her director of communications replied that she had done 36 interviews during the conference. meanwhile, nick robinson mentioned on the today programme last week that although labour leaders normally appeared on the show during their party conference, they had been told that jeremy corbyn was unavailable to do so. signs perhaps of an increasingly fractious relationship between the news media and politicians and there have been more signs of that when party leaders have turned up interview. last sunday morning, theresa may appeared on the andrew marr show. it was necessary for us to take some tough decisions to deal with public finances because of the mess that the labour party had left them in. people have made sacrifices as a result of that. and they may have to make a lot more if we go for no guilt? i'm afraid we're out time, theresa may. we will be live next week... that rather abrupt end to the interview annoyed rather a lot of readers. two days later came the much trailed arrival in birmingham

of a certain backbench mp. the prime minister says former foreign secretary borisjohnson makes her cross after he launches a scathing attack on her check —— chequers plan for leaving the european union. addressing a fringe event at the tory party conference, the former foreign secretary called the prime minister's plan dangerous and a cheat. this is the moment to do this and there is time, this is the moment to chuck chequers. the appearance of the former foreign secretary and the attention given to it proved an irritant, notjust to the prime minister but to number of newswatchers. one man declared himself... theresa may certainly regained everyone‘s full attention on wednesday from the moment

she stepped on stage to deliver her speech. that really is the prime minister, dancing onto the stage, laughing with herself when her political situation has been anything but funny. never mind the much discussed dance moves, was the reporting in step with what the public needed to know? one viewer thought not, tweeting... well, to discuss the challenges of political reporting at the moment i'm joined by the head of bbc westminster, thank you for

coming on newswatch. last year's bbc news conference was dominated by everything that gone wrong in theresa may's speech and this year the party clearly put on a deliberate stunt but do you have some responsibility if that is all the people really remember from the conference? i hope everybody remembers moore, the music was ten seconds at most and the piece that our reporter put out was about five minutes so it was a very small part of that. i think we have a real responsibility to look at the speech as a whole, think about the general message of the speech and then look at the key messages that we think are important for the audience to be aware of. in addition to that, what we do is then sit back and think about other things like policy areas because in

the end, the audience care really about what these policies are coming out of government. in this case, we took the housing announcement and decided to do a separate piece on that to explain that further. newswatch viewers have been concerned for a long time about news coverage around politics that has focused on personalities, particularly borisjohnson. they feel it comes at the expense of scrutinising policy ideas. and they feel it is getting worse, can you see why? i think it is a really interesting question and i would like to reassure viewers that actually it is something that we really do think about quite a lot. we have got to be careful not to just be attracted by what we call shiny objects but really focus on why we are focusing so much coverage on one's personal one moment. in the case of borisjohnson, i think you have got to look at what happened in the room on tuesday. there was an enormous amount of interest in his speech. he did fill with over a thousand people supporting him not only that you need to look at who was in the room and i think there were as many as 20 mps, which given the prime minister's opposition in parliament is quite

a crucial number in terms of getting her policies through. so it is the consideration. and in the end, he is a very, very popularfigure. the big set piece interviews with leaders at conferences, have they become too confrontational? i think politics has always been confrontational and you look back at the decades of bbc‘s coverage and over the different types of personalities whether it is bbc broadcasters or indeed politicians. i do not think it is really that different. i really think we're in extraordinary times and i think from perspective you can feel that from behind—the—scenes. certainly during the referendum,

certainly through the 2015 election and obviously the 2017 election. these are very high stakes and we're not living in times with large majorities for parties and that always makes both the parties much more tense and the relationships constant and of coarse we have conversations with the parties but certainly we are resistant to any pressure and we consider everyjudgment on every story as you expect. it is interesting the issue of journalists been resistant to pressure from parties, we mentioned earlier that all the major broadcasters wrote this letter to downing street concerned about a lack of access to the prime minister. to think the relationship between politicians and journalists has got reformed? i think the story at the moment is very tense, it is very important, the country is facing some big decisions and i think there times where it is fraught but i'm not sure it has changed that much over the decades. there has always been tension between broadcasters, papers and politicians.

and in the end, it is ourjob to look at every decision, resist pressure but hear what they are saying, and make judgments on that. there is a general view now that the whole public discourse around politics in this country has got to angry and vitriolic. some of that is social media but that is only part of it. do you think there is anything bbc news can do about that? i think you have got to test the temperature on political interviews. personally, i think we need to resist getting into arguments with people, that is absolutely not our role. but there is a balance with this because you of also got to hold people to account it absolutely right that we are confident in how we approach political interviews. so it is getting a balance between becoming an argument because i think actually the audience doesn't get anything out of that but been seen that we are testing those policies and the points that

politicians are presenting. thank you. as we have been hearing, the uk's forthcoming departure from the european union has significantly raise the temperature in public discourse and the language used by broadcasters is coming under more scrutiny than ever. take the proposal for another referendum on the subject which has gained increasing political traction in recent weeks. at turns it has been referred to one air as a people's vote, a term that one man takes issue with. but the term second referendum is not uncontroversial itself. here it is being used a couple of times recently on bbc news. campaigners claim momentum is building behind a second referendum. the lib dems want a second

referendum on the brexit deal and servings urged the prime minister to follow their example. the difficulty with that description of another vote is outlined in this telephone message received. we have already had two referendums. if you remember, there was one in the 19705 so why keep on saying the second referendum when of course if another referendum occurs, it would be a third referendum. can't bbc journalists count? well, bbc news has been thinking about the terminology around this issue so we asked them for their position on it and this is what they told us. thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions

on bbc news and current affairs you can find us on twitter and do have a look at our website for previous discussions. the address for that is on the screen. we will be back to hear your thoughts on bbc news coverage next week. goodbye. hello. some of us will have good weather on saturday,

for others it is not going to be quite so pretty, in fact cloud and rain and cold weather on the way. the reason for that is a weather front is slicing the uk in half right now. there is a bit of a battle between the cold in the north and warm in the south taking place. this is what it looks like first thing saturday. the milder weather in the south—east and below freezing in scotland, and in between we have a weather front. this will bring soggy weather to wales, yorkshire and parts of the midlands, and the south—west in the morning and then come lunchtime that weather front will sweep into east anglia and south—east london is in for some rain. in scotland, northern ireland, northern england on saturday is looking absolutely fine, it is fresh but at least it is sunny. cloudy across the midlands, it will feel cold with winds blowing out of the north, and then that rain from central southern england to london, all the way to norwich. this rain could be really heavy indeed, really soggy out there. that also means temperatures will struggle on saturday. we had 23 in london on friday, saturday is looking like 14. in the north of the country there will be sunshine with temperatures around 12— 13. the weather forecast for sunday, the wet weather from the south—east clears away and actually a bit of a reversal in fortunes.

in the morning it is going to be clear and cold, this is the temperature on sunday morning, 2—3 degrees, a touch of frost in rural areas. and then sunday morning itself, a lot of sunshine across england and wales, and in the north—west of the country, there is a jetstream that is blowing in a weather front, cloud and rain, gusty winds, gale force around the western isles. very unsettled in the north—west of the country on sunday. sunday in england and wales is looking absolutely fine, the temperatures will recover a little bit as well, 15— 16 celsius. not looking too bad across england and wales on sunday at all. sunday night into monday, weather fronts keep pushing in and pushing through the north—west of the country, it looks like northern ireland, parts of scotland are into some rain. this is monday now, look at the north of parts of scotland are into some rain. this is monday now, look at the north of scotland, it get some sunshine on monday. then england and wales on monday are also looking fairly sunny, partly cloudy skies,

but crucially the winds are starting to blow out of the south—west, so that means the temperatures will be picking up, we are back up to 16 in belfast in newcastle, and the good news is for some of us next week, the week ahead, it is looking like there is a bit of an indian summer on the way with temperatures well into the 20s for some. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is lewis vaughanjones. our top stories: i will vote to confirm judge kavanaugh. brett kavanaugh is a big step closer

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