♪ ♪ narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... woman: architect. bee keeper. mentor. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. george: actually, you don't need vision to do most things in life. it's exciting to be rt of a team driving the technology forward. i think that's the most rewarding thing. people who know, know bdo.

narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. announcer: and now, "bbc news". >> hello, i'm christian fraser. this is "the context." >> the belfast good friday agreement remains the best and only foundation for peace and prosperity. >> the future of northern ireland belongs to its people. only you can make the seed of the good friday belfast agreement continue to grow. >> this whole thing is been one of the great blessings of my life. and i can't wait to see what you

do. christian: hello. welcome to the program. all eyes on belfast this evening, where the architects of the good friday agreement are toasting 25 years of peace. there is a concluding dinner which we will dip into. no prospects of peace in ukraine. we are going to discuss a new report from nordic countries which suggest russian assault ships disguised as fishing trawlers are threatening infrastructure in the north sea. we will also talk more generally about bullying within the workplace and how we define it. a sector boss of the cbi says the reputation has been totally destroyed by the allegations he is facing. and no let up in the cost-of-living. inflation is still a problem in advanced economies, a problem

exacerbated in the u.k. by the week cap, which makes imports -- weak pounds, which makes imports much more expensive. rishi sunner marking a week ofak commemoratis of 25 years of the good friday agreement. he had been speaking at queen's university belfast, paying tribute to the courage, imagination, a of the negotiators, many including the clinton, george mitchell, ancer 20 blair. the priming -- and sir tony blair. the prime minister will be only too aware that power-sharing remains at a standstill, and while he avoided direct decision of the dup, he said the government would continue to persuade all parts of the community of the best path. >> our challenge today is to fulfill the promise of the work that you began, to honor your legacy, we need to create a more

stable government in northern ireland. and that means getting the institutions up and running. christian: first von der leyen praise the people of northern ireland for being the masters of their own destiny. she told the conference it was now known as a cool place for europeans to visit. >> this brighter reality is only possible because of good friday 25 years ago. the leaders and the people of northern ireland decided to plant a seed in soil previously stained with blood and tears. christian: former u.s. president bill clinton touched on multiple key issues, but stressed that he believed they could only be resolved with a functioning executive. >> we need more economic growth, we need less inequality. you need to resolve -- you've

got some health issues you need to resolve. and you have got have a functioning government to do that. and there are all these things out there. but i think that is what the british government wants. i think that is what the irish government months. and i know it is what the people outside want. christian: -- served as the secretary of state from northern ireland from 2005 to 2007. good to see you. interesting listening to those who were involved 25 years ago today. there is, of course, and enduring nature to the peace, which they discussed. but as you heard from bill clinton, there is a sense that it is promise unfulfilled. >> well, yes, in a sense, because it was an absolute breakthrough agreement was one of those " it will never happen" moments, like when i negotiated with tony blair years later the agreement that brought the fiery

unionist extremist in paisley to join with the fiery ex-ira commander martin mcguinness to rule happily together. it is broken down since, and it does need renewed focus. but seeing the figures from the incredible agreement, not just tony blair and bill clinton, but the irish prime minister at the time, the president of the european union, because this was an agreement that brought together not just the irish government and the british government in a way they had never been before after decades, generations of distrust, which had a lady in history between -- laid deep in history between the island of ireland and the united kingdom, but also brussels and washington, d.c., because there was an internationally underpinned agreement. to see those figures from the past -- rather grayer hair, like

me -- nevertheless signifying what is possible through negotiation, and now the additional hurdle of getting self-government back up and running. christian: as you say, when you were there, you had to negotiate with reverend ian paisley, who could be quite feisty at times, maybe a lot stronger in tone than the current incumbent. i wonder what advice he would give to the current northern ireland secretary. seem to have a very difficult day yesterday. >> well, the advice i would give him, as i've been doing, as my predecessor as secretary of state from northern ireland, paul murphy, my friend who actually negotiated some of the detail of the good friday agreement under the then-secretary of state, he was part of the ceremony over the last few days, quite rightly so. what we said continuously is it is really important that the british prime minister, whoever

that is, focuses on a northern ireland in a way sadly that david cameron didn't do, boris johnson certainly didn't do, theresa may didn't do, and that liz truss didn't do in her brief tenure. rishi sunak, to give him credit, has done that and getting the windsor framework. that is a big step forward from where we were, logjam with the distrust between london and dublin and brussels and london. he has made progress as a prime minister, but the secretary of state and prime minister need to focus much more intensively on talking to the democratic unionist party and its leader, sir jeffrey donaldson, who i think once an agreement. some in his party probably don't, but i think he does. but he has got to have reasons to get that agreement, so there is more work to be done. but it can only be achieved, as i know from my own experience, and was proven at good friday,

with intensive negotiations, not fly-in, fly-out diplomacy, meeting a party leader for an hour or so, but literally spending days, as which is -- as was achieved with the good friday agreement in 1998 and as we achieved in 2006. deep, intensive negotiations. micro this is a mess been, at least up until recently -- my criticism has been, at least up until recently and hopefully not in the future with richie sunak, that british prime minister's since 2010 have not given northern ireland the attention it needs. christian: he is going to reire engagement because we are at a standoff at the moment and there does not appear to be a resolution to it. sir tony blair criticized the government omonday for on investing enough time with the irish government i know that tonight he has had a meeting, but it is the first bilateral meeting they have had. has the british government done enough to engage dublin?

>> no, it hasn't. rishi sunak did achieve the winter framework agreement a few weeks ago with the irish government standing alongside him. and i congratulate him for that, because that wasn't the case der boris johnson and not really the same under his two predecessors since 2010. i want even a conservative government, to which i am opposed in other respects, to succeed on a northern ireland, and i think it is doable. i think that the dup can find reasons why they would want to go back if there are still details in with them. obviously you cannot concede a all mountain, but you can concede issues in the foothills, which i think you can give some encouragement to dup members to do what they probably in their hearts want to do but feel

unable to do at the moment because there has not been, i'm afraid, the one-to-one, month-n, month-out engagement there ought to be. if that happened, it is possible to get an agreement, and that is what i hope the secretary of state for northern ireland and the prime minister will do, not just fly in for another brief meeting, but have intensive negotiations. christian: the other thing sort tony blair said, there is no point applying pressure because it tends to backfire. christine smith said -- chris heaton smith said yesterday that the lack of power-sharing and the standoff was a bigger threat to unionist position within the u.k. than brexit had been. do you think that is true that if there wasn't a return, that a united ireland becomes a much more likely prospect? >> brexit is the chief villain

here, and i don't just say that as a nonlocal rated -- an unadulterated remainder. that issue is settled. the lack of power-sharing government is a question, because during the brexit negotiations, during the negotiations on the windsor framework, there was not a functioning executive. there is lots of loose ends. i sit on the house of lords protocol committee on this whole question, the playing out of the irish protocol signed in the brexit deal by boris johnson and the windsor framework which is updated. there is lots of issues with the detail so causing unease -- for example, we interviewed this afternoon achieve who says he still can have his whole lorry stopped even though the bulk of it is going through the so-called green channel without

any checks great britain to northern ireland, because it might contain in his luggage, and his cargo, a few red channel items that would need to be checked. the whole lorry has to be checked. clearly that is not acceptable. they have got to still iron out the detail. to be fair, the windsor framework left to be negotiated, that needs to be done intensively, and the dup and other political parties, but especially the dup at this present time is the one that is holding back self-government, needs to be engaged in that and listen to it. christian: lord hain, very grateful for your time. of course, i meant chris heaton harrison. senior moment on my part, apologies to him. the cost of living in the u.k. rose faster than expected last month.

inflation, which measures the rate at which prices were rising, was 10.1% in march, down from 10.4 in february. but we were expecting it to fall below 10% in march. the problem is food and drink. it has been up since march 22, which the office for national statistics this is the fastest rate rise in years. chancellor charring hunt says we are still on track to halve inflation this year, but the general consensus in markets says it will require another rate hike inmate. -- in may. >> this is a small headline fall, but it disguises a lar rise in food inflation, which is causing pressure to families of another country, as they see the cost of the weekly food shop go up, and it shows that there is no such thing as an automatic fall in the headline rate of inflation. that is why we have a plan to reduce the pressure on families, absolutely essential that we

stick to that plan and we see it through so that we halv inflatione this year, as the prime minister has promised. christian: this is hurting a lot of people. on this channel this morning we heard about the effects on ordinary people. a reverend runs the genesis project in middlesboro. >> we open our doors at 9:30, and i came into work this morning at 8:30 and there were 20 people queuing outside. it is not raining today, but generally they are waiting in the rain. there is a reason why people are waiting in a queue for an hour before the doors open, because they are desperate. and it is not just food that people are needing. it is the fuel vouchers. people can't afford to put their washer on as much as they used to. there is no such thing as dishwashers anymore. if people did have a dishwasher,

they are not using them. people are using ferry liquid instead of shampoo. it is cutting corners completely. christian: ahead of the statistics, robert has been looking at these figures. what do you see, robert? robert: the u.k. is not a noun flyer -- not an outlier with inflation, but the stickiness -- you can see the first point we can show the audience now. advanced economies around december, you can see everyone is miles away from 2%, nice level of inflation. the u.s. by december had started to come down a little bit. but if we roll it forward a little bit -- we can show the audience where things have moved on since then -- you can see that the uk's one of the few countries still seeing really high inflation and no falls. the u.s. is now down to close to

5%, whereas as you said, the u.k. hoped to be below double digits but it is still above 10%. it is the culmination of european exposure to the war in ukraine and an american type labor mart -- tight labor market means the worst of both worlds. when you add the fall in sterling lastear, you don't have a great mix for a rapid fall off in inflation. food prices you referred to earlier, 38% in a year. asking the prime minister if he knew the price of milk -- rishi sunak had to check every week because it has been changing and rising so fast. the u.s. is an outlier on food inflation. in the u.s., prices are rising by about 8%, but double-digit in europe and going up. christian: any good news in the u.k.? robert: well, fuel prices are

really coming down, down to about 1.50 a leader. probably wouldn't sound like a good news to viewers in america, because that is seven dollars58-- $7.58 a gallon. but at their peak they were $10 a gallon. petrol prices are falling because oil angas and fuel prices are falling. that will eventually feed through into home energy bills, it will feed through into the supply costs for farmers producing food. it will bring prices down eventually. the question is will it be quick enough. as you said at the outset, the markets are expecting the bank of england to raise rates again and it will probably again and again after that to squash down on inflation. they are present in interest rates going up to 5% by the end of the summer.

the wages of six just does the wages suggest that inflation might be quite sticky. christian: we will take a closer look at inflation later in the program. before we go to short break, the u.s. supreme court has extended a temporary block that had been placed by a lower court in texas on the restrictions on an abortion pill, mifepristone. the lower court had put tight restrictions on the supply of the abortion pill. that was lifted by an appeals court, and then the u.s. supreme court got involved. there was a weeklong extension to ensure that it could be distributed, and they just extended that. it will continue to be available to people in the united states while and until the u.s. supreme court considers the wider merits of the case. good news for people who want access to mifepristone in the united states, still available

at the moment. around the world and across the u.k., this is bbc news. let's take a quick look at the other stores making headlines today. rishi sunak referenced his wife's shares in a childcare agency after around over transparency. the prime minister is under investigation by a watchdog over claims he did not disclose shares. the mother of the murdered black teenager stephen lawrence has told the bbc that 30 years after the metropolitan police bungled the investigation into her son's killing, the forces failed to change and remains institutionally racist. the 18-year-old was set upon by a group of white police in april 1993. two men were convicted in 2012, but others have never been brought to justice. one child in six in england is living in overcredit

accommodation. the government says it is spending 11.5 billion pounds in five years on the affordable homes program to increase the housing supply. you are live with bbc news. the recently sacked boss of cbi has told the bbc he has been made the fall guy for a wider crisis that is engulfing the organization. he was sacked following an independent investigation into specific complaints of misconduct that were made against him. he says his name has been wrongly associated with other allegations, including rape and drug use, that allegedly occurred before he joined. the cbi's president said the account of events was selective. the bbc has not seen the dismissal letter, but in the first interview since being fired in april, he said there are 4 complaints made, that he organized a secret karaoke party for 15 people after christmas work event, that he was viewing instagram accounts of cbi staff and sent non--work-related

messages and been inviting junior staff to breakfast, lunch, and one-on-one meetings. we are joined by the ceo of the faucet society, a charity campaigning for gender equality and women's rights at work, home, and public life. we cannot talk about the subjec in relation to danker because it is his word against theirs and it may come to court. but it has started a conversation, i think, in many households -- certainly mine- about what constitutes bullying, whether the standard has shifted, and whether there is a generational divide in the workace about where the line is. i wonder what you think about that. >> well, i think as a starting point we all believe that we should feel safe, then we should be safe, be treated with dignity and respect at work as a starting point, and that our employers have a responsibility

to support and create a positive working culture. but sadly, we know in fact that isn't the case. if you make sexual harassment -- take sexual harassment, 40% of women experience sexual harassment during their working lives. that is much higher for other groups -- seven in 10 disabled women experience sexual harassment at work and seven intent lgbt -- seven in 10 lgbt people. we have a broad and wide-ranging problem. instead of worrying about whether the threshold is quite right, it seems we need to be doing more to actively prevent these issues occurring in the first place with good working place cultures and good policies in place. we know that the moment our sexual harassment laws are enforced through individuals bringing complaints. but actually, the vast majority of the victims, 79% of victims of sexual harassment, they don't

report their experiences, and with good reason, because research has found that those who do complain about half are dismissed or ignored, their experiences are minimized by their employer, or they are made responsible for avoiding the perpetrator. it is clear that we need to adjust this issue and be more proactive, and that is why we and others have been campaigning for a new duty to prevent sexual harassment for employers and extended protection from harassment to employees who work with third parties. i'm very glad there is a bill going through parliament right now that will do that, a private members bill with government backing. christian: there is a visceral reaction to the injustice of bullying and sexual harassment, as well as should be. we all know there are varying degrees of what we are talking about. but there are specific cases that are being discussed today, and i said i wasn't going to refer to the danker case, but

when we talk about someone inviting someone to a karaoke, or we talk about whether someone should and can be allowed to look at the insta stories of someone who is me junior in a workplace, does that fit your understanding of what bullying is? has the line shifted to encapsulate that? i always understood that bullying was a repeated behavior. >> so, it can be a repeated behavior or a single instance of inappropriate behavior. it is important that we have got one person's version of these events so we don't have a contributions of the people who raise the concern. it is useful to talk about those in isolation. it is important that there are public processes for investigation in place and those are followed. if someone feels they have not been properly followed, that they raise that. overall, i think it is very easy to get caught up in a sense that

things might be over policed or it might be becoming too difficult to behave in the workplace. the evidence -- christian: is the other way. we've only got a minute left. if you sack someone for unfair dismissal versus the payment you would be liable for if you didn't crackdown on sexual harassment, do employers face the least line of resistance these days? nine are they more likely to listen to the victim? >> you know, i can't speak to employment law, employment practice. what i would say is that evidence is clear that actually come in many, many cases, about half of the cases we look at, the opposite happened where women were dismissed and made responsible. it is really important that we don't let cases where individuals are presenting one side of events color how we think about this whole issue,

and in particular, part of the issue that tony danker seems to be raising is how things are presented in the media. that is a particular issue around his case. it has very little to do with a wider context. christian: we are out of time, i hate to cut you short. i'm very sorry. but you put important con narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: financial services firm, raymond james. man: bdo. accountants and advisors. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪

narrator: you're watching pbs.

♪ ♪ narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... woman: ahitect. bee keeper. mentor. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. george: actually, you don't need vision to do most things in life. it's exciting to be part of a team driving the technology forward. i think that's the most rewarding thing. people who know, know bdo.