20/11/2017 Newsnight

Political crisis in Germany -

the world's most powerful woman

sees her coalition talks collapse.

As Angela Merkel hits the buffers,

has Brexit just disappeared

off Europe's radar?

And where does that leave us?

Theresa May has won support

of her Cabinet colleagues

to increase their financial

offer to the EU.

But does that have any weight

if there is a power vacuum

at the heart of Europe?

We expect the motion to be moved

tomorrow, the committee set up and

we expect that by Wednesday we

should be able to vote in

Parliament.

Mugabe refused to be cowed by house

arrest or a resignation speech,

so why on earth does Zanu-PF think

they can impeach him in two days?

We'll ask them if the game

plan has gone wrong.

Pure evil, pure fantascist,

or just a dull man whom America

tried to make into a celebrity.

We look at the death of serial

killer Charles Manson.

Will his cult carry on without him?

And an effusive apology

from Paperchase after

advertising in the Daily Mail.

Why are activists claiming

this as a victory?

And what should customers do now?

Good Evening.

It wasn't so long ago

the superlatives abounded:

the world's most powerful woman,

the mother of Europe, or simply,

in her mother tongue.

Mutti.

Tonight Germany's chancellor

Angela Merkel is looking unusually

vulnerable after a collapse

of coalition talks aimed

at forming her next government.

The decision by the

Pro Business Party -

the Free Democrats -

to walk out on the process -

has left Merkel isolated.

She has said she'd rather have

new elections than try and lead

a minority government.

Its Germany's problem

first and foremost.

But its also Europe

and by extension, ours.

Brexit has just sunk rather far down

the list of things Europe's biggest

player needs to think about now.

Our diplomatic editor

Mark Urban covered the German

elections in September.

Here's his take on the

mess two months on.

She has survived so many changes

of government elsewhere,

but now Europe's most powerful

national leader is in trouble.

From the moment the exit polls

came out in September,

it was clear that Angela Merkel had

some tricky coalition

building ahead of her.

Yesterday she apparently gave up

on Plan A, power-sharing

with the Greens and the Liberals,

and today voiced a readiness to go

back to the country.

TRANSLATION: New elections is one

option but for a stable country,

a country that has so many

challenges to face, the option

of a minority government

is something you would want to look

at very carefully.

I will not say never today,

but I am very sceptical and I think

new elections would be

the better solution.

There is still a possible plan B,

a coalition with the left-wing SPD

who have ruled it out up to now

but the fear a new vote.

Chancellor Merkel has said she does

not want to stand down.

She sees herself with the

responsibility to provide stability.

Of course some people think

the situation we have right now

is in fact a testament to her no

longer being able to

provide the stability.

She was not able to bring

the exploratory talks

to a successful end,

so I think what she is trying to do

by saying that she would rather have

new elections than a minority

government is to rope

the social Democrats, the SPD,

that into a rather lustreless,

probably grand, coalition.

But with Germany holding such sway

in Europe the current crisis

could have much wider effects.

France's president could try

to exert a stronger role

if Germany stumbles.

It is interesting for France.

In one sense I think it will mean

that the French are able

to drive the agenda and,

for example, will be dominant

on the European side in the Brexit

negotiations for example.

On the other hand, what it means

for Macron is he is not going to get

a German response to his proposals

on European integration and reform

in the eurozone for some time.

And of course there is Brexit.

Ministers today attended a Cabinet

committee meeting intended

to improve the UK's financial offer

head of a December summit.

But there is deadlock also

on the Irish border and little

chance that Mrs Merkel will be

pushing the other countries to agree

even if she wanted to.

This is not good news for Britain

because if Germany can't focus

on Brexit which has already not been

at the top of its priority list,

then that means that the EU will be

less flexible in its position

in the negotiations.

Talk to British ministers

and you find many still cling

to this idea that Angela Merkel

will deliver a benign

Brexit package.

But among those from the other 27

countries you hear something

altogether different,

that it is Germany that is taking

the tougher stance on the financial

question and it is Germany that now

seeks to organise the others around

a very robust position

on the future terms of trade.

What difference will

a weakened Merkel make?

Well, it will mean she is less

liable to take political risks

in anyone's interests other

than her own.

For the Prime Minister trying

to navigate the shoals of Brexit

with her European partners

an already complex task has just

become even more so.

What concerns me is that if Germany

does not have an established

coalition, making decisions

on tricky issues in Brexit like have

we achieved sufficient progress?

Can we move to the next phase

of the negotiations?

Should we have a

transitional arrangement?

It is going to be more difficult

for Germany and in those

circumstances it seems to me that

moving forward the Brexit

negotiation is made more complicated

by what has happened in Germany

in the last 24 hours.

Angela Merkel has been around

so long she has seen British prime

ministers come and go,

but increasingly people now will be

looking to the post-Merkel era.

Mark Urban.

We will discuss the ramifications it

will have an Brexit in a moment.

Ulrike Franke is a research fellow

from the European Council on Foreign

Relations.

She joins us now from Berlin.

Sticking with Germany, how serious

do you think this is why is proving

so hard this time around?

Well, the

reason why it is so hard is that it

was never the Plan A. It was never

was a project that anyone involved

wanted, it was born out of

necessity. It is not surprising that

it failed.

You're talking about the

colours of the parties that make up

the flag, this is the short term of

the parties that she wanted to bring

with her into the Coalition. You

think that formation has failed for

good, do you?

I think so. These were

the pre-negotiations, not the

official once and they lasted for

four weeks and the three parties

involved could not make up their

minds, could not get together and

this morning, they decided not to

continue this any more.

Do you see a

way through this for Angela Merkel?

For Angela Merkel, yes, at this

point, there are three options. One

is to form a Coalition with someone

else which would be the SPD, the

only party that is left. That seems

very unlikely because they have

excluded that. The other possibility

would be a minority government,

under Angela Merkel. Our European

colleagues and partners in

Scandinavia for instance have a lot

of experience of theirs but this

would be new for Germany, we have

never had it before and it would be

particularly tricky at the moment

with the right-wing party in

Parliament. The last option would be

another round of elections, snap

elections.

It is very rare that the

same leader goes to the same

electorate and does better in such a

short space of time, do you think

she would go back to the polls is it

a double bluff?

Well, it seems that

her personally, she seems to prefer

doing another round of elections to

having a minority government. It is

true that the big concern would be

whether we actually get another

outcome, which is somewhat unlikely,

they may be some shifts but it is

unlikely she will win a stronger

majority. If we have another round

of elections, that would be in

spring, early spring, we might end

up with the result that is very

similar to what we have today and

then we can repeat the whole

process. I will ask you to place

your bets, do you think that Angela

Merkel will remain the German

Chancellor? Yes. I would put money

on that, absolutely.

We are talking

about the arrangement in which she

governs. Thank you very much.

Mark Urban is back and our political

editor, Nick Watt joins us.

At the moment there is all this

follows and we do not really feel

like a priority and even though we

are talking about the divorce

settlement, is anyone listening?

The

UK ministers, they have agreed to at

the 20 billion euros on the table,

no figure will be mentioned, no

figure is meant to be mentioned at

all during the process but it looks

like that 20 billion will double as

Theresa May puts flesh on the bones

of what she meant in her speech in

Florence which he said the UK

would honour its commitments as a

past member of the EU. The key thing

she said today was that the UK and

EU have to jump together. The UK

will not agree to this new money

unless the EU talks about the

transition period. And the future

trade relationship. I spoke to a

leading Brexiteer who said he is

buoyant and relaxed about this, but

I spoke to former Cabinet minister

who said we should not be offering

more money and this former Cabinet

minister, look at the front page,

this former Cabinet minister said to

me that the UK should be trying to

make something of Germany's

political difficulties. This person

said to me, Europe and Germany are

in paralysis, there is a great

opportunity for the UK to set the

agenda.

No greater opportunity than

a crisis. Do you think this new

amount of money will be enough to

make Germany reach for whatever they

can?

A lot of people that you talked

to say that this is about the money.

Recently, I think the

three-dimensional chess has got

harder with the winding end of the

Irish border question. It was always

there as one of the three key

separation issues but it has now

been explicitly stated by some of

the senior Europeans that this has

got to be sorted before they go on

to discuss the wider relationship

and really it has got to be sorted

before the summit is expected on the

14th of December. It went from being

just the money question where this

might well have been enough to move

things forward and make substantial

progress to the Irish question as

well and that is really complicated

now and if I had to bet, I would say

we will not be there by the 14th of

December.

If I asked you whether the

negotiations coming up are, where do

we start?

It is interesting, Michel

Barnier, had some pretty tough

language about the Irish border in a

speech today and also he showed he

has been thinking very carefully

about the future trade relationship.

That Cabinet subcommittee today

talked about that but the whole

Cabinet has not talked about it yet

and Michel Barnier was essentially

saying we are up for a really

ambitious free trade agreement with

the UK but there has to be a level

playing field. If the UK, as the

Chancellor has said decides to go

down the Singapore route and

deregulate

that would not be a level playing

field and the relationship would

have to be quite distant.

The

Speaker in your piece was talking

about a robust approach from

Germany, by the feeling more or less

robust now? They have been very much

so in recent weeks. One hears that

they have even been talking in very

rough terms about a figure that they

want to see, even though as you

said, all of what we heard publicly

by Michel Barnier was that they were

not after an actual figure. They

have been extremely tough, the

question is now, with Angela Merkel

in this crisis, will they hold out.

Probably the default position

because of the difficulties of

negotiating within the 27 is not to

move, rather than to let up.

Thank

you both very much.

Perhaps no one should be surprised

that a dictator who swore he'd rule

to the age of 100 wasn't prepared

to go quietly at 93.

Impeachment proceedings are about to

begin against Robert Mugagbe,

Perhaps no one should be surprised

that a dictator who swore he'd rule

Impeachment proceedings are about to

begin against Robert Mugagbe,

the Zimbabwean President

who led his country to believe he

was about to step down last night.

And then conveniently left that part

out of his long, rambling speech

on the world's stage.

His party, Zanu-PF,

who've led the process

to remove their leader of 37 years,

say they'll start impeachment

proceedings and the whole process

could be over within two days.

Outside Parliament students hit the

streets and boycotted their exams

demanding the man who is the only

President they have ever known to

step down.

We are sick and tired.

We

want him to resign. We want change,

the Constitution should change.

But

perhaps the strongest criticism came

from the group that used to be his

big supporters, the War veterans

group.

Robert Mugabe, go now, your

time is up, please leave statehouse

and let the country start on a new

page.

Well, a draft motion

of the impeachment document has been

leaked and it blames Mr Mugabe

for what it calls an "unprecedented

economic tailspin".

Zanu-PF say he is too old rule

and that he has allowed his wife

Grace to usurp constitutional power.

All bold claims.

So what will happen next?

I spoke earlier to Priscila

Misihairabwi-Mushonga an MP

from the opposition party,

the Movement for Democratic Change.

She told me that the impeachment

process can only happen

with their help.

If the impeachment process is given

what is in the Constitution,

yes, it can certainly

happen by Wednesday.

But it can only happen

with the cooperation

of the opposition and to use this

opportunity to then put the demands

and the things we have

been struggling over,

to then say, for example,

we need to demand that we put

into place the reforms that

will allow a free and fair election.

Because we cannot have the situation

in which the military is so linked

to a political party.

The reason why the military

intervened had nothing to do

with the issues that bothered

the people of Zimbabwe.

It had to do with the fact

that the military took a position

around the particular factions

and that cannot be

allowed to happen.

Nick Mangwana, the Zanu-PF

spokesperson in London joins me now.

The last time you were here you told

me he would be gone in two days.

He

writes his own script and what the

people of Zimbabwe are trying to do

is to make sure that he would not

have that prerogative all the time

and every time until this is played

out.

You are pretty upbeat, you put

him under house arrest and he did

not want to stay and that and you

asked to deliver a resignation

speech and he did not resign and now

he is going to be impeached.

Yes, he

is going to be impeached. 210 MPs

were in the Senate and that is a big

number. We need about 234 to push

the motion through.

You talk as if

he actually abides by constitutional

rules. Your whole impeachment

process is about the fact he does

not abide by the Constitution, so

what makes you think he will listen

to 234 people?

He does abide by the

Constitution.

What has he got to

lose?

Once the parliament says he is

impeached, what is done is done. At

the moment people respect the

authority of the office. Once the

constitution has declared he is no

longer holding the authority of the

office that is done.

Are you willing

to use violence to remove them?

No,

absolutely not.

If he carries on

turning up to work Day after day and

has the office of President around

him...?

He does not work like that.

If he claims to be president, what

you are avoiding right now is

persuading another president because

that will be committing treason.

You

will be prepared to swearing a

general, the vice president who

stepped down, you will be prepared

to swear him in even if Mugabe does

not accept resignation?

Yes.

You

could end up with two men in office

believing they are president?

We

will end up with one claiming to be

president. If he does make a claim

to be president, then he is the one

who has committed treason and we

will deal with him.

Do you think you

underestimated his willingness to

go?

Everyone underestimated

President Mugabe stepping down.

You

have known him a long time.

He has

been ruling as for many years.

What

is interesting for the world looking

in is they do not say Zanu-PF

realise they had a corrupt dictator

at that time and they are going to

change it around, you are carrying

on transition as if it were

seamless. You have stuck by his

abuses as Vice President?

Know it

needs a lot of reform and that will

happen. At the centre of this whole

thing is corruption. If you listen

to the statement that was made by

the general it was corruption and

corruption.

Why should the people in

Zimbabwe believe that the party that

has supported Mugabe for 37 years is

the party that is willing to root

out corruption?

They should have

shown their teeth much earlier than

this, but we are here now and we are

showing teeth. We deserve more

credit for it.

Thank you very much.

The cult leader and serial killer

Charles Manson fascinated

and appalled America.

Like so many of its criminals he

gained a kind of rock star status.

Perhaps he was crazy.

Perhaps he was evil.

Perhaps he was just

a pathetic and dull.

The man who believed he was Jesus

and once claimed he died 2,000

years ago was finally

pronounced dead today.

Stephen Smith looks back

on his life and crimes.

If it wasn't so dark and squalid,

the story of Charles Manson might

have something of the

Wizard of Oz about it.

The pathetic figure who pulled

the strings and exerted such

an unfathomable hold

over the susceptible.

Charles Manson was raised in prison

for more than half of his life

before he started the Manson Family

cult and he learned how

to manipulate people.

He became a master manipulator

and he fashioned himself

as kind of an outlaw,

counterculture hero,

and he melded together this group

of people that became like a family

and he controlled them like puppets.

He weaponised them.

He craved attention,

a wannabe rock star.

He and his followers

once lived at the home

of Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys.

The band even recorded a version

of a song written by Manson.

He looked like a hippy

and set up home at a ranch

in Death Valley, California,

with his acolytes who became known

as the Manson Family.

Often young women from middle-class

families who had dropped out.

But the brutal murder

of the actress Sharon Tate,

Roman Polanski's wife,

and three of her friends in August

1969 was seen by some as a macabre

coda to the Summer of Love.

It was followed by more

killings the next night.

Detectives believe Manson hoped

to trigger a race war,

a phenomenon he called

Helter Skelter after a Beatles song,

and that he would somehow emerge

from the chaos as a messiah figure.

There followed one of the longest

and strangest criminal

trials in US history,

Manson's followers singing

outside the court.

The authorities insisted

Manson was the guiding

hand behind the murders,

though he was never accused

of striking a single blow himself.

I don't accept the whole situation.

I was in the desert minding my own

business.

This confusion belongs

to you, your confusion.

I don't have a deal,

I know what I have done.

I judge me.

What have you done, Charlie?

In an extraordinary interview

from prison, Manson was still toying

with his interrogators.

Here is your chance before

the whole world to tell it

straight once and for all.

Did you do that?

Did I kill anyone?

No, did you go in and tie

them up them that night?

Very simple question.

That night.

August 10th, 1969.

That night, August the 10th 1969.

Did you?

Why dodge it?

Why not answer yes or no once

and for all and put it behind you?

Why don't you want to

talk about it, Charles?

Because I'm an outlaw and I go

so far and that's all you know.

Manson was sentenced to death row,

though his sentence was later

commuted to life imprisonment.

Even behind bars he was not finished

as a cult phenomenon.

Not for nothing did the one-time

Brian Warner give himself the stage

name Marilyn Manson and rockers

Guns N' Roses cover a Charles Manson

song, gestures of rebellion

or poor taste according

to your point of view.

He became a popular

figure while in prison.

He received more fan mail

than any other United States inmate

in the prison system at one period.

Before they changed the law

he accumulated over $200,000,

selling memorabilia and whatnot

because of his infamy.

And like other notorious killers

Manson was not short of women

who wanted to visit him.

I always say it is easier to get

a date with Charles Manson

or Scott Peterson than it is with

Brad Pitt or George Clooney.

The only type of people

in our society who are celebrities

are either bona fide celebrities

or notorious killers and criminals.

So these women are basically looking

for their 15 minutes of fame.

Were you happy when you found out

you were not going to go

to the gas chamber, Charles?

I knew I wasn't going to go

to the gas chamber because I hadn't

done anything wrong.

Are you scared to die?

Sometimes I feel I'm scared to live.

Living is what scares me.

Dying is easy.

Stephen Smith.

Stephen Smith.

"We now know we were wrong,"

the high street stationers

Paperchase wrote to customers today.

"We are truly sorry

and won't ever do it again."

Their crime?

An advertising campaign

over the weekend that

ran in the Daily Mail.

Readers of that paper were offered

two free rolls of wrapping

paper by Paperchase.

But the promotion was spotted

by online activist group

Stop Funding Hate which targets

companies advertising in the Sun,

Express and Mail, arguing

that they promote divisive

and hateful views.

Stop Funding Hate has now commended

Paperchase for its change of heart.

The apology when it

came from Paperchase

was fullsome and earnest.

We've listened to you about this

weekend's promotion.

We now know we were

wrong to do this.

We're truly sorry and we

won't ever do it again.

Thanks for telling us

what you really think

and we apologise if we have let

you down on this one.

Lesson learnt.

What was this then?

A victory for the little people?

All those customers unhappy

with the way Paperchase

was doing business?

A professional boycott along the

lines of apartheid in the 1980s?

A professional boycott along

the lines of apartheid in the 1980s?

Or a robust attempt at online

bullying, not of an individual,

but of a corporation?

The group behind this protest

is Stop Funding Hate.

It works to change the media

by taking on what it

calls hate campaigns.

Recently they've accused

the Daily Mail of a torrid few

weeks of divisive stories

about trans people.

They congratulated Paperchase today

for pulling out and promoted

the apology to followers on Twitter,

many of whom have followed suit.

But the Paperchase statement may

have lost them equal

numbers of customers,

who've written their own disgust

that the shop has been cowed

into today's position by agressive

pressure from a small group

of activists and said

In the run up to Christmas,

the relationship Paperchase has

with its customers is likely

to be vital.

It's unclear yet whether

there will be net gains.

But if it was publicity

the company was aiming for,

then like it or loathe it,

they've got themselves talked about.

Well, Paperchase told this programme

tonight that they frequently trial

new brand campaigns and have taken

the commercial decision not

to repeat this promotion

following significant levels

of feedback from customers

in store and online.

And the Mail have put out

a statement complaining that

Paperchase has allowed itself to be

bullied by a small group of hard

left, Corbynist individuals.

Joining me now, Sarah Baxter,

deputy editor of the Sunday Times.

And Richard Wilson

from Stop Funding Hate.

Lovely to have you both here. I

guess this is political activism at

its best, a company listening to the

concerns of its customers and

changing?

Absolutely not, it is a

company being bullied by a small

army of Twitter and social media

patrols, using activism as a weapon

against the free press. It is a very

sad day for Independent media.

That

his activism, that is what it does,

it tries to change the world?

Paper

chase has blundered into accepting

the word of a few Twitter patrols

that Mauro less than 2 million

readers of the Daily Mail on

Saturday I somehow racists, bigots

and hate mongers. I am sure Paper

chase does not want to get involved

in that kind of political war.

It is

an online version of bullying, that

you are inviting people to tweet

hateful things to a corporation

instead of a person?

The core

concern is that experts have warned

that the hate in some of the biggest

newspapers is fuelling hate crime on

the streets and this is not just

stuff people find offensive and

disagreeable, this is having a real

impact in people's lives. If you

look at what Stop Funding Hate

supporters were saying and Paper

chase supporters were saying online,

they were very friendly and polite.

This is an idiotic argument. What

Richard and his group is doing is

spending all day trawling through

newspapers that they themselves

would never read or pay for

otherwise to find things they are

outraged and offended by so that

they can deploy social media to

harass advertisers into withdrawing

their support for a free press.

Newspapers have always depended on

advertising and the honest pound in

your pocket from the readers to

publish. What he is really trying to

do is close down these newspapers by

destroying their source of funding.

Do you deny that?

We do not do that.

Why not if you do not like them as a

mark maybe you are trying to close

them down.

The end result is four as

the media that does what we want

them to do, that upholds the public

interest.

You and your activists

want to decide what the people of

Britain can read or not, that is

very arrogant. It is very wrong for

democracy.

The key point is that

people are being harmed. We had a

hate crime report from the

University of Leicester warning that

the media has been fuelling...

I am

sorry, the University of Leicester

decides what people have to read?

You are setting the moral compass

and choosing the ethical standards.

If you decide Brexit, if you decided

Brexit was bad or immigration levels

or that feminist concern about self

identifying men are bad, then you

choose what stories are what papers

to boycott. That is how this works,

isn't it?

The only reason I am here

is that over the weekend thousands

of paper chase customers use their

freedom of speech and expression to

make... And they use their freedom

of choice to decide to advertise

differently. We are all about

freedom.

You write for The Sunday

Times, do you think the Daily Mail

will start changing its editorial

stance? If people like paper chase

and others, because it goes down the

list, it was Lego and other

companies, if they start pulling

their advertising, does the Daily

Mail change the way it write

stories?

No, it won't and nor should

it. What we need in this country is

a plurality of views and different

newspapers. I hold no particular

candle, I am not representing the

Daily Mail or any other newspaper, I

am representing the fact that we

have a free press that represents an

enormous range of opinion and people

pay their money and choose what they

want to read. Richer has decided he

should be the arbiter of what people

should read?

If they were never

going to advertise their again, they

just got free publicity, the Daily

Mail will not change either.

Paper

chase made a decision and they have

every right to make that decision,

for whatever reason they want.

Advertisers are looking at this will

be wary of getting embroiled in this

sort of thing because paper chase

have basically blundered, they are

in the middle of a culture war and

that is not a place where you want

commercial brands to be. Newspapers

have always valued their editorial

independence from advertisers, it is

not right that advertisers call the

editorial line of the paper,

advertisers can choose to be in a

paper they feel comfortable in.

There is an irony that there is

nowhere more hate filled than

Twitter itself, which is very quick

to tell people just however they are

being about whatever they choose to

be, so why would tend to choose that

as a vehicle to do this?

There is a

climate of hate and parts of our

media -- Stop Funding Hate. It is

important when we talk about these

issues, we talk about it in a

respectful way.

Do you think this

will hurt or help paper chase?

I

think they have made a smart

decision.

Lego was rewarded for the

decision they made. I do not think

it was smart, I think it is a very

uncomfortable place for a commercial

brand to find itself in, where it

has bowed to the wishes of a small

number of people against what

possibly as a silent majority.

Thank

you.

Two major European agencies

were relocated from London this

evening as part of the process

of extracting Britain from the EU.

The European Banking Authority

will now be housed in Paris,

the European Medicines Agency

will be moved to Amsterdam.

The move will mean Britain no longer

has control or involvement in either

of these insitutions.

As our Business editor

Helen Thomas reports,

the shift will also mean Britain has

to find a whole new system

of licensing and approving

which medicines can be used

here in the UK and how quickly

they can become available.

A convoluted voting system, a bit of

horse trading between countries and

a slightly uncertain reward. It has

been described as the business

version of the Eurovision Song

contest, but the European medicines

agency and the European banking

authority now have a new home. After

19 submissions, three rounds of

voting and a virtual dead heat, the

EMS will leave London for Amsterdam,

the bank regulators are headed for

Paris. E MA was seen as the bigger

prize. This is a therapy unit at Guy

's Hospital, regulators can mean a

cluster of expertise and scientific

know-how that could ultimately

attract businesses to the successful

city. From the UK's point of view we

are talking about maybe 900 jobs at

the medicines agency and a couple of

hundred at the banking regulator but

they are highly skilled roles and in

sectors the UK likes to think it is

pretty good at. Back in April, David

Davis suggested that subject to some

negotiation, the agencies could stay

in London. Now it seems they are

definitely off, so what does that

mean for the UK and what might take

their place? For the pharmaceutical

industry body, the departure of the

regulator could leave a golf that

causes other problems.

The industry

as £30 million worth of GDP to the

economy with the highest research

and development spend on the

economy. There are several concerns

with the uncertainty that we have

around Brexit. We could see delays

of up to one year in the approval of

new medicines and we could also see

some of the processes that require

certainty about regulation moving

out of the UK unless we get a

medicines cooperation soon.

Winning

the banking authority was perhaps

more a matter of prestige than

business, at least in the

short-term. One European financier

told Newsnight that the EBA just

spent a veneer of credibility for

Paris aims to bolster itself as a

financial centre. In London, the

departure of the EBA is seen as

symbolic, but unlikely in itself to

dent the city's heft and finance.

It

is really a coordinator amongst

regulators and we have got extremely

strong regulators of global calibre

already writing rules and

interpreting and applying those

rules. In fact, what it does is

allow the UK to do things more its

own weight which is frankly safer

for the markets systemically. So

that our regulators can make more

dynamic adjustments are more dynamic

of refinements to the rules of the

UK.

For others, the agencies are

about more than a few hundred jobs

and a European rule book.

The EBA

and EMA are tremendous gatherers of

people and it is a great place to

meet people, clients and share ideas

and I think that that loss of power

or soft influence will be something

that the UK will feel.

How will

medicines be checked and approved

after March, 2019? Will the city

have a deal that is roughly the

status quo or have to operate quite

differently? As Europe makes

decisions in its own unique way, it

highlights unanswered questions at

home.

Helen Thomas there. He had seen the

front page of The Times, there are a

couple more, the Guardian and the

Telegraph Brexit stories. The

Guardian has. A claim that a

pro-Brexit group broke rules during

the referendum campaign. Vote leave

is under investigation. And there is

quite a nice story on the Telegraph

which is that Eurotunnel has changed

its name to create a more

Anglo-Saxon identity. Eurotunnel has

decided to call itself yet linked as

part of a corporate rebranding

exercise before Brexit, the French

company which runs it wants it to

adapt an Anglo-Saxon name as it

expanded.

That's all from us, but before

we go, on the 20th November 1937,

under grey skies and cheered

on by thousands of well-wishers,

Princess Elizabeth married

Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten.

Today, exactly 70 years later,

the Queen and Prince Philip

are celebrating their platinum

wedding anniversary.

Back then remember, Britain's

relationship with the rest of Europe

was about to change dramatically.

The Conservative Prime Minister

was engaging in crucial talks

on the continent while facing mutiny

from his own ranks back home.

And Spain was in crisis as warring

factions fought for control.

But some things don't change,

including these grey skies.

Here are some pictures

from that 1937 day.

Goodnight.

BELLS RING.

Into the dull November morning,

two grays draw the Irish stagecoach.

Inside, her Royal Highness,

Princess Elizabeth and her father.

And now the solemn service begins.

# The quiet waters by...#.

THE WEDDING MARCH.

From the palace balcony,

Elizabeth and her husband waved

to the cheering crowds.

The nation and the Commonwealth

will pray that the young

couple may enjoy a long,

happy and fruitful life.