Hello, im shaun ley. Welcome to the programme which brings together distinguished columnists, bbc specialists and the correspondents who file their stories to the folks back home dateline london. This week not all over by christmas. Borisjohnson resists calls for a short, sharp lockdown. Are Northern Ireland and wales undermining his argument or are they arbiters of things to come . And brexit is back, but its a fishy business. Your Dateline Panel this week analisa piras is italian and a documentary film maker, Stefanie Bolzen is german, the london correspondent for die welt. And hes british, hes simonjack, hes the bbcs business editor, and hes here in the studio. Back to square one. How one british mp characterised the new tiers of covid restrictions announced by Prime MinisterBoris Johnson on monday. Although the number of people hospitalised by the virus is almost exactly what it was on the day the uk went into a nationwide lockdown back in march, mrjohnson said he doesnt want to do that again. Labour, the Main Opposition Party at westminster, says its time for whats being called a Circuit Breaker for a short period. On wednesday, Northern Ireland announced a two week shutdown of schools and hospitality venues in the hope of slowing the rate of infection. Wales is shutting the border to people from high risk areas in the rest of britain. Back to square one, a cry of frustration, all that sacrifice and where has it got us . It was inevitable that we would find ourselves facing potentially a Covid Christmas until or unless there is a vaccine . I think that is right most scientists said it would be a tough winter, the regular flu season coming along. We didnt eradicate it in the first place. If you have schools and universities and people going back to the office, most people thought this was inevitable. What was not inevitable and, as you said, there is a big debate about how we tackle this. As of midnight last night, london joined york and other parts of the uk. Its now half the population living under what we call tier 2, which means people from different households cant mix indoors at all. That is going to have very grave repercussions for some of our industries, hospitality. I was speaking to a pub owner in the east end of london the other day, she said she would usually have 100 people of capacity, its been halfed already halved already and she will be lucky if she can get 15 people in. She doesnt see herself being able to keep her staff on. The Hospitality Industry is groaning. You had professorjohn bell coming out and saying the only way to get on top of this is to have a Circuit Breaker. That would come at enormous cost. Distinguished economic think tank thinks that will cost between £15 20 billion a long way short of what the National Lockdown cost was back in april which was 20 of gdp, 400 billion plus. Some very powerful figures. Stefanie, i suppose that has been part of the political tension, not least the tension between the Central Government and local government. We dont have a federal system in the uk, but we are seeing devolution biting National Government. It is quite extraordinary. The fight between westminster and the mayor of greater manchester, who refuses together with other Council Leaders in manchester to move to tier 3, the hardest lockdown in the united kingdom. The threats going back and forward. In my country, germany, we have moved on from the spring and we know more. There is a more differentiated view and approach to things. You should distinguish between which part of the population is more prone to transmission, how business should be shutdown or how much they can be a risk to people. The same discussion is also going on in germany and there are a lot of tensions between the federal government and the regions. We see, analisa, in madrid, the Central Government in spain and the madrid region, the president of the region there standing out against what the National Government wanted to do in shutting down madrid for economic reasons. Not trying to defend it on Health Grounds but on economic grounds. It is too high a price for the economy to bear. The same debate has been going on in italy the first place where the covid pandemic hit europe. There were huge issues. Italy has a devolved regional system in regards to health. So milan and the region of milan, they were somehow autonomous in the way they were dealing with this extraordinary outbreak that nobody knew anything about in europe at the time, but there, what we saw was the fallacy of thinking that the local solution might be the right one. What we have learnt in italy is that, when you are dealing with such an uncontrollable thing like a pandemic, what you need to do is to make sure that you coordinate very tightly with the reality on the ground at the local level and with the kind of big picture that the Central Government has. In italy, in milan and the lombardi region, it was autonomous, they got the power for Health Reasons in the end they had to somehow admit that they got it wrong without the government. The conflict that we are seeing in britain seems to be coming from a misunderstanding, what we have seen in italy 2 3 months in advance, facing the problems of the covid pandemic, is that what works is really an extremely tight coordination between Central Government and regions to compare the local realities with the big picture of transmission. It seems that is not happening in britain and is becoming part of a Political Party confrontation. That is extremely concerning because we are talking about life or death matters here. It is important that britain tries to look at what has already happened in other countries and tries to learn the lessons. We are all in this together and we are learning as we go along. It is important to think about this, it is often portrayed as a health issue versus an economic issue, like it is a shootout between those two interests. I think that is wrong because if these lockdown measures do work and bring the infection under control there will be an economic and effort. But the more people who are infected the more people who cannot work. Correct. Conversely, if you do have these brief lockdowns, all that does is defer and lengthen the pain. The Economic Cost incurred at that time will end up being considered wasted. That gets us to this argument about a Circuit Breaker. Labour opposition pushing hard. Northern ireland and wales effectively doing that anyway. The Prime Minister says he doesnt want to do it. Wasnt the most damning criticism of his tier system that he introduced only this week from the chief medical officer for england . Chris whitty saying he doesnt think it will be sufficient. It is obvious that Boris Johnson is now torn. It became obvious at the beginning of this week. The advisory body advocated to have another National Lockdown. A Circuit Breaker, as you call it. Borisjohnson decided against it. That kicks in another strain of political impact, which is his own party. His own party and backbenchers have started or are threatening a rebellion against the lockdown restrictions or the covid restrictions of the Prime Minister and it looked like a really serious rebellion. The Prime Minister gave into his own backbenchers and the pressure they made because they also hear from their constituents back home how businesses are suffering, how people are losing theirjobs. At the end of the day, the question is, what is at stake . On the one hand, the lives of thousands of people who might get the infection, who might die of it, but on the other hand the collateral damage, so to say, on the health system, on education, on the social and Mental Health of people. To be fair, it is an impossible position to be in for the Prime Minister. You can see how much, even in the press conference yesterday, how much he is torn about what she has to decide. Im sure you must be so relieved to hear us talking about brexit again. If youre a fisheries ministerfrom an eu country, christmas means late nights not partying, but squabbling over scallops and cod quotas. Its fishing which remains the biggest stumbling block in the eu uk trade deal. Although fishermen and woman generate a little over i of gdp processing the catch adds a bit more britain is an island nation. When eurosceptics like mrjohnson campaigned in the brexit referendum to take back control from brussels, the catch landed by british vessels was both implicit and explicit their pledge. Germany is not thought of as a fishing nation ended up weighing anchor on the uks site this week, Angela Merkel saying there has to be a deal which is in the interest of both the uk and eu. What is going on . Are we starting to see divisions opening up, dare i say it, in the eu position . No, i dont think so. I dont think you really see divisions. I think you see very much a known distribution between good cop and bad cop on the european side. Macron arriving at the european summit being quite stark in his language that he will not give in and protect the french fishermen, who in fact. I was in scotland two weeks ago and spoke to french fishermen. They said they are doing 95 of their catch in scottish waters and british waters we cannot survive if there is not a deal. It is an important constituency, but in a symbolic way, it is only 10,000 jobs. There are things on the table that are economically far more important. This is the question about what they call a level playing field. How they find an agreement that britain will not kind of sail off having free access to the Single Market but being not bound to standards for the environment or labour conditions. And also state aid. This is one of the controversial things on the table. Interestingly, on friday morning, or thursday morning, i was briefed from brussels that, whatever now comes out of the summit, they will continue negotiating on monday in london. Michel barnier is not coming to london, there is now only a phone call. I think the europeans are surprised by the harsh reaction by downing street by things as part of posturing. Analisa, to give us some context. Spain, italy, for the british, this persistent stand off, it is not a new problem, the focus distilled into the trade dispute between the eu and the uk . I agree with stefanie that it is posturing. Fishing is not that important at all, as you have reminded us. It is about even less than 1 of the gdp of britain. It is minimal in comparison with the real stake here, which is 50 of the trade of this country. This is about identity politics, nationalism, and britain is an island nation. This idea of our waters and take control back of our fish has really been a catalyst. A catalyst of many of the emotions behind the brexit vote. I believe that is why borisjohnson is kind of touching on it so much, because it is a symbol. But this idea we got back our waters is more important than other ideas. And i guess its the same, in a way, for president macron, he feels that this ce nturies old rivalry with britain across the channel is somehow coming back in the mind of people, and he feels that he has to defend the french fishermen. And so there was a lot of discussion in the french press these days to remind brits that actually, yes, the fish are in their water, but they are actually born on the Shallow Water of france. They are french fish they are friends fish. The fact they dont recognise your border doesnt mean that they are not french that is why we all hope there will be a more grown up conversation behind closed doors, and that is probably what is going to happen. What is certain is that the 27 are absolutely monolithic, they are completely firm in their position, so there is very little posturing that will change the situation, and i do believe that in the end there will be a deal. Lets hope so. Simon, this is the critical point. I remember talking to fishermen in devon, it is not so much the british eating the fish, its the fish we sell in mediterranean markets and, if there isnt a trade deal, that is in trouble. You can catch all the fish you like if you havent got anyone to sell them to. Most of the fish brits eat are caught in norwegian or icelandic waters. I agree with both analisa and stefanie that fishing is a tenth of i of british gdp. So banking is 100 times more important than that. Youre also right, it speaks to our identity as an island nation. We have historical memories of the cod wars, clashing boats in the channel. When i went down there, what was interesting to me, when i talk to fishermen, they dont want it all. The truth is that they cant catch it all. The fleet isnt big enough. What they want is a slightly better deal. So when you hear this rhetoric about it is our fish, we want them all, thats not what the fishing industry themselves are saying. And i do think there is a deal here to be done. It may involve the french fishermen having to pay some sort of fee, but this is a good Old Fashioned haggle. Yes. I disagree slightly with you that this is the biggest issue. I think some of the things that stefanie was talking about, state aid and level playing field, i think those are much more difficult things to sort out. So why is it the british or the eu have chosen to focus on the fisheries side . Macron has an election coming up as well. As we say, is very visible, everyone can understand this issue. Cant they . When you Start Talking about the nuances of state aid, level playing field, peoples eyes glaze over. Not on this programme but, you know, the nuances of state assistance run for hundreds of pages in treaty agreements and are difficult to understand. Clearly, there is a deal to be done here and 75 of uk fish are sold in eu markets, 0. 1 of gdp. A good Old Fashioned haggle. And what is left that still has to be resolved, do you think . If you put that one aside, there is a way of finessing that . I think the state aid thing is important in levelling the playing field. There is this disconnect, when borisjohnson asks why we cant have the same deal as the eu gave to canada. Because we are right on the eus doorstep. Our economies are so entwined and linked, it isnt appropriate, some say, to have that sort of deal when you have something on the border. And what the uk government wants to do is. Whats weird is, the uk is seemingly prepared to sacrifice a free trade deal on the altar of state aid, something the uk government almost never does. It does a quarter of the amount of state aid that germany does. But the uk wants to be able to pour money into high tech. Hopefully, well talk about this story later. On environmental stuff. Get a global and competitive advantage in some industries. Something that suits uk skills and priorities. That is something the eu is worried about. They will point out that you signed up to this in the political declaration of human rights, so you have already signed a document saying youre going to do it, so that is the biggest sticking point, ithink. Now the part of the programme where we talk on the stories that may not have had a lot of coverage but they think we should know more about. Analisa, do you want because of . Talking about the opportunities to report during the pandemic. I think we have lost analisas sound. Stefanie, you also want to talk about press freedom but in a different context . I picked up a story from the netherlands where the public broadcaster this week has announced they will actually take off all the letters or the writing on their vehicles. So if reporters or camera teams go out to report on something they will now take off the logo, simply to protect their reporters. That comes because there has been an increasing number of attacks on n05 and dutch in general reporters covering especially protests. People got attacked by people on the street. We have the same also in germany. There have been dozens of attacks on german reporters in the past month who were simply doing theirjobs. The most recent was back in may when there was anti restriction demonstrations in berlin where six people from the german broadcaster ztf had to go to hospital because they were hit and beaten by protesters. So journalists have really become a target, when they are just doing, not only theirjob, but really standing up and delivering freedom of speech and information. And i think, especially when you now look at the United States and at the election at the beginning of november, the mounting aggression coming from the us president , who even says already that he might not accept the outcome of the election in case he loses. So there is a growing danger tojournalists just doing theirjobs. I certainly wouldnt characterise it as dangerous, my experience of this, but i echo the point that stefanie is making, analisa, ive had people accuse me on the street as acting as a propagandist for the government because we are putting out information about covid. Did you want to talk about the difficulty of reporting during the pandemic . Yes, but not only that, i wanted to flag the fact that covid 19 is somehow giving an opportunity to all sorts of strongmen or people in power to abuse their power. There has been a report of 426 cases of arrests and harassment by governments ofjournalists trying to show what was going on with covid measures. In a different way, this is happening also in europe. In italy, theres been a trying and an attempt of saying that the pandemic is the fault of people. Journos have flagged there are things the government hasnt done, the responsibility of the government. In britain we are seeing an attempt saying it is the people who dont respect the rules, without putting their attention and accountability on what the government does. So what im trying to say is, never as before that it is important we protect the freedom of the press, that we Pay Attention to all the voices that are trying to inform on what is happening between citizens and governments in the pandemic. And we also keep accountability on the infodemic on the false spread of information. And it is important that we also keep open the comparison between International Lessons and experiences with the pandemic and, in this sense, something i learnt yesterday, that is very concerning, is that one such island of comparison of news from different countries, the same problem we are talking about right now, might be finished by the end of the year. So i think these are things we need really to flag because never before. We do. I will have to stop you there and get simon in on the last word looking ahead. Can ijust echo some of those comments as a business journalist . Its not all businesses, but a healthy majority, were not in favour of brexit. My own experience in this is that, if i report the comments of what businesses tell me about some of the problems of brexit, i then get accused of being a champion of their interests and blah, blah, blah. So both covid and brexit has led to a very divisive media and twitter can be a very unpleasant place to be, whatever side of the argument youre on. Looking ahead, next week, in the next two weeks, a ten point plan for how the government wants to get a net zero by 2050. Some big nuclear, some small nuclear. A time when offshore wind they said it would never work. But the uk was one of the first to commit to a net zero, legally, so a lot of people will be watching around the world. If there is a bigger story than the pandemic, maybe its the environment, and we will get some detail on that. Simonjack, simon jack, an object lesson simonjack, an object lesson in assisting to nurse there. In being succint. Thats it for dateline london for this week were back next week at the same time. Goodbye. Hello. Sunday will be the last day in this spell of fairly quiet, settled weather. That said, there will still be enough cloud out there to produce a little patchy rain in a few spots as we go through the day. But some of us will actually end up being a little bit brighter than we were on saturday. Were just in this weather pattern waiting for something to come along and the signs are there in the atlantic as low pressure starting to form and heading our way to bring some very different weather in the week ahead. As well see in a moment. This is how we start off on sunday morning. The thickest cloud through Northern Ireland, scotland, through northern and Eastern England giving some outbreaks of mostly light rain. So some of us getting off to a damp start. There may be some early sunny spells in the far northeast of scotland. That will cloud over. And as all of this starts to push north again it will stay damp for some in scotland. But Northern Ireland will brighten up for a time. And parts of wales, and across the midlands, and southern england a great chance of seeing sunny spells on sunday compared with saturday. It will still be another rather cool day. But for now the winds are light. Some rain will push across Northern Ireland on through sunday evening, on across the Northern Isles too, and more widely into scotland, into parts of Northern England as the night goes on. South of that there will be a few clear spells around. For all parts, the breezes starting to pick up. Starting to come in, though, from the south. Look at this. It has been so quiet, it is much more active on the big picture here, though, for monday. Weather fronts out towards the north and west. And, of course, low pressure taking over. And during monday there will be some further heavy rain, particularly into Northern Ireland and scotland. But some outbreaks of rain also affecting some of us towards the west of wales and western fringes of england. Whereas elsewhere clouds going to increase. Still some hazy brightness. Again the wind is starting to pick up as well. But its a southerly breeze. Those temperatures are a little bit higher. That spell of rain will push its way east across all parts during monday night. On tuesday, still some further heavy rain in northern scotland, further heavy showers elsewhere in scotland and Northern Ireland. A few elsewhere on this brisk south southwesterly wind. But that flow of air will bring some milder weather in, particularly into england and wales, where some will reach towards the high teens. Temperatures trail off again later in the week. As the week goes on there will be further spells of rain clearing to showers to end the week. Bye bye. This is bbc news im james reynolds. Our top stories a new humanitarian ceasefire comes into effect between armenia and azerbaijan over the disputed region of nagorno karabakh. Tributes are paid to samuel paty, the teacher beheaded in paris on friday, in what the french president has called a cowardly attack. Opening up in australia the state of victoria eases some of its toughest coronavirus restrictions. And thousands of lebanese mark the anniversary of a mass protest movement against a political elite, now blamed for augusts deadly blast in beirut. People have no means to survive or continue, and the ones who came here today are sending one