Welcome to dateline london. Im jane hill. This week we are discussing whether theresa may can go on and on as Prime Minister, well look at the latest round of brexit talks, and well ask what can be done to defuse the north korea crisis . My guests this week are the author and journalist rachel shabi, the politicaljournalist and commentator alex deane, the north american journalist and broadcaster jeffrey kofman, and the writer and broadcaster mihir bose. A very warm welcome to all of you. Good to see you. So the british Prime Minister theresa may ended up having a rather frank discussion with journalists on her flight to japan this week. She insisted she would like to lead her conservative party into the next general election, not something perhaps a lot of people were expecting. For politics watchers of a certain age, there were echoes of margaret thatchers stated determination to go on and on. Alex, what did you make of those comments . I think as soon as any political leader gives a deadline as to when they are going to go, speculation becomes rampant about who will replace them. I think its Pretty Healthy for a leader to want to fight whatever the next contest is that their party faces. So i thought it was the right thing for the Prime Minister to say. I also thought there is more room to manoeuvre than in the blair brown years because there is no gordon brown. There is no one person going around with lots of aggression, both theirs and others, coalescing, and theyre determined to oust the incumbent. So i regard this as a pretty good thing. Interestingly, tony blair also got caught by a pack ofjournalists on a plane coming back from china, when doctor david kelly died. And they got a lot of commentary out of him in that time. There seems to be something that happens on aircrafts. Laughter i wonder if political leads should avoid this . I think you are right. I wonder if political leads should avoid this . I think you are right. The dilemma that theresa may faced was if she did not declare this, she was in danger of becoming a caretaker and lame duck Prime Minister. She has to be all in. She cant be, so to speak, half pregnant, so to speak. Whether or not it is the intention to stay, and i would presume shes going to read the tea leaves as the months pass, she needs to declare this or else she loses control. But i dont think she is going to stay. I mean, obviously she will wait until the brexit negotiations and then i think she will go and you are quite right. You know, she cant say now, i wont stay otherwise she will be dead in the water. She will wait for the brexit negotiations. I cant see her leading the conservative party. Into a general election . You say its obvious, but there was speculation after the election, which of course didnt go as the conservative party had planned, that theresa mays leadership might have been under attack before that, and i agree now it is obvious, but her fortunes have improved considerably since the election with her time in office. David davis is the one to watch out for. The Bigger Picture is you are right it was the only answer she could give as the leader of the conservative government, but in national terms, what is this good for if she stays . She is, as many people have commented, she has lost her credibility. She went into an election she did not need to and lost the conservatives seats and ended up with a Hung Parliament which means that she is too weak, the government is too weak, to legislate. At a time when britain is dealing with brexit, were dealing economic stagnation, wage stagnation and spiralling costs. We have a government that is ineffectual. They cannot do anything to address very real issues and very real problems. So when we look at her in terms of she says she is doing the responsible thing, and that might be true for her party, because the conservatives dont have another leader otherwise she would be replaced in a flash. They simply do not have anyone to replace her with. It might be good for the party, but what is good for the country . You could make the argument that it would be better for the conservative party to have a leadership challenge, even if that precipitates another election. Another elections . i think one of the reasons for her making the comment now is that the Party Conference is coming up. Yes. She would not want to Say Something like, im going to go, because then the Party Conference will become an election for which is the last thing they want. Its obviously going to be that anyway. No, but on a subdued level. They are too disgruntled with her and there is too much disunity within the party for that plaster, for that band aid to stick. And to your point, alex, there is no obvious successor, and that is perhaps different to where we were only a few months ago. As you suggested, it has changed remarkably quickly. There is no obvious person around whom those ambitions might coalesce, but where i disagree with rachel is i think there are plenty of people who could lead the conservative party. There are plenty of people around the cabinet table that are qualified to hold the role of Prime Minister. Its simply that theresa mays position does more to defend itself once she is in the mode of governing and not campaigning. In campaigning, plainly, any party that calls an election when it doesnt have to and goes backwards rachel is right has not done as it wouldve wished. On the other hand, theresa may in government seems, actually, where i also disagree with rachel, seems to carry the trust of at least members of the conservative party and i think that challenges to theresa may are far less likely than these conversations imply. I know where going to talk about brexit in a moment, but it is part of this conversation. They dovetail as brexit goes, so does theresa may in many ways. We now see the labour party defining a different position over the last week and so it becomes a much more nuanced going for her to try to figure out how to navigate brexit. It is not going well and whether or not she can deliver something that is going to satisfy enough people, i think it will determine her own future. Mihir, you mentioned david davis. Lets talk about him and what he has been saying. To give him his full title, he is britains secretary of state for exiting the eu. Great title, isnt it . He said that things had got a little tense this week. Thats the word he used as brexit talkss were into their third round. Another british minister, liam fox, said the country shouldnt be blackmailed by the eu over the divorce bill. Michel barnier, the blocs chief negotiatior, expressed frustration at the slow pace of discussions. Rachel, youve been writing a lot about europe. Are you optimistic, as david davis insists that he still is, despite all of this . No, i am not optimistic. It is not looking good, is it . Its a deadlock and it was to be expected. In terms of the eu blackmailing britain, i mean i would not expect anything other than the eu looking after now its 27 remaining states. I do not expect it to do anything different, so i think its a bit ridiculous and certainly, i can understand the frustration of the eu negotiators saying, look, we need to see some paperwork here. Something, anything. Just give us some indication of where this is going so we can negotiate, so we can start negotiating. What is becoming more and more clearer is how much brexit is really an ideology rather than a deliverable practical reality, but we are where we are, we voted to leave and we have to execute that. I think what is becoming clear now is that there is a difference between the two. The eu, their political reality of what they are saying rhetorically is very much what the negotiating situation is. The eu, their political reality of what they are saying rhetorically is very much what the negotiating situation is. For britain, the political reality differs from the rhetoric that brexiteers have been giving us over what we might expect from a deal and i think the government, its incumbent on them to manage peoples expectations and say look, we promised you a lot of stuff we cant deliver. Well, we dont know yet. They might say, we dont know yet, we might be able to deliver it. Its still quite early days, actually. The writing is on the wall. We do know, that there. The cake and eat it thing is something that we know. We cannot have the same conditions and exit. Things will change, right . Its likely they will change for the worst, at least in the short term, and we almost certainly do need a transitional deal that leaves as much continuity in place as is possible and certainly parliament, with the labour party changing its position on that in the last few weeks, is moving in that direction, leaving no ground for the hard brexiteers to say, we should just drop out with no deal, we should just crash out. That is not a tenable position, that wont have any parliamentary weight. There is a big gap between what the public has been promised and what actually will be the case. That is a problem for britain in a way it isnt for the eu. I think this notion of blackmail is very much about trying to set up a bogeyman that says, oh, its their fault. In europe this is not a big deal as it is here. This is britains problem. Thats whats interesting to look at, yes. The people of france and germany and the netherlands arent waking up and saying, i wonder how the brexit negotiations went this week . They have their own issues. Macron is trying to completely transform the french economy. Thats what theyre talking about in the french media. And so this is an old political game. Those bad guys in brussels, the eu are making it difficult and not playing fair. This is a british problem and britain has to find a way to navigate with the eu. Alex, what was your reading of the language here . This is a strange conversation from both of these guys because on the one hand the rhetoric coming out of the eu is wholly accurate and representative of the negotiations. On the other hand the rhetoric from the United Kingdom is outrageous, absurd and doesnt at all reflect reality. Both sides are posturing. There is this weird self lacerating instinct amongst some in the United Kingdom to believe everything that comes out of the eu bloc and nothing that is said by our own government and representatives. Furtheremore, some of it is just not true. The suggestion that we need some paperwork to have some kind of negotiation as rachel said, that was a big gap there. There have been publications of Brexit Papers from the uk government. You may not like what they contain. You may want to disagree with them. In fact, i sense that you would. No, its not about whether i disagree, its about what is actually empirically in them. You are having your own meta debate where you say theres no paperwork. 0h, ok, that paperwork. No. Oh, i dont like that paperwork. Paperwork with substance. Can ijust say, historically, this reminds me of how the british withdrew from the empire, but there was a big difference. The british then were in control. If you remember how they withdrew from the empire, and for instance i take the question of india. India was going to become a republic. It was part of the empire. Back them the word commonwealth wasnt used. India was going to become a republic. Attlee and churchill wrote begging letters to nehru saying stay and they created the commonwealth which is a totally imaginary club, if you like. The queen has no powers in india or the various republics that formed. The british are not used to suddenly walking away. They like to be loved. They like to feel they are morally superior, that is the basis of their rule, we are morally right. What the eu is not giving them is enough of that reassurance, enough of that feeling that we can create a club somehow and have links with the eu of a certain kind, and yet were outside it, and i think that is going to be very difficult to do. For me, what is interesting this week is labours walk back. Now we have some differentiation between the two main parties, and it creates an interesting opportunity for debate. It is interesting. Corbyn, for so many people is hard to stomach as much as that he has a huge following, he is also a very polarising figure, as is theresa may. Yet now you have him, or his party at least, straddling these different worlds. That distinction is interesting him and his party. Because of course corbyn, until he became leader at least, used to say quite openly that he thought the eu was a stitch up, done in the interest of big business and big banks. I would say hes not completely wrong. Then he becomes the leader of a party that is vastly, at least in its parliamentary representaion, vastly more pro eu then he is. So he sort of mumblingly and going on with his position. But its weird to me they get away with it. Keir starmer, whose position is different, it goes almost unsaid that there is this gulf between him and his leader. Also, does anyone think that there are moderate voices in europe in the way we talk about it who are not being heard in this debate . To alexs point, there will be posturing, this is part of a negotiating process and there are probably lots of reasonable people behind the scenes who do want to strike a deal with britain because it is in everyones interests, in terms of trade and harmony. But theyre worried if they give britain too good deal, some other countries might want it as well. They have to keep the union together. If they have too many getaway clauses, other countries will also want it. Isnt that a great eu worry . If the fear of what will happen when you leave something is what keeps you in it. If you had a friend who was in a relationship and they wanted to leave, but were afraid to do so because of the consequences of what would happen, what would you advise them to do . But that has no substance. That is an allegory that actually has no bearing. Sorry, what . Look, if you are a member of a club, then obviously you want the perks to be better than they would be if you were outside the club. Nobody in that club will want to see someone leave that club and have the same benefits, and that is what i meant by the rhetorical gap. That position is the eu position and that is consistent with what they are saying. They are constantly saying, look, things cant be the same for you. Ok, im going to pause it there, because guess what . We will be talking about this a lot in many weeks to come. The next stage of the reading of the bill is in the Uk Parliament on thursday, so there may even be more next week. So thank you on all of that for now, but there will be more on that to come. We will turn our attentions to the situation in north korea, because tensions on the Korean Peninsula are the highest theyve been for years. The United Nations condemned as outrageous north koreas firing of a Ballistic Missile overjapan a few days ago. President trump said all options were then on the table, and today we learn that the us and south korea have agreed in a phone call to strengthen seouls missile programme, and that donald trump approved the sale of billions of dollars worth of military equipment to the south. Jeffrey, the firing of this missile over hokkaido was a worrying escalation . We have talked about ratcheting it up a few times, but this is ratcheting it up again . These are frightening times. If you live in the Korean Peninsula and guam, these are really terrifying times. What we have are two schoolyard bullies in kim jong un and trump. And what we need is diplomacy. Simply, any kind of war, preventative or provoked, no one is going to win this, we know that. Ultimately the us will triumph, should it get to that horrific scenario, but its not one we can allow to happen. We have to bring it back and find a way to allow the sides to save face enough to dial this down. And if that means the us and south korea pull back a bit on their military exercises, somehow we have to get north korea in its insanity to stop firing these missiles and say, ok, you can save face. But the problem is it now looks like extortion. It is extortion. It is. The sanctions that were passed in early august by the un are crippling against iron ore, an seafood and other exports from north korea. A major part of their economy, their pathetic economy. 25 Million People with an average income of about 1000 us a year. They need these sanctions lifted. This is very much related to all of that. Im really puzzled by the moral equivalance that you seem to suggest between donald trump, the duly elected president of the united states, whatever you think of him, and the Third Generation repressive dictator of a family that systematically abuses their country. I think itsjust in term of their military belligerence. Exactly. Listen, i take your point, but the fact is we have a president in the us this has gone on through obama, through bush, bill clinton, it goes right back to richard nixon, this belligerence we are seeing out of north korea. They have managed to contain it. The policy, very much like we have seen in the cold war, is one of containment. If through belligerence of a duly elected us president , although we can talk about that another time. Definitely another time if belligerence meets belligerence, are we really going to be better off . The point is, why is kim on doing it . He is fearing regime change, which of course china will not accept. He has seen saddam and gaddafi, two very bad dictators, no question about it, not having nuclear weapons, removed. So there is at some stage some negotiations that need to take place and china is crucial to this to make sure that whatever your regime is, however bad, and of course you were not elected through the electoral college, like the americans have, but we dont want to remove you from power. How you do that is the really crucial question and the more belligerent talk there is from trump, it becomes more difficult to get that. Its interesting to see the effect it has actually had onjapan. You look at the country, and whatever you think of the geopolitics of those nations, they are now looking at for the first time they have raised the possibility of installing pre emptive missile capacity. Now, that is a really big deal for a country that constitutionally has been disinclined to do anything like that since the second world war. Its a really big change and, of course, they are now having drills in a way that it must be very terrifying for the population, and there is a guardian story about this today they have 600,000 North Koreans living in japan, a lot of them descendants of former prisoners, and the tension being caused in the country itself between those two groups, so it is having terrible ramifications for that country as well, and i do think that that is where the belligerence is really unhelpful. Well, lets get back to how we get to any form of negotiation. Because i have lost count of the number of academics, politicians, diplomats i have interviewed in the last few weeks who say, it is all about diplomacy, you have to get them around the table, but no one is coming up with an answer as to how we do that. What youre seeing out of washington is a two track narrative. On one hand the president with his belligerence, and the people very close to him, tillerson, the secretary of state, and others in the cabinet, being much more diplomatic and giving a different story. Thats the point. Thats exactly what nixon did with both russia and china in his triangulation policy and kissinger had negotiations, notwithstanding the fact that the president was thumping the table and saying terrible things about communists. There is a rationale here. Maybe people dont want to see because they dont like president trump, maybe they cant see it. Ultimately, this is about buying them off and working out what the price is, as compared to the fact that the people that have been most consistant are the North Koreans. They have acquired the technology to have Nuclear Capacity and attack others. Not that they will do it in some mad act of self destruction, but it is to raise their stakes in the game. They are looking for self preservation. North korea, its much more complex than german reunification was in the 90s. This economy has been in a decrepit state for so long and china has so much interest in not seeing an outcome that ultimately makes a unified korea with western allies. So there are all things at play in terms of the chess game in that region. Ok, we will pause it there for now. We have mihir with us this week, which is lovely. I have to ask you, and it is well documented that my knowledge of football is negligible. Even i know that the transfer window closed this week, window closed this week, and that the sums involved were astronomical. Its a new record. What is going on here . There is more money available. The premier league, which is the best run, most successful league in the world in money terms, they did a deal a year ago, 8. 4 billion, which is almost double what they had. More importantly, this money is going down to clubs that dont expect to be in the premier league, like bournemouth and others who now have more money to spend. The way it affects the premier League Britain has allowed a free market so most of the Top Premier League clubs are owned by foreigners, some of them in effect foreign states. Manchester city is owned by the united arab emirates. Like america, it doesnt believe in socialism, the but it does believe in sporting socialism, where it doesnt allow anybody to come in, but we allow everyone to come in. Leicester city is owned by a thai nobody knew about. They see this as branding exercises and as far as they are concerned, most of the money is going abroad. In the old days, there used to be reaganite trickle down economics. The big clubs used to pay the Lower Division clubs. Now they pay all sorts of foreign clubs. This owners think if they can get into the premier league and brand themselves, look at what has happened by psg. They are owned by the qatar state in effect. They pay £198 million, a bit more than what you might be getting from the bbc, for neymar. Why . Because qatar is saying this is our soft path. Maybe that is a solution for kim. Perhaps if he paid 198 million for neymar and they could say that north korea has a great footballer. Maybe that is the solution. If only i am of course a fan of the best club in the United Kingdom, ipswich town. We have secured a new striker from rangers, so we have done our acquisition in the uk. It does seem that when other clubs internationally see that an english club is making an acquisition, the price goes up. Oii on the tv rights. People can pay more, so they do. We play very exciting football that the world wants to watch and that is what is a sign of success. I hear that, but when people say that the sums are obscene, are wejust wringing our hands . There is nothing we can do about it, it is the new world order youve described. Much of neymars money went to his father. These players, because of the money they earn, they are little corporate entities. They can employ the best lawyers, the best agents salaries, but this kind of polarisation of wealth, they are given a lot of money, but £30 million, £35 million, it isjust ludicrous. As we sit around the table at the bbc, lets not pretend its just football that has a problem with salaries. Thats what i said. Is part of the problem generally. The americans have done it better. They disclose more details about players salaries and they do control. The germans for example insist that 51 of the club is owned inside their own country. We have owners iiow who have no connection. Abramovich has never given an interview. Sheikh mansour has never appeared. At the end of the day, football is meant to be a community sport. If the owners are somebody you have never heard of, theyjust come in and buy the club, what is their purpose in doing it . Im sure that it makes getting interviews harder. There we are. We attempted to solve geopolitical problems through football. Thank goodness you managed to do that for us. Lovely to have you all here. Thank you all very much indeed. Much more to discuss same time, same place next week. Thank you for being with us. Goodbye. A bit of a mixed debate across the uk today. Eastern parts of the country are enjoying some bright weather, whereas in the west we got thick cloud, weve had some rain already, and thats how its going to stay across western parts of the uk. So eastern areas hanging on to the dry and cloudy weather. Through the afternoon we will find that rain will be raining out and we will be left over with bits of pieces of drizzle and back. This evening and overnight, any damp weather may not reach the far eastern coast, but norwich and even further, yarmouth, until the early hours of monday morning. Very mild tonight, 16 degrees in plymouth. Even in northern scotland, around the mid teens. Lots of cloud and missed across the country, then through the afternoon skiing quite closely and additionally some fresh rain into the north west of the uk. But the cloud breaks up at times and if we get any decent lengthy sunny spells those temperatures could get up to 20 degrees. That is it from me. Have a great day. This is bbc news. Im julian warricker. The headlines at midday north korea says it has successfully tested a Hydrogen Bomb that can be fitted to a missile. The test has been strongly criticised by the japanese Prime Minister. Translation if north korea forcibly conducted a nuclear test, it is absolutely unacceptable and we have two strongly protest it. And we have to strongly protest it. Hospital bosses are warning the nhs could have its worst winter in history if it doesnt receive a bailout. The Prime Minister appeals for unity amongst her pro eu mps ahead of a debate of the governments brexit repeal bill next week. The brexit secretary said the eu is making itself look silly by insisting negotiations with britain arent making progress. We have said the era of big payments to the eu will be coming to an end