come on, man. wow. we saw a lot. we saw a lot, man. we saw a lot with our own eyes. we saw friends, families... honestly, it's all right, you don't have to say any more. sandra martin e—mailed us with this message about victoria derbyshire: some viewers, though, objected to what they saw as the intrusive nature of that interview. and others, including this one from home affairs editor mark easton. my sister, and her son. how old was he? he's 12 years old. his name is brooke. that's why i ask... a 12—year—old boy. john gosling contacted us about the bbc‘s coverage following the fire, here are his thoughts: is it now the job of

bbc reporters to chase down the traumatised, the bereaved, the despairing, and, basically, ring out every last drop of despair from that person in the of ratings? i watched one particular person being interviewed with a microphone thrust into their face. they were crying, they were distraught, they had lost somebody, they had no idea what had happened to a member of their family. and... there just seemed to be no benefit in this interview. you are not ambulance chasers. but that's the impression you are starting to give. later, on wednesday, news bulletins were presented from the site of the still burning tower, with sophie raworth fronting the news at six location, and hugh edwards doing the same at ten o'clock. scores of viewers said they found it inappropriate to have that background while presenting news about the tower and other topics. here'sjohn sutton. sophie raworth, chatting

about the dup and tim farron while standing in front of a burning tower block, presumably containing the charred corpses of people's loved ones. how has it come to this? a channel should pool resources, share footage, not send the main presenter. and if you must, have the basic respect and human decency to not treat it like a chat back on a studio sofa. thank you for all of your thoughts on the issues arising out of the coverage of the grenfell tower fire. we may well be discussing them with the bbc news editor next week. it's been a week since the general election results and its implications are still unclear. last friday political editor laura kuenssberg reflected on what was widely considered to be something of a political earthquake. what was surprised at the start... and what we're saying is the conservatives

are the largest party, note they don't have an overall majority at this stage. gradually, seat after seat was glorious shock for labour. loss after loss for the conservatives. images of cheering labour politicians and supporters, and of disappointed or angry conservatives made it hard to remember at times that the latter had won 56 more seats than the former. and were back in power. when the prime minister from ten downing st on friday was the question laura kuenssberg shouted out to her. is this strong and stable, prime minister? she who dares doesn't always win. but she had won, some newswatch viewers pointed out. at least in the sense that the conservatives were forming the next government. and graham watts objected to what he saw as: there certainly seemed to be

some relish in comments made by george osborne on sunday's andrew marr show, repeated widely on bbc news. theresa may is a dead woman walking. it's just how long she's going to remain on death row. i think we will know very shortly. david hines objected to the airtime given to that phrase, and what he saw as a wider trend. later in the week, on thursday night, there was laura

kuenssberg began talking again about how the government might respond to the london tower block fire. remember also right now this is an extremely fragile government, the state opening of parliament is not even under theresa may is onlyjust days after a bruising political defeat. nigel rawlins was one of a number of viewers to pick up the phrase there, a bruising political defeat, writing: the charge of a lack of political balance was one we heard many times during the election campaign. for instance, after the bbc‘s debate from cambridge, eight days before the vote, featuring the leaders of ukip, plaid cymru, the greens, the liberal democrats and labour parties. and representatives from the snp and the conservatives. but since the result, the omission from that line—up, and from most of the coverage

of the democratic unionist party and other northern irish parties, has been questioned by viewers such as jack o'dwyer henry, who recorded this video for us. as a northern irish voter i was somewhat dissatisfied with the bbc‘s general election coverage because it didn't seem to include the parties from northern ireland and never the issues northern irish voters were concerned about in the election. i think this is especially obvious whenever it came to the big set piece television debates and interviews of the campaigns, such as the leaders debates, and the leaders interviews with andrew neil. first, i'd like to ask what the justification is for excluding all northern ireland parties from those programmes? and secondly, given that the dup is in such a prominent national position after the election, will the bbc reconsider this for future general election coverage? let's discuss some of those issues which the bbc‘s

head of news gathering, jonathan munro. jonathan, let's start with the dup. in hindsight was it a mistake, it was, wasn't it, not to include them in that debate? no, it wasn't a mistake it was deliberate. the reason for it there are five parties in northern ireland who are described as major parties. parties of significant support in the constituencies in northern ireland. we cannot put the dup into a networked programme without also putting sinn fein, the sdlp alliance, and the ulster unionists. that would have taken cambridge from a 7 handed debate to a 12 handed debate. it would have been completely impossible to marshall. people in the rest of the uk don't have the option to vote for the dup, whereas everyone on the cambridge debate was facing each other in some part of the uk or another. so what we did instead was we did a northern ireland only debate on the tuesdayjust before polling day, which went out in northern ireland, and was then seen on the bbc news channel across the uk. viewers have complained that the bbc presented the election result is a triumph for labour and defeat for the conservatives.

now, that was just wrong, wasn't it? i don't think we did that, actually. we reported it as a result relative to expectations. theresa may herself said that if she lost six seats to labour she would have lost the election, that was her phrase, not ours. obviously she lost a lot more than that, in fact she lost her overall majority. she was, of course, as we know, the leader of the biggest party in the commons, and therefore forming a minority government with the dup support. relative to expectations, it was undeniably a setback for the conservative party, and undeniably better achievement for labour than they better expected. expectations, this is what viewers are concerned about, the expectations were wrong. they've been wrong in previous elections, such as the referendum. newswatch viewers have said the bbc has allowed itself to get swept up into focusing on expectations when covering the election. when you should just be reporting facts. every election comes with a, a degree of expectation about what the result might leave us with. that is not unusual.

at this election, people of the conservative party and the labour party were saying to us, both privately and indeed on the record, and in interviews, the conservatives will get a landslide. i remember nicola sturgeon doing an interview for the bbc in which she used that exact phrase, we are headed for a conservative landslide. so, the expectations were quite out there in terms of where people thought the results would be. all those expectations turned out to be false. and it really depends on the work that's done now about how voters behaved when political analysts get involved about why that happened. with every election there was a learning curve about those things. some viewers detected a sense of relish and colleagues in the reporters‘ tone and questions to the prime minister. notably the repeating of george osborne's dead woman walking quote. i think it's a slightly odd thing to ask is not to report what the former chancellor of the exchequer, who was sacked by theresa may, is now a major newspaper editor, is saying on the record on air. there was no relish in any of the questions... the strong and stable comment shouted at her? but mrs may campaigned on a mandate

for a strong and stable government. that was her phrase. in the spirit of robust questioning, and calling people to account, it's perfectly reasonable for us to put that back to her. looking back, what should the bbc not do, or do differently next time in covering a general election? well, i think it all depends on the circumstances in which the election is called. there is bound to be a different political landscape. there will be new programme ideas, things we will do differently, i think one of the things that we did very well this time around, and want to do even more of, is tapping into the youth vote, which we think turned out in bigger numbers than people expected. so, although there was a dedicated newsbeat debate for young voters just before the election, i'd like to see even more voices from the younger generation's first—time voters and see them even more visible across the bbc. jonathan munro, thank you. thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions on bbc news and current affairs, or even appear on the programme: that's all from us, we will be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week. goodbye.

hello there. we have got some very warm weather indeed coming up over the next few days, with the high—pressure firmly in charge of our weather. that's going to bring very warm, if not hot, weather to most of the british isles. it will turn increasingly humid as we go on through the weekend, but it is going to be mainly sunny for most of us. the reason for this warm or hot weather is a jetstream has built this area of high pressure and the high tends to concentrate hot air near the earth's surface. these are the kinds of temperatures that you might see across western europe as we go on through the next couple of days. perhaps as high as 46 degrees across parts of iberia, unpleasantly hot weather here. well into the 30s for france

and even here in the uk we should see temperatures peaking at 30 degrees or so as we head into the weekend. the hottest weather we have seen so far this year. it's going to be a warm start to the day. these are the kinds of temperatures you might see as you are heading outside first thing in the morning. there will be plenty of sunshine, but i think quite a bit of cloud to start he day across the hills of wales and northern england. it should be quite thin so should clear quite quickly and then the sunshine will come out. weather fronts across far north—west of scotland will continue to bring some thicker cloud here. and it's here where we will have the coolest weather with outbreaks of rain on and off. just 15 degrees in stornoway. a brisk south—westerly wind. not the warmest of weather. away from that north—west corner, the rest of scotland enjoying some sunshine. northern ireland looking fine, with temperatures heading into the mid—20s. but it's across england and wales that we'll see temperatures fairly widely getting up well into the 20s. 28 degrees or so in london and the south—east. pushing into the 80s

in terms of fahrenheit. but, as well as those relatively clear skies, a bit of fairweather cloud bubbling up. there will be some very high levels of uv. so it's one of those days you might want to take the sun cream if you're out and about for any length of time. through saturday evening and overnight, after such a hot day, temperatures will be slow to fall. quite an uncomfortable night for sleeping once again. overnight lows no lower than 19 degrees in the centre of town. there could be a few fog patches staring to develop around the irish sea coast. here's a picture then through sunday, a repeat for many of us although perhaps a little bit more in the way of cloud moving into the north—west. the best of the sunshine, again, england and wales, eastern parts of northern ireland and eastern parts of scotland. if anything those temperatures will get a little bit higher with temperatures peaking at 30 degrees celsius, making it the hottest day of the year so far. the heat is still with us on into monday as well. temperatures could reach 32 degrees early in the new week. it starts to get a little bit cooler across north—western areas as we get into tuesday. along with those cooler conditions,

it will turn cloudier. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is duncan golestani. our top stories: a us navy destroyer is seriously damaged in a collision off the coast of japan. at least seven crew members are missing. consternation in cuba — havana says it won't be forced into making political changes despite president trump announcing tougher policies towards it. angry protests in london as residents demand justice for the victims of the grenfell tower fire and support for the survivors left homeless. we are sent from hospital to hospital, to shelters, why is there no community help for family members — why? why do we have to go there and actively look for them?