17/10/2016 Newsnight

Astride the River Tigris, a city of over two million,

But now a war zone, the fight to drive ISIS out and to get

This is perhaps the closest thing to a straight good-versus-evil

battle that will occur anywhere this year, at least, outside of fiction.

It's certainly worth understanding it, so we'll be

examining the military, humanitarian and political

Also tonight, this man was recently thought to be

Today he said the party is in a "death spiral" and has

This man still wants to be leader of the party -

And find out what our technology editor David Grossman is breathing

What I'm not separated from is the fumes. You can taste them. But what

am I breathing in? This bike has been set with an air quality

monitor. Will Brexit mean weaker

air quality laws? The battle has been long-awaited:

the so-called Islamic State has been in control of Mosul for over two

years and is now defending it against an alliance of Iraqi army,

Kurdish fighters, some controversial Shia militias and, of course,

some US forces, too. This is not the battle

to eradicate IS completely. It is a fight to drive the group

into a humiliating But there are myriad

challenges ahead. It sometimes motivates its fighters

by executing the ones Then there is the humantarian

challenge, 1.5 million There will, at some point

after the battle, be a need Think of how difficult it has been

between the republicans and unionists in Northern Ireland,

and then ask how hard it will be We'll be looking at all these,

but first, here's our diplomatic To the east of Mosul today

the first easy victories. But signs also of the IS group's

capacity to resist. A car speeds into a group of Kurdish

armoured vehicles before IS may be losing, but it's

still ready to defend Lots of the Isis leaders

and many of the fighters will turn towards Raqqa and Syria

as their last stronghold But I think it will be easier

to defeat Isis then, because we have to bear in mind Isis

is 95, if not more, percent, If they are pushed out of Iraq

into Syria I think it The city is now surrounded,

or almost so, a narrow corridor is being left open to the west

to allow IS fighters Kurdish brigades are now pushing

in from the east and north. Shia militias will advance

from the south-west. Given the risk of sectarian

conflict, these elements are meant Iraqi federal troops and loyal Sunni

militia will then enter the city Why leave a corridor open and drop

leaflets on the city for weeks before when that would seem

to violate any idea of surprise, Well, the answer lies in concerns

about the more than 1 million people And the feeling that if there is any

sort of prolonged fighting in that urban space it could have

dire humanitarian consequences. Mosul, you are talking

about 1.5 million of population. Can you imagine if Daesh

would take the risk? I'm sure they would do it,

to push the civilians to leave the city then you have

1 million refugees. It's going to be one

of the worst catastrophes. The aim is to keep the different

militias apart once the city's taken, because Mosul has long been

a cockpit of rivalry between Sunni Isis as a force has more or less

kept all the guns pointing In other words, pointing

towards Isis themselves. After they are defeated militarily

it's much more likely for us to see And we are not just talking

about sectarian Shia-Sunni conflict, but Sunni-Sunni conflict,

Shia-Shia conflict and And if losing Mosul would be

a heavy blow for IS, it still has its Syrian

stronghold of Raqqa. The prospect of an assault

there is still distant. In Syria I think it's

much more complicated. In Syria it took a dimension

like Kafkaesque, a crisis, it has I don't know, when we compare it's

much easier to see Iraq Ten years ago the Islamic State

was proclaimed in And it was overwhelmed

by a combination of force and splits The Islamic State in the form

that it is now being fought involved many of the same people,

tribes and places. And there's the warning

from history. If there isn't a convincing

political solution for those Sunni communities it's quite likely that

another form of the same jihadist ideology will break out

into the open again. The Mosul offensive can deal

with the immediate problem of a Jihadist group holding a major

Iraqi city, but what it do is soothe -- but what it cannot do is soothe

the ruling sectarianism of that country and the sense of grievance

felt by many Sunnis. Well, Mark has set out some

of the difficulties - and we are going to take these step

by step now. I'm joined by retired US

Army Colonel Peter Mansoor, who was an executive officer

to General David Petraeus in Iraq and is now a professor of military

history at Ohio State University. Rachel Harvey, who is an emergency

responder with British charity ShelterBox, who is joining us

from Irbil in Iraq. Toby Dodge, an international

relations expert from the LSE, is in the studio along

with Renad Mansour, a fellow of Chatham House

and Middle East expert. The evening. Let's start with the

military. -- good evening. Peter, you are in military expert. How

painful can IS make this military operation to get the city back? It

is going to the slow grind. As General Steve Townsend, the

commander of US forces in Iraq has said, the battle is going to take

weeks maybe months to culminate. The Prime Minister of Iraq wants to

finish it by the end of the year. The result is inevitable. The Iraqi

forces with US air support will end up crashing Isis. But it'll be a

hard fight for that to happen. The enemy has had more than two years to

dig in to urban landscape. Exciting palls of oil to darken the skies.

And make it harder for air strikes to target him. -- igniting pools of

oil. He has lit roadside bombs. The Kurdish forces will meet a stiff

resistance from an enemy that had a long time to prepare a battlefield

all the way. Many have said that the outcome is not really in doubt. That

assembly the numbers, is it, the numbers on the offensive to take the

city of the outnumbering those in city defending? -- that assessment

is the numbers. You may have upwards of 6000, 8000 Isis fighters in the

city. Opposing them are tens of thousands of Iraqi troops, Kurdish,

Shi'ite militias if they are needed. And they are backed up by US air

power and coalition air power that can make any defensive position a

shambles at the drop of a bomb. You will see a lot of firepower being

used and artillery guided rockets, as well. This will be a one-sided

fight. Does that raise the possibility that in rescuing the

people of Mosul that a lot of them will be killed in the process? I

think that inevitable, quite frankly. This is war. You cannot a

bloodless combat. They've left open an avenue for escape for civilians.

It is doubtful Isis will allow the civilians to flee. Isis wants a

humanitarian catastrophe to use it as propaganda. This is going to be

tough on the people of Mosul. But if you want to end the war against Isis

you have to take the city. Thanks. Just on the timing. Months, not

weeks, is this what we think of this military offensive? The analysis is

completely correct. We are not even in the city yet. It is important to

note. It'll take some time to move in, take the villages, especially

because it is coalition forces, many of them don't agree or coordinate

with each other. But they only have one enemy. They are looking to get

rid of that one enemy, which is the so-called Islamic State. And they

need to limit civilian casualties. Some generals we are speaking to

have said it is a matter of interest, inch by inch, and block

could take days to take over inside the city. They are conscious of the

fact that it isn't just military, they need to make sure the civilian

population is OK what happens. That brings us to the issue of the

humanitarian crisis. Rachel Harvey, I wonder if I can talk to you about

that. Set out, you are over in Irbil, just set out how ready you

are, and what expectations there are of a humanitarian out poor from the

people of Mosul. In a sense it has been a strange response falls. --

strange response. We don't normally get this kind of forewarning of the

humanitarian crisis. Normally we are reacting to an event after something

has happened. That is a positive. But other than that everything is

unknown. We don't know how many people are in the city at the

moment. It is all estimates. We don't know how many of those people

will be able to flee. We don't know when they will flee or in which

direction they will flee. It is a challenging situation to know how to

best respond. We've had months of planning. That has allowed

organisations to pre-position aid in places as close to the areas where

we think people will arrive. ShelterBox Is one of many

organisations working together. It'll come down to communication to

see our effective this response can be. We will have to be flexible. We

will have to adapt to events as they unfold on the ground. The

humanitarian response will be dictated by what happens militarily.

As the military response on faults we will have to react to the impact

of that. -- on faults -- unfolds. The people will probably escaped the

Kurdish areas, won't they? That is our working assumption at the

moment. But this is a region that has already taken in a number of

people, both Syrian refugees and Iraqis already displaced by conflict

over the past two years. This area would say it is already struggling

to look after those people already here. And now it is going to be

expected to take hundreds of thousands more people. There is a

scarcity of land on which to build camps. There is a shortage of

resources. And with the best well, with all of these uncertainties of

war you can plan a military operation as tight as you possibly

can but when it comes down to it military operations don't always go

100% smoothly. The humanitarian community is trying to make sure we

have aid in key places to cover an area wherever people are likely to

come. They are going to need shelter, food, they may need health,

they will certainly need some kind of protection. We are trying to get

all of those things together in key places so we can respond to all

their needs. These are likely to be highly traumatised people and

exhausted people. The arranges inhospitable. Most of these people

will have walked, having experienced the conflict which is getting

underway and before that having lived under IS the two years. -- the

terrain is inhospitable. They will be in a state before we get to them.

What happens when the inevitable military victory, however long it

takes, succeeds? That is the There's been a lot of planning and

training for the military campaign. My own best research suggests there

has been little or no thinking about the political aftermath. If we lock

at the aftermath of the invasion of 2003, aftermath of the surge in

2007, I think we see military capacity, military power being

deployed to deliver political solutions. Daesh, the Islamic State,

are violent, barbaric group is simply a cause of a series of

political failings and no-one has quite worked out how to reform the

Iraqi system to integrate those sections of the population that are

alienated and stop the Islamic State recruiting again. The Prime Minister

of Iraq, a man who was resident in the UK for quite a few years,

Manchester university, everybody seems to say he is something a

reconciler. Is he doing his best? Is he a baddie or a goody? He's doing

his best. Clearly, if you look at the opinion poll ratings, especially

after replacing al-Maliki, he was recognised or greeted with optimism.

However, he's incredibly weak in a fractured and internally divided

cabinet. He has little or no power. He doesn't control the Shia

militias. He doesn't control the Peshmerga. The Ministry of Defence

has been sacked over a vote of no confidence in the Parliament. Do you

agree with what we've heard about the state of the political set

newspaper Iraq? 100% agree. The biggest problem with Abadi is he is

facing many forces. The biggest are within his own camp, including the

former Prime Minister. He's still there. He's still looking for a

chance to bring Abadi down. Don't talk about sectarianism, there's an

internal Shia struggle that he is facing. This is what I heard in

Mark's piece. I was not aware - we all know Sunni-Shia. It's the

multiple dimensions. Post-2003 system is so ill legitimate, so

broken that it's not only Sunnis, it's Shias. There's a mass protest

movement from the summer of 2015 onwards de crying almost universal

corruption amongst the governing elite asking in a once oil-rich

country why they can't get electricity at the height of the

summer. We have a completely dysfunctional system. No-one has

come up with a plan to fix it. What would be your plan to fix it? What

is the political settlement that you're waiting for that would be

different to the period after the surge or original invasion, when it

did basically retreat into the most awful situation very quickly? I

think the period after the surge might offer a good example of

bringing the disenfranchised populations back to the bargaining

table. We need to sustain that. We have a military victory that we're

looking for. No-one is talking about the political victory. We have

plans, many different plans, but no plan. When you bring them back to

the table, what is this that you're going to get them to agree on? Is it

an autonomous region for the Sunnis so they're like the Kurds and it's a

more federal system? Again, it's very complicated. They have

different ideas of what they want. This is complicated. We need to give

them autonomy, to build systems of local governance in local provinces

so they can start to deal with their own affairs. This is what the former

Prime Minister did. They need to get them to discuss because

communication is the key to this. We've learned enough tonight,

probably enough for one evening. Thank you all very much indeed.

Stephen Woolfe, the man who was among the favourites to take

the leadership until that altercation in Strasbourg,

There are no hopes as far as I'm concerned.

I will be withdrawing my application to become leader of Ukip.

I'm actually withdrawing myself from Ukip.

I just don't think that Ukip, in this bible it has got,

where you have elected politicians fighting

each other, where there is just this visceral

hatred, in some cases toward Nigel or anyone

that is seen to be associated with him.

Some people call me his puppet for standing, and things like that.

Whilst that's happening, not only are they letting down the members,

but they are actually letting down themselves.

And I don't think at this stage Ukip is governable.

I'm joined now by Raheem Kassam, a Ukip leadership candidate

and the editor in chief of Breitbart London.

What's happened to Stephen and his ambition to be leader? I think he's

been through a really tough time. He went through a gruelling leadership

campaign the last time. The tactics got nasty. I don't think we should

see that inside our own party. We are a family. It shouldn't come to

those things. Stephen was particularly, more than anyone, on

the receiving end of the bullying, quite frankly. The fight, was he

going to be found guilty of partaking in a fight or starting it?

Because some said he was the one who said "Come outside." He said he

wasn't doing that meaning let's have a fight, but to take the argument

outside. Is that part of the thing here, that he was going to be

blocked from the leadership? Stephen wasn't innocent in that fracas. I

think he will admit, at least privately, that he bears some cull

pability for what happened there. I'm not going to prejudge. But from

what I've heard there's equal cull pability. He's saying he was hit.

We're not there, we await other investigations. The leadership

situation now. Would you support Nigel Farage saying look, I'm going

to stay on or I'm going to stand in this leadership election? He seems

to be the only one who can hold the party together. He's told me he's

not going to. You'd like it if he did, though? Other than it would

slightly thwart your ambitions. I'm young, I'm all right. It's up to

him. I think there's a lot of appetite in the party for Nigel

Farage. I've already said if I become the leader, he will be the

honorary president of the party. I think it needs to retain him in some

way. Ukip is Nigel. Nigel is Ukip. Some post that keeps him on the

side. The other candidate, because there was a determination about the

rules. Suzanne Evans, a frequent guest on this programme. She can

stand this time. She was blocked last time. Would you welcome her?

Absolutely. I've always said throughout the last, crazy ten days

that we should have an open contest. You could serve under her. If she

won you'd be delighted to serve under her? We know the party is

riven by splits and divisions and you're in a different division to

her. Could you unite under Suzanne Evans? It's a tough question. I'm

not sure she would take the party in the direction I would want it to go.

I would commit to this: Not attacking her if she won the

leadership. You might even leave the party if she became leader? No, I

wouldn't. People need to stick with this. People want Brexit. They don't

want a one party state. They want real opposition to the Tories.

Labour's not delivering it. Who are you supporting in the American

election? I would probably support Donald Trump. Patrick O'Flynn,

himself a candidate in the general election, he tweeted the choice

ahead for Ukip, in a way it encollapse late everything, is

whether to be the patriotic party of the common sense centre of of UK

politics or go Trump, ult-right. Doesn't that just encapsulate the

split in your party, between the Trump ones... I replied. I said it's

a silly, false dichotomy. You think Trump is a common sense patriot? No,

everybody in Ukip. Don't you think people think Trump is completely off

the scale who would say if you're a Trump person, I'm not for you. Trump

divides the world. Look, we're in Central London right now. It's

disgusting to support Donald Trump in Central London. I'm not taking a

view on it. I'm explaining this - If you say Trump is an inspiration to

you... Now you're putting words in my mouth. It's not so much that he's

an inspiration to me but I think Hillary Clinton would be bad for

America. That's all it comes down to - who is better. Do you think

there's a sort of fight gene in Ukip supporters, I don't just mean in the

boxing match, but all seem to just pick arguments. On Twitter tonight

arguing with Al Murray. What is it about you guys and fighting. A

already Murray -- Al Murray is funny, he gets the Jock lar element

of it. There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek behind some of this

stuff. It's not all animosity all the time. There's a lot of

playfulness here. Honestly. You're looking at me exceptically. I mean

that. But I also think it has come a point where it's too much because of

the crisis in Ukip, it doesn't know what it stands for. I want to make

the party great again. I will do it, 100,000 members if I'm leader. Thank

you very much for coming on. ( If there is one organisation that

has been competing with Ukip in the struggle to settle

on a leader, it's the independent It just cannot break free

of distracting headlines about itself and its personnel

problems, rather than The chair, Alexis Jay,

today tried to clarify the inquiry's But the legacy of the last chair,

Lowell Goddard, lives on in the form of argument and recrimination,

involving the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, and her

permanent secretary. What did they know

about Lowell Goddard, Our political editor, Nick Watt,

has been following the row. it is one of the most ambitious

inquiries in British history, but it has been plagued by disputes at

almost every stage. Today the three people who have the future of

Britain's national child abuse inquiry in their hands moved to draw

a line under this most troubled of investigations. But first, remember

this... Order. Statement the Secretary of State for the home

department. Secretary Theresa May. I would like to make a statement about

the sexual abuse of children... Theresa May has enormous political

capital invested in this inquiry, after she overcame some scepticism

to set it up and then had to appoint three consecutive chairs after the

first two stumbled. With questions raging about the resignation about

her third chair, the Prime Minister is keen to focus on the main purpose

of the inquiry. Dame Lowell Goddard resigned shortly after the Home

Secretary and I talked about these issues. Let's remember, the point of

the inquiry is that there are many people who have suffered from child

abuse, who over the years, have felt that their voice was being ignored.

Nobody was listening to them. They deserve justice. Until today, this

was the Government's official explanation for the abrupt

resignation of Goddard on August 4. Ultimately she found it too lonely.

She was a long way from home. She decided to step down. That's all the

information I have about why she decided to go. Last week, the Times

reported that this man, Mark Sedwell, her most senior official

was alerted six days earlier to criticism of her management skills

and allegedly racist views. Today, the Home Secretary offered a fresh

explanation. Dame Lowell had not spoke ton me about her reasons, so I

relied on the letter she had sent to the committee. In her letter, she

said she was lonely and felt that she could not deliver and that was

why she stepped down. Dame Lowell strongly refutes the allegations

about her. The only way we could understand properly why she resigned

would be to hear from Dame Lowell. That original appearance before the

Select Committee may still cause trouble for the Home Office.

Newsnight understand that's there is unease amongst some MPs that Mark

Sedewell sat in silence when Rudd made her statement last month. One

observer said Sedwell, highly regarded by the Prime Minister,

faces a decisive day when he appears before the committee tomorrow.

As MPs debated the inquiry, along the river its new chair issued a

rare public statement. This was short on specifics, but Professor

Alexis Jay appeared to nod towards a scaling back of its work. If we were

to pursue the traditional public hearing model that people associate

with inquiries of this kind to the thousands and thousands of

institutions in England and Wales, we would fail. There is no

possibility that we can do that. However, we will apply it to some,

that will not be the main ways in which we will take this inquiry

forward. The Prime Minister, the Home

Secretary and a new enquiry chair will be hoping some answers into a

dark past may be provided by the end of the decade. But for now questions

will continue to hang over this enquiry.

As you heard, tomorrow the Home Secretary and her permanent

secretary will appear before the Commons Home Affairs

One of its members and a candidate for the chairmanship,

Good evening. Do you think Amber Rudd unreasonably misled the

committee when she met before and said, you know, Dame Lowell Goddard

art resigned because she was isolated and wanted to go home? When

the Home Secretary gave evidence to us on the committee she was

referring to the reasons that were given to her by Dame Lowell Goddard

art as to why she left. Whether at that point there was more, we don't

know. There might have been legal reasons to speculate why she had

gone. But Dame Goddard has gone now. There are a number of issues that go

beyond the head of enquiry. One is the extent to which the controlling

mind of the enquiry is impacted or influenced by the Home Office.

Before 1971 the Home Office had a role in inspecting and approving the

heads of children's homes were a lot of these awful things happened. If

you have an enquiry that is dominated by Home Office personnel

that's possible. I dated anybody has an issue with Herrerin abilities.

She was in the social work profession for over three decades.

-- with her abilities. We shouldn't sweep that under the carpet. That

needs to be dealt with. Are you suggesting maybe it needs another

chair? Alexis J isn't the right chair? I'm not saying that. --

Alexis Jay. Some survivors will not trust a social worker. The question.

I'm not raising that. The survivors are. -- that is a good question.

They have got to be the primary concern. If they say that is an

issue for then you have to deal with it, you cannot pretend it away. Some

hope we can just get on with this, we cannot keep changing the head.

Absolutely. I think people chair that view. The professor will be

appearing tomorrow in front of the committee. She wants this to be done

by 2020. One of the controversy is coming out the Department of Dame

Goddard is that you should forget about the past and focus on the

future. I would say that would be wholly unacceptable to my

constituents. What happened to them may have been in the past but they

live with it every day and will continue to do so in the future. One

of the things Dame Goddard suggested was that there was under sourcing of

the enquiry. But they refounded the Home Office. This is why it would be

good to have judge Goddard B there. -- Goddard be there. Were they

sitting on this? I don't know. That will be a line of enquiry. Thanks

very much. At one point, we were

expecting a decision It's probably next week now,

but hey, we've been waiting 48 years so another few days is neither

here nor there. But Nick Watt is back with me

with news on how the Government might push Heathrow,

if it is selected as the favoured What are they thinking? The Cabinet

will discuss tomorrow whether or where to build a new runway in the

south-east. We know that the Cabinet subcommittee will meet next week,

will make a decision, announced it next week. The government is

planning to hold a Commons vote within a week of that announcement.

They are obliged to hold a formal vote. It is a national strategy

policy statement. Within a few months. But they want to go much

earlier to stop opponents building up steam. If they were to go to

Heathrow, Zac Goldsmith could have his by-election but they would hope

they would have the numbers in parliament to have parliament

approve it by then. There is speculation they might overheat and

Gatwick. I am told they will go for one of the three options. -- there

is speculation they might have one at Heathrow and Gatwick. Tell us

which one. You must know. If you are going to one option, it looks like

you are following the airports commission. If you are following

Howard Davies you are going for a third runway at Heathrow. But

ministers are saying no decision has been made yet. The Prime Minister

wants to hear from the Cabinet. They will follow the information. Those

members on the subcommittee have a pile of papers, they need to do

their homework, then they will publish it.

Well, airports and aeroplanes are often seen as one of the main

culprits of toxic emissions by those who seek to improve

But those of us who bought diesel cars, thinking that would help,

have known for a while now that we are actually poisoning our fellow

citizens with toxic emissions that are far worse than we'd

down or use Brexit as a chance to dump the EU-mandated levels

Our technology editor, David Grossman, has been looking

at the UK's commitment - or lack thereof - to cleaner air.

The cycle path up the side of the A3 is not the prettiest

but it is pretty fast, and at least I am separated

What I'm not separated from, of course, are the fumes.

This bike has been fitted with an air quality monitor.

The main thing it's measuring is nitrogen dioxide.

What that does to the human body can be pretty nasty.

In simple terms that's going to increase your susceptibility

It's going to increase your risk of having, say,

It's going to make you more susceptible

If you've got asthma or sensitive lungs it might make you more prone

A strict EU limit came into force in 2010.

An annual mean of 40 micrograms per cubic metre of air.

However, the government won't enforce it until 2024

for the UK as a whole, and even later, 2025, for London.

Frankly it's enough to make you want to hold your breath

And here is the 40 micrograms annual mean limit.

My journey up the A3 was swimming in nitrogen dioxide.

But the biggest spike of the day was appropriately enough

Tomorrow the environmental lawyers Client Earth are continuing their

We need to go back to court now with the government because this

government in the 35 years that I've been doing environmental work

is the most reluctant to follow the law when it comes to important

We have 40,000 people a year dying early in the UK

And the government has done in its heels and said we're just not

going to comply anywhere near the time we are supposed to.

They were supposed to comply in 2010.

They are now saying in London it will be 2025.

But their own plan shows it won't be anywhere near 2025.

So why has the UK struggled to meet air quality laws that were supposed

Up until May Stephen Heidari-Robinson was David Cameron's

adviser on energy and the environment.

He says one reason is we do too much computer modelling and not

As you've done today, going around and actually measuring

things, it's probably the right way forward.

I think the second is you sort of look at these numbers

and you struggle to see why they are not going down.

And that's a large proportion of what happened with the VW scandal.

It turns out that actually emissions from diesel vehicles are six times

This problem is largely about diesel vehicles.

Really we need to address that issue if we want to solve

But given the scale of solving that problem, and meeting

those EU legal limits, there is some concern

that the government might try to use Brexit to abandon them or perhaps

Last month the Commons environment audit select committee couldn't get

Are you giving a commitment that standards will be higher,

or at least at the level of the European standards?

I'm saying to you what I've said to you previously,

that we want better air quality we have today.

-- that we want better air quality than we have today.

And that's what we'll be working, to that outcome.

Today we have enforceable legal standards.

I'm just wondering if you were going to keep them, that's all,

Will the government which is so reluctant to comply

with the law try to move away in the Brexit process?

And so will thousands of our citizens.

It would actually give us the best standards in the world.

In the meantime air pollution continues to damage thousands

As for me I think I'll take the long route through the park from now on.

in The Times on a story that David Cameron wasted ?1 billion on the

Troubled Families Programme. They suppressed the report. They wasted

money on that particular scheme. That's almost it for tonight,

but if you're not fortunate enough to have a baby boomer index linked

final salary pension, you probably didn't attend

the Desert Trip concert in California this weekend,

unkindly dubbed Oldstock The average age of the

headline acts was 72, The cheapest seat was $199,

the most expensive $3,000. Anyway, for everyone else,

here it is in 40 seconds. # People try to put us down

# Talking about my generation #. # Been around for many a long year

#. # I hope I die before I get old #.

# All we are saying... #. # We are just two young souls

swimming in a fishbowl # Year after year #.

If you have managed to avoid the showers over the past few days it

has felt good in the sunshine. A chillier feel thanks to a cold front

which will sweep down the country in the next few hours. Away from that,

sunshine, but some showers tomorrow in northern parts of the UK,

Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Temperature is