"ow much of the thundery element now pushing into scotland and northern ireland, so heavy, thundery showers pushing up from the south and those will continue to murk their way north and eastwards through england and wales for this evening and overnight. that band of rain weakening as it pulls its way northwards. clear spells developing behind that band of rain and quite gusty showers per channel because. reaching 55 mph. another mild night. showers will clear through the morning to leave sunshine behind, some showers pushing in for the west is the day moves on. hit and mist. not everyone will see them. filling mild if not warm in the sunshine, 15 up mild if not warm in the sunshine, 15 up to 18 celsius. staying mild day and night. drierand sunnierspots but also further spots of rain for many of us. hello, this is bbc news. the headlines...

rishi sunak officiallyjoins the race to be the next conservative leader and prime minister, this afternoon culture secretary michelle donelan has gone public with her support for him. penny mordaunt is still in the running. she told the bbc she believes in cabinet led politics. i have my views but i will not be imposing — i have my views but i will not be imposing policy that i have just made _ imposing policy that i have just made up — imposing policy that i have just made up in a room by myself. the question now — does borisjohnson have enough backers to stand as well? labour leader kier starmer says his party hasn't got complacent — and repeats calls for a general election. the schools struggling to keep the lights and heating on — headteachers warn spiralling energy costs could see most schools in england run out of money next year. and jodie whittaker is set to make her final appearance as the doctor.

more headlines at six o'clock. now on bbc news, unspun world withjohn simpson. hello, and welcome to unspun world, the programme where the bbc�*s experts give us clear answers about the big questions of the moment. this week, britain's political and economic crisis entered a new and even more difficult phase — and so did the war in ukraine. all of this has rather overshadowed the already slightly muted celebration of the bbc�*s 100th anniversary, which falls this week. in october, 1922, the bbc started up, and quite soon became the world's most famous and respected public service broadcaster,

operating from its headquarters here in central london. and london is where our programme starts this week with the extraordinary political and economic goings—on. pretty much unprecedented in my experience. that the whole sort of faith in the system, the trust, the engagement has sort of broken down and may in fact get worse. will president putin's new commander in the ukraine war, nicknamed general armageddon, change the way the war�*s being fought? i don't think i've seen anyone at all who's said that "we're being killed, let's give up." on the contrary, "we're being killed. let's fight on to make this stop." and is the uprising against the islamic authorities in iran starting to run out of steam? these protests have changed everything. things will never go back to how they were before this.

prime ministers, chancellors of the exchequer and now a home secretary — tumbling like skittles in a bowling alley. is it time to resign? the economy in serious trouble. it's scarcely the singapore—on—thames that liz truss wanted to create. one commentator says tartly, it looks more like caracas—on—thames. i've watched british politics for 60 years and was the bbc�*s political editor in the 1980s, but i've never seen anything remotely like this. what does the bbc political correspondent rob watson think about it? for about a0 years, membership of the european union was absolutely at the centre of britain's economic and foreign policy, and that was true for both of its main parties. so suddenly you have this disruptive referendum —

and although the leave side won, it wasn't a government that had won, there wasn't a particular plan. i mean, those in government would tend to take the view more that they've been sort of buffeted by difficult events — by covid, by the war in ukraine — and that they've never really had a chance to sort of get stuck in. and the other problem seems to be the quality of the people in in government. it is certainly the case that british politicians themselves will tell people like me, "goodness gracious, rob, we don't "have the statesmen, we don't have those towering "authorities who, when they speak in parliament, you really "want to stop and listen." and i think there is some truth in that argument, and it may be to do with the sort of semi—professionalisation of british politics, the idea that so many people go straight from university into thejunior ranks of the party machine and then suddenly find themselves — i mean, extraordinarily — in positions of astonishing responsibility.

is there any question, therefore, that we might get stuck in all this, or is this a temporary blip? there are two broad views of this. at one extreme is that actually things could get worse, that the events of the last six years, the sort of tumult ever since britain left the european union, the sort of churn in the leaders, the fact also that the main opposition labour party had had temporarily, at least for a short time, a leader who had really been on the far fringes of british politics means that that the whole sort of faith in the system, the trust, the engagement has sort of broken down, and may in fact get worse — that british politicians, the way they've behaved, has sort of strained the credulity and faith of the british people in the whole system. and obviously, if that interpretation is correct, the uk is in a deeply worrying place. and i know some politicians who feel that we are at that end of the spectrum. i mean, the other end is to say, "well, of course, britain is in

some tremendously difficult times, huge economic headwinds, we sort of feel a sense of instability." if the parties had a moment of sort of quiet reflection and under some better leadership, then actually you would get back to being in a better position. i saw a former, i think, official of the bank of england, senior official, saying the rest of the world looks on us as sort of greece. quite often, british politicians use countries like greece and italy as examples of what not to be in terms of turnover of prime ministers and cost of borrowing. so, look, there's no doubt that britain is, i think, what you would describe as being a sort of in an omni—crisis at the moment, a sort of crisis of politics, a crisis to some extent of sort of identity — what is its place in the world post—brexit? and obviously, of immense, immense importance to the people actually living here, there's a cost of living crisis. you know, you're seeing living standards plummet in a way

that they haven't since the 1950s. i mean, all round it looks like a dark moment. are we going to get out of it? the sort of defenders of the uk would say that there are a lot of the things which are right, which are wrong with the uk now can be fixed by what's right about it. and it wouldn't take a kind of massive act of imagination. i mean i think, for example, that british people, i find from travelling, are they cross about the state of politics? yes. are they feeling in a kind of revolutionary mood? probably not. i mean, you know, we have an electorate here which is, you know, i think, prepared to be optimistic if given a chance. people are remarkably hard—working. and there's no kind of disturbing revolutionary group that's appearing on the horizon, is there? no, i mean, i'm often asked, particularly by any french people i know, you know,

"if this was france, people would be on the streets!" there'd be kind of revolution at such sort of hopeless acts of kind of government u—turns. and one mistake after another. but this isn't france. this isn't another european country. i mean, it's not for nothing that the national kind of slogan is, mustn't grumble. and i think at times of crisis like this, that sort of helps britain. but that's not to say that there aren't some very, very serious challenges. i'm not downplaying it. but you asked, you know, are there things about britain that could lead it to turn the corner? well, i think most people would say, yes. general sergei surovokin looks like a villain from a james bond film, and worse, he behaves like one. now he's in overall command of the war in ukraine. he's not nicknamed general armageddon for nothing. he oversaw the use of chemical weapons against civilians in syria, and he ordered the utter destruction of several syrian towns and cities

in his determination to crush the resistance there. but how successful can russian tactics in ukraine be now? i asked vitaly shevchenko, russia editor for bbc monitoring. as we've seen over the past week or so, russia has switched to using long—range ballistic missiles to target cities across ukraine, and also drones, for example, iranian drones, which russia has rebranded and started using against ukraine, but also domestically in russia after the bridge linking crimea, annexed crimea, and russia, after it was hit a couple of weeks ago, president putin had to do something. he had to respond. the last thing he wanted to be is look vulnerable, weak. so he launched these missile strikes

and now these commentators, they are over the moon. one of them said on telegram that these are "beautiful air strikes on kyiv and across ukraine." "and what would make them even more beautiful is if they went on for a week or two." so that's the attitude that we're seeing. it's absolutely clear to me from looking at the various sites where these things had landed, there was no accuracy at all. these attacks are pretty pointless if they're not targeted. well, there can be several reasons why russia is doing what it is doing in ukraine. one of them is to show resolve to domestic audiences, show capability, determination to destroy, dominate ukraine. secondly, given how resilient and determined ukrainians are to fight back, one reason for these attacks could be

to undermine the fighting spirit. when things get cold and dark in ukraine, it's really difficult to continue fighting if you're hungry, if you're cold, if you can't see where you're going. some of the pictures that i've seen, they are of destruction in areas where there's nothing military about them. there are even no government institutions. things like playgrounds. well, i saw a playground destroyed. it seems that while ukraine, using western, sophisticated precision munitions, is pursuing the tactic of pinpoint strikes against key facilities — because these munitions are really expensive,

it's really difficult to get them. so ukraine has to be really careful about how it uses them. russia is using older, less sophisticated weaponry, but currently, looking at ukrainian media and the opinion formers and opinion leaders, i don't think i've seen anyone at all who's said, you know, "we're being killed, let's give up." on the contrary — "we're being killed. let's fight on to make this stop." we're seeing what looks like a build—up in belarus, belarussia, right down on the border, only a couple of hundred kilometres from kyiv. do you think we're going to see another attack, another front opening up? it's an alarming development. we've seen numerous videos showing troops on the move in that part of belarus or in russia, apparently towards

that part of belarus. with russia stalling in eastern ukraine, in southern ukraine, retreating in some cases, of course, it's natural to expect those russian commanders to think about the possibility of opening a new front. on the other hand, ukraine appears to be more prepared for this eventuality. we've got putin apparently appeasing his ultranationalist supporters. is this the moment at which he might say, "ok, we've done everything we needed to, we finish now, you know, now let's move on." i think it's unlikely. and one reason for that is ukraine will hardly accept the current status quo as a point where it will be prepared for a ceasefire or for talks with russia.

president putin is not the kind of leader who would admit mistakes orfailures. and at this stage, he's under pressure to do more. the bbc persian service has so far identified 45 protesters who have been killed by iran's security organisations during the current troubles. a disproportionate number of the victims were young, and they came from all regions of iran. but are the protests starting to peter out now?

kian sharifi, one of bbc monitoring iran experts. this protest, what we're seeing now, is unprecedented because of the scale of the protest. every time there are calls on social media to protest, as many as 30 cities see people gathering, protesting, and in some cities clashing with security forces and dying. these protests have changed everything. things will never go back to how they were before this. if you say that things won't go back to how they were — by that, what, you mean the authorities have had to change their approach? is that right? the morality police may not be as strict. just last week, we had the members of parliament suggesting that there needs to be an entire reform when it comes to how the morality police operates. it doesn't necessarily mean that's what people are going to be content with. they want the islamic republic gone. always in the past, going right back to the early stages of the islamic republic, the authorities knew that

if they could only generate enough force against the demonstrators, then they could just wipe the whole thing out and stop it in its tracks. is that the case now? well, we know they have no qualms about doing that, why they haven't done this? there are multiple potential reasons. one potential reason is that iran is worried about the optics, and that's because of the negotiations to revive the nuclear deal. as it is, western countries have a very hard time selling that deal to their people because of what iran is doing. what's the kind of tone that the government is taking? i mean, are they nervous? well, they are defiant, but they seem to have become progressively more nervous based on the comments they're making. most recently, we had the supreme leader, when he described the islamic republic as a mighty tree that cannot be toppled. that to many seemed to be

a sign of nervousness that they are starting to take this a lot more seriously than they had. they keep referring to the protesters as agents of the enemy. they insist that these protests are instigated by the us, by israel and their allies. proof — there is no proof. the protests still persist. now they're resorting to the normal things that we are used to seeing, such as using state media to push their narrative. they talk about the damages caused by the protests. they're even accusing the protesters of being responsible for the internet disruptions. the state's broadcaster is the main source of news for about 50% of the population, and that's why they keep trying to shut down the internet, because when people are exposed to alternative sources of news, they start questioning things. social media must be the most important element in these demonstrations, isn't it? it's been instrumental.

and the authorities have tried time and again to prevent people from accessing social media, but they can't stop everyone. there are ways around it. one of the reasons why these protests have lasted as long as they have is because of social media, is because of social media accounts documenting the protests, sending videos to news agencies, to news outlets like bbc persian. is that your function, to find out, to collate everything that's being said on social media and on the official media? and then what? you pass that through to bbc persian? we monitor traditional media — tv, radio, newspapers. we monitor social media. we verify the stuff we see using various sources. if there is a video of a protest

on a certain street, we try to geo—locate the street and we try to find other videos of the same protests, different angles, just to verify that it did actually happen. i've been accused time and again over the years of working for british intelligence against iran and so on. in my work as a bbc correspondent. i mean, presumably the iranian authorities make the same claims about you, don't they? absolutely. the bbc is considered an anti—iran news outlet. they call any report about iran that may paint the authorities in a bad light as an anti—iran report — not anti—establishment. if you criticise the authorities, you are criticising iran. that's how they want to project this for their audience. burkina faso is a small, landlocked former french colony in west africa, which used to be called upper volta. in 1984, it changed its name.

burkina faso means the land of honest people. whether that was meant to be a statement of fact orjust an aspiration isn't clear. but it's been in turmoil for the whole of this year with a couple of coups in a matter of months. the biggest problem is a jihadi insurgency, and burkina faso's best friend in dealing with that seems to be russia, and in particular the wagner group, russia's shadowy commercial paramilitary organisation. russia thinks it can solve burkina faso's problems. i asked mayeni jones, the bbc west africa correspondent, what she thought. there was a coup, the second coup

in just over eight months. a young soldier, captain ibrahim chaudhry, took over from his predecessor, paul—henri damiba, and he said the reason that he decided to do this was because mr damiba, he claims, had failed to deal with a security threat in the country. so this insurgency, the seven—year insurgency, which has been happening in burkina faso and right across the region, that has been responsible for a number of attacks in the country. and mr damiba had come into power in january saying that he was going to tackle it. many burkinabe�*s felt that he'd failed to do this. what part are russia or the wagner organisation playing in the whole situation? there were all these images of protesters on the streets of the capital of burkina faso, ouagadougou, and they were waving russian flags. there was a small number of them, but i think that really kind of caught people's attentions. and then also a lot of the protesters seem to be saying that they wanted burkina faso to collaborate with russia. and this is because the wagner group has been very active in neighbouring mali. it started working there in december of last year.

and it's been working with the malian army to try and contain the insurgency, which has been taking place there, that spilt into burkina faso. and many people think that russia might be a better security partner than france, which has historically been burkina faso's main security partner. france recently left mali. the malian junta that came into power there asked france to leave. and now many people in burkina faso say maybe we should do the same. maybe we should work with wagner group, which is this shadowy mercenary organisation that's led by a close ally of president putin. yevgeny prigozhin. so how do they operate? i mean, is it a question of handing out money? is it influence? is it force? wagner's success rate in africa is not clear cut.

i mean, in mali, granted, they've only been active, as i said, for a few months, but the number of civilian deaths in the country has increased dramatically. but one of the methods that they use is to work closely with african governments. they've been very active in the central african republic as well as mali, as well as in sudan. you work closely with these governments. the governments give them access to some of their natural resources, and they deploy a number of mercenaries to act as trainers. they call them trainers for these various african armies. but actually, many rights groups say that they're involved on the ground as fighters and that they're responsible for some really grave human rights abuses that we've seen in the region, including torture, rape, abductions of people. the russian government has always denied any kind of affiliation with it. they say that it's a separate entity and that mercenary groups are outlawed in russia. but many people believe just because mr prigozhin is such a close ally to president putin that there is no way that he's acting without being sanctioned by the kremlin. it must have been quite difficult to report on all that, wasn't it? i mean, it's not the safest thing to get too close to the wagner organisation. no, a number ofjournalists, russianjournalists, actually, a few years ago who went

to the central african republic to try and investigate wagner's activities there, ended up being killed. so it's incredibly dangerous to try and report on wagner. and it's not an organisation that makes a lot of information about itself very available. at the time of the coup, we weren't able to enter burkina faso. we were in touch with an americanjournalist on the ground, henry wilkins. and he said that at one point, because of the strength of feeling on the ground of ouagadougou was very much anti—french. many burkinabe feel that the french have interfered in the affairs internal affairs for way too long. so he said that as a visibly foreign person, he definitely felt that when he was trying to cover the protest, people looked at him and told him that he shouldn't be here. so this is essentially an anti—white colonialist feeling. it's not necessarily pro—russian, or have i got that wrong? it's less to do with russia itself

as it is about rejecting old colonial partners. and russia has capitalised on this feeling, this anti—colonial feeling. when mr prigozhin commented on the coup, he said that for too long, burkina faso had been under the yoke of its former colonial power and congratulated the country for being able to get rid of this colonial power. so what russia is playing is a very clever game, tapping into these old resentments on social media and also in some traditional media, and encouraging people to look at it as a new type of partner, a partner that won't make any demands of these african countries when it comes to rights abuses. or try and tell them how to live their lives, but we'll treat them as equals and we'll deliver the kind of security resolve that has been asking for, for years.

myeni jones speaking to me from lagos in nigeria. for the end of this edition of unspun world, i've come to the bbc media city in salford, near manchester, where we're celebrating the bbc�*s 100th anniversary, 100 years of entertaining people, educating them and informing them notjust in britain but right around the world. when i started out as a bbc foreign correspondent in the early seventies, the bbc was a middle ranking broadcaster, dwarfed by the vast american networks. significant, perhaps, but not highly influential — except in radio, where it was listened to worldwide with real respect. now the bbc�*s output is watched, listened to and read by half a billion people — a sizeable proportion of the entire human race. and in many countries, it's the most trusted source of news, including in the united states, where, when i started, it was almost unknown. well, apologies for this blatant advertisement. but if you can't sing

the praises of an organisation on its 100th birthday, when can you? that's it from unspun world, from this edition. until we meet again, goodbye. much of the thundery element node domicruts heavy, thundery showers pushing up from the south, and they will continue to work their way north and eastwards through england and wales to this evening and overnight. that band of rain weakening as it pulls northwards through scotland. clear spells developing behind that band, quite gusty winds were channel coasts. but another mild night, 10—13 c the

overnight low. showers will clear through the morning to leave some sunshine behind. showers pushing in from the west. not everyone will see them and some will stay dry with the best of the sunshine feeling mild if not warm in the sunshine, 15—18 c. it stays mild in the week ahead, both by day and by night. also further spells of rain for many of us.

this is bbc news. the headlines at 6pm: rishi sunak officially joins rishi sunak officiallyjoins the race to be the next conservative leader and prime minister. saturn in the culture secretary _ leader and prime minister. saturn in the culture secretary went - leader and prime minister. saturn in the culture secretary went public . the culture secretary went public with her support for him. penny mordaunt is still in the running despite running a distant third. she told the bbc she believes in cabinet led politics. i third. she told the bbc she believes in cabinet led politics.— in cabinet led politics. i have my views and _ in cabinet led politics. i have my views and i _ in cabinet led politics. i have my views and i won't _ in cabinet led politics. i have my views and i won't be _ in cabinet led politics. i have my views and i won't be imposing i in cabinet led politics. i have my - views and i won't be imposing policy in a room that ijust made up by myself. in a room that i 'ust made up by m self. , , in a room that i 'ust made up by m self. , ., myself. does boris johnson have enou:h myself. does boris johnson have enough backers _ myself. does boris johnson have enough backers to _ myself. does boris johnson have enough backers to stand - myself. does boris johnson have enough backers to stand as - myself. does boris johnson have | enough backers to stand as well? myself. does boris johnson have - enough backers to stand as well? the labour leader sir keir starmer says his party hasn't got