in fact the longest serving conservative defence secretary ever, ben wallace, who stepped down from his job in the summer citing the cost of what he said was putting work and country ahead of my family. a member of the government in some form ever since the conservatives came to power in 2010, he can now reflect on what he s learned about politics and about defence as he prepares for a life outside westminster. ben wallace, welcome to political thinking. thank you. we are speaking a few hours after the chancellor unveiled what he called his largest ever tax cut for workers. if you were running at the next election, would you be preparing for a spring election? no. i would probably be waiting for september. i think it is a good autumn statement. jeremy has gone on the right place around national insurance, effectively rewarding effort, work and trying people who we need to generate wealth and pay tax receipts so we can have more to spend and grow the economy. i think he has do
militia are being armed. it s different, and i m really worried by that. russia s constantly denied planning an invasion, and says it s still open to talks on its demand nato stops expanding. the us, however, suspects 30,000 more russian troops will arrive in belarus to the north, adding tension to an already tense border. this memorial commemorates the ukrainians who died fighting alongside russians in the second world war. the hope here remains, as ever, that they don t further turn on each other. james waterhouse, bbc news, in kyiv. we can talk now to our diplomatic correspondent james landale in kyiv. jiras, following on from that report, the visit of borisjohnson is a public support for the ukrainian people. a show support. he is not the only leader here, the prime minister of holland is here, the prime minister of poland,
you can debate how long the president let that chant go on. i put a stop watch on it. it was about 13 seconds and the chant subsided when the president continued on. it was clear that the president had to do some damage control and he did it for members of the special olympics in the oval office earlier today. listen here. number 1, i think i did. i started speaking very quickly. it really was i disagree with it, by the way. but it s quite a chant. i felt a little bit badly about it. i will say this: i did and i started speaking very quickly. it started up rather fast as you probably know. will you tell your supporters i would say i was not happy with it. i disagree with it. but again, i didn t say that. they did. i disagree with it. in a press availability with the prime minister of holland a
country. he was just lone voice crying in the wilderness. now he s favored to become prime minister of holland next year. he s obviously not the only voice you talked to in this. he s a wonderfully generous spirit. the country has the embraced him in ways that s more difficult to a carpenter. his story is so telling about just how hard it is first to get to a country like the netherlands and go through their system. five different settlement areas. the mayor is a muslim from north
over there photographed hamming it up with the other folks? i don t think he was hamming it up. governor you live in that world. you are sitting next to the dutch prime minister. this isn t a selfy. we know this was her picture, right? she asked you governor can i take a picture with you? what are you going to say? no. you were just talking about politeness. all obama did in this situation was be polite to the prime minister of holland. it was denmark. i took note of michelle s response. were you a little taken a back? you need to have respect for the office. this is indicative of the way