14/02/2014 BBC News at Six

from the Atlantic. The winds hit the south west at 80mph and are moving

up the south coast. Flood waters awash with raw sewage

rise still further and new areas are at risk. Just when you think the

water can't get any higher, it does, up to the door knocker here. That's

the worst we've seen it through these weeks of flooding.

But with tonight expected to be the last in the conveyor belt of storms,

is the worst behind us? Also on the programme: Questioned by

police over phone hacking, the former editor of the Daily Mirror,

Piers Morgan. The British fashion designers

leading the charge for the huge Chinese clothing market - we have a

special report. And a gold medal for Team GB at the

Winter Olympics. More defences go in, as flood hit

areas prepare for the waters to rise again.

And engineering work to fix the rail line into Paddington could mean it's

closed for a week. Good evening and welcome to the BBC

News at Six. Parts of Britain are being battered

again by yet another huge storm sweeping in from the Atlantic.

Forecasters are warning that by the end of the day some places will see

well over an inch of rain, potentially flooding new areas. The

winds have yet to peak but are expected to reach 80mph along the

south coast. This is the storm as it's moving at speed across the

country from the south-west. One of the areas worst affected is

Somerset, and our correspondent Jon Kay is in the village of East Lyng

now. It might look like I am standing at

the seaside. In fact, this is farmland, flooded farmland. The

level of the water is getting deep bowl the time and the wind today has

been incredible. 70 mph already, getting higher and stronger in the

next few hours, not just here but right across the southern part of

Great Britain. Valentine's Day, but not the time for a romantic walk in

the countryside. In Somerset, waves crashed 20 miles from the coast,

floodwater whipped up by another violent storm. In East Lyng,

Georgina is the latest victim. For her, it has just been one deluged to

many. I just can't believe it is keeping on and on raining, and

raining so hard as well. And we are under now. We've never been flooded

before. There are going to be I don't know how many other

properties. It's just ridiculous. Next door, Richard now has 2000

sandbags, but will it be enough? You can't beat nature. If the water is

going to rise that much I will lose the battle for the house. The third

big storm in a week and the water is still spreading, wider and deeper.

Just when you think things can't get any worse, just when you think the

water can't get any higher, it does. Up to the door knocker. That is the

worst we have seen during these weeks of flooding on the Somerset

Levels. Every day, still, new properties are being affected.

Buffeted by wind and sprayed by rain, we headed to Gloucester. Badly

flooded seven years ago, the new flood defences are holding up for

now, but the weekend tides will be a challenge. If we get water coming

over the defences, which are protecting here now, we will see

possibly up to one metre of water in this street. That is just below

those windowsills. It is all making this family rather paranoid. They

came to Gloucester for safety after their street in Surrey was flooded

on Tuesday. Now, their temporary home could go under as well. It is a

bit surreal. The boys have moved from one flood zone to another but

they are taking it in their stride. Where next? Spain, I think. Once

this storm has passed, forecasters say the worst may be over for a

while, but before that, southern Britain faces a long and wild Friday

night. Well, among those helping with the

relief effort in the Thames Valley today were Princes William and

Harry. They joined the sandbagging effort in the village of Datchet

just down from Windsor Castle, as today's storm pushed the flood

waters higher. Our correspondent Duncan Kennedy spent the day

travelling through the flood zone, from Marlow in Buckinghamshire,

through Berkshire, to Egham in Surrey.

Making us feel vulnerable in the face of nature. The thunderous River

Thames in full flood, recreating and reshaping everything before it. This

is one of three buildings that survived the floods. Our first stop

was in Marlow, taking us to an activity centre which should be full

of disadvantaged children, not deluged with water. The river is

over by the trees. He fights to control his emotions when he tells

me how one volunteer died trying to save the centre. There has been a

lot of effort from staff to try to protect the centre from flooding.

One of my colleagues, unfortunately... I can't do this.

Mark says, like the boats, if this does not end, Longridge may go

under. These winter storms have not only caused personal tragedy as in

that case, but also destroyed homes and businesses across a vast swathe

of this country. Whether it is here in Marlow, or down the Thames Valley

towards London, where we are heading now, thousands of lives have been

turned upside down by all of this wind and water. We moved from

Buckinghamshire to Berkshire, and cook, its centre underwater.

Soldiers are helping, but homes have flooded, so here, at the house of

the vicar, they put the dam into damnation. Can communities like this

take much more of this weather? You have too. That is an interesting

question, but people are very resilient. Resilient and resource

full. They have to be. Just like here, at Purley-on-Thames, reluctant

host to yet more floods. That is the stunning pool. For 182-year-old,

inundated three times since Christmas, it is getting too much.

You must be sick of this. Of course, but there is nothing I can

do about it, just press on. In Purley, they worry about more rain

coming down, but at a gum in Surrey, it is the sewage coming up that

haunts them. Our last stop shows the streets awash with it. But some have

stayed, even though it hurts. It does not matter about the fridge or

the washing machine, which can be replaced, but stuff in here that you

have built up. Winter, 2014. With today, Valentine's Day, quite

possibly the moment when Britain finally ended its love affair with

the weather. Today the Prime Minister said again

the government would do "whatever it takes" to help the victims of the

floods. And the Environment Agency insisted that planned job cuts won't

affect its ability to respond. But some experts are saying the

politicians need to do much more to protect us from flooding in the long

term. Our political correspondent Vicki Young has more.

The south coast, battered again, bringing disruption to homes,

transport and power supplies. Overall, 5 million properties in

England are at risk from flooding and these dramatic scenes are

raising questions about how we adapt. Desirable riverside

properties along the Thames in Maidenhead, but should this be a

no-go area for development? Some say it is not where we build but how it

is done. The building is raised up one level and this area is used for

temporary storage, car parking, but when it floods, the cars can be

moved and nothing of any value is going to be damaged. In the last few

years, the talk from politicians has been about growth, the demand for

more housing and better infrastructure, but recent extreme

weather events mean they have to think about achieving all of that

without scenes like this. We don't need to throw money at it, but what

we do need is a long-term consistent investment plan. That is what has

been missing. Successive governments have applied and on the -off

approach to investing in flood risk management. This company is finding

creative ways to help us protect our homes. The water should disappear on

this side. But on this site it is impermeable. Simply improving

materials, improved Strinic. For now, the authorities are focused on

the immediate devastation. In Dawn is, rebuilding the rail link between

Devon and Cornwall. Money is no object, said the Prime Minister, but

was forced to deny that flood staff would be among hundreds of

Environment Agency workers about to lose their jobs. Those have never

been announced plans and they are not planned that will be put in

place. Every organisation has to make sure it is efficient but

nothing will be done at the Environment Agency that will hamper

our flood relief effort. Perhaps the biggest challenge for politicians is

how to prevent a repeat of these scenes long after the images have

faded. Well, after tonight's rain and

gales, there are signs that the current succession of storms which

has been battering Britain for weeks may finally be coming to an end, at

least for now. Our Science Editor, David Shukman, is here. Is the worst

of it behind us? It doesn't feel like that right now. Let's look at

some satellite pictures of the storm that has been battering Britain

today, and the gales and heavy rain looks set to continue overnight. But

The Met office is saying that they reckon this storm is the last of

this great barrage that has been hitting us over the last couple of

months. They reckon next week it should be karma, but still with the

risk of rain. Where does that leave us? As we have been reporting in the

past week, the ground is now so saturated that any rain will lead

inevitably to more flooding. On top of that, the rivers are incredibly

full. I was at ridding this afternoon and the Thames is flowing

four times faster than normal for the time of year, 200 tonnes of

water flowing through every second, and there is more upstream that has

to work its way down through the system. So even if the weather does

look a little more favourable next week, I am afraid the flooding is

set to go on. Other news now and it's emerged the

former editor of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan, has been interviewed

by police over allegations of phone hacking. Mr Morgan, now a host for

CNN in the United States, was questioned under caution in

December. Our correspondent Matt Prodger reports.

Piers Morgan is an international celebrity, as famous in the United

States as a talk-show host as he is in the UK. In the 1990s he was the

UK's youngest newspaper editor and he went on to edit the Daily Mirror.

During a recent visit to the UK, Piers Morgan was interviewed under

caution by detectives investigating phone hacking allegations. The

officers are working for a strand of the investigation examining claims

that journalists from the Mirror group intercepted voice messages. In

a statement, Piers Morgan said, in early November I was asked to attend

an interview by officers from Operation Weeting, when I was next

in the UK. This was further to a full witness statement I had already

freely provided. I attended that interview as requested on the 6th of

December 2013. In 2012, Mr Morgan gave evidence to

the leather son enquiring into press standards. He said he had once been

played what he believed was a voice mail left by Sir Paul McCartney for

his then girlfriend, Heather Mills. But he denied knowing about any

phone hacking which may have happened. Did you see this sort of

thing going on, Mr Morgan? No. Are you sure about that? 100%. His

employer, CNN, said it had been aware of his interview with police

since it took place. The Mirror group said it had no comment to

make. The pensions system is not working

for consumers and could be stopping people receiving a fair income in

their retirement. That's according to a report by the City watchdog. It

says many people could get more cash from their annuity if they shopped

around. Here's our personal finance correspondent Simon Gompertz.

Pensions are not working, and that is no surprise that Anthony from

Essex, 75, financially fit and sceptical about the insurance

companies who manage them. He has been through the pension work-out,

building up a pot of savings while in his job, then using it to buy an

annuity, a guaranteed income for life, but making sure to shop

around, unlike most of the 400,000 who buy annuities each year. I would

say I have probably got about ?100 per month, or thereabouts, more by

shopping around. Generally, I think it would be beneficial all the way

through those extra years. The financial watchdog says pensioners

are missing out on ?230 million each year. Typically, their annuity

should be 7% more, roughly the game that Anthony made, ?70 extra a year

which the insurance company keeps. It is a huge difference over the

2225 years you may take a pension. Small increments at this stage make

a difference. 20 years on, you are still living on that income. The FCA

says that people turning to the internet have been misled, so

websites are having to change, and insurers are accused of making extra

profit out of customers who do not shop around. There is no evidence in

the report, nor in any of the reviews that have been done that

there is profiteering going on in the insurance industry. Millions of

us are being signed up for pensions in the workplace so it is a major

worry for the future. But there is also criticism that in the year at

has taken to do this investigation and the extra year the watchdog says

that it needs to come up with solutions, another 1 million people

will have bought annuities. And we now know that a large proportion of

those will end up with poor value pensions. And there is another

danger, that people will simply be put off going through the

pension-saving regime. The time has just gone a quarter

past six. Our top story this evening: Another storm is hitting

Britain with winds of up to 80mph hitting the South West. And still to

come: Beneath this building in Chicago, the scientists building a

tunnel across America in a bid to find out how the universe began.

Later on BBC London: Stay away from the water. The weather means rowers

are given a red flag warning for the first time in the history of the

Thames. And the Duchess of Cambridge goes

back to school, opening a special art room in Northolt.

It's the first day of London Fashion Week, and it's not just an

opportunity for impossibly thin models to stalk down catwalks

wearing clothes most people could never afford. British fashion is a

serious part of our manufacturing industry and exports, and designers

showing this week will have one eye on the huge business potential of

China. Here in the UK the fashion industry is worth ?21 billion, and

it's expanding by 20% every year. British labels are seen as highly

desirable among China's growing middle class. As a nation it now

ranks third in the world table of millionaires. But for British

designers, it's not an easy market to crack - as I've been finding out.

Graceful, meticulous, handcrafted. British fashion worn by the

well-known and well healed from the catwalk to the red carpet. Leading

British designer Alice temporally's label launched 15 years ago. She

knows what appeals to foreign clients. It is a beautiful print,

everything is engineered. The label is keen to attract a slice of the

market, and is taking its first steps in China. Dish fashion is

unique and has historic context, it is more Artisan. It is much more

design focused and ultimately very different to what they have got out

there at the moment. When it comes to exporting British fashion, it is

not just about luxury brands and boutiques. Fashion is the most

popular product category sold online here in Britain, and the people

making clothes here at this factor in north-west London want to

replicate that success abroad. Fashion brand Asos has factories all

over the world, but had to set up a factory to teach British workers the

new skill. We realise we had a shortage of people knowing how to

use the machines. Asos has just launched a website in China. We

launched in the UK thinking that we could be a UK centre of business,

but suddenly we are taking orders from all over the world. Australia

and now China are now 60% of our sales. And it has given young

apprentices and opportunity. I want to be a fashion designer, so me

doing an apprenticeship here is a good start off. Not many designers

you come across know-how garments are made.

Fashion is about more than clothes. It is luxury accessories, too.

Watches are the collectable of choice for a growing number of

Chinese millionaires. The watches are British made and worn by RAF

pilots and film stars like Tom Cruise. With a turnover of ?15

million, they are keen to expand into China. The potential is huge,

but so are the pitfalls. If you go into the wrong partner, into the

wrong cities, your brand DNA gets misunderstood out there. But if you

can get it right, it will help your market throughout the world, as

well. London Fashion Week is a crucial

shop window for to Zainab is. Many will be hoping the words made in

Britain will translate into warning China.

A helicopter that crashed into a Glasgow pub last November killing

ten people suffered double engine failure. That's the finding of an

interim investigation. Specialists say both engines ran out of fuel,

despite there being enough onboard to keep the helicopter flying. James

Cooke is outside the Clutha pub where the helicopter crashed. What

more can you tell us? We are getting gradually closer to

establishing exactly what caused the terrible crash here on that busy

Friday night in November. In short, as you say, we now know that both

engines simply stopped. They ran out of fuel. The question is, why did

that happen, because there was enough fuel on board the helicopter

at the time of the crash, investigators reckon, for it to fly

for a number 20 minutes or so, and it was just descending back to the

heliport when it came down on this pub. So they are focusing in on two

things in particular. They are looking first of all at whether to

pumps -- two pumps in the system was switched off, and they are also

looking at the fuel displays and what warnings they might or might

not have flashed up, and what that might add. The people affected by

this tragedy still don't know the full truth.

James, thank you. It's been described as the biggest

scientific experiment ever attempted, to discover how the

universe was created. Researchers in the United States working with

scientists from British universities will fire subatomic particles called

neutrinos through 800 miles of rock from Chicago to South Dakota. How

those particles change during the journey may provide clues to how it

all began. From Chicago, our science correspondent Pallab Ghosh sent this

exclusive report. It's the centre of a ?1 billion

project, to discover how the universe was created. Deep

underground here at Fermilab in this warren of tunnels, researchers from

across the world plan to build instruments to create a team 100

times more powerful than the sun. Their aim is to study mysterious

particles called neutrinos. Neutrinos are particles that are

generated by the sun. They are all around us. Billions of them pass

right through the Earth. As we zooming towards Chicago to Fermilab,

every now and again, one of them bumps into part of our world and

changes slightly. There is a greater chance of such changes if they pass

through lots of rock. So here, deep underground, researchers plan to

artificially create a beam of trillions of neutrinos in the

biggest experiment ever carried out. They plan to fire at 800 miles

across the country to a gigantic detector. Located in South Dakota,

it will monitor how they change along the way. At the other end,

scientists will be able to measure how many of the particles have been

changed. The detector will be like this, only 200 times larger. It has

emerged that nine British universities will help to build it.

Neutrinos are very exciting to work with. They are the most abundant

matter particle in the universe, but we know basically nothing about

them. So it will be very exciting to unravel some of the mysteries that

neutrinos are holding. It was the Japanese that first

discovered that neutrinos change as they travel, 60 years ago. Ever

since then, researchers have been convinced that the way neutrinos

change was important in the first few moments of creation. The aim of

this new international project is to learn more about how these

mysterious particles helped shape the early universe. Pallab Ghosh,

BBC News, Chicago. Labour has held its Parliamentary

seat in the Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election with an increased

majority. Mike Kane is the constituency's new MP. The UK

Independence Party came second, pushing the Conservatives into third

place. The Liberal Democrats didn't get enough votes to keep their

deposit. Britain has a winter Olympics gold

medal. Within the last hour, 25-year-old Lizzy Yarnold from Kent

has won the skeleton, beating off strong competition along the way.

Our sports correspondent Andy Swiss has just sent this report on success

in Sochi. Hoping to hurtle headfirst into

Olympic history, 25-year-old Lizzy Yarnold with her so-called Yarny

Army cheering her on, could she get the gold? She was leading by four

tenths of a second overnight, and only took up the sport five years

ago. She once again set a blistering pace. Nearly 80 miles an hour. The

result, a new track record. Just one more to go for Lizzy Yarnold. These

are nervous times. The question now is can she hold onto gold?

She began her final run with a massive lead over her rivals, the

best part of a second. And any fears of a last hitch soon melted away as

ice cool yarn old -- Lizzy Yarnold race to glory. Four years ago, Amy

Williams won this event, and now once again, Britain had an Olympic

champion. Show the world what I am capable of, and I wanted to do

myself justice, and I can't believe I won the race!

And so an athlete who was spotted as a 19-year-old has completed an

extraordinary journey. Lizzy Yarnold came to Sochi as favourite, and

delivered in scintillating style. A golden moment the Team GB and an

unforgettable one for Lizzy Yarnold. What a night it has been here for

Lizzy Yarnold, such an emphatic win. Nearly a second, which is a huge

margin in this sport. It is Britain's first gold of the games,

so if people hadn't heard of Lizzy Yarnold before Sochi, they certainly

have now. Andy Swiss, thank you. Time for a look at the all-important

weather forecast now. Here's Nick Miller. Is it going to get any

better? Signs of an improvement next week,

but the storm we have now hasn't finished with us yet.

First of all we had the rain to feed the floods, and now the snow. There

is a Met Office Amber be prepared warning for the potentially damaging

gusts of wind across the South. Squally thundery showers moved

through. The main rain band is now in Scotland. And it is windy

everywhere, but the strongest winds are across southern parts of the UK

through this evening and tonight. Right along the coast up to 80 mph

winds. Big waves crashing on to the coastline coupled with high tides,

and a significant rest of coastal flooding again. Dangerous conditions

here, but even inland, we could see gusts of around 60 mph. Disruptive,

damaging gusts of wind. Tomorrow is still very windy with bands of wet

weather working South. It could be thundery. Conditions slowly improve

from the north-west during Saturday. The wind will ease and it turns

dryer and brighter. Sunday is a better day. It will be a chilly

start, but many of us will stay dry and bright. The next system were

coming Sunday night and Monday, bringing more rain to where it is

not needed, but this is not as severe as the ones we have had

recently, and that is a trend that continues next week. Still some

rain, but not as much, and less windy. Some signs of an

improvement, but we are not there yet. Keep up-to-date with the

weather and flood warnings we have now online.

Nick, thank you. A reminder of our main story. As we have just been

hearing in the weather forecast, winter storms opposing more danger

to British coastlines, with winds of up to 80 mph. That's all from the

BBC News at Six,