Newsnight

An investigation by Newsnight has found that tens of thousands of people in the last three years – who have been arrested for sexual and violent crimes including rape and murder – are being released with no restrictions or conditions.

Newsnight's James Clayton has been speaking to Radio 4's PM about his investigation into a system called "released under investigation".

He said that in 2017, the Home Office decided to change the system for pre-charge bail. They brought in rules that meant it was very difficult to put someone under this type of bail for more than 28 days.

James Clayton told PM: "At the time people though this was a good reform - but the problem was that the police didn't have the resources to process these cases within 28 days. The police instead turned to a system called released under investigation.

"That means no bail, no conditions, no restrictions - so for example, if you have been arrested on suspicion of murder, the police can't take away your passport under this system.

"I think it’s very likely that whoever gets into power in this election we are going to see a change in how this is applied – but experts say to actually implement changes the police will need more resources."

You can see Jame Clayton's full report on Newsnight on BBC Two at 22.30 GMT this evening.

During the course of the campaign we are looking closely at the places where the election could be won or lost.

The town of Enniskillen - just a few miles from the UK-Irish border - is in the constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, which is typically among Northern Ireland’s closest-run contests.

Speaking from a cafe in the town, 18-year-old Niamh tells us why she's not going to vote in this election.

"I don't feel like any of the parties actually represent me or care about the normal person," she says.

"All I hear about is Brexit and more Brexit. But I'm disabled, and if you look around the streets of Enniskillen, the pavements are a disgrace for disabled people."

"There is no-one that cares about the services for disabled people," she adds.

"They're all worried about gay marriage, and abortion. Two issues that should be open, and closed - not discussed."

"There's no way of knowing that my vote matters," she says.

James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent

What's been fascinating today is that, for once, Donald Trump hasn't been the disruptor in chief.

President Macron has taken on that role and has got us into the extraordinary position of Donald Trump actually defending Nato, which is not something we've seen much in the past.

That's because President Macron believes that Turkey is a real problem at the moment because It wants Nato to call Kurdish militias on its southern flank in Syria terrorists.

Nato doesn't want to call them terrorists. Macron doesn't want to call them terrorists because he says these are the guys we've been standing alongside fighting so-called Islamic State jihadists.

Image source, Lipinski/PA Wire

There's a reception of Nato leaders and senior figures tonight at Buckingham Palace - and ahead of that, the Queen has met the alliance's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg.

Our political reporter, Tom Barton, says the Labour Party sees the presence of US President Donald Trump as an opportunity to once again flag their concerns about a post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and the US.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn - who will attend the Buckingham Palace reception - says he'll raise the issue of the NHS if he finds himself in conversation with Mr Trump.

He says he would tell Mr Trump the health service would not be on the table in trade talks involving a future Labour government.

Boris Johnson has "categorically" ruled out any US involvement in the NHS, while the president, for his part, today insisted he would "would want nothing to do" with the NHS even if handed it "on a silver platter".

Earlier this afternoon we brought you Jo Swinson's reaction to US President Trump's claims the NHS is not part of the discussions around a UK-US trade deal - she said Mr Trump could not be trusted.

But on the day Mr Trump said he was prepared to work with any prime minister - what are the leader of the Liberal Democrats' thoughts about working with him?

"In a government situation you have to be able to work with people where you disagree with them... other leaders around the world," she says.

"I think that's different to rolling out the red carpet - which is what we have seen this [Conservative] government do.

"Donald Trump does not deserve the honour of the state visit [to the UK] that he had earlier this year. He's not someone who shares our values - he's demonstrated that through the way in which he's talked about women, about minorities, [and] the way he's been separating children from their parents at the border in his own country," she adds.

Ms Swinson says if she had an audience with Mr Trump she would "challenge him, particularly on the climate emergency".

Mr Trump has said climate change is a "Chinese hoax".

"This is a man who is denying the science," Ms Swinson adds.

Emma Barnett
BBC 5 Live

Radio 5's Emma Barnett has been speaking to one of Theresa May's former advisers - Paul Harrison - about her dealings with Donald Trump.

He recalled how Mr Trump criticised Theresa May's Brexit plan.

"The guy is a force of nature," Mr Harrison said.

Image source, Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon says the future of the NHS should not be dependent on trusting Prime Minister Boris Johnson or US President Donald Trump.

Speaking on a campaign visit to Perth, Scotland’s first minister highlighted her party's plans to introduce legislation at Westminster to protect the NHS from trade deals.

“There is a significant concern that in a post-Brexit environment, the NHS is at risk from trade negotiations with the United States of America and Donald Trump’s administration in particular," she says.

“I don’t want the future of our NHS to be dependent on trusting the word of Boris Johnson or Donald Trump.”

Earlier today Mr Trump said he wanted "absolutely nothing to do with" the NHS, when asked if it would form any part of future trade talks. In the past he has said "everything is on the table" when trade deals are being struck.

His words this morning came after Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn wrote to the president for clarity, following the release of documents showing initial talks about a UK-US trade relationship.

Ms Sturgeon adds: "Let’s have legislation that explicitly and in statute takes any risk of trade negotiations to the NHS away, and make absolutely clear that the NHS not just will not be on the table but could not be on the table in any trade negotiations.”

Chris Morris
BBC Reality Check

If the Conservatives were to win this election, one of the big debates next year is what gets prioritised - striking a trade deal with the EU or with the US.

The government would say it'll do both at the same time, but that's easier said than done.

Is it really going to be possible to do a deal with the EU by the end of 2020 - that is, by the end of the post-Brexit transition period which Boris Johnson says he will not extend?

The feeling in the EU is that it's possible an unambitious trade deal could be done by then - perhaps one that covers goods but not services, for example.

But that would only happen quickly if the UK aligned itself closely with the way the EU already does things.

And Donald Trump wants quite the opposite - he wants the UK to move away from the EU rules and regulations, and closer to the way the US operates.

So the two deals are in conflict.

BBC Newsbeat

Radio 1 Newsbeat has been travelling with the BBC News Channel to broadcast from some of the battlegrounds of this election.

Today, Steffan Powell is in the Newsbeat campervan in Enniskillen.

He says he's excited to be there because he's a big Game of Thrones fan (and scenes were filmed in the area).

Locals have been explaining which key issues are determining their votes.

Student Molly Rees says she often walks between Northern Ireland and Ireland without really realising.

"It's not a straight line," she says.

"You can be walking down a country road and your phone pings and says you've entered Ireland - and then you can walk a couple more steps and it says you've entered the UK again."

She says that's why a hard border between the two countries would be the "worst thing ever" - and implementing one would be "unrealistic".

She also says she worries such a border could cause similar tensions to those during the Troubles, where decades of violence between nationalists and unionists plagued Northern Ireland.

Molly is joined in the campervan by bar worker Aaron Jude, who disagrees.

He says the tensions from the Troubles are "done and dusted" - and although people will not forget what happened, they also do not want to keep "making it into something".

Image source, ITN pool

Our correspondent Jon Donnison is at Downing Street and says German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived on foot a few minutes ago.

But, he adds, he isn't actually sure the prime minister is in.

Boris Johnson and Ms Merkel are due to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, and Turkey's leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan for talks ahead of the 70th anniversary celebration of Nato this evening.

Image source, PA Media

Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson is warning voters not to trust Donald Trump's denials when asked about making the NHS part of a US-UK trade deal.

Travelling to a campaign visit in Essex, she says he stated that it would be "on the table" earlier in the year and adds he is "hardly somebody" to be trusted.

Asked if there had been back-channel coordination between Downing Street and the White House about presenting Boris Johnson in the best light during the campaign, she recalls the US president calling in to Nigel Farage's radio show saying Mr Farage and Mr Johnson should make an electoral pact.

"A few days after that, that's exactly what happened," she says. "So clearly that's what Trump wants to see."

She adds: "I think his presence reminds people of how Boris Johnson is just taking a leaf out of the Trump playbook on so many things."

BBC News Channel

During the course of the campaign we are looking closely at the places where the election could be won or lost.

The town of Enniskillen - just a few miles from the UK-Irish border - is in the constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, which is typically among Northern Ireland’s closest-run contests.

Ciaran Flaherty is a reporter at a local newspaper.

He says the candidate for Sinn Fein, Michelle Gildernew, is a "huge anti-Brexit campaigner", while the Ulster Unionist Party's Tom Elliott describes himself as a "soft Leaver".

"With Brexit being such a focus on this election, people know what they're going to get with these two candidates," he says.

But the fact that Ms Gildernew is a republican and Mr Elliott is a unionist will mean voters are not just thinking about Brexit, Mr Flaherty says.

And the DUP did not field a candidate for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, as part of a unionist pact to help Mr Elliott.

Mr Flaherty says the two key issues of Irish unity and Brexit will therefore make this closely-fought seat an interesting one to watch.

Read the story of Enniskillen at a time of political uncertainty here - and click here for a full list of candidates.

BBC Radio 5 Live

BBC Radio 5 Live's Sarah Brett is broadcasting live from Enniskillen from 22:30 GMT tonight.

Sarah's spent the day speaking to people who live and work there, including John Shades, who runs the local foodbank.

John says since April this year they’ve given out more than 1,200 food parcels. That's more than in the whole of previous financial year.

“It hasn’t even got cold yet," John says, "so when it comes to proper cold winter time we’ll see a massive increase”.

The team are packing up Christmas hampers containing cereal, porridge, long-life milk, meat products, pasta, rice, custard, tinned fruit and vegetables, rice pudding, plus some treats like a selection box or a Christmas pudding. It’s enough for four people for three days.

John says it can be difficult for people in rural communities: “It’s 'out of sight, out of mind' sometimes... The transport links from here to Enniskillen are terrible.

"There definitely is a need in the rural community.”

Ben Wright
BBC political correspondent

Boris Johnson went to Salisbury this morning. It's not somewhere that the Tories are fighting hard to keep because they have a thumping majority there (they won more than twice as many votes than Labour there in 2017).

But Mr Johnson turned up in Wiltshire for an unprompted walkabout in the town centre.

He popped into some shops and caused quite a scrum around the Salisbury Christmas market for 15 or 20 minutes. The reception was rather warm, as you'd expect.

That sort of campaigning is a rare occurrence nowadays. I think security concerns are a big part of it but they don't want the unpredictability, the randomness of an egg or a heckle, to interrupt the campaigning.

BBC Politics Live
BBC2's lunchtime political programme

Theresa May's former press secretary looks at the challenges of a Donald Trump visit in a UK general election campaign.

Politics Live reporter Ellie Price also heard from some of those who are opposed to the president's arrival in London as they prepare to demonstrate against him.

Both US President Donald Trump and Conservative politicians have today denied that post-Brexit trade negotiations between the US and UK will involve the NHS or drug pricing.

But the BBC's Faisal Islam has also been digging into what the US has been saying elsewhere.

He's posted a video of pharmaceutical industry lobbyists addressing US trade negotiators, raising concerns about the UK system where the government is the "primary payer" for drugs and "dictates prices".

They say this leads to a "failure to recognise the value of innovation", tends to "distort markets" and leads to "artificially depressed markets" for the treatments they sell.

Image source, EPA/ANDY RAIN

Jeremy Corbyn spoke to the BBC's Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 a little earlier.

The Labour leader said there were still grounds for serious concern about what part the NHS would play in any future trade talks with the US, after President Trump insisted his country wanted "absolutely nothing to do with" the NHS.

"I'm pleased that he's said that but, if that's the case why have these talks gone on for two years? Why have they been kept secret?" Mr Corbyn said.

"Why were, on a Freedom of Information request, the documents only produced in redacted form?" he asked.

"I think there are very legitimate grounds for very serious concern here," he tells Vine.

Mr Corbyn handed out copies of the un-redacted documents last week, and said the 451-page dossier showed initial talks had taken place, proving the NHS was "for sale".

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the claims were "nonsense" and the NHS would not be part of trade talks.

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Following the Labour leader's appearance on This Morning, where he apologised over antisemitism within his party, Norman Smith says: "It seemed to me the antisemitism apology that was extracted from Jeremy Corbyn is probably not going to make any difference because it's come so late in the day after we saw Mr Corbyn refusing, when he was interviewed by Andrew Neil, four times to apologise, eventually conceding to Phillip Schofield.

"I suspect for many in the Jewish community, they will never be reconciled until and unless Jeremy Corbyn leaves as leader, I think they view it as very personal to Mr Corbyn."

Mr Smith also gave his perspective on Donald Trump's comments that the NHS was not "up for sale" in a US-UK trade deal

He said: "On the face of it you would say that Donald Trump's intervention is of course helpful to Mr Johnson, because he seemed pretty clear that it wouldn't be on the table, indeed, he expressed some bafflement that this was raised as an election issue.

"He said, 'I don't know where that rumour came from'. In fact it came from him, when he raised it in a news conference when he came to the UK back in June, saying everything would be on the table.

"Some people will say 'well ok, the president has ruled it out', others will take the view that they don't trust the president, they view him as toxic and they're never going to be reconciled to what he said.

"I suspect Labour will carry on with their attacks on the NHS."

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

As leaders gather in London for a meeting of Nato, Former Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told The World At One that the alliance faces some "serious political challenges".

Going on, he said: "From a military point of view, apart from the perennial budget discussions, Nato is relatively healthy. From a political point of view, it would need some antibiotics I think. Given the fact that Nato is a political-military organisation and not the other way round, because a military organisation cannot survive without some degree of political consensus.

"There is is not sufficient or serious political debate around the Nato table, when Turkey invades Northern Syria without any form of consultation, when Turkey buys Russian S-400 missiles without consultation, when Macron questions Article 5, the core of Nato, an attack against one is an attack against all, without prior consultation and I have not mentioned yet, a very unpredictable American president."

Lord Peter Ricketts, former permanent representative to Nato presented a more optimistic view of the organisation's future.

He said: "If and when we leave the EU, in a way Nato becomes even more important to the UK. We are one of the biggest defence spenders, we are one of the nuclear powers in Nato, and we have a long tradition of bringing people together and trying to produce some kind of a consensus."

Lord Ricketts also pointed out that "defence spending is rising again for first time since the Cold War" and said that Nato was still "capable of doing new things, in cyberspace, in counter-terrorism".