And the election when they didnt need to have won with at least a couple more gaiters to run. His strategy of saying it is me or Jeremy Corbyn, and his cut through of get brexit done both succeeded excellently. Both did very well. The consequences, the one that you see around that mark the British Electoral system is pretty good at producing results like this from time to time, and it now sets up a whole series of problems, but the one thing it does resolve is whether or not there will be a brexit. That will happen. It doesnt tell you what kind of brexit it will be all the consequences, but we almost sought and that the rest of the world has had an economic slowdown and the election from all sides was and the election from all sides was a cornucopia of promises of what would happen. We are now going into unpromising circumstances to deliver that. Meanwhile, for 18 months there is no opposition in britain to speak of, except for those scottish nationalists who have only one opposition point which is independence for scotland. What does he do with this majority . The exhilarating fact of this for me was seeing the absolute shock in west minster where well circulate all the time. It wasnt a shock to any of us who went out into the country and talk to real people. Westminster seem and talk to real people. Westminster seem to have no idea of the degree of rage and alienation in the rest of rage and alienation in the rest of the country. Not only had all these elected politicians who had in all their manifestos promise to abide by the result of the referendum, not only had they betrayed that trust, but they had then spent three years introducing, bullying and threatening and patronising the people they were betraying. It was one of the most shocking and things in parliamentary history. The result was not shocking to those who had spoken to real people. The thing that is restorative of 1s faith, is that the rage felt never went out onto the rage felt never went out onto the streets as it would have in many countries, and the faith in institutions in this country was extraordinarily expiring. Inspiring. They got the roulette they got the result that they wanted. Did it nearly go badly wrong . No. I was in wanted. Did it nearly go badly wrong . No. Iwas in a wanted. Did it nearly go badly wrong . No. I was in a state of anxiety leading up to the election, and there is such a thing as reality. This election result was foretold. Wet when Jeremy Gordon was whenjeremy foretold. Wet when Jeremy Gordon was when Jeremy Corbyn was elected prime lets remember that in the earlier part of the year, successive occasions to reset it may but her deal to parliament for everyone, and borisjohnson refused to back it. He did it because he wanted to be Prime Ministerand he did it because he wanted to be Prime Minister and he succeeded. Did it because he wanted to be Prime Ministerand he succeeded. He did it because he wanted to be Prime Minister and he succeeded. He played a very hard hand of hard politics, and now the government shall be upon his shoulders. It is the season for that phase. To move on from that is to say that what interests me about what comes now with all of this power is the fact that there is no effective opposition. He has a fixed term of at least five years. It would be an unprecedented. They should really think about it, but my point is they played an extreme game of power politics. If you want to know what the conservatives do look at their politics in america. They are as whipped and as disciplined in are as whipped and as disciplined in a very narrow range of are as whipped and as disciplined in a very narrow range of ideals. I am not convinced that Boris Johnson can wina not convinced that Boris Johnson can win a second referendum without a lot of fighting. You mean the scottish referendum, because its very easy to confuse our referendum. Lam not very easy to confuse our referendum. I am not seeing him as a kind of grand tour of i am not seeing him as a kind of grand tourofa i am not seeing him as a kind of grand tour of a lot. And with a line down the irish sea. There was an enormous conservative blockage of the whole process, they are like the republicans. The Republican Party has purged away all of its moderates. They went moderates. It was an extraordinary election. Every single party avoided the real issues, the proper ones, the economy, backs out of control, people add to people are in debt. Brexit will give more money to the nhs. The nhs does not need more money. It needs reform. It is a waste of money. The labour party, just like in 2017 did everything to lose the election. Everything possible. In 2017 the tories would not hear about this. This time they won because jeremy not hear about this. This time they won becauseJeremy Corbyn really went for it. He said we are going to tax all of you. Nobody was gonna vote for him. They are amazed that they lost in such a big way. Why . The other opposition parties destroyed themselves. The lib dems that mac you mean the promise to invoke article 50. The greens describe themselves as well. The reason the snp did so well is because they are using that mac nobody can say that they are meant. They dont have anything to offer. This whole independence thing is going to collapse because it is mad. If you are leaving the eu. No we are not leaving the eu because our part of the country voted to stay so the rest of the country doesnt matter. But the snp victory in scotland was rather misleading. It was largely due to the labour collapse in scotland. If labour had not collapse the snp victory would not be. White mac donald trump ends the year facing trial in the us senate for high crimes and misdemeanours. His Republican Party has the votes to prevent him being forced from office, but already the impeachment process has coloured the nations politics ahead of what will be election year. Democrats have called the shots over impeachment thus far, but they appear no nearer to settling on a champion to face mr trump in the president ial election. Imean, he i mean, he has been impeding sheet but has not been a bad thing for donald trump has it. . But has not been a bad thing for donald trump has it. . He is still there so i think it would have been a good yearfor him. His popularity is still there. 42 of the electorate will vote for him no matter what. Three to 5 million votes behind him. If he wins a few states because of the nature of our electoral system which is first past the post in terms of reflecting the true democratic wishes of the polity, yet he still there. And this is something slightly ritualistic. Everybody, from the moment nancy pelosi, the speaker of the has decided that the ukraine situation, and it is to complicated to go into now, attempted to hold up funding from the Ukrainian Government for the defence capability. Which biden did by the way on tape. He acknowledged it on tape. Please dont go there. She thought there is no way of getting out. It was in that very narrow impeachment. One of them interestingly as obstruction of congress. Not obstruction ofjustice because trump has worked very hard that back the ritual part of this is that back the ritual part of this is that they will go in the senate, and they dont have the votes in the senate. It then becomes a case of how further politicise this is as going into next year as the democrats try to elect one of 370 plus people to face donald trump who will be 7a. White Elizabeth Warren is one of them. Im pretty so sure it will be bernie sanders, Elizabeth Warren, orjoe biden. Once the actual voting starts in the primaries, it is a slightly new game. So anyway, he has made it to the end, much to my surprise. I did not think he would get this far. You said on this programme a year ago that he will be gone but it wont be anything to do with the russia. So you are right. There was a time when it seemed like the Republican Party might actually, in congress, step away slightly from trump. He has insulted a lot of people. And yet they all come toadying up to him just like certain members of the public that mac what you dont need to understand is that the deming pratt started the impeachment process because they know theyre going to lose the election. Now they are desperate. The republicans are stuck with him because you cant change him months before the election. So he can say whatever he wants and they will still support him. This is an extraordinary situation. Leaving aside whether its right or wrong what happened. Depending on who the democrats nominate and the strength or weakness of their campaign. It is a very good year to be a strong candidate for president this year democrat one. Trump is pretty unpopular. He is not spreading outside his own area, he is not meant to take any votes that he didnt have in 2016. There is not much prospect of that. If he can close up wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, which were lost by incredibly small margins in 2016, then trump is utterly beatable. Trump often looks fairly desperate to me. Im slightly Old Fashioned in this way. The first question that occurs to me as did he do the things that he was accused of in the impeachment. The answer is that he did. The second question is do they rise to an petermann offence smoke. They do reach an impeachment offe nce. They do reach an impeachment offence. Is he comprehensively the worst president weve had in our lifetime. Yes. All we can hope, democrats around the world, is a decent democratic candidate comes up and defeats him and we get out of this pattern of jumpers and defeats him and we get out of this pattern ofjumpers and relieve the republicans of their incredible self imposed burden, and try to get back to the world as we have known it, with alliances being alliances. White mac when you look at that shortlist, is there a debt decent democratic candidate . Shortlist, is there a debt decent democratic candidate . That is part of the democratic problem. There is a crisis in selfless politics for complicated reasons. We can go all the way back to the cold war. The democrats have overplayed their hands, perhaps deliberately. They cant depose the president because he is incompetent. It has to be high crimes and disc demeanours. When he said, can you do us a favour . He meant the country. It is very difficult to prove that he didnt mean the country. No he didnt. We know that he didnt but that is psycho knowledge know that he didnt but that is psycho knowledge that is psychological analysis. Will it stand up in court . I dont think so to ta ke stand up in court . I dont think so to take it back to whether there is a candidate out there. Spending time in georgia and texas during the elections, this year, in an off year election, democrats took a governorship in the old confederacy. They removed the governor of kentucky and remove the house of burgesses in virginia. The empirical fa ct, burgesses in virginia. The empirical fact, and this isjust a level burgesses in virginia. The empirical fact, and this is just a level below joe binding and Elizabeth Warren, is there is a tremendous organising going on at grassroots level. It is not students and lefties. It is mostly women who are on the million women march, and they will. Just let me make a point about the soft left. The reason Hillary Clinton ran such a Disastrous Campaign was not a coincidence. She took identity politics, when women were worrying in the. About putting food on the table. What we can say is what in the labour party in this country, that was created to be the voice of the industrial proletariat, there is no industrial proletariat any more. There is no working class as we knew it. That makes the problem of Democratic Centre left it. That makes the problem of democratic ce ntre left politics, it. That makes the problem of Democratic Centre left politics, by extension, very difficult. If theres one abiding image for 2019, its street protest. From the middle east to the far east, in europe and in latin america, people power proved more resilient than many would have predicted. In sudan, it ended the 30 year dictatorship of omar al bashir. In hong kong, it persisted in defiance of beijing even if its objectives remain unmet. It changed policy in chile and in france, deposed a Prime Minister in lebanon, and remains an unspent force in iraq. Im rolling a very. Im rolling a lot of very Different Things together there. What you take from them . Some of them at lease, perhaps them . Some of them at lease, perhaps the majority of the most significant ones, the idea of democratic Self Determination has become embedded in in our consciousness. It is very moving to see Hong Kong Holding up uk flags. They understand the principle of democratic Self Government which actually seems to have become rather lost in european politics. It has become one of the driving forces of brexit. Democratic Self Government, and wanting to be able to elect and re move wanting to be able to elect and remove their people who govern you. It is significant how much that is ineradicable now from our modern political consciousness. In all kinds of contacts and settings. Are you inspired . I am not inspired at all because all civil wars lead to ordinary People Living worse lives in the bad guys living. Every single one. You take the french revolution and the civil war in the American Revolution lotion, anything. Let me finish, please. Youve spoken too much by the way. I must tell you that this is a great conception. That people hitting the streets changes anything. The bad people behind the scenes manipulate this. They come to power very quickly. Take the arab spring, what did they end up with . The same dictator is even worse. We had a slimmest taking power. Communism in russia using this so called revolution which was a coup, by the way, not a revolution. So all of these revolutions are a bad example of politics, that horrible example. They never change anything for the better. If you dont have Democratic Institutions are a democratic process, that is the point i was making about britain. The fact that they. The street protests in hong kong will not change anything. That has nothing to do with social change. So what should people do who are living under what they consider to be totalitarian despotism . What can they do if they dont have that Democratic Institution . There is a sign of democracy of whatever. Democracy doesnt work. It didnt work in greece. It didnt work they cancelled it. They said it didnt work. Democracy is usually the role ofa work. Democracy is usually the role of a tiny minority behind the scenes. Look at the election. The much of parliament is the same. How is it the same every single minister comes from the. How are they going to change this. Im going to let you both pause for breath. David, do you gain optimism from those protests . Saying the obvious thing that people are talking about, climate change, the Big International movements and street process and peaceful disruption, changing politicians mines. There are obviously good and bad things that can happen as a result of street protests. It is possible that the street protests imagine fora possible that the street protests imagine for a moment that the strength of their feeling trumps the other feeling of other people who are not out on the streets. That is a lwa ys are not out on the streets. That is always a dangerous moment. There is a lwa ys always a dangerous moment. There is always a dangerous moment. There is always a dangerous moment the street protesters when they lose sight. The other problem is that it is quite easy for big authorities with more resources to outlast them. They are very rarely deciding the outcome of an event. The demonstrations in america that actually brought about a change in the law. But the planning went on for a decade. Just to say two things here. Several hundred people have been killed in iraq, possibly more. Hundreds have been killed in iran. People have not reached their limit yet. This is not revolution, just street protests. Twice last year people came onto the streets of london but they were very polite and english about demanding a second referendum. Hence, they didnt get a second referendum. Know they did, they got a rep and election that was the second one. Each to its particular circumstances, but i wonder if a different environment now simply because if there is a different speed communication, and in parts of africa now people have access to mobile phones even if they dont have much cash themselves. Suddenly they can communicate in a way they didnt communicate before. In hong kong the protests were pretty much controlled online if they were controlled online if they were controlled at all. Greece is still in the euro and the euro is still functioning in the brits have left europe. The arab spring. I remember a reporter in cairojumping around with young protests. Look at what theyre doing, theyre communicating theyre doing, theyre communicating they are flash my big. This is going to liberate the world. Here we are, at the end of the decade, and every. Over the last 72 hours, the resume is put at p its in pieces on the internet, but it is better now for the resume to work in the dark now if they really want to organise some significant change in their government. We feel that should be true. I take some optimism from the fa ct true. I take some optimism from the fact that people are sufficiently interested in politics and the big events interested in politics and the big eve nts wa nt interested in politics and the big events want to make big protest, as long as they understand the limitations and responsibilities of those. I take a great deal of pleasure looking at young people going onto the streets with extinction rebellion, as long as they understand what the limitations of such protest will be. It requires engagement and a level of self education and engagement with others. It is one of the blessings ofa others. It is one of the blessings of a democracy that you look out and there is somebody who disagrees,. Once the government to take people even more. Once the government to take people even more. How is it against the government . I have written in fact that we will look back on these last three years as a golden age of political engagement. People arguing about brexit in the street and in the shops. White back in the final minute of the final date line of the final year of the decade, what was the best moment of 2019 for you. For me . It was interviewing john dean and others who participated in the impeachment that have preceded this, and learning how different this one coming up will be. I have to say the election result because the defeat ofan anti semitic, election result because the defeat of an anti semitic, hard left communist effectively party was so important and significant. I was so reassured about the sanity of the british electorate. Tucked them in the semifinal was easily the best moment for me. I think the press in 2019 as a whole got everything wrong. It was absolutely amazing. Thank you will very much for being here all year and for being here today. Happy new year to all of you. Well be back in the new year for the first date line of 2010 to 20. Dojoin us then. By the the first date line of 2010 to 20. Do join us then. By the first dateline of 2020. Hello. Weather wise, things are looking pretty gloomy this weekend for one reason or another, be it a lot of cloud or some stubborn patches of mist and fog. Hopefully tomorrow, perhaps some brighter weather on the way, particularly for england and wales, but basically dominated this weekend by a south westerly airstream thats picked up quite a lot of moisture as its travelled in across the atlantic. Weve got a weather front feeding into the northwest that will bring some rain into scotland. But the defining feature, i think, for the weekend will be just how mild its going to feel. Looking pretty well this afternoon, particularly later on in the afternoon across scotland. Some rain for Northern Ireland, dry for england and wales. Lots of cloud. There are some stubborn mist and folk with central and eastern areas. Best chance of any brightness in the west. The temperatures widely in double figures. If youre heading out, the savings still looking pretty wet for scotland. Some heavier rain in the west for a time, stretching its way north eastwards before finally starting to clear during the small hours. Clear skies for Northern Ireland, some clear spells across england and wales at this time of year. You might think, cool, thats going to bring us a frost. But no, were sitting in such mild air. In fact, just nine degrees as a low for aberdeen and belfast. And this air mass graphic gives you some idea of whats going on. This bright orange strip stretching up from the azores is what will sit across scotland and Northern Ireland for sunday, giving us some remarkably mild weather. Hopefully on sunday, welljust pull in some slightly drier air to england and wales from the continent. And if that mixes with our cloud, should allow some breaks to form a little bit more in the way of sunshine. It should be seen for scotland overall. A drier day, still some rain for the Western Isles pushing into the northwest of the highlands to the south and east, though i think a good chance of some sunshine also for Northern Ireland and with some sunshine, a south westerly wind around the murray firth, we could be looking at up to 15 degrees celsius. So unseasonably warm here for late december. Speaking of seasonal temperatures, though, as we go into the week ahead and approach new years eve, the figures do come back down closer to average, a cold front, albeit not with particularly cold air sinking south. Behind it will move its way across the uk on monday, not bearing much in the way of rain. And it moves us into that fresh air for new years eve and ask for new years eve eve. It should be dry. But look at this. Intense patches of fog returning. This is bbc news, im lukwesa burak. The headlines at 12. The star of grease, Olivia Newton john, is made a dame in a new year honours list which also recognises four members of englands world cup winning cricket team. Ben stokes receives an obe and theres an mbe forjoe root. Very privileged and a bit humbled, to be honest, to be receiving an award like that. When you play cricket you are part of a team. More than a thousand people are recognised including 94 year old, d day veteran, harry billinge, who raised over £10,000 for a national memorial. It was far from my mind that i was ever going to be recognised for doing a bit of a collection. A woman whose husband and two children drowned on christmas eve