laughter. and we find out why brussels correspondent adam fleming was faced with that question from an unusual guest on the daily politics programme. this week's european council meeting had been seen as a crucial staging post in the protracted negotiations over the uk's departure from the eu and, as it happens, the growing political disagreement over migration dominated the agenda. but, as ever, brexit was under discussion as well. amid all the disputes about migration, theresa may had just a brief chance to talk to the assembled leaders about brexit. her message to them? we are ready to intensify and accelerate the pace of negotiations. i want to see that from the european commission and the european union as well. more than a year into the negotiations, the eu says the uk still does not have a clear negotiating position and it needs to see one. she headed home, excluded from today's brexit discussion. controversy has, of course,

accompanied every stage of the brexit process, including the way it has been reported on bbc news. for many, the corporation fails to provide balanced coverage, with louise vale putting it like this... brexit has been reported as though it was a sensible, viable alternative to the status quo. when it isn't. if it goes ahead, it will be catastrophic, economically and socially. i believe the potential impacts have been significantly underreported. by trying to be objective, the bbc has appeared pro—brexit. but the majority of complaints we received are about a perceived bias in the other direction. here is pat marks. every news story gives us a negative view by always giving us doom and gloom. how, when we leave, this and that will happen, so we will lose money orjobs. anyone would think you were in favour of staying in the eu. numbers following saturday's anti—brexit march in central london.

there was also a significantly smaller pro—brexit march in london which received much less airtime — and the disparity annoyed some viewers, such as christine hicks, who e—mailed. .. i am disgusted at your one—sided reporting of the marches today. and brian silvester tweeted. .. i thought the bbc was required in law to be evenhanded and unbiased. apparently not. apart from the fraught issue of balance, there are other challenges for the bbc reporting in this area. one is the danger of boring the audience with excessive coverage of this long—running saga. steve from derby centres his solution. qulfi ! suggest. that’ihé’figg’” ’” the brexit broadcasting channel for 24—hour, continuous coverage of all things brexit? broadcasts on the main channels, leaving more airtime for subjects that interest people?

those who are interested or even pretend to understand the daily updates could then watch all day in a dark room with the samaritans phone number to hand. one correspondent who may need to lie down in a dark room is chris morris, who has been tasked under the bbc‘s reality check umbrella of explaining the many twists and turns of the process of leaving the european union. here are some recent examples. the government says the uk will pay the eu up to £39 billion to cover things like outstanding bills and pensions. there is also broad agreement on the rights after brexit of eu citizens here in the uk and uk citizens elsewhere in europe. it could take years to set up such a system. the eu is sceptical about whether it will work, anyway, and supporters of brexit see this as a trap to keep the uk locked into the eu system. so, the second proposal is for a highly streamlined customs arrangement. it is no secret that the future

of the irish border between northern ireland and the republic is proving to be a massive challenge in the brexit negotiations and that talk of no deal is making a lot of people nervous. it is notjust in the uk that this really matters, because the republic of ireland is hugely dependent on trade with the united kingdom for its economic well—being. you only need to look at a map to understand why. well, chris morrisjoins me now. welcome to newswatch. there is a lot of talk about deadlines and crunch points, but danny dyer seemed to speak for many on good evening britain when he said brexit is a mad riddle, no one knows what it is. as the correspondent tasked with explaining it all to us, is it frustrating for you? it can be. i thought "mad riddle" was a brilliant phrase for a 24—hour brexit channel, because then i would never get to lie down, anywhere. it can be frustrating, but it is incredibly complicated. i mean, people use various different metaphors for trying to get out of the european union and one of them is unmaking an omelette.

we have had a0 years of putting it all together and you cannot simplyjump away, you have got to un—stitch it all, it is very, very difficult and these are issues, frankly, which a lot of people now involved in the negotiations, i think, did not understand. you take issues like the customs union, for example. i have spent a lot of time on air trying to explain what it is, but we still have, from our audience research suggestions, a lot of people do not quite understand it yet. you know, if you are working for something like the financial times, maybe you know what your audience is. i think one of the big challenges for the bbc is that we have to address and interest those who do know all the technical details and care about them deeply, and those who don't know all the technical details, but do want to understand how it is going to affect their lives. viewers often say they are baffled by the minutiae of the customs union or agreement and nothing has been decided, so is there a case to say that the bbc should give less running commentary on all the possibilities and wait until there is something specific to report?

you could do that, but it is quite difficult, i think. look at the last couple of months, obviously a lot of coverage is quite often led by what happens in westminster and the last few months, really, brexit has been the dominant issue, the dominant political issue of our times. you know, for better or worse, we are, in effect, remaking our country and i think people do deserve to have the ability to have people like us trying to look into all the details. i accept that some of it is baffling and some of the detail can be very boring, but it is important. you will know, the bbc is getting accused of extreme bias by pro—brexit and pro—remain campaigners. how are you navigating your way through it all, as a reporter? one of the things we try and do is try and look at facts. people can always quibble about what the facts really are, but for example, we did a piece recently about customs borders

elsewhere in europe, because of the customs union debate and some people were saying, it is easy to get across the border, it is not easy. well, we went to swedish customs and norwegians customs and swiss customs and french customs and turkish customs and asked them how long did it take for a truck to get across your borders? here are some of the facts. people can then spin them either way and i think we are always going to get people on both sides deeply unhappy with us, because this has become probably the most contentious political issue in this country that i can remember, certainly in my lifetime as a reporter. it does not mean that we should not try and say, here are some facts, you go away and interpret them as you choose. as you say, part of the frustration is it is sometimes really hard to know what is a proven fact and that is so different to other stories. how do you make it comprehensible as a correspondent in some of these areas? try to keep the language simple. accept that there are times when you're going to use facts but after a while,

the facts become political. 350 million on the side of a bus is an obvious example. we did a piece saying the chairman of the uk statistics authority has said this is a misuse of official statistics. i think you can make a case that the number wasn't right and we said that. again, flak from both sides, we either did not say it strongly enough or we said it too strongly. but then it kind of goes into the political realm and i think at that stage, you have to let politicians get on with it. some viewers certainly complain about brexit fatigue. how are you holding up? it is tiring and it is all—consuming, because you have to be across all the kind of bizarre technical details of the negotiations and so forth. and i think, if you're covering it in the sort of detail i do and that some of my colleagues do, you do need to know all those technical details to then step back and say, here

is where we are in this process. it is not easy, but i try and do other things occasionally. i went to turkey recently for a week and, in fact, checked the turkish elections, that was lovely. busman‘s holiday! chris morris, thank you very much. such is the ubiquity of brexit as a topic of conversation that it even cropped up on itv2‘s reality show, love island. in a slightly surreal exchange, where one contestant, hayley hughes appeared to ask whether the uk leaving the eu would mean we would no longer have any trees or possibly cheese. well, that same hayley hughes hughes popped up to the surprise of many viewers on last friday's daily politics, questioning brexit guru adam fleming with noises off from studio guests alistair campbell and nigel farage. how will it affect my life and everybody else‘s? badly! stop it, you two!

very well. very badly. we have got very badly and very well in the studio. shush! adam? the easy answer is, it depends... i kind of think it's hard for younger people to have kind of more of an understanding about brexit but since i've got to learn about it, i'm actually finding it really interesting. well, adam can spend hours with you about it! thank you for coming in and to everybody for being on the show — not that binder! opinion was divided on that encounter, with philip copsey tweeting... the incredibly dumbed down daily politics hits an absolute all—time low when you start to invite the likes of complete and utter airhead hayley hughes on. stephan garcia disagreed. although i don't watch love island, i found it great to see one of the contestants, hayley, interacting with politics on daily politics. has good potential to help other youngsters understand. well done! and others were just left bemused. it feels two halves of my life that were never meant to meet have done and i'm having a meltdown.

and that's all from us. thank you for all of your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions on bbc news and current affairs oi’ even appear on the programme, you can call us on 0370 010 6676. or e—mail newswatch@bbc. co. uk. you can find us on twitter @newswatchbbc and do have a look at the website for previous interviews. the address is bbc.co.uk/newswatch. that's all from us. we'll be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week. goodbye. hello. it has been another hot sunny day for most parts of the country and we will take that heat into the weekend as well were most places will be dry and sunny, but there is

a chance of thundery downpours perhaps in the far south west and if we look all the way down through this to portugal, this is where the cloud is beginning to develop but ahead of that, we have a lot of hot airand quite steamy ahead of that, we have a lot of hot air and quite steamy air that is pushing up across siberia and france to the low countries and eventually some of that will head towards southern parts of the uk this weekend. overnight, all that low cloud that has been sitting on the east coast is pushing them across scotland and england, misty by the end of the night. where we have the heat, it will be warm overnight. tomorrow morning, it will not last long, that miss dando cloud of burns off and the heat starts to build quickly along those north seacoast, cooler, brightand build quickly along those north seacoast, cooler, bright and sunny for the most part. high temperatures in west wales towards the west country, 30 degrees or so widely, another lovely day on the way. further into the weekend, for the

start of the week, knights will get warmer and start of the week, knights will get warmerand in start of the week, knights will get warmer and in the south in particular, more humid as well. we bring in the hot air from particular, more humid as well. we bring in the hot airfrom the near continent ahead of this area of low pressure drifting closer to the west. pressure is dropping on south west. pressure is dropping on sunday, the wind will pick up as well, a south—easterly wind and then the chance of some thundery showers in the south west of england, perhaps into wales, less likely now to clip northern ireland otherwise it will be dry and sunny and hotting up it will be dry and sunny and hotting up in the south—east, temperatures rising to 30 or 3! degrees here with that humidity. not very pleasant. heading into monday, that low pressure is not going anywhere, a weather front threatening to bring thundery downpours in the far south west of england and the channel islands. does not look like getting further north and east, so we hang on to the dry weather and high temperatures and strong sunshine. not much rain for the week ahead, the main focus of any of that is in

the main focus of any of that is in the south west, maybe moving into wales later in the week. the start of wimbledon looks like it will be dry and pretty hot. this is bbc news i'm robert hall. the headlines at 8pm. david duckenfield — the police commander in charge on the day of the hillsborough disaster is to stand trial for manslaughter by gross negligence. the president of the european council, donald tusk, calls on britain to lay its "cards on the table" and resolve the outstanding issues on brexit before an eu summit in october. if he wants to reach a deal in october we need quick progress. this is the last call to the the cards on the table. after marathon talks at today's summit, a deal was struck to set up secure migrant centres in eu states. the firefighter who left his colleagues and tried — and failed — to rescue a girl trapped in the grenfell fire. ijust wanted i just wanted to ijust wanted to go up and get her. a little 12—year—old girl on