PLEASE NOTE: We are unable to offer transcripts for our programme interviews. Today is broadcast live and the running order is subject to change.
The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, is calling for the audit of MPs' expenses to be widened to examine the most serious abuses of the system. And Gordon Brown is expected to announce that Britain is to send an extra 500 military personnel to Afghanistan.
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Many MPs are angry at having to retrospectively pay back some of their expenses. Party leaders signalled that those MPs who refused to co-operate with the audit of expenses, carried out by Sir Thomas Legg, could be barred from standing at the next election. Labour MP Stephen Pound discusses the mood amongst backbench MPs.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), has banned an advert for Danone's Actimel yoghurt. The ASA has criticised the advert for claiming that drinking the yoghurt could help normal healthy children protect against illness. Chief executive of the ASA, Guy Parker, and head of surgery and cancer at Imperial College London, Professor Jeremy Nicholson, examine whether a yoghurt drinks have health benefits.
In Washington a furious battle over Afghanistan policy is being conducted both within and outside the White House. Today, President Obama and his senior advisors will hold a fifth meeting of the national security team to discuss the strategy. North America Editor Mark Mardell reports from Washington.
The basic state pension will rise by £2.40 per week next April, even though inflation measured by the Retail Prices Index (RPI) was negative last month. Pensions are altered in April in line with the inflation rate the previous September, which fell to minus 1.4%. The government has pledged that the basic state pension will rise by at least 2.5% each year if inflation falls below this level. Mark Serwotka of the Public and Commercial Services Union and economics editor Stephanie Flanders analyse how a low-inflation environment could impact on pensions and wage expectations.
It is almost 20 years since the writer Roald Dahl died, yet he is selling more books now than he did in his lifetime. An animated film version of one of his best known stories, Fantastic Mr Fox, receives its world premiere at the London Film Festival. It is directed by Wes Anderson and features the voices of George Clooney and Meryl Streep as Mr and Mrs Fox. Arts Correspondent Rebecca Jones visited the home Roald Dahl shared with his wife Liccy, to find out more about the author and his works.
0749 Thought for the day with Akhandadhi Das, a Vaishnav Hindu teacher and theologian.
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Gordon Brown will announce that another 500 troops will be sent to Afghanistan, taking the total number of British troops there to 9500. For some military chiefs and the American military, this is not enough. Jason Straziuso, the Associated Press's chief reporter in Afghanistan for the past three years, discusses whether more or less troops are needed in Afghanistan.
The development of the expenses scandal has damaged the reputation of MPs and political institutions. Despite threats from the party leaders, many MPs are still refusing to admit they may have been greedy and pay back what the auditor Sir Thomas Legg says they should pay back. Deputy political editor James Landale, and the Leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman, examine the anger amongst MPs and how long party leaders can contain the discontent.
Artist Antony Gormley's fourth plinth project in Trafalgar Square, Anish Kapoor's installation at the Royal Academy, and the Unilever series in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, are all examples of theatrical installations of modern art. Mr Gormley, and the arts editor-in-chief at the Telegraph, Sarah Crompton, discuss whether modern art has become more about theatre.
ITV has been looking for a chief executive since April, following the resignation of Michael Grade. There have been many possible replacements, but all have pulled out the running for the £5 million-a-year job. Roger Laughton, former chief executive of the ITV company Meridian, and Steve Tappin, author of The Secrets of CEOs, discuss why the search for a new chief executive is proving so difficult.
A memorial service at sea will take place for the 833 men who drowned when the battleship HMS Royal Oak was sunk in Scapa Flow, 70 years ago today after being torpedoed by a German U-boat just weeks into the war. Kenneth Troop, who was on HMS Royal Oak's last voyage, tells his story, and the nephew of Commander Ralph Lennox Woodrow-Clark who drowned when Royal Oak was sunk, historian David Turner, comments on the battleship's last voyage.
The Guardian has prevented an injunction attempt by a firm of oil traders, which would have stopped it reporting proceedings in parliament. The injunction prevented the Guardian reporting that the MP Paul Farrelly had tabled a parliamentary question about the oil traders, Trafigura, and its solicitors Carter-Ruck. Legal commentator Joshua Rosenberg explains the case.
Singer Bob Dylan has released his new Christmas album, not something his hardest fans would expect. David Hepworth, writer at Word Magazine, discusses the reaction to Mr Dylan's album.
New evidence reveals how Benito Mussolini came into politics. It appears he was helped by the British. Dr Peter Martland of Cambridge University, has been doing some digging into the Italian dictator's early career.
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