rural parts of idlib and hama were hit, regions where the group leading the rebel offensive "has recently ta ken control". counting in ireland's general election resumes, the constitutional crisis in georgia deepens, as the pro—western president resists demands from the prime minister to stand down. counting in ireland's general election resumes. now on bbc news — newscast. hello sunday's newscast with some exciting new talent. not me. well, you are exciting talent, but we've got new talent in the room. yes. joe pike is with us. hello. hello, hello. hi, vic. hi, paddy. you've got two titles in the bbc. which one are we going to use? political and investigations correspondent. today,

i think we're more politics than investigations. but, you know where where will the programme lead? who knows? and what would you normally be doing on a sunday morning? obviously watching both bbc one and listening to radio four at the same time obviously. is the correct answer! maybe one headphone in and the tv on, i think. yes, it's a very busy sunday. there's the big news of the government's milestones different from the missions. and also greg wallace has spoken for the first time about the allegations against him. he's put out an instagram story this morning, early morning, and we're going to hear what he had to say. let's get underway with sunday's newscast. newscast. newscast from the bbc. paddy's here in the studio. with victoria in the studio. and joe pike also in the studio. so, um, is the government having a reset, joe? i think yes and no. they're not having a reset

in the sense that what is being announced this week isn't hurriedly being pulled out of their back pocket to distract from the resignation of louise haigh. problems in downing street staffing with sue grey's departure, policy debates over things like farmers inheritance tax. but i suppose it is a reset in the sense that keir starmer and his team are saying, look at this, this is what we're focusing on. this is the future aims we're trying to achieve in the next five years. and i suppose to some people that will look like a reset. the prime minister has written in the sun on sunday ahead of a speech on thursday, cabinet stalwart pat mcfadden was touring the tv and radio studios and he explained it to us like this. we've got the government's missions. five missions, yes. but the milestones, six. milestones. the milestones are going

to be used to judge us on our policy missions. so one of the best ways to sum it up for me when he was, because... that wasn't a great way to sum it up. no, it didn't sum it up very well, except that it is quite complicated. it's that is that if you take waiting lists. yes. pat mcfadden told me we will publish a date by which we plan to bring down the waiting list. that will be a milestone. and you canjudge us by what we say we'll do and when we'll do it by. so before the election, keir starmer unveiled i these five missions, which were broad. l critics would say slightly vague things like make the uk a clean energy superpower, make an nhs fit for the future. over the summer, the team around him have been trying to work out clear targets, which they're calling milestones milestones because they're not the end point, they're just a midpoint in the ten year plan of government. that they can have everybody in government focusing on to achieve by the time of the next election. the challenge, though, i suppose, is that there will be people for whom these targets aren't what they really care most about.

of course, reducing nhs waiting lists, we think will be one of the six milestones unveiled on thursday, he said. pat mcfadden said it would be. but other people might think well, actually sorting out social care for me and my family and my loved ones might be more important. and also, as you've sort of implied, i think already, paddy, some people would argue these aren't the most accessible, easy to understand bits of political communication. this isn't get brexit done or stop the boats or make america great again. this is slightly confusing, especially since the five missions have turned into six milestones, but people within government also say these are not really easy, achievable things. well, we've made them really ambitious and we may fail. but you just mentioned three words stop the boats, which the conservatives did not do. they they said they would and then didn't. so one of the things with political slogans and milestones and milestones, well, they can become millstones, never mind milestones.

because if you do say you're going to do something, then you don't, tens of thousands to be remembered. david cameron saying he was going to bring down immigration to tens of thousands. rishi sunak's five pledges five, not all of which he achieved. but also if we take a step back, what's interesting is that keir starmer's government do seem to be putting everything on delivery, as in they are making quite sort of big targets, ambitious targets, which, if they don't achieve them, maybe a bit like rishi sunak, the voters will be able to say, "look, why don't we..." we're voting you out. yeah, potentially. one of the things pat mcfadden talks about this morning was this idea that four and five year olds are not all of them are actually ready to start in reception class at primary school. so they don't necessarily know how to use the loo, or they can't speak in the way they should be able to speak by the time they're four or five, and they're going to push that target up from 60% of four and five year olds being ready to start school to 75%.

so that is easily measurable, isn't it? it certainly is. and the number before the pandemic was 70%. so it's dipped tojust over 60. and they want to get it back up to 75%. and what was interesting about what pat was saying on your show victoria was he, pat mcfadden, was arguing this isn'tjust about, that single child having opportunity. it's also about the class and the teacher being distracted, focusing on that one kid instead of focusing on all these other children. and also, there's a wider economic and growth argument that if that one child does better and the whole class does better, maybe there'll be more economic opportunity for people in schools. labour feels that it's �*97 onwards government tony blair and gordon brown government had a record to be proud of on surestart and on young children. they felt that education had improved under their under that watch, so inevitably, because of the trouble that they've been in since

they took over the budget, that was hardly launched in a smooth way. sue grey went. louise haigh went. but they should be talking about doorstep issues, like what is it like in the classroom? and there's an effort here, i wondered, to try and go back to what labour's meant to do as a as a centre left party, which is to try and talk about what you do with education, how you improve the lot of inequality in schools. and that i got off him. he was trying to go back to the point of the labour party. certainly that does seem to be what keir starmer is focussed on. one of the problems, though, some might argue, is if you look at what happened in the us, some would sayjoe biden did ok with the economy and brought down inflation, but still people didn't feel it. people didn't feel it and. so they didn't give him credit for it. well, you were in the states, vic. economic factors was clearly a big part of a lot

of swing voters voting for donald trump again. so it may not work even if things improve in the next five years. but if he if the labour government brings down hospital waiting lists in a measurable way within 12 months, that's a big win for the new government. so as well as talking about the milestones with pat mcfadden, we both talked about the resignation of the transport secretary, louise haigh, and asked, you know, why did she have to resign when keir starmer knew that she had this previous conviction? she'd pleaded guilty to a fraud offence before she became an mp a decade ago, and pat mcfadden said he didn't know who knew what when, which could well be true, but he's one of the most powerful people in government. so he might have asked, and we reminded him that a couple of years ago, keir starmer said to boris johnson that lawbreakers can't be lawmakers. he was referring to partygate and what had gone on in downing street through covid. but i put that to pat mcfadden and this is what he had to say. but it's not the case i that anyone who's ever broken the law ever can't serve in parliament. - i'm sure if you looked i

around parliament you'd find more than one. i don't know— everybody's background. if it's fine, why did she have to go? as i say, i don't know the details of... - why do you think? ..every conversation that took place - at the end of last week. but clearly between them, they came to the view that louise had to resign. and what i think is a contrast between the way that this i situation has been dealt - with and some other situations in the past, is that it's been dealt with very quickly. - we've got a new secretary of state, heidi alexander. j is keir starmer a hypocrite because he gave a lawbreaker a job in his cabinet? having said that two years ago. no, he's not. are there still questions, joe, do you think over this? there are there are detailed questions about, as pat mcfadden have touched on, what keir starmer knew and when, because, as we understand it, louise haigh did warn keir starmer when first appointed to the shadow cabinet about this conviction,

but she didn't put it in the form when she entered the cabinet for the propriety and ethics team. however, number ten will be hoping the fact that she's gone means that even the little bits of information are seeping out in various news organisations over the last couple of days, that's not really going to have any huge impact. and the view, i think both inside parts of government and among louise haigh's allies, is that her days were always numbered. she certainly felt, i'm told, a bit of a misfit in the cabinet, that keir starmer didn't want to expend much political capital on her. and equally, there are people within sort of heart of government who felt that she'd maybe misstepped over her comments around p&o, which caused problemsjust before that big investment summit. i was also told that keir starmer found out about the possibility of some more industrial action around the transport sector and transport unions through a bbc push alert, not from anyone in government directly, and that really

frustrated him. and other people argue that she is in the sort of soft left part of labour, and he always wanted rid of her, and i'm sure keir starmer would deny that. but certainly if there was a reshuffle on the cards, you might think that a lot of people would think that louise haigh would be somebody in danger anyway. because there's a lot of commentary in the sunday papers about how did the information about louise haigh's spent conviction get to the press? who told who? so never mind. so never mind who knew what and when. how did that information which led to her downfall get to the press? now, one of the direct accusations in the papers is that morgan mcsweeney told the press, which he denies he being the chief of staff. but here's the big picture for us all. he's the chief of staff now. but it was sue grey. so in a short space of time, labour has hit roadblock after

roadblock after roadblock. louise haigh's gone. sue grey's gone. there's obviously people briefing against each other in downing street, is there not? isn't that one of the problems he's trying to clear up? yeah. and louise haigh was seen as somebody quite close to sue grey, who of course, is now firmly out of favour. the decision, though, that keir starmer and morgan mcsweeney needed to make on thursday night was how do we deal with this? is louise haigh somebody we really want at the heart of our team. are we going to expend political capital? yeah, there might be a few days of difficult headlines, but can we survive that or do we want to? as many political communication specialists think in these situations? do we want to short circuit the story? do we want to jump immediately to the end point as fast as possible and not have this drag out?

and by her being told keir thinks you should resign, or by keir starmer saying i think you should resign. we did get to the end point whereby the fact that there are a few different smallish revelations in the sunday papers actually seems largely irrelevant because heidi alexander is getting on with the job and louise haigh is somebody who, at least for now, is not going to be part of labour politics in a sort of senior government way. so there we have it. they don't call it a reset. there are lots of reasons why the media would call it a reset, because it's not been a smooth landing zone for the new government, but they're calling it milestones. we heard everything that was said on the two programmes and there we leave the labour nonreset. but what about the tequila? oh yes. in the sunday times, paddy, it was claimed by tim shipman, their chief political commentator, that the deal over these milestones, an idea i think, taken from the labour government in new zealand, was thrashed out in pat mcfadden�*s garden between keir starmer, pat mcfadden and morgan mcsweeney, the chief of staff, over tequila. you asked pat mcfadden about this. yes, and i think it might have been morgan mcsweeney�*s.

garden was in the paper rather than the pat mcfadden�*s garden. i think it was pat mcfadden. ok, well, it's one of the gardens. it was a garden. and i said, was there tequila? i didn't specify which garden. he said, no, he's never drunk tequila in his life. so this plan was not thrashed out over tequila. he added that he's more of a guinness man but never drunk tequila. but also, you don't drink tequila during the daytime? no. well, it might have been an evening meeting, but also, i think it's enough. to me, tequila is what you have at the end of the night when you're already... or get the night going. there is a possible joe and i were talking about how it could have been a mishear of. of, uh, they took the idea to kia. they took it to kier. we took it to somebody. tim shipman, the journalist, has maybe misheard. took a tequila and took it.

hhe flatly denied the tequila, whichjoe pike, who's a serious bbc political and investigations editor, has asked... correspondent. has asked me to go into that because i was going to draw a line on it. no you weren't. i was. you love it. be fair, i think it does make sense because i personally can't imagine those three downing tequila and. discussing it seems strange. newscast from the bbc. the other big news this sunday from social media, which is greg wallace, the masterchef presenter who's currently stepped aside because of allegations of misconduct with female contestants, which he strongly denies through his lawyer, has taken to his instagram feed to give a really detailed account of what he thinks has happened. and he says it's middle class women of a certain age who've come at him in the papers.

only 12 or 13, i think, he says, despite him having dealt with 4000 contestants over the years. so here's a little look at what greg wallace has published himself. all walks of life. and apparently now i'm reading in the paper, there's been 13 complaints in that time. now in the newspaper, i can see the complaints coming from a handful of middle—class women of a certain age, just from celebrity masterchef. this isn't right.

this is important to me. in 20 years— this is important to me. in 20 years of— this is important to me. in 20 years of doing celebrity masterchef,, do you know how many _ masterchef,, do you know how many staff, all different sorts of staff— many staff, all different sorts of staff complained about me in that time? the well for less, inside — that time? the well for less, inside the _ that time? the well for less, inside the factory, three lots of masterchef, how many staff complained about me? absolutely not. complained about me? absolutely not zer0~ — complained about me? absolutely not. zero. seriously. but should we just go through what they claim? some of the claims are against him. yes. i think it would be useful to go back in time, because there are questions for the bbc based on, well, joe's, typically, joe's named this big public policy question. it's who knew what and when did they know? the timeline is very important. so you can go back in time to look at what happened

and when it happened. and basically speaking, he's been the host of masterchef for 20 years, as he said, in his own way. it emerged that in 2017, emails showed that the bbc was warned about his behaviour, back in 2017. published in the papers today is an internal emailfrom bbc executive kate phillips saying that his behaviour on set was unacceptable and cannot continue. the thrust of the claims against him are inappropriate behaviour, inappropriate sexual innuendo, all of which he denies and says, his lawyers say, he has never sexually harassed anybody. so what do we think about this video? what's it going to do? is it going to shut the story down? well, i suppose the advent of social media means that people are allowed to put their points across without us, the media choosing which clips and editing them down. it's unclear whether a pr expert advised gregg wallace to do this. certainly the central claim in that clip seems to be that the proportion of contestants who complained is relatively low. it's 13 out of more than 4000.

so what's that? less than 1%? i suppose that in itself provokes questions. did people who witnessed problems feel like they could come forward and complain? and the fact that, for example, bbc presenter kirsty wark has raised this more than a decade later suggests that maybe it wasn't that easy to complain? asma mir, who's the former bbc presenter now times radio presenter, quoted in the sunday times, linked to this email forwarded to a bbc executive in 2017. you know, she is somebody who complained and i suppose is there not a wider question — why is it prominent senior women who are complaining? why dojunior women potentially not feel that they're able to complain? and also, where are the men in all of this? surely there will be men on the production teams or male contestants.

maybe they didn't witness anything, but there is perhaps a question about men coming forward when other men are allegedly inappropriate. this is exactly the point made on broadcasting house on radio four by cathy newman, the host of channel four news. here she is on that question. i mean, it's fascinating. the sunday times and the sunday telegraph on the front pages today. asma mir wrote an email to bbc bosses in 2017 alerting them to what was going on. but to address gregg wallace's point about the allegations being made by, quote, a handful of middle aged, middle class women of a certain age. i mean, i'm slightly speechless hearing that, to be honest, but it is true that it's the women speaking up, isn't it? it's asma mir. it's kirsty wark, producer georgia harding in the front, on the front of the sunday telegraph. so my question is, why is it the women speaking out? why don't the men come forward as well? and i think that's a question we need to ask men in the building.

it is about the power structure in big companies. if you are a junior member of staff, on a three week or three month contract dealing with a broadcasting behemoth of 20 years standing, there is a power imbalance, and we could say that the broadcasting behemoth can be innocent. we are not saying at the moment there has been a verdict about this, we are just saying it's difficult to come forward if you are a junior member of staff and that is well documented. and one of the reasons, asma mir said, she sent her email at the time that she did is because she she didn't, as she put it, she didn't want in the future someone to be saying, well, why did no one speak up about this? like she's seen it happen before? people feel afraid or have multiple reasons for not speaking up. so that's why she says she did it then. and there's a big question for the bbc. what? yeah, what who knew what and when. what did you do about it? he's also, uh, attacking people who are making the accusations

or raising complaints, which is obviously quite a bold thing to do. and he also didn't deny, by the way, the complaints, the 13, as he put it, that have been made against him. he has, through his lawyer, denied. yeah. but what's happening here is he's also asking us to consider how to guess how many women have come forward with sexual innuendo on his show over the years? and i'm thinking, well, actually, do i? can i imagine that? because in my career, working at radio for a lot of women don't make sexual innuendo remarks, and if they did, i think they'd be accused of being the same, doing the same mistake as a man. i'm not saying whether his intervention today was good or bad for him, but it's far more common in these circumstances for somebody like gregg wallace to say, i'm sorry if i offended people. it was not my intention. my intention. that is very much not what he's done. he's gone to attack the age and the class and the gender of the people who have been in the papers and on tv highlighting these complaints, which seems like a different

way of of responding to this accusation or these accusations, and it may or may not work for him. well, tv chef and campaigner hugh fearnley—whittingstall was on laura's show this morning on the panel and this was his reaction. i think the intervention is not wise. i don't know greg well. i've met him a couple of times. he's very likeable. he's a very professional screen presence. i have a very talented chef on masterchef right at the moment, and she's doing incredibly well, and i've been really enjoying watching her and enjoying gregg's presenting. i think it's likely that gregg has what we might call a bawdy sense of humour. clearly, that's offended people. i think one of the issues is that down the years, people have not felt able to tell him when he might want to rein it in a bit. and clearly he's crossed some lines in terms of how he's going about defending himself.

i understand the instinct when you feel you're backed into a corner, but i don't think it's smart to come out talking like that when at the moment he should probably be listening. i mean, there are big questions for the bbc, obviously. and not only that, is he going to be used to promote the christmas schedule? food is a large part of what we look forward to at christmas. it's an entertaining show. it's done brilliantjobs for nutrition and for the careers of chefs over the years. you know, we can be happy about that. and then we know that these allegations have got to be dealt with. but what do we know about what's going to happen with the schedule? difficult questions for bbc commissioners and channel execs, because these programmes are filmed, planned, people are halfway through watching masterchef. hugh fearnley whittingstall talked about one of his own chefs who's on that programme. what does the bbc do for the sake of the viewer,

but also the sake of women who claim they witnessed inappropriate behaviour? it is a bit of a conundrum for them. yeah. i mean, and finally, what i would say is that one of the things that has happened here is that bbc news, which is editorially independent of the organisation that runs the bbc, the people who run the bbc, they made a lot of investigation to find this information out. so if it does sound like we're getting to the end of newscast talking about the bbc on the bbc, which happens too much, it's because that did actually happen. those two things can be true at the same time. so it seems like a very busy sunday and a very busy weekend for news. and we were very lucky that you made an appearance because, you know, we haven't had you here before. at the weekend. a brief cameo, a bit of low grade b—team sparkle... so we're really grateful to you for coming and telling us how to understand things and to you listening and watching. thank you very much. thank you. thanks.

mild for the time of year, we started in double figures with plenty of cloud but things will change as we head into next week, turning colder with a cold northerly wind, a widespread frost, and wintry showers for some. today is mild, sunshine and showers, especially towards the west. front pushing eastwards. but remaining cloudy across the far east. that milder air will be scooped up by a brisk southerly wind which will continue through the day. sharpest showers in the north and west but also brighter skies. temperatures up to 15 degrees celsius, a shade below where we were yesterday. tonight, it turns interesting in the north and west, the wind will turn more northerly. showers will be wintry over the higher ground of scotland, sinking southwards into the start of the day on monday.

it's turning much colder across the north of scotland and northern ireland, possibly 10 degrees celsius further south in the milderair. but that colder air is coming for all of us, you can see that on our air mass chart. the whole of the uk turns blue, and we will see chilly northerly winds develop. this is the start on monday morning, still wintry showers over higher ground in scotland. cloud and rain set to sink southwards into the midlands and south—east england. some brighter skies in northern england, northern ireland and across scotland. some sunshine, but again a sharp contrast in temperatures, mid—single figures in the north, double figures further south, but a widespread frost into tuesday morning. temperatures below freezing for many. this atlantic front pushes in from the west, likely to turn to snow over higher ground in scotland and

even at lower levels. staying very cold on tuesday. still chilly on wednesday but temperatures recovering through the week. more unsettled, wet and windy at times on thursday and friday.

live from london. this is bbc news the un agency supporting palestinians says it's suspending aid deliveries through a key israel—gaza crossing. masterchef presenter gregg wallace responds to complaints about his behaviour on the bbc show, saying they've come from "women of a certain age". russian air strikes hit northern syria, as they try to stop rebels advancing beyond aleppo.

counting continues and arlen's general election, nearly half the parliament receipts are filled but it could be weeks until the government is formed. the united nations is pausing the delivery of aid to palestinian refugees in gaza through a key crossing after more food trucks were looted by armed gangs. the united nations agency supporting palestinian refugees, unrwa, has used the kerem shalom crossing as the main way of bringing in aid for the 2—point—3 million people inside the gaza strip.

but the head of unrwa philippe lazzarini says five food trucks were stolen by armed groups on saturday.