well . well. >> morning 930 on wednesday the 16th of october. live across the uk . this is britain's newsroom uk. this is britain's newsroom with andrew pierce and bev turner. >> so star struck starmer the prime minister met with taylor swift after the decision was made to grant her a royal style police escort for her shows in london. were those free tickets? a thank you, possibly to sir keir starmer and pensioners descending on parliament square today, handing in their petition with over half a million signatures against the winter fuel payment cut. wales is terrible literacy record 20% of

children in wales cannot read or write when they go to secondary school. under that labour government. more to come on that . government. more to come on that. >> that's appalling, isn't it? and a new england manager, the german thomas tuchel, is the third non—englishman to get the role. will it be the one to finally get some silverware for the three lions? >> mike perry is in the green room and he's on the show today. icannot room and he's on the show today. i cannot tell you how cross he is about the england football manager thing. i haven't worked out why, but he is like a coiled spring. he's ready to explode. >> but what happened to the bloke who wouldn't sing the national anthem? don't know. >> again, we're talking about football. it's not. not really, but wales is fascinating. >> that is an extraordinary figure. can you imagine 20%1 in 5 kids when they go to secondary school can't read. how did that happen? >> if you live in wales, can you explain to us why that has happened? what's what have been the factors to mean that that

has become i'm sorry, somebody somebody should be resigning over this. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> it's terrible. >> it's terrible. >> it's terrible. >> it's appalling. it's a terrible indictment of 20 years of welsh labour government. i'm afraid i don't know anybody here, but kids are your most important thing . yes, and important thing. yes, and they're never going to get it back. >> right? gbnews.com/yoursay, as always, to talk to us first at the very latest news with sam francis . francis. >> bev and andrew. thank you very much. good morning to you. it's just coming up to 9:33. and the top story this morning. well, inflation has dropped below the 2% target for the first time in over three years. figures for september show it fell to 1.7%, the lowest since april 2021. analysts had expected a smaller fall to 1.9%, and are now warning inflation could rise again, with higher energy costs on the horizon . the ons says on the horizon. the ons says lower petrol prices and cheaper airfares drove that drop. however, food inflation picked

up again, with prices for milk for cheese and eggs rising faster. in august . treasury faster. in august. treasury chief darren jones says it is still good news for british families and added the government is determined to fix the foundations of the economy to ease the pressure on households. >> good news for family finances that inflation has fallen below 2%. but of course there's more work to be done to protect working people and bring stability and growth back to the economy , which is what the economy, which is what the chancellor and this government is doing now. and in the run up to the budget at the end of october. >> the debate on assisted dying is intensifying as new legislation is set to be introduced in parliament for the first time in nearly a decade. dame esther rantzen, who has stage four lung cancer, has called for careful legislation, sharing her fears of a painful death and urging the public to write to their mps ahead of the vote. meanwhile, veterans with ptsd have reportedly been offered assisted suicide as a treatment option in canada, raising concerns over the

possible misuse of any law. campaigners on both sides are geanng campaigners on both sides are gearing up with a demonstration planned in parliament square this week, and the current law bans assisted suicide in most of the uk, with a maximum sentence of 14 years. a ship carrying the first group of migrants from italy has arrived in albania, kicking off a new controversial asylum plan. the italian naval vessel, which left lampedusa on monday, transferred 16 men from bangladesh and egypt, all rescued in international waters. italy says the scheme could see up to 36,000 asylum seekers sent to albania each year, but they say only non—vulnerable men from countries it deems safe will be eligible . and finally, we'll end eligible. and finally, we'll end with some news from the middle east this morning. beirut has been rocked again by israeli airstrikes. it's the first in days to hit the lebanese capital. the strikes come as tensions escalate in the region, with washington stepping in. you can see there live pictures over the

beirut skyline at the moment, relatively clear. no signs of any recent strikes or smoke in the air. the biden administration in the us has given israel now a 30 day ultimatum to improve humanitarian conditions in gaza. or they say , face military or they say, face military funding cuts. reports suggest that israel's currently blocking nearly 90% of aid movements as civilians in northern gaza face a growing death toll and escalating israeli offensives. israel, though, claims it's targeting hamas fighters and not aid deliveries . those are the aid deliveries. those are the latest headlines for now. a full roundup at 10:00. >> for the very latest gb news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code, or go to gb news. dot com. forward slash alerts . dot com. forward slash alerts. >> very good morning. welcome to britain's newsroom on gb news with me, bev turner and andrew

pierce. >> it keeps rumbling on doesn't it ? the taylor swift freebie it? the taylor swift freebie scandal. more headaches for sir keir starmer as it's finally been confirmed. and it took downing street hours yesterday to confirm that he and his wife did meet taylor swift at her wembley gig back in august, after she was granted that blue light security escort. >> you might say that he can't shakeit >> you might say that he can't shake it off. do you get that? >> even i know now that is a taylor swift shake it off. >> however, i cannot shake this off, can he? >> i couldn't sing the song because i don't know, don't know. >> shake it up, shake it up. >> shake it up, shake it up. >> but this, this could have just been dealt with days ago. they've just. just number 10. just just just useless. the operation there. >> well, apparently. so what's so interesting? like i say, i mean, every day we're like, we're going to talk about taylor swift and i really i go really, is it that interesting? does anyone really care about this? but it just keeps gaining momentum, this story, because it keeps telling us quite a lot about this prime minister, this government, in that they're just not being honest with us. the prime minister and his family, he's got a couple of teenagers, i think they're 13 and 15. i

think they're the same age as my girls , actually. and they spoke girls, actually. and they spoke with the pop for star ten minutes after being given free tickets to one of the summer shows. right. okay. that's the perk of being a prime minister. if i was a prime minister and my girl said , mummy, you know what? girl said, mummy, you know what? it's a real hassle being the daughter of the prime minister. can we at least get some fun out of it? can we go and meet taylor swift? i'd probably go, yeah, all right. but i'm going to be honest with the public about the fact that i'm doing that. >> but also but he puts the £6,000 three bc refunded some of it was the taylor swift tickets, which so why did he who did he refund that to? >> taylor swift. yeah. >> taylor swift. yeah. >> and also so why did he take them in the first place if he doesn't make any sense ? it's doesn't make any sense? it's just it's just a it's a mess. let's talk to paul richards, who is a former labour special adviser and columnist. paul, you've been around the block. you and i have been around the block a long time. this this should have been dealt with by number 10 days ago. they should have just lance the boil , but have just lance the boil, but instead we sort of were dragging it out day by day . why didn't it out day by day. why didn't they just say at the beginning, yeah, you have free tickets. he's given the money back. by

the way, he did meet taylor swift. he had nothing to do with the blue light police escort. or he did or he didn't. >> just the very first point, andrew, is this can you imagine if taylor swift came to the uk and was assassinated on british soil, and it was subsequently discovered that she hadn't had a blues and twos police escort would have been in the middle of an absolute massive global diplomatic storm right now. no, i don't think so. >> i don't know, i do not begrudge her. >> i do not begrudge her having a police escort while