the israeli cabinet has decided to close down the operations of the aljazeera television network in the country. prime minister benjamin netanyahu had previously described it as a �*terrorist channel'. aljazeera has described the decision as �*criminal�*. china's leader, xijinping has arrived in france. he's expected to meet french president emmanuel macron tomorrow, along with the president of the european commission, ursula von der leyen. for more on the fallout from the local elections, it's now time for today's sunday episode of newscast, with laura kuenssberg, paddy o'connell and henry zeffman. newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello. it's paddy in the studio. and laura in the studio. and henry at home. is it mission impossible for the conservatives? that's what we've been discussing this weekend.

it depends how you count it. it depends who you are. if you're mark harper, who is a loyal ally of rishi sunak, you say, "it's all to play for". or if you are suella braverman, former home secretary, you say on the telly, "we might not have any "mps left if rishi sunak doesn't change course." and if you're paul scully, who's another former minister who was also on our programme, you say, "it's all looking pretty "terrible and the party needs to take a breath, "show some humility and stick to the centre". so it's not a very pretty set of realities, but there are differing realities, but not a very pretty set of realities for rishi sunak today. so i offerfrom radio 4 land today gavin barwell, who was theresa may's adviser. now, of course, she saw a chance to go for an election and was then humbled by it, was then replaced as prime minister. he said the conservatives are on course for a defeat, possibly a huge one. but he said keir starmer is not loved, hasn't necessarily

got the blair power. henry, what's your verdict now that all the results are in, bar the couple of police and crime commissioners? it's a terrible set of results for the conservative party. i think that's really, really clear. mark harper obviously had one of the most difficult jobs in politics today, which is to spin a terrible set of results. and he said that he thinks that the results show there's all to play for. theyjust don't. i mean, it may well be that things change. things can change. but these results do not show at all that things are changing in the public's perceptions of the conservative party. this vast quantities of the public want to give the conservative party a kicking. that is abundantly clear from the results. and, you know, ithink lots of political experts thought it was a bit odd that conservative mps were deriving kind of psychological comfort

from a victory in the tees valley and what was expected to be a victory in the west midlands, when the broader outlook was so bad. they don't even have that cold comfort of the west midlands any more. and i think... and, as we could see from suella braverman today, the coup isn't happening. so that leaves the conservative party in a very odd place where, simultaneously lots of their mps think that they have the evidence that they're doomed, but they don't want to change leader because many of them think that would make it worse. i mean, they're stuck, aren't they? i mean, they are really, really stuck. that's the thing that i see — a sense about the conservative party. they're stuck believing that they are on their way to what commissar melvyn on dischord has called starmergeddon... starmergeddon. ..after a terrible week for the tories. it is a takeaway. we can say that rishi sunak will lead the conservative party into the next election. it certainly would be weird at this stage. it would be really weird if he didn't. and i think in time,

as i pompously wrote in a piece on the website, i think this weekend might see that this is sort of the moment their fate was sealed, if you like, because they've gone, "actually we're not up for the cup. "we're not going to change the leader". suella braverman, came on the telly this morning with a stinging broadside, people might say, injournalese, at the prime minister, but also very clearly said, "we can't change our leader". but you've got people on the left of the tory party saying, "the leader has to change how he is, what he does". you've got people on the right of the party saying the leader has to change, but he's still stuck too. he's stuck in the middle of that tory coalition, that borisjohnson coalition that was so broad and it ain't really working for him. the plan is not working and i- despair at these terrible results. there's no spinning these results. there's no disguising the fact that these have been - terrible election results for the conservatives . and they suggest that we are heading to a labour government and that - fills me with horror. i love my country, i care _ about my party and i want us to win. and i'm urging the prime minister. to change course to, with humility,

reflect on what the voters - are telling us and and change the plan and the way that he'sl communicating and leading us. if it's that dire, why not change the leader? listen, ijust don't think that's a feasible prospect right now. | we don't have enough time, i and it's impossible for anyone new to come and change our fortunes, to be honest — there's no superman or superwoman out there who can do it. _ rishi sunak has been leading us for about 18 months. _ he's been making these decisions. these are the consequences of those decisions. - he needs to own this _ and therefore he needs to fix it. you know, despite suella braverman saying rishi sunak should govern more in the way that suella braverman would, and paul scully saying the conservatives should be more optimistic and so on and so on, i think if there were an easy answer, at least as rishi sunak perceives it, to getting the conservative party out of the doldrums, then he'd have gone for it by now. his view has always been

that the best route to conservative salvation, or at least a less bad defeat, is an improving economy. and the economy is improving. the economy has improved since last year's local elections and if you look at the pns, the conservative party isn't doing any better. so the conservatives just have to, i think, hang tight and hope that the next few months of economic improvement might be the months of economic improvement which improved their poll rating. could be a triumph of hope over expectation. well, the thing is that we've got to remember that suella braverman backed rishi sunak. so in the psychodrama of the tory leadership campaign, which we've discussed here before, if you're labour, you keep reminding the voter that this is the party of liz truss, partygate, and everything—gate, and that's kind of what they should be doing, say the strategists. so how can braverman say her guys are the wrong guy? well, i asked her that question on what she said this morning.

did she regret bashing...backing... bashing! did she regret bashing rishi sunak? and she's doing that now. did she regret backing him? have a listen. honestly, yes, i do, because i had assurances from rishi sunak that he was going to put a cap on legal migration, that he was going to do something about the european convention on human rights, that he was going to fix this transgender ideology in our schools. he hasn't done that. you know, i want our party to win. i want us to beat this feeble labour party. and i want to save our country from keir starmer. i'm not going to give up. i'm still going to fight. even if it makes me unpopular, i'm going to speak the truth because that's what the 400 councillors who we lost this week deserve. that's what the authorities that we lost this week deserve. we are not going to fix this problem unless we're honest about it and we change course in reflection, with some humility, to what the voters are telling us. and here's the problem, i think for rishi sunak�*s loyal lieutenants, that you've got people on both sides of the tory party saying,

you've got to have some humility, you've got to take a breath, you've got to think why this isn't working, and there's no sign of that at all. so mark harper, very loyal, just sat there and said, "stick with the plan, "stick with the plan". "this is what the country wants". this is how he had to describe it. it's all to play for. the election isn't a foregone conclusion and you - shouldn't take thel voters for granted. all to play for, when you've lost all of these councillors round the country? you've lost everything apart from the mayoral election results. yes, i think the national equivalent, the analysisj that has been done, i shows that it is closer than the national polls. you shouldn't take - the voters for granted. it is everything to fight for. it is a lot to do, _ i absolutely acknowledge that. henry, what about questions for labour? i think we could go on forever seeing the conservative party vote analysed with someone saying, "it's all to play for". but is a, keir starmer charismatic enough? b, will they have to change their policy on gaza, and c, does it matter? is it all now... does this election confirm that

they're on course to win? it definitely confirmsl that, as things stand, they're on course to win. yeah, i mean, there are clouds on the horizon, for sure. - you know, both the issues they've had in places with high _ numbers of muslim voters, but also some urban, - more left wing areas, where they're losing votes to the green. - by the way, those areas sometimes overlap. - i so it's quite hard to know precisely. why people are turning against them. but sure, those are problems that might potentially afflict _ a starmer government, i which as it stands, looks like it would have a fairly convincing majority. - but they are nice problems to have . if it looks like you're on course . for a majority five years after such a bad electoral defeat. _ i mean, i think one thing really. worth noting is what appears to be the efficiency of the labour vote. let me explain what i mean there. basically they are piling | on votes in places where they really need to, _ places where they were previously quite unpopular, places which will determine i a general election. thurrock, redditch, so on. yeah. where they are losing votes

is the places where they're already extremely strong — constituency westminster level. so even if they lose a ward council level, they've got votes to lose and they can still keep those seats. and i'lljust give you one brief historical parallel, because i'm a nerd. the 2005 general election — tony blair won a 66—seat majority, the sort that keir starmer would kill for. they only beat michael howard's conservatives and share of the vote nationally by 2.8 percentage points. so when you look at conservatives saying, "0h, well labour, are only nine points ahead on projected national share, even with a vast independent and green vote, which wouldn't happen at a general election". well, actually, in some scenarios, if the vote is efficiently distributed on the first past the post, you could be winning by a lot less than that and still end up with a big majority in the house of commons. i mean, i don't think that is nerdy and i think you've got to look at the machinery of our general

election politics in order not to make a simple read across from the local election politics. because all of our listeners in scotland didn't have this election. all of our listeners in northern ireland didn't have this election, and all of our listeners in wales only elected police and crime commissioner. so they do not want us saying, "oh, i know what will happen in edinburgh, glasgow, aberdeen, inverness." absolutely. and these results don't prove anything. they show trends, right? they confirm the big headlines that the tories are in really deep trouble and that labour is on the march. that's about it. now there are all sorts of other micro things that are really interesting, but in terms of what you can confidently conclude from this, you have to say, hold your horses. and i say it every week and i know it's really boring, but campaigns do change things and the election is miles away. but labour does have a problem though, with that part of the electoral block at the moment, because of the leadership�*s position on gaza and israel. that is a real problem. and you were talking to tracy brabin, the re—elected jubilant mayor of west yorkshire. yes. she got a stonking victory over the conservative who came

second. she admitted, yes, international politics is playing through to our domestic politics and labour needs to listen and come up with a clear response. here's what she told us. but you can't sugar—coat that. i've been door—knocking for weeks now, and before i became - mayor i was the member of parliament for batleyl and spen and i know that international. politics really do impact and they were hurt. but i was really pleased to see that in the west midlands keir- was saying, "you know, _ we've heard you and we're listening" and as the first mayor to call for a ceasefirel here in west yorkshire, . i know that this was really important for so many and not just actually, quite frankly, _ the muslim community. many people were despairing at what they were seeing. . wanted to see that leadership, but i do think the labour- are in the right position- and david lammy has really led from the front here. how interesting, though, that she managed to slip in there. "i was one of the first mayors to call for a ceasefire."

now that's true. she was. but the mayors took a different position to the national leadership. yeah, because isn't it the case, henry, that there's been a boost for incumbent mayors and also the personal politics can trump the party politics, witness houchen in teesside? this is the point of mayoralties, right? these powerful local mayors sprawling across different local authorities, combined authorities as they're called. this is why they were invented, mostly by george osborne and the david cameron government in the mid 20105, though the london mayor dates back to 2000 of course. they were designed to sort of sit outwith national politics. and i think on the one hand, this set of results shows that they do, because they all have their own particular strengths and weaknesses. they all, of course, you know, are making profound decisions for people's lives in the combined authorities that they govern. on the other hand, if you take a step back now that we've

got all the results, you know, these powerful mayors, designed to sit outside party politics in some sense, and yet all but one of them are now labour, and including york and north yorkshire, right. i mean, including rishi sunak's own patch. and i think that does tell quite a strong story given that, you know, perhaps at the start of this weekend we thought that the west midlands and the tees valley would be sort of tory holdouts. i think most people thought that york and north yorkshire would be conservative as well. yet actually, that is a vast swathe of this country's cities and broader regions which are going to be governed by labour party politicians. and that's going to happen whatever happens in the general election. they're going to be in theirjobs for the next four years and that will have a big impact on the communities around the country. what's interesting, though, is what happens next for, i mean, both the big parties, but we've talked a lot about the tories and their nightmare in the last couple of days. i think what's also interesting, where do labour go next?

when are they going to start giving more clarity on things like their policy on immigration? we asked pat mcfadden about that this morning, answer came there none, although he did say that if they win and there have been migrants who have gone to rwanda, they will not bring them back. so he did say that they would stop the scheme, but he wouldn't say they would bring people back, which was a specific question that we wanted to know the answer to. but we've had an email from someone who calls himself an "interested voter" — that's a great email address — wanting to know at what point will any representative of the labour party actually say what they're going to do instead of relying on how disastrous the tories are? "i'd be very interested to know exactly what labour are intending to do with our country that's going to be better than what we currently have." and it made me think, hearing that, about the pressure that they're going to come under. the tories may not be able to, who knows, but they may not be able to close the gap between them and the labour party very much. what they can though do, and what they're quite good at doing, is rattle the labour party — they can panic them, they can upset them, they can come up with things

like put pressure on the 28 billion, or they can go after angela rayner, and they can rattle the labour party's cage just at a moment when labour i think is starting to see themselves as winners, because labour doesn't have an easy time seeing themselves in that way because they've lost so many times. but the tories are good at rattling them and that is what they will do, and it's going to be really interesting to see — does this set of results actually show us a different, much more confident, more nimble, maybe more aggressive labour party? i don't know. and i can just... on the rattle theme, reform will rattle the conservative party, because they're going to stand in all the seats at the general, which they did not do at the locals. and the liberal democrats produced more councillors than the conservatives did this time round. the greens made advances. so you've got, really, you've got, henry, you've got a sort of division of our politics. are we listening as newscasters and we're broadly left? are we listening and we're broadly right?

there's going to have to be a realignment by the time of the general election, isn't there? because people will vote differently. but do you feel that... the guest who came on radio 4 said to us today, "keir starmer can afford to forget reform, they're not coming for voters from labour like ukip did. this is a blue... this is a conservative problem. not like ukip who also took labour voters." i think that seems to be the case. from the places where reform stood this time round and has stood previously, it's not a ukip—level phenomenon in taking votes from labour. in hindsight, ukip was a sort of early harbinger of what was happening with brexit. a sort of gateway, wasn't it? exactly. but reform is something a bit different. it does seem to be siphoning votes primarily from the conservatives, although still not probably siphoning votes in the quantity you'd expect if the national polls about where reform is were correct. i mean, ithink you're right to mention all the other parties as well, paddy, because one reason

that the labour share in the projected national share and the tory share as well both look quite low in historical terms is because lots more people are using these elections to vote for parties beyond those two main parties. and i think that probably does speak to major levels of dissatisfaction with uk politics, with party politics, with who the parties are producing and offering to them. and i do think that's a little, if it doesn't sound too pompous, for british parliamentary democracy, i think that is a warning light flashing on the dashboard, because as you said at the start of this, paddy, i think gavin barwell said on your programme, you know, keir starmer is not exciting people in the way that tony blair did, and that's clearly true. on the other hand, he is significantly more popular or less unpopular than rishi sunak. it'sjust if you... they're all so much less popular than politicians were in the noughties, in the '905, in the '805. generally, if you look at approval ratings of leaders,

there's a trend for all of them, whoeverthey are, it'sjust going down and down and down. i don't know what that says about our society. i don't know what it says about our politics, but i'm pretty confident it's not healthy and it's not good. we should share that suella braverman, talking about lack of enthusiasm for keir starmer that you said gavin barwell said he's no blair, suella braverman claimed that keir starmer had the charisma of a peanut. we are not delivering for the people. - we're not delivering - the policies that people want. and it's a disgrace that we are trailing up against labour, - led by keir starmer, _ who has the charisma of a peanut. it was probably the most memorable phrase that was used between nine and ten on bbc one. i just state also it's worth mentioning that in local elections people do tend to flirt a bit more with the other parties. and what you also often see is that you get to a general, actually, people do go back to the, "am i going to go red or am i going to go blue?" but, you know, we'll see. ijust want to mention one other thing i think is really interesting that keys into one of the things i'm

intrigued to see in the next couple of months about how labour evolves, when do they start to tell us more on policy, but also do they start to look different? has anybody noticed what keir starmer has done again and again and again in the last couple of days when they've won? well, are you going to tell me that he appears at football grounds? yes, but non—league football grounds. so not in a shirt and tie, not in a suit and tie, not in a shiny—floor factory in front of a big widget or a plane with people with really stiff placards all standing there ready to clap on cue when he walks in. he's gone to non—league football grounds in that centrist dad uniform of bomberjacket, navy shirt, or even even a v neckjumper! my wardrobe. with a t—shirt underneath it. exactly. he's been in paddy's wardrobe. he's been rifling through. so he goes to non—league football grounds. that means he's got more feeling of spontaneity. "i'm a man of the people. look at me. i love nothing more than playing a five—a—side with my mates. and if i wasn't trying to be prime minister, i'd just be here having a pint and maybe kicking a ball around."

and it is a completely different vibe to the kind of very staged photo ops that we see so often, used to see from labour politicians so often. the edstone! oh god, i forgot about the edstone. but that, to me, and i asked someone in the party about it, i said, "are you doing that on purpose?" and this is an absolutely deliberate decision that they've taken is to send him to non—league football grounds. maybe he's trying to be mates with the two lovely american film stars who have got wrexham. who knows? maybe he'll pop up there and there'll be a netflix, you know, "starmer, the wrexham manager". but it's deliberate and it's really interesting to me, and they've clocked on to this sort of... it's a kind of softer image, isn't it, of him? because people sometimes say he looks boring. put him then in a home environment where he obviously does look much more comfortable and it's just really interesting to me because i'm sad enough to notice these things. henry's nodding because... such a good point.

it's such a good point, because it speaks to two things. one is starmer's love of football, which is basically the only facet of his personality beyond politics that is presented to the public. and, you know, he does interviews on football radio stations. he was on talksport, he did a really niche football podcast called football cliches, which i listen to. but i was quite surprised when keir starmer popped into my feed maybe a year or so ago. i'd also note, though, that the fact they're non—league football grounds, as well as speaking to what labour want to portray him as, speaks to the electoral geography of labour support. because... yes, it's the town strategy, right? if they were just getting votes in cities, they're not non—league football clubs, they're generally premier league or championship football clubs. and there's no point keir starmer going... in the towns where they're winning, their football clubs are generally lower league or non—league football clubs. i mean, i think there's a bit of a risk here because some of the most florid language i've ever heard has been when i've gone to football matches. i've heard words i didn't even know could be made rude at football matches. and if you're, you know,

if you put me there, you know, i'd be quite sure i'd attract a lot of opprobrium. just on what they're all doing, rishi sunak�*s constantly in a hard hat at a factory. ed davey, the stunts, you know, i've earlier pointed out to our listeners who love the liberal democrats, they got more councillors than the conservatives. they did. but do we feel it's over for the stunt? have we seen enough? oh, no, they love it. he loves it. but also the thing is that they know it will get them pictures in the papers and on the news, right? so this is notjust because ed davey likes having a day out and playing with an inflatable dinosaur. it's also because they know it gets them on the news and it creates a moment. and look, what have they achieved? we're talking about it! and as the third party, fourth party actually currently, that is a tick in the column. but on that they told me recently, actually, they don't tell ed davey until he's almost there, so he doesn't know what the stunt is going to be! so it's a big surprise for him. but just something that when we launched the weekend edition, we started saying, look in this campaign, look for interviews outside the normal... yes, we did.

i mean, i didn't say that, but to hear that he's doing these podcasts, because i didn't listen to that one. oh, keir starmer, yeah. can we say that's a takeaway in this election campaign that we now know we're in, do we see interviews in more interesting locations? do we see soft interviews? do we see surprising interviewers? we're going to see the lot. and we saw recently the pm and his wife did an interview with grazia where he revealed to the nation how much he likes to be in charge of how the dishwasher is stacked and making sure that she's made the bed correctly. but that's another... but we're going to see the lot and in our wonderfully diverse media landscape that we're in now, right, we're going to see the lot. and actually, interestingly, recently, the prime minister even had in some instagram influencers and did chats with them that were oh—so natural that went on instagram about personal finances and things like that. so i think all the parties are going to be using any outlet, platform, whatever they can to try to get the message across. shall we do final words? what do you want to say that you haven't? shall i go first? oh, goodness me. what do i want to say that i haven't said already?

could be here to the rest of the week. you can think while i'm saying it. tone and turnout. it was notable that richard parker praised andy street and that andy street took it like a man and said, "it's my fault". british politics, people need to learn to disagree better, i feel, i would say that. and turnout was, broadly speaking, low, and that means that it's harder to make sensible comparisons. so i would add that from my perch. henry? well, picking up on what paddyjust said, what does andy street do next? does andy street want to stay in politics but faster than waiting four years to take on richard parker for the west midlands mayoralty? i genuinely don't know the answer to this, i'm merely speculating. but solihull, which is a safe conservative seat within the west midlands combined authority, currently doesn't have a conservative candidate and i'm sure there are lots of conservatives, particularly on andy street's more one—nation wing of the party,

who will be saying to him, "andy, go for solihull, come into the house of commons and be a big player in the conservative party, rebuild," if they lose that general election. i think that's a really good shout. even before that, though, i wonder if andy street might feel he wants to unburden himself a bit more than he did last night. and of course, there's a warm seat waiting on that sofa or that chair if he wishes to do so. i've got some red chairs downstairs, paddy. you've got some grey chairs. i think probably beige. beige, beige. nothing beige about broadcasting house, paddy! yeah, that's a really interesting shout. and yes, i think actually i'm all out of words. ok, it's fine. mercifully. so we say goodbye, really. i think that's the point, isn't it? thank you very much for being with us today. goodbye. newscast, from the bbc.

live from london, this is bbc news. despite a crushing election defeat, prime minister rishi sunak vows to stick to his plan in government — but some in his party voice serious concerns... we are, at this rate, we will be lucky to have any conservative mps at the next election. israel and hamas blame each other for the failure to agree a ceasefire in gaza, as talks continue in cairo. meanwhile, israeli police raid the offices of aljazeera after netanyahu's government moves to stop news network

operating in israel. and waiting for aid — as 1.4 million people shelter in gaza, our special correspondent, fergal keane, looks at the ongoing crisis for food. hello, i'm kylie pentelow. we begin this hour with the fallout from the local elections in england. the former home secretary suella braverman says the conservative party could be wiped out at the general election and has urged the prime minister to change course and swing to the right, after its poor showing in this week's votes for local councils and mayors — results which she said left her in despair. the tories lost over a70 council seats and all—but—one mayoral election in england. but defending the government, mark harper, the transport secretary, said it's still all to play for in the forthcoming general election and that

rishi sunak�*s plans have not yet come to fruition.