15/03/2017 BBC News at Six

The Chancellor makes a U-turn on his Budget plan to raise national

Today the PM was picking up the pieces.

We will bring forward further proposals but we will not bring

forward increases to Nics later in this Parliament.

The climbdown follows a backlash from Tory and opposition MPs alike.

And we have a Budget that falls most heavily on those

Isn't it welcome that the Prime Minister today has

admitted she is returning with her screeching, embarrassing

We'll be asking how the Chancellor will make up

Relief after Royal Marine Alexander Blackman's murder conviction

for killing a wounded Taleban fighter is reduced to manslaughter.

Killed while on a beach holiday in India.

Police are treating Danielle McLaughlin's death as murder.

Millions in Somalia - and across the region -

British charities launch an emergency appeal.

The woman who argued she deserved more from her mother's will.

Coming up in Sportsday later in the hour on BBC News:

Another good day for the bookmakers at Cheltenham Festival

as the outsider, Special Tiara, wins the Queen Mother

Good evening and welcome to the BBC's News at Six.

The Chancellor Philip Hammond has been forced into a U-Turn over last

week's budget plan to increase National Insurance contributions

It follows a backlash both inside and outside parliament.

Several Tory backbenchers had joined in the criticism,

leaving Mr Hammond AND Theresa May under fire for breaking

Today Labour called it a humiliating climbdown.

Here's our Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg.

If number 11 is your front door, changing your mind about what is in

the box is a very big deal. Shifting only a week after your Kodak moment.

Embarrassing indeed. New Treasury colleagues, seven days later,

keeping quiet. Does this represent a U-turn by the Government? Was the

Chancellor wrong? Worse still when it is your boss who makes the

announcement at the biggest political event of the week.

Questions to the Prime Minister. The trend towards greater

self-employment does create a structural issue in the tax base. We

will bring forward further proposals but we will not bring forward

increases to Nics later in this Parliament. Tax hikes 40 million

self-employed people suddenly completely off. We have just heard

the Prime Minister is about to drop the national insurance hike

announced only a week ago. It seems to me like a government in a bit of

chaos here. The PM and her next-door neighbour hardly looked too

concerned. A budget that unravels in seven days. The idea would have

broken a Tory manifesto promise. They were then lambasted for a total

change of heart. Though she agree that government should stick to its

manifesto promises and, if so, she cannot object to the First Minister

sticking to hers? Is that why they want to abolish bring budgets

because they just keep whipping them up? Number 11 and Number 10 only

made the decision at eight o'clock this morning, choosing humiliation

today. How humiliating is the tax U-turn for the Chancellor? Ask the

Chancellor. Over a row that could have lasted for months. The man

himself charged with managing the nation's counts had to explain how

his careful spread cheap calculations they'll be political

test. This government sets great store in the faith and trust of the

British people, especially while we negotiate our exit from the European

Union. Making this change today we are listening to our colleagues and

demonstrating our determination to fulfil both the letter and the

spirit of our manifested tax commitment. Number 11 had defended

the idea. Number 10 had as well. The atmosphere soured over the weekend.

Sources suggested on Monday a group of senior MPs told Theresa May the

idea would not wash. Today, in a move, one former minister branded as

extraordinary, suddenly, the man was gone. We made it very clear it was

not something we would support. The campaign against it and vote against

it. They listened to us. It showed in some ways he was a strong

Chancellor if he admitted he made a mistake and did a U-turn. I am

delighted. The ground was not that well prepared and the mathematics

did not add up. What we have is a delay and I suspect some hard

thinking about what the best way back to his political home.

Chancellors have to be trusted. Reputations round here are hard and

easy to lose. Well, the scrapping of the rise

in national insurance contributions leaves a big hole

in the Chancellor's Budget plans Mr Hammond has already

pledged to increase So, where does today's U-turn leave

the public finances? Here's our Economics

Editor Kamal Ahmed. It was a tax rise and a gift

to the headline writers. The Chancellor knew he had

a problem when he sat down to breakfast the day after

the Budget, faced with an avalanche He was trying to tackle this

issue, the new world of work and the growth in the number

of self-employed who are taxed less Many supported the increase

in national insurance contributions but expressed their

disappointing that today politics This is a disappointing

move that the increase in class 4 national

insurance won't be going ahead because that increase closed some of

the discrepancies between employees and the self-employed

in our tax system. It largely hit the better orf

self-employed with the lowest earning self-employed

not losing at all. This was Philip Hammond's rather

neat Budget plan a week ago. He made three big

spending commitments. More money on social

care, ?2.4 billion. And more money for business rate

relief and education. It's claimed those costs would be

balanced by two big tax rises. A ?2.6 billion tax rise

on dividends from shares people own as an investment and

the controversial one, a ?2 billion increase in National Insurance

contributions from That has now been scrapped,

leaving Mr Hammond with a The big promise

at the last election. This Government would not

raise direct taxes, so The problem summed

up in a Tweet this afternoon by the Government's own

employment adviser, Matthew Taylor. It was never sensible to put

in a manifesto pledge that you would not increase rates of national

insurance or income tax or VAT. Those are the three biggest

taxes we have by far. To tie your hands for five years

for those three big taxes never looked like a

sensible thing to do. He is not the first and he would be

the last Chancellor to see a budget unravel over

failures to see political elephant Mr Hammond has said he will fill

the ?2 billion black hole caused by today's U-turn at the next

budget in the autumn. It is, for the moment,

completely unclear how. Our Political Editor Laura

Kuenssberg is in Downing Street. How damaging is this, not just the

Chancellor but the Prime Minister? It does not exactly smack of

confidence in government or peace and harmony in Downing Street, does

it? One of the difficult thing for Theresa May and Philip Hammond is

inside the Conservative Party there is no agreement over whether this

was a good thing to do to drop the plan. One senior Tory told me it

would have been madness in the first place to introduce this idea. On the

other side one senior MPs said they were livid the Government had

dropped this because it creates an impression they can be pushed around

by relatively small groups of people who are objecting. I think in the

hole, when it comes to policy the Government puts out there, and

frankly it looks like it will not fly, they have two choices. Do they

let it drag on for months and months, causing political damage day

after day, or do they whip off the plaster, get the pain out of the way

quickly? Here in Downing Street that is what they have decided to do. No

question about it, particularly for a Chancellor, his job above all else

is to be trusted to be a safe pair of hands. This has not been a good

day at the office and it will not be forgotten very fast.

A former Royal Marine who shot dead an injured Taliban fighter

in Afghanistan has won his appeal against a conviction for murder.

Sergeant Alexander Blackman had it quashed by five judges in London,

who replaced it with manslaughter on the grounds of

His wife, Claire Blackman, who's led a campaign

against the murder verdict, said she was delighted.

Here's our Defence Correspondent, Jonathan Beale.

Claire Blackman's led this long, but never lonely fight to have her

Today, she arrived at court hoping for good news.

In 2013, the military court found Alexander Blackman,

better known as Marine A, guilty of murdering a Taliban

insurgent in Afghanistan, but today, the Appeal Court concluded

There was a tear in her eye when she heard that news.

Outside court, she and her supporters savoured the moment.

We are delighted with the judge's decision to substitute manslaughter

This is a crucial decision and one that much better reflects

the circumstances that my husband found himself in during that

The incident in Helmand in 2011 was all filmed on a helmet camera.

This, the moment the Royal Marine patrol called in a helicopter

to target two Taliban insurgents, one of whom was wounded.

We are not allowed to show what happens next as the patrol reaches

him. Obviously, this doesn't

go anywhere fellas. But three leading psychiatrists told

the court that the tough tour had taken its toll

on Blackman's mental health. What had happened

to him during the time he was in Afghanistan, on that

particular tour, is his ability to think rationally and to exercise

rational judgment had slowly The Appeal Court concluded that

Alexander Blackman had been suffering from an adjustment order

when he killed that insurgent. But speaking for the first time,

those who served alongside him in Afghanistan say there

were other pressures too. It wasn't evidence heard

in court but among those Marines with Blackman,

on that patrol, there's plenty of sympathy and little regret

about what happened. I think it's just another day

in Afghanistan and that's the way it goes out there and none of us got

hurt so it was a successful day, Clare Blackman will

still have to wait to be No longer a murderer but he's

still guilty of manslaughter. The court has to decide on that

sentence, but the man known as Marine A could soon be

freed from prison. You can see more on that tonight

in a special Panorama, in which some of the men who served

with Sergeant Blackman speak It's called Marine A -

The Inside Story - and it's on at 10:50pm

here on BBC One. Twelve police forces have sent files

to the Crown Prosecution Service As part of their investigations into

allegations of overspending during the last

The CPS will now decide whether charges should be brought.

On Saturday police questioned

for South Thanet, Craig MacKinlay, over allegations that local campaign

It's also emerged that Colchester MP Will Quince was interviewed

by police back in January, but was told he would face

A man's been arrested after an Irish woman was found dead near a beach

in the popular Indian tourist area of Goa.

Danielle McLaughlin, who was in her twenties,

was from County Donegal. She had been a student in Liverpool and had

a British passport. Police are treating her death

as suspected murder. Our correspondent Yogita Limaye

is in Canacona in Goa. What are the police saying about

this awful killing? It is in this field behind me that her body was

found yesterday morning, police say she had injuries on her face and

head. They were initially able to identify her with the help of other

foreign nationals living in the area as well as information from social

media platforms. A couple of hundred meters to my right is the main

highway which connects north and south Goa and there are lots of

beaches and restaurants around that Goa is so well-known for. But this

is quite an isolated spot. I have been speaking to an officer involved

with the investigation and he has told me they believe they have got

the main culprit, that they have compelling evidence including CCTV

footage, a two wheeled vehicle with blood stains on it and some clothes

with blood on them. Thank you. The Chancellor Philip Hammond has

made a U-turn on his budget plan to raise national insurance

contributions for many And still to come: We've

all heard about Michelangelo. But what about the friend

who helped him? A new exhibition at

the National Gallery. Coming up in Sportsday in the next

15 minutes on on BBC News: Can Manchester City reach

the quarter finals of They're in Monaco defending

a 5-3 first leg lead Some of the country's major

charities have launched an emergency appeal to help an estimated

16 million people facing Four countries - South Sudan,

Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia - face an acute shortage of food,

water and medicines. Today, the Foreign Secretary Boris

Johnson visited Somalia where a national disaster

has been declared. You may find some of the images

in this report from our Africa Correspondent Andrew Harding

distressing. The vast, bone dry

plains of Somalia. It's hardly rained

here for three years. The results today are grim,

predictable and getting worse. Many are already dying before

they can reach help. With 3 million people on the verge

of starvation here, the sense But this is a hard place to help,

a famously dangerous country. The capital, Mogadishu,

remains volatile with several attacks here this week blamed

on Islamist militants. Today the British Foreign Secretary

flew in, in part to talk The safer Somalia gets after all,

the easier it becomes to help. But the immediate threat of famine

now overshadows everything here. Talking hard cash at the command

centre for the International aid effort, the British government has

already given ?110 million. One of the things we are trying

to do is because we've put 110 in, we're trying to get other countries

to come in with us. And to those thinking

about digging into their pockets for the appeal back in Britain,

would their money be well spent? It would be very well

spent in my view. You have probably 6.2 million people

who are at risk of famine. These guys are trying to reach out

to about 3 million people of the most urgent cases and you've

got cholera now on the rise, kids dying of cholera in this country,

the incidences rising. There are very simple ways

of addressing these problems. It's six years since

Somalia's last famine. In those days the country was even

more dangerous and aid agencies As alarming as things are right now

in Somalia it is clear that lessons have been learned from the last

famine, when so much aid was either stolen or blocked from

reaching those in need. Plenty can and no doubt will go

wrong here but right now, from those in charge,

there is more confidence than panic. And so millions here in Somalia

and across the wider Now to a Supreme Court decision

that clarifies our right to leave our money to whoever

we want - even if it means Melita Jackson left the bulk

of her ?480,000 legacy Her estranged daughter, Heather

Ilott, argued that was unfair. But as our legal correspondent

Clive Coleman reports - the highest court in the land

as taken a different view. For generations, families have been

falling out over wills. When Heather Ilott's

mother died in 2004, she made it crystal clear

that she did not want her She disapproved of her choice

of husband and even insisted any claim Heather might make

after her death be Animals can't tell anyone

about the cruelty they suffer... Melita Jackson left almost

all of her half a million pound fortune to three animal charities

which she had no connection to. In 2007 Heather Ilott challenged

the will and was awarded ?50,000, on the basis that her mother had not

made reasonable provision But in 2015 the Court of Appeal

raised that to ?160,000. This Court unanimously

allows the appeal. Today the Supreme Court restored

the original ?50,000 sum. In a really powerful judgment,

seven justices here at the highest court in the land have reaffirmed

a fundamental principle of English law, that anyone, you or I,

can leave our money to whoever we want, even if that

means our children getting Money from wills makes up around 50%

of the animal charities income. The Supreme Court acknowledged that

charities do an enormous amount of good work and a lot

of that is funded by the generosity of people like Melita Jackson

choosing to leave them money So that key point, her right

to choose, I want to leave my money to that charity and I don't have

to explain why that was, Today's ruling was

welcomed by Don Day. His wife Pat suffered

from dementia before her death. Following a family rift he has

decided to leave his estate to the Alzheimer's Society

and not his daughter. We've had experience

of Alzheimer's and it's dreadful And we decided that we thought that

what little we had would make a little bit of difference

to the research that In this battle of wills,

a daughter has lost out Charity may have been

the winner, but it certainly Other parents at odds

with their children will take note. He was one of the greatest

figures of the Renaissance. A sculptor, painter,

architect and poet - amongst other masterpieces

Michelangelo painted the ceiling An exhibition which opened today

at London's National Gallery sheds new light on his creative

partnership with the less Our Arts Editor, Will Gompertz

tells their intriguing story. As sculptors go,

Michelangelo was pretty good. Michelangelo is the peak

of skill and virtuosity. As you can see from

this marble carving. It shows the virgin and child

with St John the Baptist on the left and if you look at the foot

of Christ down here, that's about to emerge

from the stone and Michelangelo wrote so poetically

about the figure having to be The only snag was,

while Michelangelo was busy decorating the Sistine Chapel's

ceiling, an ambitious young artist called Raphael had arrived in Rome

and started to compete with him for commissions from

the powerful Pope Julius II. Rafael prospered while

Michelangelo toiled. Until he met an artist ten

years his junior called Sebastiano. He comes to Rome at that

moment when Michelangelo Sebastiano becomes friends

with Michelangelo and they begin this very fruitful collaboration

of which this is the first example. Michelangelo would make preparatory

drawings such as this male torso which Sebastiano then

rendered in paint. Without, it would appear,

doing much to turn man into Madonna. The colour, the interest

in the landscape, which Michelangelo was never interested in landscape,

whereas of course, Sebastiano has a real poetic feeling for this

nocturnal landscape with some ruins The stakes are raised

by Cardinal Julio Der Medici He'd commissioned two enormous

biblical altar pieces, the Transfiguration from Raphael

and from Sebastiano, This picture was at the centre

of the extraordinary rivalry between Raphael and Michelangelo

with Sebastiano actually painting on behalf one

could say of Michelangelo. So in a way it's a sort

of proxy battle between Could Sebastiano have done this

without Michelangelo? Michelangelo is fundamental

for Sebastiano's development. This sort of heroic, titanic

character of the representations, these over life-sized figures

who are full of dynamic energy. These come absolutely out

of the mind of Michelangelo. Their remarkable creative

collaboration continued even But eventually ended in acrimony,

with Michelangelo accusing the now You need sunglasses for some of

these pictures today, lots of blue sky in Wales and England and 19

Celsius at Kew Gardens in London, the highest the UK has seen this

year. And 17 the highest in Wales. Not like that everywhere, the South

coast of Wales misty and murky, Northern Scotland seeing some

outbreaks of rain and will again overnight. Some of that reaching two

parts of Northern Ireland. Some of this low cloud, Mr and Mark

advancing into other parts of England and Wales as the night goes

on. Clear spells central and eastern England. High-pressure, some places

warm, getting squeezed southward, this weather front coming through

tomorrow which means Scotland and Northern Ireland with the spell of

brain turning heavier before it clears into the afternoon and sunny

spells return. When to be on the hills in Scotland as the rain feeds

into parts of Northern England, Wales, Western England. The far

south-east mainly dry until after dark, more clout than today. Sunny

spells in Eastern England but not as warm as today. The cold front clears

south on Thursday night, then the change and appeal of the weather by

Friday morning, rural temperatures with a touch of frost across

Northern Britain, icy patches in Scotland, it could well be that

Northern Scotland has the best bet on Friday as we see rain spreading

from north-west to south-east across the UK and is cooler. That cooler,

Wendy, wetter weather will stay with us through the weekend.

That's all from the BBC News at Six - so it's goodbye from me -

and on BBC One we now join the BBC's news teams where you are.