an exit poll suggested a tight race between the three main parties and that the cost of living, the housing crisis, and immigration were the leading issues weighing on irish voters. a second night of protests in georgia as thousands demonstrate against a decision to suspend eu membership talks. police have used tear gas and water canon to try to disperse the crowds in tbilisi. claims that mohamed al fayed manipulated managers to conceal his crimes — the late harrods boss has been accused of sexual abuse by dozens of women. hello, i'm kylie pentelow. more now on our top story here — mps voting in favour of a bill to legalise assisted dying in england and wales. it's a landmark moment, but the argument is far from over. there will be months of debate and scrutiny — and the bill will need approval from both the house of commons and the house of lords before it becomes law. tim muffet has been speaking to

two high—profile campaigners — on either side of the issue. chanting: assisted dying now! chanting: assistance to live! not to die! — a matter of life and death. bringing in an assisted dying bill now is just absolutely wrong. it's very simple. ijust passionately believe in it. rarely has a parliamentary vote felt so consequential. the ayes to the right, 330. the noes to the left 275. the ayes have it, the ayes have it. amongst those congratulating mp kim leadbeater, whose private member's bill this was, rebecca wilcox, here in the dark blue coat and purple scarf. her mum, dame esther rantzen, has stage four lung cancer. she'd been urging mps to support the bill.

dame esther, what is your reaction to the result of the vote in the house of commons? well, i'm very relieved. i wonder how i would be feeling if the bill had not got any further, and i think it would have been a profound disappointment, not for me, but for all those people who've been so brave, so hard—working, so compassionate to try and get the current mess of a law changed. the ayes have it. the ayes have it, unlock. actor liz carr had been campaigning against the bill. it does feel frightening. it does. i'm quite shattered and, um, gutted. it feels irresponsible by parliament. there's a lot of people who really feel quite frightened now that we've lost, you know, this beginning of a vote. chanting: not to die! assistance to live! - we just don't see that

the safeguards will protect us. we also look at all the other countries where this has been brought in. it's always, to varying degrees, been extended. and in the majority, it's been extended. orfrom the beginning, it's been about disability, too. i can envisage a time when i would want to die because my situation would be that difficult. i had it as a teenager. why would i not want that again? being told, "no, it's not possible," i think sometimes we need that. laws are there to protect us. they're not just about giving us personal freedoms. that has to be balanced with protecting us. and often that's protecting us from ourselves. chanting: kill the bill! not the ill! _ it's not the end of the road, we know that. there are other chances

to vote out the bill, but this was the first chance and possibly the easiest opportunity to do that. obviously, there are several more stages to go before this becomes law. how confident are you that this will move relatively quickly? kim said in the debate, it's better to get it right than do it fast. and i think she's absolutely right. the drug i'm on is one of these newfangled miracle drugs, and it seems to be holding the cancer back from spreading much further. so i have my next scan at the end of the year, and we'll see then. if things have gone badly wrong, then i suppose i'll have to get on the plane to zurich to have an assisted death, because i'm afraid i don't think i'll last long enough to see this bill made law, but it was never really about me at all, because i knew that nothing could happen in time. i'm just astonished that i could live long enough to hear the debate. earlier, i wasjoined by two labour mps who sit on both

sides of the argument for and against the bill. labour mp for brent west, barry gardiner, voted no — whilst labour mp for worthing west, beccy cooper, voted for the bill. it was a decision that i came to after a lot of thinking. and i should also point out that i'm a doctor by trade and i'm a public health doctor. and i'm a public health doctor, so i look at population health. so we look at lots of these really difficult issues. we talk about nanny state quite a lot of the time, we talk about freedom of choice. i speak to a lot of ethicists in my role as a public health professional. so i had quite a lot of time to think about this sort of issue. and when it came to the bill, i read the bill thoroughly, and i looked at the criteria that was being drawn up in this bill. and it is a very specific bill. it is entitled terminally ill adults end of life bill. and i was satisfied with the criteria that the bill was outlining. it is a very narrow criteria,

actually, and i have had some people talking to me about whether it's too narrow. but for me, those safeguarding criteria in there are safeguarding criteria that i agree with, that i can understand that i think legally will be enforceable. as i say, i'm a doctor. i've spoken to lots of doctors about the fact that it will take two doctors and a high courtjudge. that it is a choice — its six months before the, you know, the terminal diagnosis. and so i felt that actually, all things considered, i was prepared to vote for this as a second reading of the bill. i absolutely appreciate those people who have been campaigning against it and i'm very pleased that the debate will continue. it was such a respectful debate yesterday. i was so proud to be a parliamentarian and i think the committee will now go through it line by line. it will then go to the house of lords and then it will come back for a third reading. so, you know, there's lots more debate to be had. but for me yesterday that was the right vote. and barry, can we come

to you about your decision to vote against? yes. look, beccy's right. it was a thoughtful debate yesterday and i was proud to take part in it. proud to see the way the house of commons dealt with this so thoughtfully. and although i was on the losing side of the debate, i recognise that for many people this will bring relief of suffering and a sense of dignity, and that's important. my concern has always been that parliament needs to legislate notjust for individuals and their choice, it has to legislate for the whole of society and in particular to protect those who are most vulnerable. and i am very concerned that there will be people, even if they are not pressurised by others... and the bill makes specific reference to trying to avoid that. but we've seen through the coercive control bill that we dealt with last year just how difficult it is to tell when somebody is being coerced. but even if it's not a third party coercing them, because we've now made this legal, because we've now said it's possible to do this

and not break the law, many people will now feel that they're obliged to consider it and they'll think, "well, ought i to do this?" "would my family be better off if i did this?" am i too much of a burden on them? or even considerations like the... "are my care costs going to eat into my grandchildren's legacy? " so i don't think it's right that people should be put into that position at a time at the end of their life, when they've only got six months left to live, they're feeling very vulnerable. and the bill cannot guard against that. the bill makes, as i say, specific reference to third party control. to third party control — third party coercion. but this is actually about people then and about people then internally feeling obliged to do something. and that, of course, is a choice. but in my view, it's

a choice that we should not be facing people with. i wonder for both of you, let's turn to beccy first, were the thoughts of your constituents taken into consideration when you were making this vote? because it seems that it's quite a personal issue, a personal decision, this one. yeah, very much so. so, as i said, i came to this role as a parliamentarian with my background in public health medicine. so i brought that expertise to bear. but my constituents have been they've been fantastic, actually. i'm sure barry's have too. they've been really interactive, very respectful in their debating as well. i've had huge amounts of correspondence with it and i have done my best to reply to every email thoughtfully — i'm sure there are some still that i need to do. and there has been debate in the constituency. there are obviously sort of pros and against in the constituency, there are people who feel very strongly both ways. but when i explain my thinking, when i explained that i had listened to what people had said, and overall this is what my vote would be,

people were very respectful. and the people who felt that this was the appropriate vote said, "absolutely fantastic, thank you." the people who didn't said they were disappointed, but they understood and they want to keep that dialogue going. and, you know, as a parliamentarian, that's ourjob is to keep in touch with our constituents. so as we move forward in this process, there will be other opportunities for our constituents, for all parliamentarians to keep engaging and to keep hearing, because the mood of the public is such that we need to make sure that we are sort of ensuring that this legislation, as barry says, is doing what it needs to do and that the public are understanding what the legislation does and that we, sort of, we are changing, you know, our societal approach to death. and that's really important and something that, you know, as parliamentarians, as responsible parliamentarians, we take the views of our constituents with us in whatever we do. and, barry, just briefly, if you can, did you take the thoughts of your constituents into mind?

of course, i wrote back to every constituent who wrote to me. but this was a conscience vote. and it's at times like that that parliament often is at its best, as it was yesterday. because mps are forced to think very, very deeply. and in fact, at the beginning i thought i would probably vote in favour of this bill. but the more i thought about it, the more i couldn't get over that one final issue. i think the bill will manage to put in place many of the safeguards that i would wish to see, but ijust felt it could not manage that final safeguard of one's own sense of obligation to do this, that many people will feel they don't want to be a burden, and that's what really troubled me and caused me to vote against the bill yesterday. but i've written back to all of the people who wrote to me. in fact, i said to them that i was really torn, and i put both sides of the argument that i was having with myself. so, you know, it's been a very difficult

decision to come to, and i think all members of parliament have felt that. labour mps barry gardiner and beccy cooper speaking to me earlier. a memorial service is being held this morning for the former first minister of scotland alex salmond — following his death last month in north macedonia at the age of 69. 400 people are due to attend the invitation—only event at edinburgh's st giles' cathedral. let's speak to our scotland correspondent, lorna gordon. take us through what we are expecting this morning. that memorial— expecting this morning. that memorial service _ expecting this morning. that memorial service gets - expecting this morning. twat memorial service gets under way injust a few memorial service gets under way in just a few minutes' time. we are seeing invited guests make their way across the square here in the centre of edinburgh, making their way into the historic saint giles' cathedral. we saw the deputy first minister, kate forbes, enter the cathedral. shortly

before that, the car of the current first minister, john swinney pulled up. he was greeted by clapping from some in the crowd. you may be able to see behind me. he was also greeted with some boos and cheers stop one person shouted traitor, and shame on you stop it is a sense, perhaps, of the divide in the once united independence movement here in scotland, of which alex salmond was such a big figure. remember, scotland's fourth first minister was the first to lead a majority government here in scotland, something the system was designed almost to prevent. he negotiated a referendum on scottish independence, which took place independence, which took place in 2014. he took, indeed, scotland to the brink of scottish independence. whatever you think about that issue, i think it is fair to say that people from across the political divide, would all

agree that he was brilliant when it came to politics, and indeed you will see in the service today, but people from the independence movement and the independence movement and the unionist movement here to pay their respects. david davis, the conservative mp who called alex salmond his friend will give a reading here. kenny macaskill, who is the leader of the alba party, the acting leader of the other party, the party which alex salmond set up when he left the snp will also give a reading, as one of his relatives there. there will also be music from the proclaimers, and dougie maclean, seeing well—known songs here in scotland. alex salmond's nice said they wanted this to be a service that reflected the culture of the country he loved so much. there are several hundred people

gathered outside the cathedral here in edinburgh, and the service will also be streamed online. ., ., ., ~' i., service will also be streamed online. ., ., ., ~' , online. for now, thank you very much. online. for now, thank you very much- we _ online. for now, thank you very much. we will— online. for now, thank you very much. we will of— online. for now, thank you very much. we will of course - online. for now, thank you very much. we will of course be - much. we will of course be following that memorial service as it takes place throughout the morning. an ex—director of harrods has told the bbc that mohamed al fayed manipulated managers to conceal his crimes — and sacked those he could not control. jon brilliant worked at the luxury department store from 2000 to 2002. he said al fayed plied him with $50,000 of cash in envelopes — which he believes was an attempt to control him. he gave ben king this exclusive interview. how did mohamed al fayed get away with his crimes for so long? did harrods' directors know? jon brilliant worked in his private office for a year and a half. he was on the harrods board. he helped to run the paris ritz, fulham football club and the balnagowan estate in scotland. a week into the job, al—fayed handed him an envelope as he left for a business trip.

i opened it up and it was $5,000 in cash with no note, nothing. i started to ask, like, "why would...? "why would i do that?" 0r, "why was i being given this money?" and someone said, uh, in theirjudgment that, "he was trying to get you to compromise yourself. you to come back and say, �*0h, i spent money on drugs,�* or, �*i spent money, frolicking, doing something that i shouldn't have been doing,�* and that he would then use that information against you if you should ever turn on him." i am certainly aware of people who, i'll call it, succumbed to the temptation and took advantage of what he was willing to provide in terms of cash and what it allowed them to do. the envelopes of cash continued for six months. mr brilliant didn't spend them and tried to give them back. about a year later, information from a private phone call was quoted back to him in a meeting. i get kind of goosebumps and the hair stands up

on the back of my neck, realising that my phones were being listened in on. shortly afterwards, he was sacked. al fayed routinely bugged staff in their offices and homes, and he fired dozens of managers, all to prevent challenges to his power. do you think that the management culture that we've talked about made it easier for him to get away with the things he did? oh, i think 100%. when i look back at it now, i can understand the construct and how he consciously or unconsciously, or people who worked for him, you know, set up this situation. "let's provide money to somebody to see if we can trust them." "let's provide money to see if they compromise themselves, and then we'll own them, and therefore, if they ever witness anything, they'll never turn on us because we'll turn on them." were you ever made aware of any allegations of sexual assault against mohamed al fayed? none whatsoever. in terms of my experience there, not one iota of an indication that something like that was going on.

do you ever regret not doing more? yeah. meaning, i have a regret that... should i have seen? should i have known? should i have picked up on something? should i have questioned more? i do beat myself up and say, "were there things i should have picked up on and should have questioned more?" i can't say there's one specific thing or one individual thing thatjumps out at me like, "man, if i pulled on that thread, i would have discovered..." i wasn't privy to that amount of information that would otherwise, you know, suggest that there was something deeper going on. harrods did not respond to mr brilliant�*s claims. it has previously said that it is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by mohamed al fayed, and is appalled by the allegations of abuse by him. why did you decide to go on the record today? 0ne, if there's anything that

i'm able to say or do that shows support for these women who have been horrifically treated, traumatised, i want to do whatever i can. and i think secondly is my hope is that, by my willingness to speak out, others will come and speak out themselves. four other former harrods managers have anonymously confirmed elements of his account. what do others know about how al fayed concealed his crimes? ben king, bbc news. a unique monitoring device is being developed which helps people with dementia remain independent and in their homes for longer. experts believe that independence increases life expectancy, as our technology correspondentjanine machin reports. there you are. we noticed that mum was forgetting things so we would have the same conversation content over and over again. if she was going out, sometimes she was a little bit confused about where she was. should we go and sit in the living room?

lucy's mum, maggie, has dementia. they don't live together, but lucy has a way of checking her mum's doing 0k. it's that black box, the one you barely notice under the lamp there. but to lucy, it's a lifeline. we get a message every morning to say that mum's up and about, that the temperature in the house has been sufficiently warm. it lets us know whether there's been any unusual activity overnight, which might indicate that mum was distressed in some way — even if she wasn't able to remember that and verbally express that, it would allow me to initiate a conversation with her. the box is sensing maggie's movements and the conditions in the house, but there are no cameras or microphones, which is important for privacy. but crucially for maggie, it means she can have more independence while her family has peace of mind. i think it's very important. yes, i do, because, well, i suppose a lot of it depends on the personality of the person with memory loss. but, you know, i'd always been very independent, and to lose that is not nice.

maggie has sensors dotted around her home to provide information, but the new version of the technology is even simpler. it can sense everything from just that single box. engineer and supersense co—founder matt ash has been trialling it in his own home. so what you can see is the overnight activity in my house, throughout every single room from that single point. so you can see bedtime for my kids all the way up to me relaxing in the house when they've gone to bed. and then overnight, seeing my kids waking up at various points just to keep us on our toes, and then us waking up again in the morning, having a shower and then having brea kfast. this data will ultimately be interpreted by artificial intelligence and the messages to carers will be automated. the sens2 hub has just made the finals of the prestigious longitude prize on dementia. now they need more families to come on board to help their research

and progress the product. 0bviously everyone's different and everyone's home is different, so collecting data for us is really important, helping to understand the need, but also develop the algorithms to support to support the service. so we're aiming to get into 100 homes, to work with families on our sort of research journey and hopefully be part of the winning team. well, here in gorleston in norfolk, i'm here to see tina and her dad, michael, who was diagnosed with dementia 18 months ago. hi, tina. i think for me, it was the fact that you didn't need wi—fi, because dad's not got wi—fi here. the fact that there's no cameras, that was a big win for me, because i don't want to encroach on dad's, um, life. that is the main thing that i want, to continue as we are, because i've been happy. i don't think there's anything that ever happens that she hasn't got control of. which, for my sake, she's doing a lovelyjob. the longitude prize says most gps believe people most gps believe people

with dementia tend to live longer and more fulfilled lives if they're able to stay at home. supersense technologies wants their device to help. they now have a year to impress the judges. london fashion week has banned exotic animal skins — including from snakes and crocodiles — on the catwalk. this makes them the first of the big fourfashion weeks to do so, and comes after the ban on fur last year. the british fashion council said the next material under discussion was the use of feathers. all designers will have to agree to the new conditions to showcase their work. this follows in the footsteps of copenhagen fashion week, which banned exotic skins and feathers in march. the industry has widely shifted away from fur, and now exotic skins — with brands like chanel and marc jacobs leading the way. however, they are still at the heart of luxury brands like hermes — where their highly sought after birkin bags — made from crocodile skin —

sell for upwards of $60,000. london fashion week's ban also comes amid growing pressure from animal rights activists such as peta — who have been crashing the runway shows of brands that use leather, exotic skin and fur. a woman had to give birth to her baby boy in the car because she and her partner got stuck on their way to hospital in the storm bert floods. becky whittle and luke browning were on their way to gloucestershire royal hospital on sunday when their son noah was born — seven weeks early. they were already on a detour to avoid flooding caused by storm bert but got stuck. it was a stressful arrival into the world for baby noah — but everyone's doing fine. all the best of them, what a very cute baby.

we were talking about storm bert fair. what do we expect in terms of the weather? with all the details, here is sarah keith lucas. hello. we've seen a real change in the weather type over the past 24 hours or so. it was cold and frosty earlier in the week, but we've got much milder air that's been moving in and that's the way it looks through much of the weekend. we keep that mild theme often, a lot of cloud around, some outbreaks of rain, especially so tomorrow, because this area of low pressure is approaching from the west. at the moment, though, we're between weather systems. one of them pushing off towards the east here and that means the winds are going to be coming in from the south. so that's bringing this mild air right across the map through the course of the weekend. quite a lot of cloud out there for much of today. best of any sunshine to the north and east of high ground. so northern scotland, eastern england, could be some sunshine for merseyside, north wales, northern ireland as well. 0dd spot of drizzle around some coasts and hills in the west where it's also going to be pretty windy. top temperatures between about 12 to 15 for most

of us, so several degrees above average for the time of year and then moving into the evening hours, we've still got those brisk southerly winds. we're going to see some rain moving in across northern ireland this evening, then into the west of scotland. and overnight tonight this band of rain will track further eastwards across parts of northern england, wales, down towards central southern england as well. so a damp start to sunday with this rain around, but clearer skies already start to move in from the west. won't be a cold night again. frost free. nine to 12 degrees to start your sunday morning. very mild. sunday's weather dominated by this weather front, which is pushing from west to east. it's going to be slow moving. it's bumping into high pressure across the near continent, so it won't move through particularly quickly where you do see that rain for parts of eastern england. it will linger longest for east anglia in the southeast, but for the rest of the uk, a return to some sunnier skies but still some blustery showers working in could be the odd sharp one, especially towards the west. top temperatures 14, possibly 15 degrees once again. but then things are going to change a little bit sunday night, because a change in wind direction means a colder air mass will move in for monday,

at least across scotland and northern ireland too. and then that colder airjust slowly filtering further south. it won't last too long though, because the middle of the week onwards will see a return to this conveyor belt of low pressure systems moving in from the atlantic, bringing something milder and more unsettled. you can see that with the outlook for our capital cities, things turn a little bit colder through monday into tuesday as well, then milder again for the rest of the week, and things are going to remain pretty unsettled. bye— bye.

live from london, this is bbc news. russian and syrian jets bomb islamist rebels, after they seized most of syria's second city aleppo. it comes after syrian rebels continue their surprise offensive, with most of aleppo under their control. senior doctors providing end—of—life care urge mps to "fix" palliative services after england and wales back a bill to allow assisted dying. counting is underway in ireland's general election. an exit poll suggested a tight race between the three main parties.

and it's anything but a "ruff" welcome for these pets as an auction for recycled royal curtains helps rescue dogs find a home. we start in syria, where the country's military has acknowledged that parts of the city of aleppo have fallen to rebels and it's sustained dozens of casualties in large—scale clashes. this was the centre of aleppo in the early hours, after russian and syrian warplanes bombed islamist rebel positions there for the first time in eight years, in support of the syrian government forces. the rebels, led by the islamist hayat tahrir al—sham, or hts group, are reported to have taken control of the majority of syria's