Transcripts For BBCNEWS Newsnight 20170830

Now, thats not the conventional view, which is that the tories will dump her ignominiously just as soon as she has taken all the blame for any u turns or brexit chaos thatll be coming the governments way, thus leaving a clean slate for a new leader. But what a statement for her to make. An attempt to stamp some authority on the party, as we all get back from holidays . Is it conceivable that she will lead the party for years to come . Or is itjust an inevitable political ritual that Prime Ministers have to pretend as much . Heres our political editor, nick watt. There must be something magical about the alpine air. An emboldened theresa may has returned from her Summer Holiday to reset the dial on herfaltering premiership by making plain, i am not a quitter. Do you intend to fight the next election . Yes, theres been a lot of speculation about my future which has no basis in it whatsoever. I am on this for the long term. There is realjob to be done in the united kingdom. Its about getting the brexit deal right, its about building that special partnership with the European Union for the future but it is also about leading global britain, trading around the world, yes, dealing with injustices that remain inside the united kingdom. The number of votes cast. All a far cry from the rather diminished figure who emerged shell shocked from her disastrous general election campaign. A Prime Minister who briefly contemplated resigning. And struggled to connect after the Grenfell Tower disaster. Theresa mays remarks today stand in contrast to her sheepish declaration to tory mps in the early summer that she would simply serve at their pleasure. Back then the Prime Minister spoke of her duty to see out the brexit negotiations, raising expectations that she would leave shortly after the two year deadline in 2019. Now the Prime Minister wants to deliver notjust brexit but also an ambitious agenda of domestic reforms. One leading brexiteer believes the Prime Ministers holiday has worked wonders. I think she has a new lease of life, walking in the hills of, or was it switzerland, i think she is doing remarkably well. And peter bone, who was recently entertained to summer drinks by the Prime Minister at chequers believes she is wholeheartedly committed to brexit. You know what these meetings are about, its nice to see the Prime Minister but i was amazed at the one thing that she was fired up about, the one thing that will definitely happen is brexit. Her eyes sparkled at the thought of it and i thought, wow, this isjust what we need. If there was anyone who had any doubt, they should have been about beating. Shes going to deliver us brexit. If she were to deliver brexit and i think she will, she will be a national hero. And then why not carry on . I have not heard a Single Person of all my backbench colleagues, saying we have to get rid of the Prime Minister, we have to get a new leader. It just isnt there. There is no plotting. By the way i think if plotting was going on i would know about it. A former adviser to David Cameron with some painful memories of his time in downing street understands tactics in seeking to avoid a lame duck premiership. No Prime Minister ever wants to get themselves into a situation where they are setting a date for their departure. My old boss David Cameron found that to his cost in 2015 when he said he would not serve term. But sir craig oliver wonders whether the mixed messages from a Prime Minister who does not command a parliamentary majority will work. The problem for theresa may is that shes basically had a narrative in westminster for the last once but you will go after the brexit negotiations. It is what has been assumed in the tory party. Now a lot of people are going to say, wait a minute, i thought you were going. I thought we werent going to be in a position where he would fight the next election but wilson is that they will say that thats going to be a problem for them. The hills are alive with the sound of the Prime Minister thinking carefully about her future. Theresa may hopes to have cemented the position in no 10 but she leads a party with a regicide or streak. Nick is with me. Should we take this literally, seriously . What is going on . What is her game . A marked shift in tone and substance from the diminished theresa may we saw after the election. One thing that is clear is that the Prime Minister wanted to use this trip to knock on the head or weekend report that should be gone by august 2019. Why . Because if you name your departure date as tony blair and David Cameron can tell you, there is a danger you become a lame duck. Whether that means that she really will lead the tory party into the 2022 election i am not too sure. And i think what she was trying to do was chart this very difficult course between not doing a tony blair and David Cameron, naming that state but equally not getting into the thatcher territory, who famously said before the 1987 election that she would go on and on and on. It is a perilous and difficult path and we saw that today. We havent had this out in public for long, she said it to journalists a bit earlier than it was put into the public domain, how has it gone down . As we know the brexiteers, peter bone very happy if she takes the tories into the 2022 election but one grandee told me the party was agreed on two things, no general election for the next five years and anything that causes that is a bad thing and must be avoided but one that election comes, theresa may must not lead the tory party. This person said to me, there is disagreement about when she should go. One school of thought says, by now, another says, wait until 2019, and that school of thought, the 2019 one, is in the ascendancy. Thank you, nick. A spotlight has been thrown onto the fostering system in the last few days, with the case of a five Year Old Girl placed with Muslim Foster parents. The reporting has focused on the distress of the child at being in an unfamiliar culture, with arabic often spoken at home. She has just been taken away from the foster parents and put into the care of her grandmother. Obviously, we cant go into the details of the case, but the judge overseeing it has made it quite clear the girls transfer to her grandmother was nothing to do with the Media Coverage. And thejudge pointed out that the girls appointed guardian had no concerns as to the childs welfare, and reported that the child is settled and well cared for by the foster carer. But the judge did say that when the girl was was originally placed, no culturally matched foster family was available. Should that matter . Are enough foster parents out there to offer a choice . Elaine dunkley reports. Children who need foster care are amongst the most vulnerable in society. At a difficult and disruptive time, the priority is to find a loving home, but how much consideration is given to a childs ethnicity, religion and background . Today, a judge has ordered an English Speaking child placed into foster care with a mixed race family whose reported use of arabic upset her should live with her grandmother. The local authority involved, the london borough of Tower Hamlets, has insisted the girls foster family are English Speaking, but it has raised questions around the challenges of fostering. When you do make decisions about placing a child somewhere in an emergency, if its not the ideal placement, you then have to decide kind of whats best really and there are also issues about their background, their racial heritage, their language, their religion. So there will be a whole number of factors that you would need to take into consideration when youre trying to find the family fits best. And as i say, the geographical consideration will be quite a significant one because if a child is being taken out of their family, you dont want them to have to sort of leave school and have to make new friends on top of Everything Else thats happened to them. The decision to place a child in foster care is made by social workers and Childrens Services, concerned with welfare. Judges can also intervene in the process if it is felt the childs needs are not met. Time can be critical in making a decision, along with the availability of carers. There is always a shortage of Foster Carers. Because, well, apart from anything else, like everybody else, Foster Carers retire. So we are always needing to replace Foster Carers who already in the system, but we also have an increasing number of children coming into care. So the best estimates would be that we probably need to recruit another 6,000 or 7,000 Foster Carers for england and uk wide. To be able to kind of meet the demand that we have. And to ensure that we have enough choice really so that we can provide the best placement possible for each child thatis coming into care. There are nearly 53,000 Foster Carers in england of which 85 are white. Nine local authorities reported having no long term Foster Carers from ethnic minority groups. And just over a fifth of foster children are from an ethnic minority background. A shortage of ethnic minority Foster Carers means White British families often look after children from different backgrounds. It doesnt happen as much the other way round, but when it does, it can be seen as controversial. Well, i think it is more about self image. Precious williams spent much of her childhood with white Foster Carers. I remember quite clearly in my situation, in my childhood situation, eventually there came a time when my mother and stepfather wanted me to come back and live with them as planned, in a nigerian household. And my english family said, no, they are not letting that happen. And it ended up in court. And i have actually seen the legal documents from back then and the judge was very much, his decision was for me to stay with my english family. He was very much saying i can benefit from the english way of life and being in an english home. And he was sort of saying basically, that is better than returning to an african home. So, we are going back to the 19805, that was the attitude then. But unfortunately, this story, it is looking like that is still the attitude now, that if a child of colour is in an english home, they are being somehow, they are benefiting from that, but when you have the reverse, its a problem. And i also think if we are going to talk about diversity, we need to realise that diversity works all ways. Everyone agrees that children should be matched with foster homes that reflect their needs, faith and background, but the problem is, there simply arent always enough carers to make that possible. Elaine dunkley there. The controversy over false guest started on monday, when details of the Tower Hamlets case was published. Thejournalist the Tower Hamlets case was published. The journalist who wrote the storiesjoins us published. The journalist who wrote the stories joins us now. Good evening to you. How typical problem do you think, and they use the word problem in inverted commas, because a lot of people dont agree with that, but help, dcb polmans . How common do you think the problem is . We understand that not only in areas of london, but other areas of the country, there are occasions where a White British child is placed with non white carers. They tend to be older children. It is unusual for non white carers. They tend to be older children. It is unusualfor a child of five years to reap placed in that environment. To be placed in that environment. To be placed in that environment. To be placed in that environment. The majority of people, no matter theirfaith, are trained, and go out of their way to make sure that child is made you feel as much as possible at home and in possession of their own identity, and make you feel that the word doormat world they are entering is not alien to them. And made to feel that the world they are entering. It emerged at the guardian found no problems and had spoken to other people, and found that the child was world care for. Well cared for. Should that have been a material fact . You are right and i was viewing the journalist in court and we did reflect the childs guardian had no concerns. We were reporting the concerns of another social Services Employee from Tower Hamlets and she was reporting what she was observing of the child, of that childs deep distress being returned to the home where that child said she could not understand what they were saying because they did not speak english. It is also worth pointing out that this is a six month placement we are looking at, she has been with two different Foster Carers, four months and then two months, and the concerns raised with the initial four months. We understand the statement Tower Hamlets put out and the statement from the guardian reflects the most recent two months. If you said the guardian had no concerns, i am sorry, i did not see that. There was another aspect of the coverage which was today, your piece implied that thejudge has somehow responded, the headline implied thejudge had responded to the Media Coverage. And taken the child out of the family and put her with her grandmother. When you read the judges statement, that is not what happened, it was nothing to do with the Media Coverage, the council wanted her to go to the grandmother and that had always been on the agenda it was to do with waiting to see that the grandmother herself was suitable to take her into care. I wonder whether that headline and strapline were appropriate . Again, if anyone read the article we published today, we quoted the judge as saying that the Media Coverage was no factor in her decision. It was the case that the girls motherfor some months had been asking for the child to be placed in the care of her grandmother and removed from foster care because, as the report reflected, there were concerns about the suitability of that placement. The timing was a matter of coincidence. We were unaware that hearing was coming up when we started reporting this case. Thejudge did criticise Tower Hamlets for delays which had prevented the decision being made sooner. But certainly, all parties were agreeable to the transfer. Thank you very much. Andy elvin is the chief executive of the tact fostering and adoption charity. Neil carmichael is the former tory mp who, as chair of the education select committee, had been leading an inquiry into foster ca re, before he lost his seat injune. Good evening. When you read the articles, did you have concerns about what they said about the state of fostering in the uk, neil . The enquiry you have referred to was focusing on two things. One was making fostering more popular and understanding training needed to be enhanced in certain places and pointing out that being a foster carer is a very good thing. The second thing we wanted to talk about was the need for Childrens Services to be more holistic in their thinking and morejoined up in their approach to making decisions you have been talking about. Those are the two points that effectively underpinned this story in terms of what we need to do next. Lets not talk about this particular story. In general, do you think cultural, religious, ethnic fit matters . I think what we have to remember is we live in a liberal democracy. A mixed cultural experiences part of our society. We do not want to get bogged down in that territory. We want to focus on the outcome for the child who is being cared for by Foster Carers. And also, the overall ethos we are trying to establish here, which is that young people need the proper support, as appropriate, as Childrens Services need to react in that way. And everyone would agree with that. Well, everybody does, but we have to deliver it. Andy, do you think cultural fit matters . How much does that matter . It can matter, it depends on the case. There are many examples of excellent Foster Carers looking after children not from their communities. There are lot of white carers looking after young people from afghanistan and iraq and syria and doing a fantasticjob the Cultural Capital the young people need to respect their background is available in many places in the uk, especially in places like london. It does not as the parents are understanding of the childs background . You want a safe and stable home to meet the needs of the child and that is with the most important thing. In this case, one issue that shocked a lot of people and it is disputed, talking hypothetically, was language, that the foster parents apparently spoke arabic a lot of the time and the child did not. Whether or not that is that surely would not be a good end . It would not, this case was a nonsense, it was a complete lie that that was the case. To be a foster carer, you have to have a long assessment and have good spoken and written english so in bishoo spoken in all foster homes around the uk and to suggest otherwise is incorrect. Does it matter to you, is it any different whether it is a muslim child in a Christian Family or christian child in a muslim family, is it entirely symmetrical . Yes, i think so, we are a tolerant and liberal society and those principles have to be maintained. Our attitude must be about the quality of the care and the nature of the decisions around who is going to look after the child. That is the important point. That is why we need to talk about Childrens Services as much as Foster Carers. Is the basic problem that we do not have enough Foster Carers to make the choices . This was the case here, there was not the cultural fit . There are not enough carers for teenagers and sibling groups and we welcome more Foster Carers to apply and a lot of people ruled themselves out, theyve think they cannot do it because they are single or the wrong religion or they are too old or too young or the wrong sexuality. Foster carers from all backgrounds and they are fantastic. They do with wonderful job in this country. We need to be very grateful and we need more. We definitely need more. I was going to say that. Before we let you go, we need to ask you about the top story today, theresa may going on and on until the next election. You lost your seat at the last election and on a harsh day, you may say that is her fault, maybe you blame yourself or her, what is the reaction to her leading the party to the next election . We do not know when the next election is going to be, we are in a minority situation and we have difficult decisions to make over brexit so this is a tabular time. I suppose it is wise for the captain of the ship to point out she is Still Holding on. Would you welcome her being leader at the next election . I thought she was the right choice in the beginning when she first became Prime Minister. I was taken aback at the decision to have a general election when she did. I was also surprised to read the manifesto and i can see you smiling but i am sure if she were to read us to the next general election, she would focus on the economy first of all. As a key issue. And i cannot imagine any mention of fox hunting those are lessons to learn. Sorry to digress, thank you, both. Google is being accused today of trying to close down public debate about google. The story is that a think tank in the us, to which it has given a lot of financial support, published a press release critical of google, and supporting the eu in fining it recently. Then, mysteriously, the think tank took the offending press release off its website, and exiled the team that had been behind it, sacking its leader. Had google got cross at the criticism and threatened to pull its funding in retaliation . The think tank categorically denies it was about google threatening anything, as does google. But the sacked google critic barry lynn joins us now from washington. Good evening. Mr lynn, what evidence to you have that your separation from the think tank was to do with googles intervention . There are a number of points of evidence. For instance, the day that we put up a notice, there was a conversation immediately after that with anne marie slaughter, ahead of the think tank, in which she said, i got off the phone with google, with eric schmidt, and they are polling all of their support including the support for your group. And there is other evidence as well. This is a pattern. It has taken place over a period of a couple of years. In fairness, there is a difference between trying to censor public debate which is your charge, you said google is trying to censor journalists and researchers. There is a difference between trying to censor you in deciding they do not want to pay view, that is quite a big difference. Google does not pay for me. They were paying for the think tank. They pay for parts of the think tank, to which i am attached. My unit was independent. We raise our money from foundations, from foundations that support Public Interest work. That is what we have been doing for 15 years. So i have been in new america for a long time and doing this work for a long time. We have never had any problems. That is a very interesting point, you have been doing it for a long time and google parliament they gush apparently tolerating a campaign against google dominated capitalism or whatever you have been researching, but perhaps you cross the line with the last press release which did not even have a report to back it up, it was a reaction to the eu fining google and sing great news. It was ensuring we have political diversity. And in which power is not concentrated. Our unit has focused on ensuring there is going to be, that we are not going to see a massive concentration of power of the political economy of the United States in the hands of private individuals. That is what we have been doing for the union and that is what we will continue to do. What, are, as far as to tell, but what google move on. Doing this 20 years ago, we will would probably be campaigning about microsoft. Ten years ago, it could have been myspace, the monopoly of that. These things do, and go . Well, they come and go only if there is a trust enforcement. And one think you mentioned, the Microsoft Case was a case in which the department ofjustice in the United States brought an action against microsoft and created a space for writing new Companies Including google. Ok, thank you very much. We invited new america and google to join us tonight, but neither was available. In a statement, the organisation said it had sacked mr lynn because he had shown insufficient institutional congeliality. Google issued its own statement, in which it said the Company Supports hundreds of organisations and doesnt agree with each of them all the time, but that it respects each groups independence. Tonight marks exactly 20 years since the death of diana, princess of wales. A lot has already been said this month in the build up to the anniversary of that death, including the reflections of the two princes in an itv television documentary. Today, william and harry remembered their late mother with a visit to a Memorial Garden the white garden in the grounds of Kensington Palace. It was pretty wet out there earlier today, but they also took a look at the bouquets left at the gates of the palace, a faint echo of the acres of flowers left in the week after her death. Those of us who are old enough will never forget that week. We knew it was an extraordinary moment. It felt like a turning point in national character. We became more outwardly emotional, and vocal about it, demanding expressions of feelings. Newsnight ran nothing other than diana coverage in the week after her death, and even back then asked whether the effect would be permanent or temporary. So what better time to re visit that question than now . Well discuss it shortly, but first, thejournalist Mariella Frostrup has been looking back for us at how the nation changed. The seeds of british reserve were sown in the parlours and Public Schools of the victorians, then confirmed by our resilience and humour in the face of war. We were stoic, our lips never trembled, we barely emotive and certainly never wept. A young officer had his head blown right off and was as stiff as cardboard the stiff upper lip is the greatest act of spin in british history. All it took was one young girl unwilling to tow the line to see that facade crumbled. This is bbc radio news from london. The death has been announced diana princess of wales. In the days after diana died, Kensington Gardens became a pilgrimage site. When i grudgingly agreed to visit on the eve of a funeral with a friend, it was a warms summers night and the air was thick with wax and balloons, candlelit vigils were taking place all over the lawns and an eerie silence was broken only by gentle sobbing and the occasional whisper. As the wreaths piled up outside Kensington Palace the nation renowned for its stiff upper lip was showing a decidedly wobbly lower one. Although diana would never be queen of england have fresh portrayal of a modern royal and her open affection for her children and subjects had crowned her the queen of hearts. In death she was elevated to martyrdom as an upsurge of hysterical grief paralysed the nation. It could have come from the pages of a magic realist master like marquez, entitled perhaps, the state of sorrow, as the entire country overnight became weak. That was not a dry eye from lands end tojohn ogroats as millions of strangers mourned a woman who had become as much a part of the nations daily life as the tabloid papers that image had been a staple of. That sense of loss took on mythic proportions and in london the park around her home became a magnet for the bereft, the distraught and the downright curious. The levels of mourning nationwide took cynics like myself and allegedly the queen by surprise. In the moment and indeed with the benefit of hindsight, its hard to imagine the depths of devastation that dianas death initiated and the impact it had on her greatest supporters, the people. We felt like a better, more sympathetic nation for some time afterwards. Her empathy for the underdog, their embrace her empathy for the underdog, her embrace of victims from everything from leprosy to aids, her innate understanding of human need and the compassion she displayed for causes she cared about seemed to thaw us. Her death allowed us to grieve for what wed lost but also to come together and embrace the sense of unity we abandoned during the seismic ruptures of the thatcher revolution. After decades of the iron lady and her followers, distaining the notion of community, we were ready to draw together around a sad figure of this lonely, imperfect one man, and the tangible tragedy of her short life. She became a symbol of possibility won her public battle with the centuries old monarchy out of touch with the nation was won in death. Her greatest triumph may be yet to come as her soul baring adult her greatest triumph may be yet to come as her adult boys with their eagerness to be seen as down to earth expose the fallibility of hereditary elevation. So many hopes and dreams died with diana, and so many more were born. It was impossible to see the epidemic of sadness provoked as simply the direct result of her death. The connection to this queen of hearts for some people felt intensely personal yet for many others it was simply a conduit connecting their losses to the National State of sorrow. So what did we learn . Probably nothing we didnt know already. Those elevated to great heights have an even mightier way to fall, and even princesses are mortal. But there is no such thing as a fairy tale ending and that expressing your emotions can be cathartic, even if you dont know what you are grieving for. The princess, from the moment she rode the carriage down the mall on her wedding day was emblematic of so much more than that fleeting romance. She was the underdog who revolutionised the monarchy, obliterated our National Reputation for maintaining a stiff upper lip, and took celebrity soul baring too dizzying new heights. Her legacy remains in the fervour with which she is remembered, for despite the godlike status thrust on her young shoulders, diana revealed herself to be mortal, flawed and eager to be loved. Just like the rest of us. Mariella frostrup. Lots of Different Things are bound up in the claim that we changed that week more emotional, perhaps also less deferential, sometimes less rational about things. More feeling. Isabel hilton wrote at the time that she felt alienated by the outpouring of emotion. Paris lees was nine years old, i think, when the princess died, and became an adult in the post 1997 britain. Isabel, what are your memories of that week . You say you did not shed any tears. Clearly the event was a shock but i found it became oppressive very quickly. We happened to be driving, the day that her death was announced, from scotland to london, a long drive, listening to radio 4. By the time we got to london i thought if one more person was going to be asked how they felt i might scream what were they supposed to say, i feel great, how do you feel . It was a meaningless enactment of emotion rather than real emotion. Paris, how much do you remember of it . I do remember because i was on holiday with my grandma the night she died and the show had been cancelled just because Princess Diana had died. And we were just really shocked, and looking back now ijust think, why did the show have to be cancelled . Its a bit over the top, isnt it . I remember people being really upset, my mum being really upset, i remember going to some kind of gathering in nottingham city centre, and just this Great Sadness being around, really. But youve spent a lot of your life fighting against rigid straitjackets that society puts on you. Did you was she too prior to your era to become someone who was an inspiration, an icon, a role model . No, im as addicted as anyone looking at the old panorama interviews on youtube, clearly there was something about that resonated with people. An adult, now, i have been dismissed as the crazy ex girlfriend before, and i can see why so many women found something to identify with, shes almost archetypal neurotic woman who had been wronged by the ultimate patriarchal institution, the royal family. It wasnt just about her as an individual. Obviously she was a special person but thing she tapped into our feelings about the way young women are treated in this society and its not always fairly. Isabel, did it change bit for good, did we become more sentimental . Change britain. I look at my facebook timeline, it is full of sentimental slosh most of the time. Does that go back to diana . Or is it different . I think the cause of change is overstated. I do think that the stiff upper lip myth, historically, it was pretty short lived. It comes into being in the late 19th century because we needed a stiff upper lip to run an empire. You dont want your district officer in peshawar emoting. We want him to be fairly hanging in there. Back in the 18th century the british were emoting all over the place. Really . Is that right . This is not new now . They were not known as chilly, they were known as morose, violent, you know a bit grumpy, but certainly not emotionally buttoned up. Things like the man of feeling, there is weeping in every page of this 18th century novel, and people loved it. By mid victorian times people find it hard to deal with. I think we are reverting, these things were always there. Paris, has it gone a bit far, do you find life sentimental now . I cant compel it to the pre diana world but remember there was this, there was Geri Halliwell leaving the spice girls, jack dying in titanic, a lot of traumatic stuff when i was a kid people would make a distinction between those things. Social media is all about feeling, isnt it . And theres not enough of, judge this and think about it, it is all about feel it. I guess so. It is interesting what we label as emotional. We dont generally labelled donald trump as emotional and yet anger is an emotion. Womens emotions get labelled emotional but if a man is violent and fights we dont say, hes emotional. There has always been emotion expressed in society, it is which ones we police. I think its good that we have a more open society, society can feel cold and uncaring for lots of people and if anything, i think we need more caring. Because she wasntjust expressing pure emotion, dianas whole thing was empathy and connecting with other peoples emotions. I think we need more of to be honest. How far do you agree with what you have just heard . At the empathy is very important but it is, of whom do we demand emotional display. That is the tricky bit. And the empathy. Because actually i dont want, if people are in extreme situations they dont want their First Responders or policeman to be emotional, they want them to be cool. Theresa may goes to Grenfell Tower. She didnt empathise. She didnt weep, she didnt make the victims, she didnt empathise and at moments of National Trauma like that you want the leader to show that they empathise, not that they are weep themselves. I dont want judges and politicians to weep. I want them to mediate between different emotions and make rational and effective decisions. I dont want them crying. I think one leader, jeremy corbyn, was very empathic. Being empathetic is fine. And we have drawn that distinction. Thank you both very much. And that is it. Before we go, theres just time to bring you the latest instalment in our series of proms performances playouts. Tonight, the elias String Quartet, who will be playing schuberts String Quartet at cadogan hall on 11th september. For now though, theyll be leaving us with an extract of mendelssohns String Quartet no 2 in a minor. Goodnight String Quartet plays hello. Good evening. I wonder what music would some up to dates whether . May be something by wet wet wet in southeastern areas. It was a disappointing day for august. Some outbreaks of rain in some places got no higher than 30 degrees. It was a brighter story for the north and west, though. As this area of cloud brought the wet and cold weather, a few more of us got some clearer skies werejust a few more of us got some clearer skies were just a scattering of clouds. 13 degrees. With some of those clear skies, it could be chilly. Some fog as well. Wales north west england could see some heavy showers. In towns and cities, ten, 11, 12 degrees, but if youre in the country, it is already chilly, and will be one, too, or three degrees in some places. If you are out and about early, it could be cold, but bright and was in sunshine. It may well be that the showers line up across cornwall, through the heart of devon, and up towards the london area. Some places could see a few showers. Others might not see the see any at all. An improvement in the south east. A scattering of showers through the midlands, wales, and northern england, also Northern Ireland in scotland. Some showers heavy, possibly thundery at times. 17 degrees your afternoon temperature in glasgow. As a go through tomorrow night, the showers should tend to fade away. The odd fog patch around. The chilly start on friday morning. The chilly start on friday morning. The prospect of friday are not bad. The prospect of friday are not bad. The sun shines around. Some showers in the midlands, it is dinner, and possibly the far north beast of scotland. Temperatures are where they should be for the start of september. 15 21d. The weekend, at the weekend starts promisingly. High pressure builds for saturday. These frontal systems out west will only affect western areas, we suspect, that during the second half of the weekend. The rest, through saturday, and into sunday, it should say dry, with some spells of sunshine. Chilly nights, though. Further west, at a decent saturday, whispers of sunshine. Sunday, some cloud, outbreaks of rain, and blustery winds. That is it for me for now. I wish you a good night. Im Sharanjit Leyl in singapore. The headlines after north koreas latest missile test, President Trump warns talking is not the answer. As the number killed by Tropical Storm harvey in texas, warnings of new Monsoon Floods across parts of south asia. Im Babita Sharma in london. Also in the programme Princes William and harry make a poignant appearance in memory of their mother on the eve of the 20th anniversary of Princess Dianas death. And the loneliness of the Long Distance walker. We meet the man crossing the entire breadth of australia in his campaign for aboriginal rights. Live from our studios in singapore and london. This is bbc world news