tells the bbc he'll "never give up" fighting putin, months fter a brutal hammer attack outside his home in lithuania, where he lives in exile. the president of georgia vetoes a controversial draft law that's caused mass protests across the country. critics say it stifles free speech. she will almost certainly be overawed by parliament. a boil water notice has been lifted for thousands around brixton after no traces of a parasite were found in supply area. traces of cryptosporidiosis were identified on wednesday. more on all of those stories on the bbc news website or app. a full bulletin of news at five o'clock. now on bbc news, newscast. hello, you two. hi. hello. pleased to see me? no... you caught me by

surprise a bit there. well, i was pausing out of politeness, so alex could go first. ladies first. so, you know the other day there, we started our new feature, which was getting people to email in where they'd seen politicians at gigs? in where they'd seen 0h, right. in where they'd seen and then that very night, antony blinken, the us secretary of state, played a gig in kyiv, almost like he'd been listening to newscast on his armoured train from poland. well, he might have been. who's to say he wasn't? well, paul was. he said, "i was backstage at live aid when i got locked in the portaloo gents with charles kennedy. the main door got stuck. we listened to coldplay sing fix you, as we pulled on the door with force and eventually freed ourselves." that's quite the story! i mean, there's a whole other thing there, not just politicians at gigs, but locked in a loo with a politician. i don't know, could that be a...? a side genre. here's another one. this is from alex on email. good name. "last year, i was out in london at a kylie minogue—themed club night, push the button, and happened to see labour mp chris bryant there. as if that wasn't starry enough, i also bumped into a certain mradam fleming too." yes, i remember that.

do you remember? i do remember that. and that was just after chris bryant had stood down from the standards committee, who were investigating borisjohnson about misleading parliament. and i, after a couple of beers, was, like, haranguing him about what was going on with that. on a night out? i bet he really appreciated that! and i rember him clearly saying... yeah! he's like, "adam, even i don't want to discuss that here." did alex newscaster, like, harangue you about newscast, in the nicest possible way? i remember bumping into alex, yeah, and then maybe...did we have a little boogie to, like, can't get you out of my head or something like that, maybe? isn't push the button a sugababes song? shall we go into the different club nights around various venues in london? well... are you tempted to go? well, i'm just curious. it is a sugababes song. do you know, i have to say, really good knowledge, chris, because i didn't even pick that up. yeah. i'm really impressed. you're more of a shania twain man. well, you know, tacky music. and i like a bit of kylie as well, but it's the conflict of kylie and push the button.

it's a club night. i think it's once a month. and the idea is its dedicated to one artist. and so every, like... so they play, like, lots of other songs, but, like, every third or fourth song is a song... oh, i see, so you get a lot of kylie, but not exclusive kylie? and the next one is actually madonna. 0h, are you going to go? definitely be going to that one. get your ticket, chris! yeah. well, i don't think we'll be troubling any of the music podcasters. i don't think nick grimshaw and annie mac will be listening to this going, "oh, i'm going to get replaced by them!" so let's do what we can do, which is talk about the news on this episode of newscast. newscast. newscast, from the bbc. hello. it's adam in the studio. hello, it's alex in the studio. hello, it's chris in the studio. why did neither of you two know when to speak? he was being polite again, i think. 0k, we're alsojoined by steve reed, who is the shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs. hello. good to be with you. making your newscast tv debut as well. yeah, i've not been on newscast before, i'm very excited. - welcome, welcome. thank you for inviting me.

so we ask all the hard questions like, what's the next gig you're going to? i'm going to see kylie - in hyde park in the summer. would you believe it? no way? _ yes. that'll be fantastic. are you a big kylie fan, or was it just something you wanted to do? i think she's just always sort - of been there in the background, as i've been growing up. so, you know, she's sort of part of the soundtrack to my life, one way or another, so it'll be great to see her. - i had a poster on my wall as a child, kylie. did you? - yeah, yeah, i did. all i will say is those tickets were not cheap. no, they were - horrifically expensive. i bought them as a christmas present, to be honest. - 0k. yeah. well, i'm not going to that because i couldn't afford it. but luckily, newscasters who are there will be able to send in a sighting of you. i'll send you a clip! yeah, send me the good bits, thanks! right, you're here because it's been another big day for labour. i've said this a few times already this month. it's like, oh, it really feels like the general election campaign's got started, because labour were doing what today? they were...starting their general election campaign. again. that's what it kind of felt like. and i have tried to restrict my use of that sentence

because i found myself kind of thinking i should use it when i was reporting on rishi sunak�*s speech that he did in westminster on monday, and then you had this thing with labour today. so it was in essex, in purfleet, not a million miles from london. it was on a film set. really? and the thing that i was struck by, there's two things we can talk about. of what film ? well, all sorts of bits and bobs of filming they do there. 0k. it's a swanky place. and the thing that i was most struck by around the event, and we can talk about the promises and all of that, of course, was the kind of razzmatazz of it. can't have been cheap. i mean, it really can't have been cheap. there was videos and choreography and endorsements. parties will always crave endorsements, whether it's from, today, the labour party was endorsed by the boss of boots, the high street chain. there was a guy who gave an incredibly powerful testimony about his experience of the nhs, who's dying from cancer. and the whole thing, as an event, was polished and slick. and now, you might think, i mean, so what? well, firstly, there's lots of events that aren't like that or are just quite small. nothing wrong with that. but it just screamed,

you know, election is coming. upa gear. partly, for me, it was kind of i thought, oh, i wonder if this would have been the general election launch for the party in this venue if the election had been in the summer. and maybe, you know, you think, well, just do it, do it anyway. and then underneath that are these ideas, this kind of pledge card that's not called a pledge card — or they're not calling it a pledge card — which is their bridge, they hope, between now and the election campaign to give them stuff to talk about that is understandable to voters. in the last 18 months or so, they've assembled various big—picture themes, "missions", as they call them. this is the kind of how you translate that into stuff that you can try and persuade people with. if it's not a pledge card, steve, what are you calling it? first steps. and the point of that is... i mean, the country'sj crying out for change. we saw that... i was up very late - with chris covering some of the local election results. but the country - is voting for change. they're desperate for change. keir's changed the labour party, so we're getting people that haven't felt able to vote for labour - for a long time coming. across to vote for us now.

and today was really about what keir means by putting labour— |at the service of working people, | what a decade of national renewal needs to start with, as we start that journey towards change. . so these were the first steps - towards the much bigger programme of change that we know the country needs. - is it confusing that the five missions have now become six steps, some of which sound a bit like the five missions? well... and also, these are first steps, which means there's probably more steps, so this is the first set of steps, well, the missions were always - extremely broad and they were always intended to be focused down by the time we got to the general election. | we're closer now, although we still don't know quite how close because we don't - have obviously a date for it yet. so the five missions - have become first steps towards each of those missions. but in the preamble _ to the missions, there was always the immigration element. so that's become . a first step as well. i mean, these are really- what we perceive voters to see as their priorities, -

where they want change. when did you realise, as a party, that some of these plans don't apply to england or wales... scotland, wales and northern ireland because of devolution? because there's a separate set of things now, isn't there? well, no, that was always known. really? 0k. that was always part of the plan. as far as i'm aware. whenever we _ talked about this as a shadow cabinet, there was always going to be a scottish- and a welsh version as well. this is less neat, though, isn't it? and also, this is an english list. well, it's not about neatness. it's not very one nation, is it? it's not about neatness. it's about reflecting - the reality of devolution, and labour believes in devolution. we want more power to be - in the hands of people, wherever they live in the united kingdom and in different regions- of england as well... it's still part of labour's agenda. these are, these are first steps. it's very important, this — it's not a manifesto. - there will be a full— manifesto when we get much closer to the election. this is what i mean. i don't know what to ask you about. do i ask you about the five missions, which you said are deliberately vague and huge?

do i ask you about the six things which don't apply in every bit of the country? or do i ask you about the actual delivery plans that you're going to come up with if you get elected, maybe? which one is it? well, i do hope we get elected! and i hope these help to show people that if they elect - a labour government, we will be practical, . we'll be pragmatic, we'll make sure everything i that we promise is costed, so people will know - that it can be delivered. we want to do politics differently. i people don't like what they've seenl under this conservative government, flip—flopping around, - constant change, instability, a country that doesn't seem to work for working people any more. - these are the first steps l towards that very, very big change this country needs. does it all feel quite presidential, this? i was struck at the event earlier that keir starmer, these first steps, as he calls them, he calls them my first steps, as opposed to labour's first steps. he was there today, unlike most of the other blokes in the room, wearing a suit and tie and all the rest of it. i've also lost my tie, i suppose. not again! yeah. you know, he didn't have a jacket on, he didn't have a tie on. his sleeves were rolled up. now, i know that sounds trivial, but senior politicians don't do that

sort of thing by accident when they know they're going in... and steve's lost his tie as well! there must be a train going up and down somewhere between here and essex with a lot of ties on it. on the c2c rail line. yeah, what's all that about? what is he trying to communicate with the way that he looked today? well, keir is the man who, if we win the election, - will be prime minister. so it's absolutely right that keir is central- to the offer we're making. i've given my pledge cards away already. i i did take a few with me, - but they've got a very good picture of keir on the front, - looking very workman—like — that is what he's like. i think there's an authenticityj in how he came across today, and i've known the guy for a long time. - that is how he comes across, you know, . when you're speaking to him. and i thought... it felt, to me, in the way that he was delivering i that speech as well, it felt much more engaging than i've seen him speaking sometimes. - i don't know whether that's because he's becoming - more accustomed to it, to public speaking. - i noticed, actually... sorry, i was sitting there and there were loads of speakers today at this event,

politicians and others, all of whom, except keir starmer, were reading pretty much word for word off an autocue. and when keir starmer did his thing, ijust looked because the autocue was over my shoulder, it had bullet points. so the core points were all there, but then he sort of chattered around them and therefore didn't have to stare at the autocue the whole time. and i've seen him do stuff off the cuff before, but that was the first time i'd seen him do that kind of hybrid thing. well, when we're doing speeches as politiciansl or presenters, i'm sure, as well, you need bullet points— to make sure you're not - forgetting what you're saying. but i think the way keir talked - about it, there was something very authentic to him about that. and i think that was reflected in how he looked as well. - but it's also in what we're talking about, you know? j the missions is his idea for how you can refocus government - over a much longer term, - get away from this flip—flopping around we've had from _ the conservatives and have some constancy and consistency in government. _ and then these first steps, again, reflect the missions. _ so there is a real agenda here. it's very authentic to keir. and i thought today's event,

for all that you described, i you know, the relative glitz of it, it was very keir- as well, wasn't it? relative! it is politics, after all! it's not kylie! you're very careful not to call them pledges. but inevitably, there's been a whole load of comparison to 1997 and tony blair's famous first pledge card, with his five pledges on it. i wasn't actually at the event today, but as well as the speeches, and then there was a 08a after, right, chris, with the media? and then you guys all did sitdowns with keir starmer. and i watched all of that and there was so much focus on whether or not this is tony blair, mark two, is keirstarmer the heirto blair? are we seeing the reinvention of blair? what do you think when you hear that? is that a comparison you welcome, or worry about? it was nearly 30 years ago, was it, the better part of 30 years - ago since tony blairl won his first victory? but distance itself doesn't mean he isn't trying to do something similar. we're not trying to go backwards. this was about looking - at the problems the country faces today and how - you project that forwards. there's one thing i would love

to learn from tony blair. - he won three elections in a row, we lost the last four. _ we need to win more than one, in order to deliver that decade i of national renewal. it's very hard to think of any- public services today that perform better than they did in 2010, when the conservatives - were first elected. so the transformation . has got to be immense, but you've got to show— people how that can be achieved. at a time when people have lost faith in politics and politicians, i you've got to show them how that long journey can start _ with steps that they can understand and can see are credible and can be delivered and paid for, _ and that's what today was all about. doing politics differently. help me out with the psychology of this. you've been a proud labour member for many, many years, and you were talking about labour's recent record, which is four consecutive defeats. and historically, if you look back over the last century, the conservatives are considerably more successful when it comes to winning elections than labour. how do you kind of wrestle with that? that loyalty you have to the party, through thick and thin, with trying to get into a place where there's that kind of, i saw it at that event today,

perhaps a sort of drive and a determination that maybe hasn't always been there in the past to win with a certain ruthlessness? i well, it's keir's leadership thatl has transformed the labour party from the party that voters rejected so comprehensively in 2019. - it's almost bizarre now to think . what a short period of time it has been during which this - transformation has happened. when keir was elected leader — which was april of 2020, - wasn't it? _ — very few people, me included, would have - believed that we could be in this position now. and in order to get us into this. position, where we are potentially able to win the trust of the british public, keir had to change - the labour party from top to bottom, but that's what he's done. _ and by changing the labour party, i by putting it back in the service i of working people, he's -

demonstrating he has the ability to change this country, l and people want change. interesting, when keir starmer was elected as labour leader, were you sort of crossing your fingers and hoping for the best? because the implication of what you've said is there's a parallel universe where keir starmer wasn't able to do this. no, i backed keir from before he put himself forwards, actually. _ we had conversations. i was one of those people encouraging keirto stand. because he has authority, he has credibility. - as a former director. of public prosecutions, he led and transformed - a major government department. he was able to do that. do you wake up sweating in the night, given all of those previous losses, and think, it could still all go pear—shaped? yes! absolutely, you know. you see all of these polls and you see how much better we did in the local elections, but not- a single vote has been castl for the general election yet. i mean, you just said - the conservatives are the most successful electoral _ machine in any democratic country in the world, they arel formidable opponents. labour, the state we were in when keir became leader- was the worst we have been, |

our worst defeat for 85 years. so i think it's right we should be afraid that we won't do enough. to win people's trust, _ because we have to fight really hard for every single vote and we win. but we've lost the last four. we're shockingly good at losing elections, but what that means is we're then unable to put - ourselves at the service . of this country, and that's what we want to do. we want to improve life - and futures for people right across this country because, l as we saw in the local election results, all of those conversations i had on doorsteps right _ across the country, people are desperate for change. i we talked about tony blair. would you welcome gordon brown back with an officialjob? there's speculation about that at the moment. i think going forwards, - you don't bring back figures from the past in quite that way. they have a lot of experience and i think it's quite right- to respect that and to listen to what they have to say. i but we have a different crop of politicians today. - we have a leader i have immense trust in. - and we're shaping an agenda that i hope will meet- the aspirations that the british

people have for their families, their communities and their country moving forwards, because trust - in politics and in the future is at such a low ebb right now. that was a very polite "no, thanks, gordon"! it was! no, i love gordon. i say that to his face! who did you give all your pledge cards to? i've been doing the media rounds so i've been giving them - to lots ofjournalists, i'm afraid! _ and last question on the pledges, because it is 2024 and not 1997, you can download a qr code, you can scan it and it now turns up in your apple wallet next to your loyalty cards, so mine is in there in between my boots advantage card and my burrito loyalty card! have you downloaded it to your phone? i haven't, i'm afraid! a slight luddite in that respect! you can't brandish the card in an interview, can you, . when it's on your phone? or get any points in shops! or lose their points. is there a points scheme? i think it's great, it is necessary that it should be digital- because we are looking at digital transformation in the economy l

as one of the things i we will be looking for. and to be clear, i downloaded it forjournalistic purposes. i might delete it, actually, because it is a bit weird having it there! i don't know, when you get asked when you're doing a bit of broadcasting... aide memoir! and last last question, is there, like, a dress code for male members of the shadow cabinet? no! you were all wearing blue suits and burgundy ties! it's really sad, adam, i we did this to ourselves! we were saying as it - finished, we're all wearing slightly purple, red ties. i didn't notice that, were you all wearing the same? pretty much, yes! very slight variations in pattern! i was too busy obsessing with keir starmer�*s rolled—up sleeves to notice that all the rest of you were dressed the same! i have got to get myself some new clothes! - that can't happen by coincidence. it did happen by coincidence, yes. i dres myself in the mornings! and shadow defra, have you got a good pair of wellies? i have got a good pair of wellies, - actually, and they have been getting some good use because i went. on a sewage tour during the local elections, so you wouldn't do that without a decent pair of wellies i on your feet! there's plenty of it! steve, thank you very much. thank you. thoughts, you two?

i think it's fascinating because obviously, there is this, i don't know if you would call it a dilemma, but it is a big consideration in labour's mind at the moment, which is — how do you try and spell out with some clarity to the voters what you want to do when you get into government without promising them too much that you can't deliver it? and i think what we are seeing play out right now with labour is this kind of very cautious, careful approach, to try to put some flesh on the bones of what they are all about, without holding themselves hostage to fortune. so they do leave people feeling disappointed or disillusioned. and i think there's a consciousness in the party there's a real risk to that. i think the danger for them is that what they end up doing is still not saying quite enough or being clear enough or reallyjust coming up with an offer that people can wrap their heads around and i think they are in that quite tricky point right now. i remember someone in labour saying to me a while ago, and i may have used this line before on newscast, that where they see themselves is that they can't afford a moon on a stick and even if they could, no—one would believe them.

so there's the economic backdrop and then there's the kind of, you know, scepticism, cynicism, anti—politics backdrop. and then there's the thing where it's very easy and it is ourjob to ask searching questions about, when are you going to deliver that promise and is there an end date and what about this number and all the rest of it? but then there is the dilemma that alex talked about that the parties face around overpromising. but if you underpromise, what do you stand for and what have you got to go out and say? but you don't want to shackle yourself to something that becomes undeliverable. at the same time, you have got to say something and give some sort of measure or metric of what you would amount to, as you see it, success. because otherwise, you are going to get hammered for being vague and not really standing for anything. and that's hard. ijust thought, and i don't know how useful this point is, but it definitely did strike me today. so, you have unveiling a pledge card... not a pledge card! not a pledge card, but a list of pledges that are on a card! a medium. people coming in to do personal testimony to introduce each policy area, a leader who goes quite heavy on anecdotes of people he's met,

doesn't really have a script and doesn't stand at a podium and walks around the stage sort of ad—libbing. ed miliband did this in 2015. and also has slightly tortuous language sometimes. like, oh, stability is change! radical, but with responsibility! itjust took me right back to that event that i went to with ed miliband in 2015. and it's also notjust ed miliband in 2015 but, actually, we talked about tony blair, but it wasn't just tony blair in 1997, that then became the model for successive... that's what pledge cards are. it is. and i genuinely don't know this, but i wonder, is that what people will remember? i don't know. of course, labour are now going to talk about this a lot because that is how it works for all parties, they decide on their messages and they repeat them and repeat them and repeat them. but i don't know at what point, and this is true of any party, people on the doorstep would be able to tell them back. i know what it is that you stand for. who knows? these six steps, pledges, new definitions, are

new missions, are they going to do that? now, we are not the only tv programme where four smart people sit in an awkward line in a studio! loose women on itv! i wondered where you were going with that for a second! exactly! the two images, it looks like a similarformat. rishi sunak was on there today. and actually, it was an interesting interview because he was clearly on there to pitch all the stuff today the government had done about sex education in schools in england and so obviously thought, that's a good audience to pitch that stuff at. they asked him some tough questions, obviously, because they are good journalists, but the toughest one came from janet street—porter, who had this zinger. i think your heart is in - the right place, but why do you hate pensioners? what we did overwinter, you're asking about the help with energy bills overwinter, so everyone, all pensioners received double their winter fuel payment. they didn't have to apply for it. they were just given it, right? that's double, up to £300 extra over the winter to help with energy bills.

the state pension has gone up by £900, far greater than inflation and prices are rising. thankfully, we have got inflation down now. so i think that will really help. and janet street—porter went on at some length about why she thought the conservatives hated pensioners, so we chopped that bit out for timing reasons, that's why there was a little edit in there. there were two things in there, chris. there is this thing about, actually, the conservative party's relationship with older voters, with pensioners, and second of all, that cliched point i made at the start, this is politicians popping up in places they wouldn't normally pop up in. totally, so on the demographics point, if you like, broadly speaking, recent history has suggested the conservatives do disproportionately well amongst older people, amongst pensioners, so it is a really important kind of chunk of the population to court, not least because they vote in disproportionately high numbers. on the loose women thing, so, a bunch of us political reporters who were due to do interviews with keir starmer were outside the room where they were going on, they always kick out all of the other reporters whilst each reporter goes in and does their thing. and we were all hunched

round a laptop watching rishi sunak on loose women. and then i went in to talk to keir starmer and ijust said, "i'vejust been watching rishi sunak on loose women," whilst we were putting the microphones on and all of this, and he was reflecting, i think he has been on before, that it's flipping hard! it's really hard, because it's one thing dealing with us lot as political reporters, and a fairly usually predictable set of topics. but there you are around the table, you don't know quite which way to look. there is a studio audience that might be laughing or applauding or booing or goodness knows what. i mean, you combine the film set in essex and rishi sunak on loose women, and thatjust kind of screams election, even though we could still be pre—polling day on halloween or on bonfire night. it's a long way off. potentially. yeah. the other thing about those things is they are often the ones where politicians find themselves really caught out because they get asked that question theyjust don't expect. so the whole theresa may, what was the naughtiest thing you ever did? or, what's the price of milk in a shop? it is those things they are

completely unprepared for that are the moments that are risky for politicians when they go on programmes like that. and actually, talking about constituencies of voters they're trying to court, that is what we are going to see. already, so many examples of it, but one i was doing a lot of work on last week was the farming community. you have had people at the nfu conference, keir starmer wrote for country life magazine. just, i don't know, gird your loins, or whatever the phrase is! is that a phrase?! there is going to be a lot more of this. gird your loins for loose women? no! for politicians popping up in unexpected places, and i think that hasjust made the saying i said worse! the other thing about loose women, i was going to say two things, is rishi sunak had to confess at the start that he doesn't watch loose women. awkward! actually, they were fine about that. second of all, right at the end, they said, will you stay on as an mp even if you aren't prime minister any more? and he said, absolutely, yes. but i suppose you have got to say that, haven't you? what is your next gig, by the way, chris? my next gig is reediting a piece for the ten o'clock news.

showbiz! i'm going to see the foo fighters injune. my favourite band. whereabouts? at the old olympic stadium, now the london stadium, in london. i know, one of those ones it was really hard to get tickets. i've got a favourite foo fighters song. and when they were... did they do glastonbury? was it last year or the year before? i don't know, i haven't seen them at glastonbury. you've made a cultural reference that i don't know! 0h! they were doing a gig that my wife and i were watching on the telly and she knows that there's this particular foo fighters song that i really love. and then... is it dave grohl? yes. he says, right, we're going to play a song that i know some people like, but i think he said, we really, really don't like. was it your song? yeah. wheels. wow, there you go! do you like wheels? no! well, on that note, wheels be back with another episode of newscast very soon! thank you for listening to this one. bye. newscast. newscast. newscast, from

the bbc.

live from london. this is bbc news. president zelensky says ukraine only has about a quarter of the air defences it needs to fight off russian attacks. a close ally of the late russian opposition leader alexei navalny tells the bbc he'll "never give up" fighting president putin after a brutal hammer attack in march. he asked us to never give up and,

like, to continue our work and to build this to defeat putin and to build this beautiful russia of the future. georgia's president vetoes a controversial �*foreign agents�* law that's caused mass protests, but she will almost certainly be overruled by parliament. israel says it has struck more than 70 targets in gaza in the past day, as fighting intensifies in both the north and south of the territory. and a boil water notice has been lifted for most residents after a parasite outbreak in devon. welcome to the programme. we begin this hour in ukraine, where president zelensky says his country only has

about a quarter of the amount of air defences it needs to fight off russian attacks.