behind other countries. thousands of people have taken to the streets of the canary islands in protest at what they say are unsustainable levels of mass tourism. they say overtourism is damaging the environment and drives up costs for local people. now on bbc news, it's newscast. where in the world is chris mason? hello. i am in the west midlands. i am in birmingham. 0h, because there's a mayoral contest there fairly soon. yeah, i thought i would spend the day examining the structures of government of england. why not? because, you know, we've got these local and police and crime commissioner elections in england and wales in a fortnight and also mayoral contests too. and these mayors are relatively new, aren't they? you go back to 2000 for london, much more recently for the west midlands and plenty of other places beside.

keen contest here. so a day in walsall and birmingham and zipping about this part of the country, which has been fun. well, your treat after a hard day's is work later on in this episode of newscast, we're going to chat to comedian and podcaster extraordinaire josh widdicombe, who has actually been trying his hand, again, at being a local newspaper journalist. oh, and also, chris, i mean, will you be getting up early on friday to listen to taylor swift's new album? 0h, absolutely. i've set the alarm. can't wait to listen to whatever follows blank space, because i know all about blank space now, courtesy of liz truss�* education for me just the other day. well, i was going to say that was a fantastic episode of newscast where you interviewed liz truss. great questions. but getting her saying on the record that blank space is her favourite taylor song is just so good, because every lyric in that song could be applied to her or her tenure in number ten. so us swifties thank you for that. a pleasure to serve. right, let's serve up some more news and analysis on this episode of newscast. newscast. newscast from the bbc.

hello. it's adam in the studio. and it is chris in birmingham. and just so i don't get lonely in here, i'm joined by some friends of the podcast. ailbhe rea is associate editor at bloomberg. hello, ailbhe. hello, thank you for having me. and nick watt is political editor of newsnight. hello, nick. hello, adam. this means we've got bbc one and bbc two sewn up tonight. genius move. very clever move. right, the first story we're going to talk about is about the mp mark menzies, who represents a seat in the north—west of england and, until wednesday night, he was a conservative mp. he's now been stripped of the whip and is an independent and the claims were made in the times newspaper on wednesday night. the newspaper is alleging that, in the recent past, he made a phone call at 3:15am to his former campaign manager, who is 78 years old. and the allegation is that mark menzies said, "i am locked in a flat and i need £5,000

of money to be let out." and then the paper goes on to allege that that money was paid, but then it was reimbursed, the paper claims, using otherfunds that had been raised for political purposes. so that is what the times newspaper alleged on wednesday night. there have been some repercussions from those reports. what is difficult for the bbc is that we have approached mark menzies for comment. he has not said anything to us, but he did speak to the times newspaper on wednesday, when they were putting these allegations and claims to him and, chris, he, mark menzies strenuously denied them. yeah, that's right. and you summarise neatly there, adam, where we are. i think there's another expression we can sort of throw into the mix. i was working last night, wednesday night, when the investigative journalistic powerhouse that is billy kimber of the times�*s piece appeared online, and a polite version of the words that tumbled from my lips would be,

blimey, you know, just quite a series of things that the times was able to report. fast—forward about an hour and a half from that article appearing online at 9:30pm, and the conservatives publicly said that mr menzies was no longer in possession of the whip. in other words, he was suspended from the parliamentary party, would sit as an independent mp whilst the party was working out what it was going to do. with the obvious question, which has been put to the conservatives since, well, how come it was only at the point that this all became public that you decided to act in this way? and that's been one of the numerous questions that have been heading in the direction of conservatives throughout the day. questions you've been asking, nick. that's right. and you've got the liberal democrats and labour saying that, you know, nothing, as you say, has happened for three months, that conservative central office, they knew all about this,

weren't saying anything. and yet we had various deputy chairmen writing letters to greater manchester police, saying, "let's investigate in great detail angela rayner's tax affairs." what is going on? as i understand it, the conservative whips' office, the government whips' office, found out about this around about january, that they spoke to mark menzies and, because there was this issue over funding, they regarded it as a party matter so they handed it to conservative central office, to the office of rick holden, the chairman of the conservative party, handed it to him, and then he launched this investigation, which we say has been carrying out this work since january. we are told that the reason why he's been suspended as various trade envoys, voluntary relinquishing the whip but no longer has the whip, is that more information came into the public domain and the great mystery was what was the more information that came into the public domain? well, it was the front page of the times. and you talked about the angela rayner case and people

have got very strong feelings about that in all sorts of directions. but i suppose it's an example of, if you use a tool against your political opponents, like calling in the police to investigate something, you probably, in politics, shouldn't be surprised if your political opponents do it back at you. and what has keir starmer said today? "have the police been looking at this?" because there are issues here over funding and all that sort of stuff. so that is exactly what the conservatives have been doing towards angela rayner. so there you go. but obviously important to say about angela rayner that, in recent years, she hasn't wasted any time when there's a conservative mp like borisjohnson in trouble, she's straight out of the traps. and as i last checked the lancashire police website at 5:36 pm today, they said that there had been no complaints made to them. ailbhe, not getting into the speculation about this case, but, i mean, what's your take on just what goes on at westminster in terms of the life of an mp and what a sort of weird life that is?

yeah, well, you know, listening to nick's account there, i it really made me think maybe a helpful bit of context - is the whipping system. so these are the people in _ the government who are responsible for party discipline, - so getting all these mps to vote in the correct way. and what an odd system that really is. _ so essentially these - whips are kind of shadowy figures in the background. they don't have much of a public profile, - unlike other members of the government. . they collect all of this gossip and dirt on all these mp5, i the kind of gossip that we would love to heat _ we only hear probably a tiny amount of what they get to know. _ and then they essentially, - on the one hand, they say that they're there for pastoral care, |that they're there for support. | and they're, you know, - being an mp is a difficultjob. they really understand it. they're able to make arrangements if an mp needs to nip- home because their child is sick and they can arrange a pairing arrangement, but then they also use - the information that they have on these mps to kind of cajole| them into voting in the correct way.

oh, you should vote this way because we know this thing happened to you x years ago. and, i mean, ithink people say that it's not quite - as murky as it used to be. you know, there are plenty of tv shows that have kind _ of glorified this in the past, - that people would say it's not... house of cards being exhibit a. yes, so that's the kind of famous example that was all _ based around a chief whip and that kind of murky world of blackmail. - i think people would say it's not quite that way these days, - but it does mean that basically- you have mps doing a quite odd job anyway in a world with a lot of alcohol far from home, l a lot of them are i often quite lonely. they're in the public eye. and then there are the people l who are kind of becoming aware of things that could potentially be problematic or wrong, _ but who don't necessarily have much . of an interest in making it public. because they actually just - want to make sure that the votes are going the right way. what i would say is in recent

decades, with the greatest respect to all these whips, the whips' office have been downgraded. tony blair never saw the point, thought it was a complete waste of time, wasn't interested. and you can only work as a whip and have that sort of scary element if it is feared that you have the complete backing and the complete authority of the prime minister. if the feeling is that the prime minister sort of doesn't really take it that seriously, then you do lose that authority. right, something that the whips have been doing a lot this week is getting their mps and their members of the house of lords to vote the correct way, as they would see it, on the rwanda legislation. and chris, this is the now infamous totemic legislation that would allow the government to send people to rwanda if they had entered the country illegally. yeah, and so this process of parliamentary ping—pong, as it's known, goes on when towards the tail end of the process of making a new law, a bill goes back and forth between the commons and the lords.

and to extend the old ping—pong imagery, this is like the longest rally in table tennis you can possibly imagine. i've forgotten how many pings and forgotten how many pongs. the bottom line is, is that the house of lords has again glued some proposed changes, some amendments to the government's plan. the government is pretty keen to get it through without anything attached, which means it goes back to the house of commons where those proposed changes will get voted down. it'll go back to the lords again early couple of days of next week, whilst the government continues to do what it needs to do, which is a lot, to get things ready so that when this thing becomes law, gets royal assent to use the jargon, they can then start the processes that can only start at that point to try and get flights off as quickly as they possibly can, having set themselves that deadline of doing it by the end of...by spring. and i kind of reckon spring peters out by the end of may, doesn't it?

or to give it the more positive spin, summer begins at the beginning ofjune. so what's that, about six weeks or so from now? ailbhe, do you think all this effort is worth it for the government? oh, i'm sure they would say... which is a way of sort of saying how important is the success or failure of the rwanda legislation, irrespective of then the actual operation to send people to rwanda? i think that this is a fight - that they are enjoying having or that it's quite central to the government's i agenda right now. otherwise, i would think it's not unfair to say- that their legislative agenda| is quite thin at the moment. they don't have a lot else going on. the rwanda row is a big part of what they're - doing alongside stuff - on the economy, basically. but does it make a difference? so you're basically saying the battle with the lords and with labour is almost worth as much to the government as getting it through? yes, well, there's a lot of talk about, i mean, i the way we're looking at politicsl this year essentially is all around

|when we have an election rather than| what the government actually passes. and so i think that- in number ten, and then the labour paranoia as well, is all about what's the best moment for the government around this? i you know, i think that they would kind of love a moment— where they can say, "oh, - we've been blocked, the courts and woke labourjust won't let us do what we need to do _ to secure our borders. we have to take it to the country." and i think if they actually knew that they had a really _ clear moment like that, they would use it. - but it's not actually clear in this i process of ping—pong whether that will happen. in the longer term, probably, certainly on the labourl side, they do still think that these flights will happen, _ or at least one flight will happen, even if it's delayed a bit. and that will also be a big - moment for the government. but beyond that, maybe not very many flights, if any, will go. _ i mean, there's a bit of a gallows humour atmosphere in the house of commons at the moment. and when this ping—pong was going on earlier in the week, i spoke to one member of the government who sort of, you know, wants to get the business

through the house of commons. and they said a few weeks ago, a few months ago, they said to one of the ministers involved in this, "look, we're going to get this legislation through," and i won't use the language that that minister used, but a milder version was, "oh, crumbs, we've got to make this work." and what was interesting, i was sort of wandering around the corridors of the house of lords last night, the great mystery, which is that labour does not want to be blamed for blocking this bill, but they are currently still voting for these two amendments that are holding up. so you're saying what on earth is going on? and what they think is going on is they've spotted some interesting signals. they're saying that there are 30 mystery conservative peers who were seen to be voting for the government and then suddenly stopped voting for the government, but have been seen on the parliamentary estate. they're also saying, these labour people, that the house of commons pulled stumps at 7:17 last night. what they're saying is when we were in government, we would have kept going. we'd have made the peers vote at one in the morning. they would have either been drunk, in bed, or nowhere to be

seen, and the government would have prevailed. and they think, these labour people, that the government is seeking to buy time to delay the legislation because they are not ready for the flights. i should say, i put that to steve baker, the cabinet office minister. he said, we are not seeking to buy time. we want this on the statute. but another member of the cabinet said to me that even if it makes the statute book, it is a 12—week delay until you can do the flights because there's a lot of preparation you can do right now, but there's a lot of preparation you can't do until it's law. and, chris, i think i've been away from westminster too long because i'm slightly struggling to get my head around the fact that labour are opposed to the rwanda legislation, but yet in the house of lords they don't want to be seen to be the ones that actually stop it happening. what's that about? welcome back to swi, adam. says me pompously from birmingham. so, you know, you're the one in westminster and i'm not! it's a state of mind as much as a postcode, isn't it? well, exactly.

so let's unpick that. so they make the argument, and have made it repeatedly, that they think the rwanda idea is kind of an expensive waste of time, but at the same time, they do not want to appear to be soft on finding solutions to the whole issue of illegal migration. so that's what they are attempting to do. that's how their actions are motivated, by how they perceive what they're doing might be seen. so that's what's going on here. and it's important to say for labour, because there's a lot of government criticism which is, "if you don't support the rwanda plan then you don't have a scheme", to which labour would say, "we do have a scheme — it's basically going upstream. it's using counterterrorism legislation to go after the people—smugglers, it's using the intelligence that we have to go into the czech republic, where these dinghies are being built". go upstream is the labour view. but i also think privately, labour, expecting that they _ might win the next election and this could be their problem very soon, . are also quite worried about levels

of illegal migration. _ this is a global problem - and there are some global factors that mean that the current level. of illegal immigration into the uk is artificially lower than it might be under labour in a few years'l time, things to do around turkey and what the kurds are - doing on their borders. and so i think that- as well as sort of saying that they have a plan and the _ things that nick has outlined, they are thinking, "gosh, - we're not going to do rwanda, but what kind of options do - we really have ? " and maybe the line that they take | on rwanda might make it difficultj for them when they're looking for their own options. - right, well, i'm going to say thank you very much to nick watt. thank you. and thanks to ailbhe rea. thanks for having me. ok, now for something completely different, because now i'm joined in the newscast studio by comedian and, actually i'm going to say it, more successful podcaster than us, josh widdicombe. well, i wouldn't go that far.

no, i think it's true. no, i meant with "comedian". 0h, right! oh, the podcasting world is one big, happy family, isn't it? there's no rivalry whatsoever. no, i don't hate alastair campbell, whatever people say. i just think there's room for everyone. there is room for everyone. even though we've only got two ears, there's room for more. exactly, exactly. anyway, the reason you're here is because there is a second series of your show on sky called hold the front page where actually you're a journalist. yes, so me and nish kumar are localjournalists. it's the kind of show that when they pitched it to me, i was like, how has that not happened before? where it's like, we go and we work for local newspapers around the country, and in this series for one episode in benidorm, which is basically the country. it's basically this country if you've been there. with a bit of sunshine. i did a lot of brexit coverage from benidorm. i bet you did! i love it there, love it there. they hate brexit. do they now? they didn't necessarily at the time. oh, right, well... we weren't allowed to mention the b word. what stories did you do in benidorm?

what stories did we do in benidorm? oh, my word. or do people just need to wait for the show? that's a good way of selling the show, isn't it? you're better at promo than i am! maybe i'm a better podcaster! anyway, yeah, i was watching some clips from the first series this afternoon and i've just remembered the one where you and nish go to do the restaurant review and it's a michelin—starred restaurant. he gets drunk, you're sober because you're driving. it turns out that you're vegetarian and he hadn't told the restaurant and then by the end, he has just scribbled down some random words in his pad. yes, we are bad journalists. but the thing is, right, we are trying, that's the worst bit about it. in that, so, we are actually trying our best. but i think we are doing a great duty to localjournalism in that we're showing how difficult it is. yeah. you know that thing they say that in the 100 metres olympic final, there's, like, this kind of truism that they should have a normal person from the street run next to people. oh, so you get a sense

of the achievement. so you get a sense of the speed. we're doing that with local journalists, basically! how have you found the whole business of having a crack at our trade? what's sort of surprised you? what has proved difficult? what's proved difficult at a local level is, and i suppose it's the kind of same at national level in the sense that you're doing this podcast now, you're going to be doing the news at ten, you're going to be writing a blog for the website etc is that now you're notjust a journalist, you're notjust someone who turns up and files 300 words. you're a photographer. you're doing a live blog. you're doing a kind of facebook video. you're having to do all these things, because local press is so tightly, you know, the finances are so tight. because in the last series, you went to the northern irish newspaper that does lots of farming stories, and they've got, what, like, had 80 pages to fill on a saturday and there's three of them. yeah, and it's run from the woman's spare room. the editor runs it from her own

house, and this is a newspaper. obviously, i love doing newscast. it's an amazing job and an amazing podcast. that's not what you were saying before! that's scurrilous gossip, that's not true. i'm strongly denying those claims, like some other people we've mentioned tonight. but the thing i do miss, and actually there was a brexit story that appeared today and i was back on the european commission website reading a brexit document and i was like, "oh, i miss being an expert on a subject". but then i thought actually, my version of that now is that i do lots of different subjects, but everything is interesting if you start looking at it in depth and with an open mind. totally. and if you think about liz truss, of this parish, this week, one of the defining moments of her prime ministerial reign, of her long prime ministerial reign, was when she decided to do a load of local radio interviews and they absolutely, one after the other, destroyed her, because they were across their brief. and i'm not, you know, you don't know why she did that,

but there's an element where you're going, did she think that's a softball, that's an easy option? "i'lljust do a few local radio interviews". these people know their stuff. they are absolute experts in their area. they know all the councillors, they've got all the numbers. this isn't like a kind of... this isn't like the national league compared to the premier league. these people are just a different type of brilliant journalist. talking about liz truss and chris's excellent interview with her, do you think you could do a good interview with liz truss, knowing what you know now about journalism? no. nish definitely couldn't, because you saw what happened when he tried to upset borisjohnson. he started swearing at him, which is not what you do. i would say nish wouldn't keep his head. i'd say if you had to put one of us in a room with liz truss, i think i would do better. i'm too desperate to be liked. so, idid so, i did an interview... i'm a comedian, right?

but i did an interview in the first series when we were working for the scotsman. i interviewed ruth davidson. the problem with interviewing politicians is that they know a hell of a lot more about politics than you, so i've got no follow—up questions. because if they say something... but that's so interesting because actually, i used to think like that when i started out and it's quite scary, but you're not meant to know everything, because yourjob is to elicit stuff from the person who does know stuff. right! so actually, you don't need to know every statistic about the entire government. i wish you'd told me this two series ago. i didn't have the opportunity. i apologise for that. it's funny, isn't it? it took me ages to realise that the biggest questions you could ask as follow—ups were the short ones. how? why? when? you know, that kind of thing. and then suddenly, you're onto something. you see, i'm learning. hopefully, there will be a third series. you might be adequate by then! people will be worried when we turn

up people will be worried when we turn up in _ people will be worried when we turn up in their_ people will be worried when we turn up in their parish! i think there's more similarities between the last leg and what me and chris do than some people might assume. we're working with the same raw material and we're just being ourselves, chatting about it. totally. you do it with more viewers... i don't know! tv is dying! podcasts is the coming form. i'd say what happens there is that i think podcasts have genuinely influenced the way television shows are made. i agree. i think they're a lot more discursive. two things happened to the last leg that have made it less gag, gag, gag and more discursive. one was that i think podcasts changed. people want longform interviews. people don't actually talk about stuff. yeah. and the other thing is, we had to do it without an audience for 18 months or something because of covid. and when you're doing that, it turns into more of a conversation.

i think podcasts have had a brilliant effect on things, because people want to hear genuine content rather thanjust maybe one pre—rehearsed point or one pre—rehearsed joke or anecdote. yeah. the key word in all of that is conversation. people want good conversation, of course we do. we want it in the pub or in a cafe, and you want it when watching the telly or a podcast or whatever. that can include humour, of course it can, as well as, i don't know, more serious, profound or sad stuff or wherever the conversation authentically goes. i totally agree. there's occasionally — not occasionally — there's often a thing levelled at podcasts which is that it'sjust people chatting. but that's why, the strength of it is that it's totally real. you get more out of people when you interview them on a podcast. i don't know whether you've found that on this, but if you interview someone in this room, you'll get more out of them than if you sit them on the news at ten or newsnight or wherever and interview them there.

and i think that has really affected chat shows. it's really affected panel shows. it's affected loads of things on tv, because you can actually get to know people. it's kind of the opposite to something like prime minister's questions, which i think turns a lot of people off politics because it's black and white, this or that, whereas i don't think it's a coincidence that this, the rest is politics, the news agents and various others... never heard of them. never heard of them! but they're big podcasts, because people want a balanced chat, you know? you know what i mean? it's the opposite of shock radio. josh, thank you very much, and i hope it goes well with the new series. i'm looking forward to it. cheers, josh. cheers, mate.

and that is all for this episode of newscast. as you've heard, many other podcasts are available, but thank you very much for consuming this one. we will be back with another episode very soon. bye. bye— bye. newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello. quite a chill in the air earlier on, but at least that sun's quite strong. talking about cold weather, this is what we call the anomaly map across europe. where it's blue, temperatures are below the average for the time of the year and you can see across many countries, it's been colder than what we would expect in april. in fact, across some northern parts of europe, we have had snow. here's helsinki today — three degrees, flurries of snow. central parts of europe not even making double figures. and we are feeling that chill as we see colder air arriving from the north. but at least it's high pressure, so that does mean

that the weather's quiet, so a lot of welcome dry weather. here's the satellite picture. clouds have been building through the course of the morning and into the afternoon. some areas are still quite sunny, other areas have turned a little more overcast. temperatures i think best in the west, possibly 15 in northern ireland. but on the north sea coast, we've a chilly breeze, it's only around 9 or 10. now, temperatures may be on the down, but the pollen levels are on the up. moderate widely across some central and eastern parts of the uk and even high in the south west. now, through tonight, variable amounts of cloud. it will turn damp for a time in scotland, particularly northern and central areas. i don't think this coming night will be quite as cold as last night, but still in some spots, temperatures could drop close to freezing early in the morning, given clearer skies overnight. variable amounts of cloud tomorrow, there will be some sunshine, for sure. i think further south, that's where the best of the sun will be,

but some areas may be stuck underneath the cloud. now, interestingly, it is actually going to be a relatively warm day across western parts of northern ireland again, 18 degrees. but closer to the north sea coast in that breeze, maybe not even making 10 celsius. now, into monday, well, high pressure�*s still with us, but a weather front caught on that eastern edge of the high pressure means thick cloud across much of the uk. little dribs and drabs of rain. i don't think it's going to feel particularly pleasant, again, the further east you are. 10 degrees in hull. 0ut towards the west, in belfast, around 11! celsius. is it going to warm up? well, not significantly so in the days ahead. in fact, if we look at the outlook for the week, it is going to stay generally on the chilly side with a little rain now and then.

live from london. this is bbc news. palestinians take cover as israel strikes homes in southern gaza. nine people have been killed, including at least four children, after strikes in rafah. ukraine hopes for more air defence systems in the war against russia — as us lawmakers prepare to vote on a long—delayed military aid package. and the head of the government's climate watchdog criticises the prime minister, saying he's left the uk at risk of falling behind. thousands of people take to the streets of the canary islands in protest against what they say are the damaging effects of over—tourism.

hello, i'm lauren taylor. we start in the middle east, where there've been more israeli air strikes in rafah in the southern gaza strip. this is the moment an israeli air strike hit rafah on saturday, palestinians ran to take cover. there were more air strikes overnight, when nine people including at least four children, were killed after their homes were hit. the israeli war cabinet has been planning a large offensive against hamas in rafah, which is where an estimated 1.5 million displaced palestinians are sheltering. the us and other allies have warned israel against a full—scale assault on the city. rafah isn't the only city to come under attack — israel has carried out air strikes across the strip, these images show the entrance of the al aqsa hospital in central gaza where many of the injured were taken. one of the main un agencies responsible for getting aid to palestinians, the united nations relief

and works agency, is warning that the risk of disease