looked into that £2,000 figure on wednesday's evening news bulletin. no, this is overfour years, so about £500 a year. the prime minister said last night that this was the work of independent treasury officials and it is true that the treasury did most of the sums. but political advisers who work for the chancellor were the ones who set the terms of the calculations by making assumptions about labour's policies. the following day, the office for statistics regulation criticised the prime minister's failure to mention that the £2,000 number was a total spread over four years. and it emerged that the treasury's top civil servant had warned the conservatives that the claim should not be presented as having been produced by them. but rishi sunak defended the claim. stephen cushion was impressed by the reporting he saw, calling it "a watershed moment in impartial reporting,

"where bbc explicitly labels a party political claim misleading "and on the flagship evening news bulletin, "outstanding reporting." but cliff mann had a different view. "it is abundantly clear that the £2,000 claim by sunak "was fabricated and has been debunked, yet you continue to report "on it as a balanced argument." andy freeman pointed out that, "the truth is the truth "and a lie is a lie." "no need to shy away from it." and seb berry also used the l—word, wondering, "why is bbc news leading "with the tories doubling down on their tax lie, which just "reinforces the lie? "tory head office must be absolutely delighted." wednesday and thursday provided some respite from the electoral trail for politicians and for viewers. a welcome development for some, but not all the audience. much of the news agenda moved to northern france and to portsmouth, where ceremonies were taking place to mark the 80th anniversary of d—day.

the news channel carried many of the commemorative events live over the two days, leaving pete morgan as a dissatisfied customer. he asked on thursday, "could you please tell me "where i can watch actual news on your channels? "for the last two days, it's been nigh on impossible "to see any other news, apart from the d—day "celebrations which have been shown live on bbc one, "bbc two and the news channel simultaneously — why?" jean murphy, however, thought there was too much other news. "on a day like today, can we put election programmes on hold? "no newsnight, for example." but there were also compliments such as this from valerie smith. "i would like to thank the bbc for their amazing, "moving and poignant coverage of the d—day anniversary. "it was brilliantly covered." well, let's talk tojonathan monroe, who's the director ofjournalism and the deputy chief executive of bbc news. thank you for coming on newswatch. so, d—day coverage took up lots of air time, lots of resources.

you've got a kind of perfect news storm of events coming, haven't you? you've got the euros, you've got wimbledon, you've got glastonbury. how is that going to affect your coverage of all the leadership debates and interviews? it's a busy summer, that's for sure. and there's a lot of those events the bbc is committed to, the european football being a great example, and as you will know, both england and scotland are playing in the tournament, so there'll be huge amounts of interest in that. it's split between the bbc and itv, so we've had to juggle the dates we're offering for election programmes like debates and interviews around those commitments. obviously the football can't be moved around. we've tried to avoid clashes with really big matches on itv, though that's difficult in all circumstances. certainly avoid scheduling a programme when england or scotland are being televised on itv and obviously we're working around the bbc schedule. so there's quite a lot of demand in the system there. we're doing our best to make sure everything gets out fairly before polling day. talking of tv debates, you heard contrasting viewer views on how the bbc covered rishi sunak�*s tax claim. keir starmer said it was a lie. should the bbc have as well? well, we use the word misleading, as you've reported, and we were clear

that it was dubious and misleading in our reporting of it. it's a real dilemma, this sort of thing. and chris mason, incidentally, our political editor, has written about this as a journalistic dilemma on the bbc news website, which people can go to. we don't have any intention ever of amplifying something which is dubious, but at the same time, it's a genuine, legitimate political argument about the source of that figure and who added up which figure to it to arrive at it. and in particular, in our case, we thought it was misleading because the prime minister had not said in the itv debate that this was a four—year tax burden, as opposed to what most of us consider to be an annual tax burden in our real lives. so that's why we moved to describe it pretty heavily as misleading and dubious. and i think that stood the test of time as a judgment that we made. but if you are concerned about not amplifying a dubious claim, given how widely criticised it was, shouldn't you just have ignored it after a certain point, rather than giving it the publicity that it clearly wanted? well, ignoring a major issue

in the election campaign is not the right call for us, i think. i think the right call is to report it fairly, to give analysis by our expert correspondents and let the audience make their mind up. there was no one who watched or listened to bbc programmes who could have been in any doubt that we'd come to a judgment about some of the prime minister's words or lack of explanation on the debate. and i think that's a difficult line to tread, but i hope we got there on most of our programmes. next question. nigel farage has always been very good at getting news media attention. has the bbc fallen for his strategy again? i don't think so. we know that he divides the audience like he divides the electorate. that's the nature of his brand of politics. he's not unique in that. of course, there are politicians all across the spectrum who divide opinion. he is now, as you've been saying, the leader of the party and a candidate. and i think that was a legitimate thing to lead our bulletins with. we were lead bulletins with things that we think will change the course of the election campaign in some way. and the fact that he is a very big personality, he's a very

well—known personality and is a polarising personality. and is a polarising personality, that means that him entering the race in a very different way changes the course of at least part of the general election. well, he got the lead story when he said he wasn't going to run, and then a week later he changed his mind. i mean, that's the problem, isn't it? the bbc gives him coverage either way. well, when you're choosing what a lead story might look like, there are all sorts of factors in play, not least what else is happening that day, what other the politics is around? what other news stories are around? we're just discussing how d—day knocked the election out completely for the best part of two days. so those are value judgements that you make. 0n the day that he announced he wasn't standing, that felt like quite a significant moment for the reform party, for reform uk, perhaps in a negative way from their point of view of their electoral chances. the opposite was true a week later. i think overall that was about the right balance. but we're very, very conscious of the level of exposure that we give to all politicians, and we do try to calibrate it to a reasonable degree during the campaign. speaking of attention—seeking politicians, bbc coverage last week of ed davey�*s sort of sporting stunts got newswatch viewers quite exercised and liz o'donnell asked,

"does the bbc have to devote so much "time to the embarrassing and cringeworthy antics "of the lib dem leader?" well, it's obviously not for us to decide how a party will run its campaign. and whilst other parties have chosen to do press conferences and speeches, the liberal democrats have chosen to be a bit more sort of visually dynamic, if you like. now people may describe that as embarrassing. that's not a word we would ever use. i think if the liberal democrats were asked, they would say he was highlighting, for example, water pollution by going on to lake windermere on a paddleboard, not very successfully, you might argue, but it's not for us to say that that is not a legitimate thing to do in an election campaign. that's the choice of the party, and we need to scrutinise that and be there and report it on merit. and i think we did that. so there are three issues that viewers say are not getting the coverage they should be in the election campaign — environment, social care and brexit. now, politicians may be deliberately ignoring them, but shouldn't the bbc be pressing on them? i think the really important issue is, and actually this

i think they are really important issues, and actually this week's question time, which has been moved into an 8:00 slot on bbc one, address both brexit and social care head on as questions on the panel. i think it's really, really important. 0n the environment, which is of particular concern for younger audiences, we know that from our own audience surveys. i do think there'll be moments when we need to turn into that more fully. we are interviewing the green party on a regular basis during this election. they've been on question time. they've been on sunday with laura kuenssberg, and there will be opportunities. there's still four weeks to go, after all, when we will get into the environment head on as a policy. and i do think that's important. jonathan monroe, thank you. thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions about what you see or hear on bbc news, on tv, radio, online and social media, email newswatch at bbc.co.uk or you can find us on ecs, or you can find us on x, formerly known as twitter at newswatchbbc. you can call us on 03700106676 and do have a look at previous interviews on our website bbc.co.uk

newswatch. that's all from us for now. thank you forjoining us. do you think about getting in touch and perhaps even do think about getting in touch and perhaps even coming on the programme. we'll be back to hear more of your thoughts about how the bbc covers the news next week. goodbye. hello there. it looks like the weather is stuck in a rut. we are going to hold onto fairly cold weather for the time of year, with temperatures around orjust below the seasonal average. part two of the weekend doesn't look better. if anything the clouds will thicken and we will see some rain for some of us pushing down from the north. there will still be a little bit of sunshine here and there. saturday low—pressure to the north—east of the country and higher pressures to the south—west. that brings winds. a good deal of showers across the north and west of scotland. the odd one elsewhere. areas of cloud also spreading southwards. plenty of sunshine in between.

not a bad afternoon to come for many of us. temperatures reaching highs of 18 or 19. that is close to the average but generally, further north, we are below the seasonal norm. as we head through this evening and overnight it looks like many central and southern areas will be chilly under clear skies. plenty of cloud will build across scotland and northern ireland. temperatures just about double figures, otherwise for most it will be single digits and another cool night for earlyjune. for sunday we start off fine and then these weather fronts will start to push in from the north—west. cloud will thicken for many and we will see patchy rain at times. a bright, chilly but fine start to central, southern and eastern areas. cloud will build. northern ireland, south—west scotland, north—west england, north wales, seeing patchy rain as those weather fronts push south—eastward. best of the sunshine properly the south—west corner and the northern half of scotland. there will also be a few showers. with more cloud and temperatures will be a bit lower for part two of the weekend, 12—18 . through sunday night those weather fronts spread south across england and wales, bringing outbreaks of rain.

then we pick up northerly winds. a bit of a grey start with outbreaks of rain from monday morning across eastern england. the rain slowly pulling away and then it looks like being a day of sunshine and showers. most of the showers across central and northern areas. these could be quite heavy across northern scotland. with that northerly wind it will be a chilly day for the time of year. 10—15 or 16 in the south. we hold onto that chilly northerly wind through tuesday, wednesday and thursday, bringing sunshine and showers and chilly nights. by the end of next week it does look like temperatures will slowly start to recover as we cut off that chilly northerly. that is it from me, take care.

live from london, this is bbc news. israeli security forces say they've rescued four hostages in a special operation in nuseirat, in central gaza. the israeli military released these images as the rate got under way. one special forces officer died. fiur one special forces officer died. our soldiers 0ne special forces officer died. oi" soldiers performed in an unmatchable way. hamas media says 93 people were killed in the area and israel's

military says one special operations officer died in the raid. the bbc obtains new video footage believed to be one of the last two sightings of missing tv and radio presenter michael mosley. politicians are out again this weekend vying for support as the general election draws closer. hello, i'm lauren taylor. israeli security forces have rescued four hostages from two separate locations in nuseirat, in central gaza. they've been named as noa argamani, almog meirjan, shlomi ziv and andrey kozlov. all had been abducted by hamas from the nova music festival on october 7th. here is the moment noa argamani was reunited with her father while being transferred — she's also spoken on the phone to prime minister benjamin netanyahu. you remember seeing footage of her

being kidnapped with her boyfriend