Another 119 billion for our collective defence and for the financing of additional nato reserves. We should recognise that with these chronic underpayments and growing threats even 2 of gdp is insufficient to close the gaps in modernising readiness and the size of forces. We have to make up for the many years lost. President trump with his message to nato leaders in brussels. There was a partial resumption of campaigning in the general election today as the leader of ukip, paul nuttall, launched the partys manifesto. But the event was overshadowed by the partys accusation that theresa may had some responsibility for the Manchester Bombing. The current home secretary, amber rudd, said it was not the time to make political points. Our Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg reports. Manchester on everyones minds, but ukips manifesto was hardly a quiet affair. The party accusing theresa may of playing a part in creating the circumstances that led to mondays attack. The Prime Minister has, during her time in high office, presided over cuts to our Police Service and reductions in our armed forces too. It is also a dereliction of duty to allowjihadis to return to this country. Hes promising thousands of extra police, soldiers and border guards. His supportersjeered reporters questioning the partys claims. Ask a sensible question it sounds like you are near as dammit blaming the Prime Minister for this attack and the circumstances that led to it. Dont you understand english . Stupid question i am not blaming her, what im saying is the politicians in this country are too cowardly at the moment to face up to the real issue. Yet the deputy chair did say theresa may must bear some responsibility. I think all politicians who voted for the reduction of spending in Security Services and with the police have to bear some sort of responsibility. So the Prime Minister in your view has to bear some responsibility . All politicians who voted for a reduction in spending in Security Services and the police must look at themselves in the mirror. Ukip has been struggling to keep pace since the eu vote last year but in clacton today, the only place ever to choose a ukip mp, todays tougher approach did find some favour. I think the borders need to be closed off at the minute. They cannot check everybody, they are cutting down the police force, the army. Yet for other politicians it is too soon. I think it is entirely the wrong approach. We are supporting the police, Intelligence Services and victims. We need to make sure they get the support they need, it is not a time for making political points. You are feeding the fears that cause the problem in this country today. Ukip deliberately wants to be seen as the party that is ready to say the unsayable. Our first on the stump today since the manchester attack, but challenging extremism has been noticeably absent from the election. Not any more. But voters have been moving away from ukip, and with net migration on the way down and britain leaving the eu, perhaps the party today is just trying to keep up. Now its time for meet the author. Ann patchett is a novelist who spends her stories without letting the effort show. They race along with the complexities and their Rich Subtleties Subsume into a narrative that never seems to flag. Commonwealth is a story of American Life told over nearly five decades a Christening Sets in train a series of Chance Events that change two families forever. Welcome. Why do you think it is that so many readers want to come back so often to Family Stories . It is the universal after all. It is the one thing that we all have. We were all a baby, we will all die, we all had parents, and it is irresistible, it is what we know. And this begins, as i was saying, at a christening, with a gate crasher. It is quite a thing to gate crash a christening. And then Chance Events unfold over quite a long period which determine the fate really of a couple of families and all sorts of people. You are fascinated by the business of chance, arent you . Iam. I think that chance propels plot. A chance is the nature of story. Of course it is something that i am always going to come back to. It is hard to write a really compelling novel when everything is nailed down, when there are no loose bits. To look at it from the other angle, readers are willing to forgive quite a lot of chance and coincidence, arent they, in the interests of a good story . I think they are but also it has to be plausible chance and coincidence or it has to be reckless. I remember a paul auster novel called Moon Palace Years and years ago where everything was crazy coincidence but it was so crazy and so consistent that the novel was really brilliant. Yes. People always talk about thomas hardy who was the master of coincidence and who drove his plot by some of the most unlikely devices. The letter going under the carpet. Angel clares carpet. Yeah, that is fabulous. Are you a hardy person . I am a hardy person. I like the way that sounds. Are you a hardy person . Yes, iam. Who else do you read for pleasure among the great novelists . Where does your taste take you . It is an interesting thing. I was the Big Henryjames Person and somebody who would reread james over and over again, loved dickens, loved austen, but i own a book shop and i have for going on six years and those days are over for me. Now ijust read not only things that are just out, the things i read are the things that will be coming out in six months. This is a confession. Henryjames, once you get stuck into henryjames he is impossible to abandon, isnt he . No, i will never abandon henry james. I will always those go back every few years and reread the awkward age. That is the thing. It is not that i want to read more james. I want to just keep rereading the ones that i love. It is interesting to look at that in respect of your own narrative because as i said narrative has the feeling of it has a pulse that just seems to keep going. You are a great one for concealing the inevitable artifice of writing. Good. Whereas james was a great one for putting the inevitable artifice of writing. Absolutely. I wasnt influenced by him, ijust love him. I suspectjust reading your prose that youre one of these people once you start a story, although you work at it very hard, and i have no doubt you are very meticulous, it seems to just rattle along. The reason is that i make it all up in my head for a year or two in advance and really work out all of the pieces. In your head rather than on a piece of paper . In my head. Dont take notes. Then i sit down and i actually start to write and its miserable and its hard but i get it all fixed as i go along, so i write a chapter and then work on that chapter for two months. Then i go onto the next chapter. The book takes place just over 50 years. A lot of people, there are 11 main characters in this book. A lot of different locations. So i had to know what all of the moving parts were and where i was going. Quite a balancing act. Yes. And thats something that i love. When i read a novel or when i write a novel. It is juggling and if you throw those balls up in the air i want to see you catch them. When you talk about in the past having read a lot of dickens, and of course in those great books of his, that is what its all about. Yes. This extraordinary balancing of different plotlines, different characters. Yes. But all somehow being kept in balance in some almost magical way. And thats very important because you have to have a balance and an equality in the tension of the narrative or what happens is the reader is interested in one plot line more than the other. So theyll read the part they dont like very quickly so they can get back to the character they are interested in. You have to make sure that all of the characters are in a way equally compelling so that the reader is reading at the same rate. Youve made an added difficulty for yourself in this book because it covers about half a century. It begins 119611. Actually a difficult time in your country. It was the transition to a new presidency, you had just had a president assassinated, which most people had never known before. It was a very sharp time in american history. Was it easy to get yourself back to that period . It was because it is not about that per se. No. Certainly these people are living in that time and in 1964 its probably the end of this world that you see at the opening of the novel, the family, strong catholicism, strong labour relations. The end of innocence. Then one character breaking off and kind of spinning out into the unknown world. In a way its a sort of harbinger of whats to come because the process that americans went through in lets say the 20 years after the opening date of this novel was a tumultuous time in terms of social change, attitudes, all sorts of things were unrecognisable from the America Of The 50s by the time it was over. It is interesting to me that you say 20 years. Because i think of it almost like ten years. Basically to the end of the vietnam war. Yes. To the middle of the 70s. By the time we had carter and then reagan in office we were heading back to the 50s. We were really tamping down. What really fascinates me, we could talk about this all day, what fascinates me about this is the way that you have found it possible, and very elegantly, to take us from that period right forward to a much more contemporary age without it ever intruding. Characters have different attitudes to the world because they grow up in different times but the fundamentals of family do not change. Correct. And our responsibilities to family. Even as we get tired of them, even as we want them to go away, our responsibility, or pull backwards, is always going to be there. I dont want to ask you an embarrassing question. Why ask me . Why do you think that so many readers have found you irresistible and continue to do so . What is it do you think about the way that you cast a story on the potters wheel that makes it readable . I had no idea that so many readers did find me irresistible. I am glad to hear it. Who knows . The way i look at it is everybody has their own little chip of colour in the larger picture. Their voice. And their voice and what their interest is personally, so no matter how much i try to get away from it im always going to be Writing Books about class, about family, poverty and wealth. Things that i keep coming back to even if i dont want to. Thats my voice. Its a calm and kind sort of voice. If readers know it is authentic they will listen to it. I hope so. Ann patchett, author of commonwealth, thank you very much. It will not surprise you and i say we have had the hottest day of the year so far, 28 degrees in the highlands and wales. Hot. Another one coming tomorrow, probably even more than today. The main difference overnight is across the northern half of the uk. Pretty similar to the south. A little bit of sea fog in the north sea may come onshore at times. The badgers overnight not dropping much below daytime averages for the time of year. They will leap up for the time of year. They will leap up tomorrow as for the time of year. They will leap up tomorrow as we for the time of year. They will leap up tomorrow as we work for the time of year. They will leap up tomorrow as we work our for the time of year. They will leap up tomorrow as we work our way through another hot day. It will be more refreshing around the north sea coastline where the temperatures are quite low but for most of us the mid 20s at least and we could get 29 or30. Mid 20s at least and we could get 29 or 30. Change on later but strong sunshine to contend with tomorrow. Landry showers tomorrow night and into saturday saw a different complexion to the weather. Plenty more on the website. Hello, im ros atkins, this is outside source. Donald trump says hes deeply troubled after these photos from the scene of the Manchester Bombing were leaked to the us media. Piece is the culprit should be prosecuted. British police have stopped Sharing Intelligence with the us about the investigation. Theresa may had this to add. I will be making clear to President Trump today that intelligence that is shared between Law Enforcement agencies must remain secure. Eight people are now in custody after monday nights attack as police try to hunt down the suicide bombers network of associates. Well be live in manchester with the latest. President trump has addressed nato leaders in brussels for the First Time Since taking office. He used the occasion to remind them of their financial obligations. 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they are supposed to be