Across Cumbria emergency services are continuing evacuations where flood defences have been overwhelmed by record rainfall. Police searching for a colleague missing after a bridge collapsed amid the devastating floods have found the body of a man.

Just two days ago the Queen announced a Flood and Water Management Bill promising new legislation to protect communities from flooding and to improve the management of our water supplies. So how prepared are we and how well protected? Paraic O'Brien has been to the Met Office's Flood Forecasting Centre.

A husband who killed his wife was set free from court in Swansea today. Brian Thomas blamed a rare sleep disorder for his actions. He said he was having a dream about attacking an intruder when he strangled his wife. We'll look at how often this sort of defence is used and how a sleeping disorder might cause someone to carry out such a violent act.

The Oprah Winfrey Show is to end next year after more than two decades on air. Tonight we'll consider Oprah's influence and legacy - from culture, politics and race, to literature and entertainment. We'll be joined by Britain's very own Oprah, chat-show host Trisha Goddard, who styled herself in Winfrey's image.

For our Flemish viewers, if you'd like to see an interpretation of David Grossman's film about the Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy, who has been named President of the European Council, click here. We'd like to thank Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep (Flemish Radio and Television Network) for their interest in our journalism.

Join Gavin for Newsnight at 10.30pm on BBC Two, and read on for news from Kirsty on what's coming up in tonight's Newsnight Review at 11pm.

I'll be joined by Tom Paulin, Rosie Boycott and Sarfraz Mansoor and we'll be roaming over making fiction out of history. Does dramatic licence reveal deeper truths, or is it wrong to play fast and loose with the facts?

We'll be discussing Women We Loved, the new season of drama on BBC Four which goes behind the public image of three 20th Century icons, Enid Blyton (Helena Bonham Carter), Margot Fonteyn (Anne Marie Duff), and Gracie Fields (Jane Horrocks).

And we'll be discussing Alan Bennett's new stage play, The Habit of Art, for which he teams up once again with director Nicholas Hytner. In the play he creates the imaginary reunion of two estranged friends, WH Auden (Richard Griffiths) and Benjamin Britten (Alex Jennings).

"There is no such thing as a single, correct version of history, and if dramatists are honestly trying to achieve a deeper poetic truth about their subject, that should be the guiding light".

Following his broadside against the BBC over what he believes are stifling constraints upon television drama, the writer and director Stephen Poliakoff tells us why he thinks dramatists should be allowed to take greater liberties with history.

We are also reviewing his first feature in almost twenty years, the historical thriller, Glorious 39, in which he visits the uncomfortable truths about the appeasers on the eve of WWII.

And at The National Gallery in London we'll walk through a recreation of history in the Hoerengraght, the final work of the pioneering American installation artist Ed Kienholz and his wife Nancy Reddin, which takes us into the red light district of Amsterdam in the 1980s.

This is going to be a very colourful and argumentative Newsnight Review.

I hope you will join us, Kirsty

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European leaders are due to arrive in Brussels in the next few hours to select a president with the announcement later tonight. The prevailing mood among EU leaders appears to be for a low-profile chairman rather than a more charismatic president with international connections.. What does the choice - and the way it is being arrived at - tell us about the new Europe of 2009 and beyond? The same old backstairs deals? David Grossman is in Brussels for us.

Hamid Karzai has been sworn in as Afghan president for a second elected term, saying he wants Afghan forces in charge of the nation within five years. Our Diplomatic Editor Mark Urban will be explaining why he now sees a much clearer picture emerging of how much longer our troops will need to be there.

Jon Kay is in the Wiltshire town of Wooton Bassett, famous now as part of the final journey for Britain's fallen in Afghanistan. What do the people there think of the town's loyal tradition of honouring fallen servicemen and the focus on it as a place of national mourning?

And Robin Denselow meets a group of disabled musicians from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The band, Staff Benda Bilili (which means 'open your mind, look beyond appearances') all suffered from polio as children, but their disabilities have not stopped them taking their music from Kinshasa to Europe where they have been wowing audiences on their tour.

And David Ginola and Dara O Briain will be discussing the Thierry Henry hand ball that sent France past Ireland and into the World Cup.

Do join Gavin for all that and more at 10.30pm on BBC Two.

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Here is what is coming up on the programme:

There was one aspect of today's Queen's Speech which made a decisive break with tradition - the Commons Speaker John Bercow ditched the stockings worn by his predecessors for the State Opening of Parliament in favour of trousers.

Tonight, Michael Crick will examine the details of the speech to assess what other change is afoot - looking at the new measures outlined and giving his assessment of how many of them are likely to actually get passed, given that there is so little time left before the next general election.

We will also be discussing what the contents of the speech and the reaction of the other parties tell us about how the election campaign ahead is likely to play out.

Also, Sarah Palin is back on the campaign trail - this time promoting her 413-page autobiography Going Rogue: An American Life.

Tonight, we have a report from the US on the failed US vice-presidential candidate's prospects and those of the wider Republican party.

And we have a fascinating film on North Korean defectors in which we hear the experiences of three people who have fled the Stalinist state, including one man who was anti-tank battalion commander in North Korea's military.

Join Jeremy at 10.30pm on BBC Two.

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