The is front cover focuses on this weeks Brexit Debate in the house of lords, where some of the new Labour Grandees could resist the governments plans for withdrawing form the eu. The express also picks up the story, urging the lords not to weaken or delay the governments brexit approach. The nhs has cut 15,000 beds in six years according to the mail. The guardian reports that eu leaders are telling theresa may that, what they call, Blackmail Tactics will backfire on the uk. The times says no ten is on a Collision Course with Small Businesses over its reforms to business rates. A warning from the Defence Secretary makes the telegraphs front page. Sir Michael Fallon says britain must maintain a Military Presence in afghanistan to avoid millions of afghans migrating to europe. Meanwhile the mirror is leading with the story that former boxer Michael Watson has vowed to find the people who attacked him as they tried to steal his car. Now its time for hardtalk. Welcome to hardtalk. Im stephen sackur. Its the job of the journalist to speak truth to power but it can be a lonely place, defying conventional wisdom and the powers that be. My guest today has known that loneliness. Irish journalist david walsh was convinced that cyclings untouchable champion Lance Armstrong was a drugs cheat long before the sport revealed the scale of his deceit. Armstrong is now history of course but doping continues to devalue elite sport. Maybe its a problem that no amount of truth telling journalism can fix. David walsh, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you. I wonder if you could cast your mind back to starting as a Young Journalist in ireland, working on sports. You memorably described yourself then as a fan with a typewriter. Do you still regard yourself as a fan . In certain respects, yes, but in a general sense, no. I think a journalist has to leave that behind. I think the predominant reason why people want to be Sports Writers is because they love sport. In my case, i knew from a very early stage i wanted to be a Sports Writer and its because i liked writing essays when i was in english class as a kid and i loved sport and i put the two together and it equalled sports reporter. Before we get to the state of sport today, we must talk about Lance Armstrong and your pursuit, and i think thats the right word, you used it as the subtitle of your book about him, the seven deadly sins. You talked about your pursuit of Lance Armstrong. Why did you turn it into a crusade, a mission, you against him . Well, that is how it turned out. I dont know if i consciously decided, im going to dedicate all this time to pursuing one guy. I mean, the sport was dirty at the time. Lance was one of many riders who doped, but they all didnt, there were plenty of guys who were clean and who got completely betrayed by their sport. The reason why lance became such an important figure was because he was an emblem on what we were told was to change sport. He was this fantastically feelgood story. The guy that came back from cancer. Yeah, he almost died from testicular cancer. Then in 1999, he rode the tour again, hed never won it before, but he rode it in 1999, he went on to reel off seven victories. It was perhaps the most heroic victory in sport that anybody of my generation can ever remember. Yes. And you, more than anyone else, burst that bubble. Greg lemond, an american man who had won the Tour De France three times, said to me at the very early stage of this investigation i was conducting into armstrong, he said, if this comeback from cancer is true, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sport, and it is not true, its the greatest fraud. As a journalist, you are thinking that if this is the greatest fraud and you believe it is so, you have an absolute responsibility to go after it and reveal it to be a fraud. You came up against an extremely powerful set of interests who did not want that story, your story, to be written. I dont just talk about Lance Armstrong and his entourage and the Us Postal Team that he represented but im also thinking about the authorities in the sport because Lance Armstrong brought to cycling a sort of profile, a standing in the world of sport which they couldnt find anywhere else so to trash his reputation was to trash the sport as a whole. Yes, it was. It was to trash a global icon as well. This is a guy who went on Mountain Bike rides with president george w bush. This is a guy who was best friends with matthew mcconaughey, the hollywood actor. This is a man who went way beyond his sport and who people around the world looked up to as some kind of saviour. He had come back from cancer, life threatening cancer, and every single person, no matter where you live, you knew somebody with cancer, family, a relative, you were going out and you are buying lances book and saying read this and find inspiration. How apprehensive were you about, and lets use this word again, pursuit. The lawyers representing armstrong were consistently on your case and the case of your newspaper, the sunday times. That went for about three years, 2004, 2005, 2006. They were dominated by meetings with lawyers and discussing the case. A case that we were always going to lose because of the uks draconian libel laws. Armstrong could never sue us in america, he could never sue us in france because in those countries the burden of proof would have been on armstrong, to prove that i was lying, and i was never lying. But in this country, we had to prove that armstrong was doping and that was close to impossible. You got other cyclists to talk and we now know that as you said, the systematic doping was rife in many different teams, many top cyclist were doing it. How did you break down the sort of wall of silence, the 0merta, that there was at the top of Elite Cycling . Because i tried and when you try to do, and i believe it was the right thing, i exposed one key bit of information, that armstrong worked with a Doping Doctor. A simple question, why would a so called clean rider work with a Doping Doctor . Armstrong said he believed the doctor was in a honest man and people accepted that. The doctor was due to stand trial two months after armstrong said that, for doping. He was convicted and eventually got off on appeal, statute of limitation again. But when people see you trying to do the right thing, they come forward. I had betsy andreu, wife of frankie, lances long time teammate, i had emma 0reilly who had been a personal masseuse to lance when he won his first Tour De France. They came to me and told their story. Steven swart from new zealand who rode with lance. He said that lance was the biggest advocate of doping in his team. Three witnesses with first hand evidence of lances doping. I put it all in a book and i thought that was it but armstrong was too powerful, even with all the evidence in the world, you couldnt bring him down. And it wasnt until five years ago that actually the us cycling authorities, and then it moved on to the world doping authorities, but they finally revealed the truth of the scale of the doping that armstrong had been involved in and in the end he was banned from cycling. In fact, banned from all professional sport. Hes finished and now he is way beyond the age where he could be a cyclist, but if you were to meet Lance Armstrong today, what would you say to him . Its a question i have often considered. I think i would want the conversation to be incredibly private. I wouldnt want it to be in any way used by lance or anyone else for pr purposes. I would like to ask him about the people who knew, the people who still have never been revealed as conspiratories in what was a huge sporting fraud. Because hes never told the full story. No, hes always said hes not going to be a rat. Hes not going to rat out the people around him. The relationship between you and him and goodness knows, it is even a hollywood movie, the relationship between you and him is fascinating. When did you actually last see him and swap words with him . The 2004 Tour De France at a Press Conference and the book had just come out. I am sitting in the front row. He was asked about the book and looks down at me and says, seeing as the esteemed author was here, i will answer this question. He said the extraordinary allegations as mr walsh has made must be followed with extraordinary proof. It was a simple question, why should it be extraordinary proof for Lance Armstrong . But he was right. 0rdinary proof didnt touch him. In the end, the United States Anti Doping Agency got 26 witnesses. Ii of them were former team mates , all with first hand accounts of lances doping. Do you in any way resent. In a sense, it made your career, journalist longed to have that defining story that will win them awards, make hollywood movies, and you have that. But this is important, you also found your life consumed by this and at one point, your daughter made a comment when she saw interviewed on tv about lance and she said, there you go again, im watching you on telly while the rest of the family are having dinner, same old, same old. You sacrificed a lot for this. Was it worth it . It totally was worth it and i never saw it as a sacrifice. This was the most fun i was ever going to have as a journalist. People are always astounded when i say that. They say, you were sued, this guy won, he cost your newspaper a million, that must have been horrible and your family. And i said actually, it wasnt horrible. I really had a good time. I never felt more journalistically alive as i was during those years. I know it is a preposterous kind of comparison because what happened with Carl Bernstein and bob woodward and watergate was vastly bigger than armstrong but if you look at that movie, all the president s men, what you see are two journalists on the case, having the time of their lives, knowing there will be another story like this. On a much smaller scale, i had that feeling with armstrong. I can see the excitement shining in your eyes right now. It forces me then to move the clock forward and talk about how you have conducted some of your journalism in more recent years. You havent left sport and certainly you havent left a cycling. You are still a very influential cycling journalist. Why oh why, having learnt the Lessons Learned from the armstrong case, did you decide in more recent years to vouch for, in a really significant way, the honesty, the credibility, of the dominant cycling team of recent years team sky, when otherjournalists are saying that you cant be sure they are clean when the industry is still full of drugs. Why did you do that . I was offered the opportunity to spend 13 weeks inside team sky. Almost like a Militaryjournalists Go with the army during a war. You went to team sky and you lived with them, ate with them, but frankly they were using them as a tool because they wanted to convince you that they were the new clean team. I think it is right to say that they used to but in fairness to all the good people in team sky, because i believe that i think about 70 or 80 people are working in the team. I believe if you took four people out of that team and one of them is already gone, that you would have very clean team. I was invited to go into that team by Dave Brailsford, theres no question he duped me. He duped you . He did. He is sir Dave Brailsford now, he was knighted. If he had told me at the time he was inviting me into the team, by the way, just so you know the full picture, we gave a therapeutic exemption to bradley before the 2011 Tour De France. We will have two hold up a little bit and explain some of this for our audience because it is quite complicated, but the therapeutic exemption is important in the world of professional cycling because it means banned substances can be given as long as there is proof there is a medical need and now we are talking about Bradley Wiggins who won the Tour De France in 2012 but it turns out, we didnt know at the time, and you didnt know when you are embedded with team sky, but it turns out that in three of his most significant lifetime races, just before those races, he got these therapeutic exemptions and he took a drug which could, in theory, have significantly enhanced his performance. Yes. The thing about it is you can say oh, brailsford duped you, he didnt tell you. But he actually duped lots of people inside his own team. Chris froome who finished second in the Tour De France, he had no idea that Bradley Wiggins was give these tues. Lets be clear, what Bradley Wiggins took, because he got the therapeutic exemption, it was not in any way illegal or contrary to the rules of the sport. I think its more correct to say it may not have been illegal. Because if you get a therapeutic use exemption by exaggerating your symptoms, thats not legal. Now, we dont know that. It may be that Bradley Wiggins was utterly entitled to get that tue. Thats the part we dont know. Would it have been different if Bradley Wiggins and the team had been entirely transparent at the time and said, i am riding with this therapeutic exemption drug in me because ive taken it before the race because i had a problem and ive address that problem. Of course, that would have been much better. But they would have drawn huge criticism on themselves. People would have said, why did he need it for days before the race . And theres a reason why they didnt tell people. They didnt tell chris froome, they didnt tell any other rider in team sky, they didnt tell some of the doctors in the team, they didnt know about this. It comes back to, and we touched on this earlier in the conversation, the degree to which you as a journalist have the right without the most powerful evidence to trash the reputations and careers of elite sports people. You in the last lets say six months have gone out and very consciously, if i may say so, trashed Bradley Wiggins. Youve said that you dont want to hear any more about his 2012 Tour De France victory because in your view its been completely devalued. You said as far as youre concerned Bradley Wigginss reputation has been lost. And yet i come back to the point, the man has done Nothing Wrong in terms of the rules of his sport. In terms of the rules of the sport, he certainly hasnt been sanctioned. I dont accept the point that its absolute, that they didnt commit a doping infraction. I mean, theres a big investigation going on about a mysterious medical package that was delivered to Bradley Wiggins at a race in france in 2011. Sky have failed to say what was in that package. That could have meant something that wasnt legal. If it was legal, why didnt they tell us when we asked what was in the package . It took them so long to come out and tell us. The point is, you can say that im trashing him. Team skys leading rider now, three time winner of the Tour De France, has said that in his view what happened with Bradley Wiggins was unethical and immoral. Youre talking about chris froome . Yes. In a way, one of the most interesting things about this whole ethical, moral morass that youve entered and been in for so long now is your decision to be so harsh on what we now know about Bradley Wiggins, but still to maintain that as far as you are concerned, and your personal knowledge of the man, that chris froome, the three time Tour De France winner, in your view is a manual always vouch for. You completely believe in his credibility and you will not countenance any questioning, which others do, the legitimacy of his race victory. No, i will never say i dont countenance his questioning. Everyone has the right to question, thats what i do as a living. Why would i say somebody doesnt have the right to question him . You co authored his book. You have shaken hands with the man, you have said to chris froome, i believe in you. What would you like me to do . Would you like me to say, i really believe in chris froome but it would have been prudent of me to hedge my bets here. Just Sit On The Fence . Thats not my nature, im not going to do it. Its exactly what some of the most experienced people in the business say you should have done. Im thinking of frankie andreu, the rider youve worked with to a certain extent as a source. He said, when it comes to chris froome you have been naive. Why didnt you just stay neutral, he said to you a while ago. Why say and vouch for the fact that hes clean when at some future point you might just look stupid if he turns out that he wasnt . I dont see my reputation as being that relevant. What i see as being relevant is if i believe somebody is clean, im not going to lie and say i dont believe hes clean. Im not going to say, Sit On The Fence, david, because you never know what might happen in the future. If you believe somebody is clean, you owe it to that person to say it because if i didnt believe hes clean, i would say the opposite. So for me this idea of sitting on the fence is totally unappealing. I understand what youre saying, but to pick away at this poor one more moment on chris froome. We also know that he used a therapeutic exemption clause. Actually in a race, not even before a race but during a race he got an exemption to take a drug which was on the banned list. Yes. Yet you say that was fundamentally different from Bradley Wiggins. You also say that youre partly convinced by chris froome because you had, and this is in your book, you had a very private one on one talk with him when he explained lots of things. What did he say to you that convinced you so much of his integrity . It wasnt just that but that was a moment where. And by the way, i never, you know. Let me maybe put that conversation first into the context. Im in a hoteland im walking up the fire escape and hes coming down. Its one of those stairways where theres nobody going to come, you just know. And he stopped, and he said to me, i want to tell you one thing. And i said, whats that, chris . He said, im telling you now that as long as i live, what ive achieved in this race will never. The perception of it will never be changed by anything thats going to come out. But you know what, the crazy thing is Lance Armstrong would have looked you in the eye and said just the same thing if hed met you on a fire escape in 2001. He didnt. See, thats it. I actually met lance and i spoke to him and we said, lance, what about doping . This sport has got so much bad press. And here you are winning the Tour De France for the first time. He said, look, im going to address this question once and once only. And im saying to you guys, you journalists, youve got to fall in love with cycling again. He never actually said, i would never dope, i do not dope. He said, i have tested positive, i have passed all of the controls. Now, if youre covering the sport and youre a Sports Writer and you see lots of this stuff, you actually know how to read what people are saying and saying, i have passed all the tests is not the same as saying, i dont dope. How can it be, and i want to broaden the conversation now, because cycling has been one of your key focuses. But youve also looked at wider sport and drugs in professional, but going back through decades. But how come it can have been in the very recent past industrial scale when, as i made the point, the world Anti Doping Agency, the iaaf, and all of the other different world bodies supposed to be controlling drugs in sport have spent years telling us theyre cleaning it out. The reason why russia were able to get away with it was it was state supported. Its a big deal if youve got the Ministry Of Sport and the Anti Doping Agency and the anti doping laboratory all conspiring to cheat. That gives the advantages to their coaches, who are. Youre saying men that claim to be on the side of the good guys, like sebastian coe, who now runs the iaaf, the athletics governing body, and indeed the world Anti Doping Agency, youre saying either they dont have the will or capacity to take on State Programmes devoted to doping. They definitely dont have the resources. Do they have the will . Im not sure. If they were better resourced they would have bigger staffs, theyd probably have better people and they would have better protocols. The world Anti Doping Agency, the former director general, david howman, once said, our annual budget is less than Wayne Rooneys annual wages. That is what we put into anti doping. The entire world Anti Doping Agency budget for one year is less than one footballer, not even the highest paid footballer in the world, is less than his annual wages. Thats what we think of doping. In other words were not concerned enough about doping to make a real impact. Were almost at the end. I want to start where i began, the idea of being a fan. You know what dick pound, the former chief of the world Anti Doping Agency, said to me not long ago on hardtalk . He said, when i watch particularly cycling today, i simply cannot bear to watch it any more. I cannot take it seriously. He certainly cannot be a fan. How can you still be a fan knowing what you know . What dick has said there is my definition of cynicism. Because that starts from the presumption that theyre all cheating. He called it realism. Well, he can, and i can call it cynicism. Because what happens if somebody whos clean is winning the Tour De France but because you have a preconception that theyre all cheats, so you brand him a cheat without having any evidence that he is a cheat, without having any knowledge, without having any insight, without having anything. That to me is cynicism. And i would fight as much against cynicism as i would against people who dope. David walsh. We have to end there. Fascinating stuff. Thank you for being on hardtalk. Thank you. Hello there, good morning. 12 or 13 degrees quite widely on sunday. The north east of scotland got to around about 1k degrees. 0ur air has come in from the middle of the atlantic, and will continue to do, although we are going to see temperatures drop away from the north as we get to the latter part of the week. A lot of cloud out there. 0vernight tonight it will be spilling its way in from the west. Some of the cloud will be really quite low across Western Areas and there will be at least some rain to be had in the far north and west first thing in the morning. But it will be a mild night. Nine or ten degrees fairly typical for most major towns and cities. Those are the sorts of temperatures we should see by daytime at this time of year. But quite a grey old start for many. The Weather Front is not particularly intense in terms of rainfall, but there is wetter weather to be had and windy conditions in the far north west. Whereas in the far south west there will be low cloud, hill fog quite extensive, some coastal fog as well, but it is a mild start to the day. Dry for the most part, maybe just the odd spot of drizzle under this low cloud out west. Not quite so much low cloud for east anglia and lincolnshire, but down towards the south east, particularly around the coast, it is a grey but mild start to the day. Few breaks in the cloud for the North East Of England but most places are starting off rather grey. But not much rain until you get to get to the north west of Northern Ireland and the western side of scotland as well. Cloudy and breezy as well. Some parts of Eastern Scotland just about getting away with a dry start to the day, but it will be a blustery start on the eastern side of scotland and the North East Of England, at least for a time through the morning. Winds gusting to around 50 miles an hour, bear that in mind if you are travelling up and down the pennines, for example. Into the afternoon, going to see some reasonable temperatures in the south east, given a few cloud breaks. Up to 16 degrees, maybe a little bit higher in a couple of places, not quite as warm as it was on sunday in scotland. Into the evening, weve got some showers in the north of scotland, and the area of rain affecting some parts of wales in southern england. In between, it is largely dry and not overly chilly, but we are into single figures. Dawn on tuesday, there may even be A Touch Of Frost in northern scotland, but not so further south. Another mild night, nine or ten degrees. Another grey start to the day on tuesday for wales and southern counties of england. Low cloud and patchy rain through the morning. Some wetter weather getting into Western Scotland and Northern Ireland through the afternoon. But again, those temperatures through the afternoon will be well into double figures for many of us. Through wednesday and thursday temperatures just dropping back into single figures across the northern parts of the uk. Still hanging on to double figures further south, with a fair bit of cloud and a little bit of rain at times. But still a little bit less mild, i suspect, by the end of this week. Some places doing quite well, but still quite windy later this week. Hello youre watching bbc world news, im adnan nawaz. Our top story this hour its day two of the iraqi governments offensive against the western half of the city of mosul. And its commanders are claiming some early success with the capture of a few villages. But theres a long fight still to come. Welcome to the programme our other main stories this hour. Sweden requests an explanation after President Trump apparently invents an immigration related Security Incident there. And Angelina Jolie speaks to us exclusively about her new film and her hopes it will help a new generation understand cambodias genocide. Im sally bundock. In business Talking Trade Trumps Vice President is in brussels meeting with key leaders from the European Union but will the worlds two most powerful trading blocks