Transcripts For BBCNEWS Newsnight 20170301

The lords have thrown the first spanner into the brexit works so carefully constructed by the Prime Minister, voting to amend the brexit bill to tie the governments hands by giving eu citizens here a guarantee of a right to remain. Now the plain truth is, there is little controversy over the substance the government wants the eu Residents Herejust as the lords do and the Leave Campaigners in the referendum did. The issue is about whether you negotiate their guarantee of residence in return for assurances over the rights of the british elsewhere. Or should we make the guarantee unilaterally . It was hard fought in the lords today. If we are to be concerned about anybodys rights after brexit, to live anywhere on this continent of europe, it should be our concern for the rights of british people to live freely and peacefully in those other parts of europe. Somehow or the other, today we seem to be thinking of nothing but the rights of foreigners. My lords. All our debate has been based on the premise that somehow we will get what we want in the end because there will be reciprocity. But supposing there isnt, will we really at that Point Turnaround to eu nationals in this country and say on your way . Will we say take your children out of the schools . Will we say to the elderly, please go away from our care homes . My lords, this idea of it as a negotiating point, which i agree it is being used as, is totally unrealistic and totally unacceptable. Well, the signs are the government will try to overturn the lords amendment. But for europeans here, its a bit fraught. Most have been here over five years and are already entitled to get permanent residency but they have to fill out a huge form, go through various hoops, some potentially impossible, and even then there is a good chance of rejection. So some kind of automatic recognition of a right to remain is key, and especially so for those here for less than five years. John sweeney has been meeting some of those affected. The question is that the motion be agreed to. As many of that opinion will say content. To the country, not content. Clear the bar. Not the dog and duck, but the House Of Lords tonight fired the first shot against the governments plans to deliver brexit. Until the day before yesterday, well, the end of 2015, members of European Union states had a right to live in britain. Enter the home office. The people who work in this building behind me came up with this it is an 85 page form you have to fill in and people who have done that say the whole process is a nightmare. Brexit is beginning to bite in parts of britain you would least expect. Welcome to surreys stockbroker belt. Cave, originally from france, has applied for for permanent residency repeatedly. Yesterday she got her third rejection letter. I was told i could send a Certified Copy of this passport knowing they had the original previously. This application was rejected on the basis that they needed the original of the passport. But they had a Certified Copy . Indeed. Are they making life deliberately difficult for you . Ifeel like it really, yes. I dont understand the rejection. My kids are british, my husband is british. I never asked anything from them, i just want this card for reassurance and i felt like i was dealt with really unfairly. Aurelia is on the neighbourhood watch committee. When two coppers came round to talk about a burglary, her youngest son thought the worst. Lorenzo stood in front of me, saying you are not taking my mum, youre not taking my mum. Oh no when the Police Arrived . Yes, because he thought they were coming to get me. Sabine von toerne is a midwife originally from germany who has lived in britain for 13 years. Her eight year old boy was born here. She has not been rejected, she cannot even apply. You were training at the nhs and you now work for the nhs . Correct, yes. But that doesnt count . Well, because i have only started work two years ago, in february 2015, and before i was a student, did not have specific insurance, i now havent got the years together, sufficient years to get by permanent residency document. Did you ever imagine when you first kenya all these years ago that it would end up like this . No, i would never have imagined this. I basically thought after 1989 that we were free to go wherever we liked. I would never have imagined that i could end up being a Second Class Citizen and that my rights could be questioned in any way. It makes me sad, disappointed, angry and a bit helpless, although i am trying to do something about it. Are you sleeping . Not always that well. It depends. If i had a very hard day at work i might fall into my bed and sleep, but there are definitely nights where i am kept awake because i am thinking about my future. Nhs nurse joan Pons Lapla Na has lived and worked in britain since 2000. Do you consider yourself british or spanish . My passport says i am spanish, my heart says i am british. For the last eight months i feel my life has been put on hold. It is a situation where the government dont want to guarantee a right to stay, i feel they took my voice away because i was not able to vote at the referendum. They decided my future without me. For that reason, i feel a bit angry towards the government. John sweeney there. Well, Nicolas Hatton is french, the co founder of the Pressure Group the 3 million which campaigns for the rights of eu citizens who live in the uk. And peter bone is the conservative mp who co founded the pro Brexit Campaign Group Grassroots 0ut. Good evening to you both. Nicolas, you have been here for a couple of decades. 21 yea rs exactly. Are you seriously fearful that you will be deported . No, im not fearful. I am not in the Risk Population i think, but some people are. I think that what we have seen today is a message of hope for parliament, because finally we have got a majority in parliament, in the lords to say we cant vote you the rights to stay but we are worried because we never had this before. We never had a message from the top saying yes, you could stay. It could well be overturned and then we will be back to where we were and we will be invoking article 50 in a couple of weeks and we will not have a guarantee. Exactly. For some people it is quite tragic. They feel they are being rejected by the home office when they apply for their card or permanent residents and now they feel what will happen to me if there is no guarantee . Peter bone, i just want to imagine after two years of negotiations it fails and we crash out, this is a possibility the Prime Minister has talked about and the chancellor has talked about, and no agreement is reached and one country says we will kick the british back home now, what are we going to do . The truth of the matter is, and we all know, and this is a little bit of a sherard is that eu citizens here, certainly before the 23rd ofjune will be allowed to stay and you have already pointed out somewhat that if people have been here for five years they have residency. I saw those hard cases but you know, if they pop down to the local mp he would sort it out for them. So it isnt 3 million. I suppose the question is, if we all know, and when the spanish say, ok brits, you go home, we will have an argument about gibraltar and send you home, we will not say a million Polish People have to go back to poland, why dont we then guarantee that if you were here beforejune 23 or March The 15th or whatever, you are allowed to stay . That is a perfectly arguable point. I remember having an argument with will straw who said we will send everybody home. It is outrageous you said there is no guarantee that people will be sent home. There is no suggestion, is there . But why did the government. You know why. No, i dont. This bill is about invoking article 50 and the will of the british people to tell brussels we are leaving, nothing else. Give me the other reason. 0n the general principle of the thing, there are a million british people in the eu and we are looking after their interests. Lord tebbit put it rather bluntly. How are we looking after the interests of british people in spain . To make sure the argument goes we will agree this very rapidly. If the spanish used our people as a Bargaining Chip you are saying that we will take nicolas and others and threatened to send them home that you have just told me we will not do that so we dont have a Bargaining Chip so why did we just say it . You can make that argument. But theresa may is a very sensible person. She likes to dot all her is, cross all her ts. Nicolas, you heard Peter Bone Say and he is probably right that they will not send people home because we need them to run the health service, does that give you any reassurance . I think that peter might not understand the environment for, the hostile environment at the home office for any migrants and foreigners, including eu citizens now. We see this 85 page form. I would fill out the form, no problem. But there is a 28 refusal rate on that form, a rejection rate. We should all be able to stay. It doesnt matter whether we have a Certified Copy of our passports. The truth of the matter is if someone came to see researcher, and the form is filled in wrongly, i help them to get it correct. There are people who were turned down because they did not have a Continuous Health insurance policy. They may not have been here, the they may have been away for two years. All i am saying that the 3 million figure is wrong but actually, the truth of the matter is, all three of us around this table know that in some time in the next few months there will be an agreement. It is not us who are not agreeing, it is people in the European Union. It is the german chancellor who does not want to agree with it. If everyone agreed we could settle it tomorrow. But you have already said we are going to keep them anyway, peter, so i come back to this troublesome point i do not understand how that if spain uses our citizens there is a pawn in their fight with us Over Gibraltar and send them back here, are we going to say to poland you have to take a million Polish People back . Of course not. Would then the art would not be with spain . Would then the argument then be with spain . It would be. A lot of immigration is a National Matter anyway. If we want to talk about gibraltar, spain better keep its hands off gibraltar. My view is gibraltar should have the protection of the United Kingdom but that is another discussion. Do you understand the anxiety and stress that people are feeling because they do not have the certainty. I feel my future will stop in two years time. I am here to reassure you. My next door neighbours are polish. The vast majority of people know they are safe. It is only people who are talking up the problem who are creating the anxiety. Thank you. It is election day Northern Ireland tomorrow. This is poster come along every five years, but the two Governing Parties in the coalition fell out, and so ten months after the election, they are voting against will stop sinn fein pulled the plug on the executive after a iow the plug on the executive after a row about the escalating costs in the heating scheme, but brexit and deep red differences over the legacy of the trouble also divided sinn fein from the democratic unionist. Expectation is that those two old parties will be back as the potential to new Governing Parties post election. In case you thought you could peel your eyes away from Northern Irish politics, it is go to become prosaic, and get interesting again. Over the past quarter of a century Northern Ireland Peace Process has ebbed and flowed. Now after a decade of unbroken Power Sharing, the political settlement is facing a grave challenge. Northern ireland has been transformed beyond recognition since i first reported from here in the days when armed squaddies still patrolled the streets. Now belfast is a thriving city with gleaming new buildings. But almost 20 years on from the Good Friday Agreement, ancient divisions are haunting the selection. Very old memories of the border have been thrown up by the very new challenge of brexit. Northern irelands Largest Party the dup supported brexit. But nationalists voted overwhelmingly in favour of remain amid fears that brexit could lead to an eu Border Cutting across the island of ireland. The former american senator who chaired the Good Friday Agreement has told newsnight he hopes the uk government will ensure there no return to the hard border of the past. I can recall my first days there when it was very difficult to move back and forth across the border. It was heavily militarised and there has been a huge difference now with people moving freely back and forth, reducing stereotypes, reducing the possibility of demonising those who are other in any way. One of the architects of the Peace Process believes the uk decision to sever most of its links with the Eu Customs Union means a hard border will be unavoidable. The possible return of Customs Officials at new borders boasts an seen in decades could be used by dissident republicans to justify their campaign of violence. Of course there is no doubt about it, i dont think it will set of those people who, small as they are and almost dangerous because anyone who plays the game of Armed Struggle or violence is always a danger. They would see checks on the border and Customs Offices on the border and the identification of the border as in some wayjustifying the kind of things they always have in their mind. Tony blairs former Chief Of Staff issued a more stark warning. I think it would be dangerous if you have a hard border, if you put in blocks along the border people will try to destroy those that will create problems. If you set up border checks, even if they are ten miles one side or other of the border you are setting people in static positions which are easy to shoot out and as soon as they come out the other easy to shoot at. The distance are tiny, they are not compatible to the old ira but it takes few people to start Murdering Offices in those circumstances and once they start its hard to know how to react, you get into the cycle of radicalisation, repression, all over again and thats not what we want. An adviser to the former first minister David Trimble believes todays so called soft border may eventually be preserved. It may be a soft border, two or three years from now is when you would want an election when some of these issues might have been amicably sorted out. This is a dreadful moment to have one. Concerns over brexit will complicate attempts to re establish the Power Sharing executive. If the two largest parties in each community, likely to be the dup and sinn fein once again, failed to Reach Agreement then the uk government may be obliged to reimpose direct rule. I think there is every danger we could go back to direct rule and i hope that focuses minds in Northern Ireland, dublin and london. I think its a mistake for the British Government to stand back quite so far on this issue. That was the problem in the 60s, the British Government tried to ignore it, the home office was responsible, letters were returned, but this is something to do with us and we have to play a role. The collapse of the Power Sharing executive has exasperated jonathan powell, a veteran of the Good Friday Agreement. I think its interesting people as different as Martin Mcguinness and ian paisley were able to make this system worked. Two sworn enemies who played crucial roles in bringing about the troubles yet they were able to make the Power Sharing executive work. The real question is can a new generation, who are not themselves involved in the troubles, even if theirfamilies had been, can they make a new system work . Northern irelands divided communities are heeding familiar songs which has something of a retro feel. Bertie ahern says people waiting for normal bread and butter politics should be patient. I remember when i was a young politician may be in the late 70s, an old politician from one of the southern counties said to me that he detected in the 1977 election that The Civil War politics was coming to an end. So, that was the south, i dont expect the north to move. Maybe not a slow but not as quickly either. After three decades of violence the Good Friday Agreement was designed to end the conflict by giving all the main parties a seat in government, in a system which defies the usual rules of democratic politics. The agreement was structured in a way to meet the needs at that time. That require Power Sharing. It acquired institutions that are unique to the circumstances. When and how those institutions should be altered or modified or changed is up to the people and the political leaders of Northern Ireland. They are the bestjudges of that. They will make that determination because they are the ones affected by it. I did not expect when i along with my colleagues drafted document that became the Good Friday Agreement, we did not expect that that would be written in stone. Northern irelands parties have tried to form a more democratic system to sit in Cross Community opposition. This is a tricky sell at election time. I think the developments with parties are quite interesting, the idea that they would have if not a formal Vote Sharing Agreement across the sectarian divide, is a progressive development. Now they are, some people describe Northern Ireland as almost like two separate electorates, nationalists and unionists but if they cooperate in this way that changes that to some degree. A conflict which once seemed intractable has been largely quiet for the best part of two decades. Nobody is predicting a return to the violence of the past settlement has entered a fragile face. Settlement has entered a fragile phase and nick watt is at stormont for us tonight. The election may not resolve very much, what happens next do you think . If the polls are to be believed then the dup and sinn fein will emerge once again after these elections as the two largest parties. What that means is the onus is on them to restore the Power Sharing executive. As things stand it looks pretty difficult to see how they are going to hammer out a deal. What that could mean is that the uk government on the 45th Anniversary of the first imposition of direct rule from london over Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles, that westminster could once again take charge of all of Northern Ireland. The signs are that james brokenshire, the Northern Ireland secretary, is determined to do everything he can to ensure that mammoth step does not have to be taken, so what that means is very serious talks amongst the parties. But they cannot go on forever, the legislation talks about how they can last for a reasonable period of time, it was interesting that bertie ahern, the former irish Prime Minister, said in my interview that perhaps the rules could be tweaked to allow those talks to last as long as six weeks. There is even talk of possibly having a second election to concentrate minds. But i have to say, in the rain here in Northern Ireland i do not truly detect much appetite for yet another election. Thank you. You can see a combines a guide to the parties and candidates in tomorrows election on the bbc news website. One thing about President Trump that everyone will agree on is that he has smashed the old rules of political communication, hes dispensed with the conventions of political spin and obfuscation, and re set the relationship between government and the media. Now there is one man who did more than anyone to expose the nonsenses of those old rules, Armando Iannucci, the creator of The Thick Of It, Bitingly Satirising Political Spin and the clenched butt message control of new labour. And, back in the 90s producing the day today, parodying programmes like this, with fake earnestness, if not fake news. Suzanna has broken through to the front line, this is her contribution to history. This is the very heart of the conflict. The men here have been fighting nonstop for three days. We drove in at night, straight into the middle of a rocket battle. The air now is thick with what they call here the electric cornflakes. We are under strict instructions not to leave the vehicle but to drive on through. With no cover, we run across open space to a nearby house. We found an injured man, we did our best. There are always casualties in war. There was a family sheltering in the back room. We had no tounge in common but through the universal language of mutual need, i knew she was saying, come, set your equipment up in our refuge, the world must see this mess. These brave people are now sleeping but they know that tomorrow our aerials and transmitters could make this house a prime target. Chris. Well, Armando Iannucci is with me the world has changed since the day today, and The Thick Of It, and indeed since veep the series he created in the us. So where now . For him, the world and comedy . As you look at the world are you laughing at politics . No. I should be but, i am an avid watcher of political shows. It is how you are so good iadmit mimicking. I got heavily involved in watching American Election coverage until the result and then i actually could not watch television for about a week or indeed read a newspaper. You are on twitter a lot talking about donald trump, we had tom friedman at the New York Times on the programme and said if you try to take the guy on he will suck your brain out and i wonder. That is his genius i think the great mistake is to portray him as an idiot. Because hes not. He knows what hes doing and hes very clever, hes a very clever salesman and that is what he has been doing for the last year and a half, selling this model of the successful businessman believes everything he says and is persuadable enough to get a sizeable amount of the electorate to vote for him. How did we get here . Let me put a suggestion to you, you spent the 2000s mockingly controlled and careful politics of new labour, the message clearly donated, the pc stuff. And the public rebelled against it, they took your message and said. Are you saying i am responsible for donald trump . No, but you have to be careful what you wish for. Some of The Thick Of It arose from genuine frustration and anger, in my case that we could go to war with iraq despite millions of protests on the street and every expert saying it would be a disaster and it proved the case. I took that sense of frustration, the sense that politicians were not connecting with the people and produced Something Like The Thick Of It which was also looking at the notion that politicians were concentrating more on a smaller and Smaller Group of people, the middle england, the squeezed middle. The tiny amount of people who can swing an election. In the course of doing that taking for granted everyone else. And as the years have gone by, that group of people we have taken for granted is becoming 85 which is why you get the frustration. You told the Financial Times in 2012, you said all of this, seething anger, everything has become poorer lies to, polarized. People do not mind system is being held up to ridicule because it articulates what they are feeling. But you have just given an accountant of people who felt cut off from politics, that is what the populists as people call them, that is the appeal, that is what donald trump says, they forgot the rust belt of america. But you do not like trump and are not a fan, so the people who were left out did not like the things you wanted, they wanted other stuff. People were being left out on the right and left which is why in the uk we have momentum and ukip, and the rise of personalities. Instead of parties we have got Jeremy Corbyns labour and borisjohnson conservatism and theresa may conservatism, we have got factions, nothing which resembles the two or three party system we had in the 50s and 60s through to the 70s. You mentionjeremy corbyn, one of the things you parodied was the severe control of pagers and people having to give out the line. Nobody would say thatJeremy Corbyns labour is controlled. Does it work or does it not work . What happens is you get this frustration with the intense media management, people are hungry for something that is entirely different which is why we go to borisjohnson because he mumbles and has hilarious hair Orjeremy Corbyn because he wears a vest and has a beard. That has an instant appeal and i can see why it has an instant appeal. Then you get to the point of trying to work out how you can actually control a party and get back into government and that is when the chaos approached the politics does not work. You have lampooned politicians, do you respect or pity them at all, do you basically, because a lot of them are lovely people. I find the most sympathetic characters in The Thick Of It the politicians. It is the strange young people she surrounds herself with who have a degree in ppe from oxford and very little else who are trying to run her department that i think is the real danger. You took some of the humour to the states with veep, about a Vice President who wants to be president. Is it exactly the same, you, a british guy, from scotland, you can take the same humour and it works there or did you have to employ lots of writers. I might be deported if i do it now. I took The Thick Of It writers. But it is still going, you are not involved any more . After four years of jet lag and flying backwards and forwards, i think it is a british thing, we only do three or four series of something. But in america you are expected to do 29 series of 13 episodes a year and then die. What about news . The day today, have you seen any improvements in the way news is covered . What is interesting is the whole business of fake news. The fact that the internet now allows anyone saying anything to make it look as valid as the telegraph or the guardian or the bbc website, because it is there in typeface. That is a real problem. I think what the rise of trump and his attack on the news may do is provoke people like you into thinking afresh about how you make the news, how you shoulder the news isnt fake. I felt it was interesting the advice you had yesterday following journalists in the white house. People want to come to a place which has a heritage. It is important for the established News Programmes to show the decisions you have to make on a daily basis. Could you make a comedy like The Thick Of It now . I think it would be very difficult and i am not inclined to you because i am more interested in trying to energise 16 and 17 year olds into politics. That is the frightening thing. They dont vote, well, they cannot because they are 16 and 17 but 18 year olds do not vote in the numbers that people over 35 and a0 vote and i think that is because they have been turned off by party politics. It was really interesting in the Scottish Referendum having the votes for 16 and 17 year olds, because it galvanised them and told them their view was important and it made them examine the issues and i only wish that opportunity had been presented to us all in the general election. Armando iannucci, thank you for talking to us. Blasphemy is one of the most emotive issues in the muslim world particularly in pakistan where its legally punishable by death. Though no one there has been executed for it many accused of it have been lynched. And one man mumtaz qadri killed a politician who simply spoke out against the Blasphemy Law and remains a hero to many for that murder. Qadri was executed by the pakistani state for that murder a year ago today. Secunder kermani went along to the events commemorating him to try and explore whats behind his popularity and what it tells us about pakistani society. Thousands turn out to honour a convicted killer. Theyre here in support of a man called mumtaz qadri, executed last year for murdering a high profile pakistani politician who was trying to reform the countrys Blasphemy Laws. The authorities executed mumtaz qadri on the 29th Of February last year, perhaps thinking the fact it was a leap year would make it harder for his supporters to commemorate his death. It doesnt seem to have worked. The figure of mumtaz qadri and the issue of blasphemy has become symbolic of the tensions at the heart of pakistans identity. Earlier in the week we visited the shrine that houses Mumtaz Qadris tomb. They are also constructing a mosque and a seminary here. Built with donations from the public, it receives a steady stream of visitors of all ages. Mumtaz qadri was a Police Bodyguard who shot the politician he was meant to be looking after. But his supporters dont see him as a traitor, rather as someone who died trying to preserve pakistans islamic character, exemplified in their view by a law that holds blasphemy punishable by death. The adoration for mumtaz qadri is matched by a hatred of politicians. Today at the rally in honour of mumtaz qadri, speakers railed against the Prime Minister and the opposition, portraying them both as anti islam. For the crowds gathered here, blasphemy isntjust a religious issue, its a political one. This is a kind of Populist Movement dedicated to opposing what they see as a more secular liberal political establishment. Dr Ashraf Jalali is one of the leading figures in the anti blasphemy movement. He sees himself as part of the battle for pakistans soul. Over the past decade, globalisation has brought Western Culture more visibly to pakistan, with a growing number of shopping malls, cinemas and cable tv channels. That has accentuated cultural divisions within the country. This represents the divide which we have in our society and i think that divide is right, you know, with the establishment, pakistan as a post colonial state, because i think there are people who feel that pakistan should become a democratic secular country, and there are others who believe that pakistan should become a theocratic state. I think that is a consistently, i think there is no consensus in society but the state, the nature of state should be in the context of pakistan. And the Blasphemy Law actually sharpens that divide in society. Whilst the religious right complain they are being marginalised, it is often the most vulnerable in society that are affected by Blasphemy Laws. Mumtaz qadris victim was speaking out in favour of a christian woman sentenced to death for supposedly committing blasphemy in an argument with local women in her village. Since he was murdered, she has remained injail. An appeal due to take place last year was delayed and her Family Fear Judges are too afraid to hear the case. There is also now growing concern that allegations of blasphemy are being used to discredit critics of the state. Injanuary this year, a group of liberal activists were abducted. Many believe the Intelligence Services were responsible. As crowds gather demanding their release, a Counter Campaign sprang up accusing them of blasphemy. Since they were freed, none of them have been willing to say who detained then, but one, now out of pakistan, agreed to speak about the impact of the allegations on him and his family. I cant go back. I had to flee like a criminal. I have to re plan my whole life. And why was this done, do you think . This the best way to describe it. In a society we have any allegation taken so seriously, so in future you say something, you do something, you are already discredited in the eyes of the people. So people see you like this person who has committed blasphemy. Next year, pakistan will hold a general election and Mumtaz Qadris supporters are launching their own political party. Whilst unlikely to gather many seats, they will make it difficult for anyone to challenge the prevailing notions of blasphemy. That was Secunder Kermani reporting. Thats it for tonight. We leave you with news that disney is to feature its first gay movie character, with a love scene no less, and possibly even a happy ending. The film in question is the live action remake of beauty and the beast, disneys Exploration Of Stockholm Syndrome in feudal france. The character in question is lefou, the sidekick of the films alpha male baddie, gaston. And as fans of the 1991 Cartoon Version will know, this development isnt a huge surprise. Goodnight. For theres no man in town half as manly perfect, a pure paragon you can ask any tom, dick or stanley and theyll tell you whose team theyd prefer to be on no ones been like gaston a kingpin like gaston no ones got a swell cleft in his chin like gaston not a bit of hims scraggly or scrawny and every last inch of mes covered with hair no one hits like gaston matches wits like gaston. The weather over the next few days as kuta beach changeable. A reasonable day tomorrow, but a Weather Front making it beeline for the uk. Right now, it is quite blustery out there. Weve even got gale force blustery out there. Weve even got Gale Force Winds in places, especially to the south west. At breezy inland, too. And rain and hill snow, particularly across the pennines and maybe northern parts of wales, too. And we have showers getting into scotland as well. Id nip in the north, around freezing. I was six in the south. It were breezy in the morning, particularly across the south and south east. But then we are into it is an afternoon after some of that cloud and rain fizzles away. It might be a slow process, for example, across the midlands northern england. This is a snapshot of three oclock in the afternoon on thursday. It is not looking battered all. Temperatures a little on the low side cope typically single figures, scraping a ten or 11 in the south. The decent weather across wales, the midlands, north east of england. A bit of cloud in the north west. And then showers in western and northern wales and Northern Ireland, too. And actually Northern Ireland, too. And actually Northern Ireland, too. And actually Northern Ireland is in for rain, but thatis Northern Ireland is in for rain, but that is not until later on in the afternoon. And then there is more in on the way during friday night. So too are out on late friday night, it could be a sober. Low pressure tory Weather Front across the uk with a bit ofan Weather Front across the uk with a bit of an attitude. It is not looking pretty. But in to friday, it is changeable in the second half of the week. Soaker. Looking at saturday, low pressure with us spinning around close to my neighbourhood. You see where the rain is across northern various convert to be s review, rain chance anywhere across the uk on saturday. There will be some sunshine around, as well. So will not be raining or through the day, but take an umbrella, if youre out. Still on the chilly side, single figures, if you are doing anything. We have Weather Fronts and low pressure city across the uk. Rain moving into other parts of europe, too. More Weather Fronts out there in the wings. There will be a failed bid of wind as well and it will feel on the chilly side at the weekend. Just about into meteorological spring, at least that is what we think as meteorologist, but it feels a little too chilly to cool it that, i think. Have to call it that. Have a good night. Welcome to newsday. The headlines the president of the United States President Trumps address to Congress Goes down well. The dow jones closes at a record high as it promises a massive infrastructure project. The last major road out of mosul is captured. Civilians are still trapped. Some of the people i have spoken to today say other civilians have been forced by Islamic State to go behind the front line and act as human shields. These people in some ways are the lucky ones and have been able to escape