i didn't watch that!

i bet it was somebody _ like sean connery or billy connolly. he's dead! oh, yeah! sean connery�*s not with us any more. was he then? i don't know if he was watching either, but it was andy murray. oh. - seriously? fair enough. i mean, i can see that. i wasn't watching it either. go ahead. what did rishi sunak get a fixed penalty notice for injanuary? pa rtygate, wasn't it? no, it was a seat belt. it was a seat belt in lancashire, i think it was. he was a passenger. this year's been long. yeah, that was this year. i knew you'd get that one. i actually remembered that one. and this is the last one. what vegetable did therese coffey suggest we eat during the shortage of salad vegetables in march? wasn't it turnips? it was turnips. did you follow her advice? did you discover loads of turnip recipes you never knew? i'm not good with my fruit and veg, of all things. -

you're a doctor! it's my one weakness. i'm really not good. i so i have one of those nutribullets to try and get all five things - in to try and get me there each day. my wife scorns me that i'm - still a school kid on that basis. it's, yeah. well, my favourite veg and i don't know if they are a veg, is sprouts. so christmas is a very, very happy time for me. you eat them the rest of the year? oh, yeah, of course i do. i love sprouts. it's seasonal, chris, you know, we're supposed to eat seasonal vegetables now and then. just very quickly, looking ahead to next year, rather than you all doing long speeches about the need for an election, have you booked any holidays next year? because rachel reeves was on newscast a few weeks ago and she had to tell her kids, "we can't book a summer holiday because it might be the election." you know, it's the weirdest - atmosphere in parliamentjust now because, so i've been - there since 2015, but the two general elections that we've had weren't exactly planned - or expected, you know? so there's been this feeling of anticipation kind of building since about easter and - towards a general election.

it's not something i've experienced in parliament before _ because this hasn't happened. we've not had a normal run—up. hey, we could do the newscast christmas special next year and it's still not happened! or we'd be in the middle of it. ! yes. thankfully, the recess dates . were announced this morning, so at least we've got recess dates. | but i was looking at them thinking | there's no way i can book anything. it'sjust not going to happen. so i think, unfortunately, it's going to be _ a lastminute.com type thing. 0k. although they do do holidays. well, we in my family, we like welsh rain quite a lot. so we go to... there's a bit of wales. and wales is always open. wales is always open. all year round. and you can nip to it from bristol. so, you know, wales is usually where we go. a little bit left—field, we did a big holiday- to south korea and japan of all places this summer, which was lovely. - but my wife has signed up and found out she's got i through to potentially get tickets to tomorrowland in belgium. - for those of you who don't know what that is, that's _ a big club event.

it's a techno festival! it is, absolutely. that's where i'm sort of at. when is it? i think it's injuly. so hopefully we have an election much further out than that - because that would be quite hard to square away with . my constituents! no, gone clubbing. because you're out there waving your hands in the air. absolutely, glow sticks and all kind of thing. . oh, and chris, just to be serious, just do a bit of diary planning. i mean, is there a chance the election could actually be january 2025? i mean, there's a theoretical chance. so i was looking today on an institute for government briefing... merry christmas, everyone! i know! what do you get the man who has everything? it's how i like to live! and the 17th of december of next year will mark the five—year anniversary of the start of the parliament that we are currently in because the election was in mid—december. and at that point, if the prime minister has not been to the king to request a dissolution, i.e. a general election, then legally parliament just dissolves. 25 working days later comes the general election, tail end ofjanuary 2025.

i think it's tuesday 25th of january 2025 is the legal latest it could possibly be. now, that would be running the clock down to the very last moment. legally, entirely possible and within rishi sunak�*s gift to do that, unless he picks a day at any point before that. we'd be campaigning over christmas. my birthday's in january. we're learning a lot about your life and year. anyway, thank you for being such good sports and for keeping us all entertained with your political shenanigans throughout the year. and i'm sure there will be many more next year. and with that, we've come to the end of the year for newscast, the podcast on tv. and as a special end of year treat, we've got our colleague in moscow, steve rosenberg, who is an amazing pianist, to play the 12 days of christmas, accompanied by some well—known faces from the bbc news podcast family. this is our christmas gift to you, but please don't send it back!

# on the 12th day of christmas, i heard on the bbc... #12 months of nuke # 12 months of nuke newscast #12 months of nuke newscast sinner ii #12 months of nuke newscast sinner 11 lionesses... 11 lionesses. .. # seven 11 lionesses... # seven by—elections... six... # seven by—elections... six... # five key merry christmas.

hello there. good afternoon. well, it's cloudy, it's windy. it's really very mild across the whole of the uk as we head throughout the weekend. temperatures are well above the seasonal average. there is some sunshine around at times, notably across northern england earlier on this morning and generally towards the lea of high ground we will see some breaks in the cloud, too. that milder air is coming streaming in on a brisk south—westerly wind, really quite blustery towards these north—west facing coasts and aligned with the wind some heavy downpours of rain and that willjust continue to pile into western scotland as we head throughout this afternoon and through the day tomorrow. it will be relentless, that rain, and the rainfall totals will start to rack up as much as 200 millimetres, perhaps for some western slopes. there's a met office amber weather warning enforced throughout the day tomorrow, valid from argyll and bute all the way as far north as sutherland. and there could even be some landslips, most likely across the south highlands. so the rain continues in the west. further east across eastern

scotland, the murray coast will see some breaks in the clouds and breaks too across northern england and north—east wales. further south it's cloudy and it's really very mild, 12 or 13 degrees celsius pretty much across the board. that brisk south—westerly wind just continues through this evening and overnight, the rain continues to pile into western scotland. but further south it is a mostly dry picture, but plenty of cloud, a few breaks in the cloud, perhaps, for south—east england. here, temperatures will drop to 8 or 9 degrees, but that's very mild. it's the sort of temperature that we'd normally expect to see by day at this time of year. now, sunday, a repeat performance again, some very heavy downpours of rain into western scotland throughout the day. the rain will start to sink a little further southwards into northern ireland and perhaps north—west england as we go through the afternoon. so drying out a little across the far north of scotland, temperatures 10—14 degrees celsius and breaks in the cloud again just in the shelter of the pennines towards the east and across north—east wales. again, perhaps for south—east england too.

as we head through sunday night and into monday, that rain clears away from much of scotland. it will push further southwards and it will start to pick up again across england and wales, particularly towards the south as we head through the day on tuesday. so some very wet weather then in the south on tuesday, the rain clears away, but there will be some showers following on behind and eventually some colder feeling air. keep an eye on the forecast for the rest of the week. bye.

live from london, this is bbc news. israel's military says three hostages who were mistakenly killed by its soldiers in gaza were holding a white flag. the killings have increased the pressure on the israeli government to resume negotiations with hamas. the families of the hostages have been holding a rally in tel aviv. if there is an opportunity to free hostages, we will take that opportunity, but we think the application of military force on hamas, on its leadership, is the way to help release people. luton�*s premier league football match is abandoned after its captain, tom lockyer, collapses on pitch. he is the highest ranking church official ever to stand trial

before a vatican criminal court.