0k, all right. mr cleverly, please do join us. good morning to you. and the coverage extended beyond regular programmes. viewers on bbc one were offered not just one but two live bbc news specials this week. on monday evening, nick robinson explored what theresa may's brexit deal could mean for the uk. while andrew neil hosted a prime time news special on wednesday with live coverage of the leadership challenge to the prime minister. but with events moving quickly, there were moments when even the bbc appeared unsure as to what scale of coverage was appropriate. the andrew neil special was initially scheduled to start at 7:30pm and last a full 90 minutes. within hours, however, it was scaled back, first to an hour at 8pm, and then changed again to a half—hour special at 8:30pm, which delayed the start of the apprentice. millions of people tuned in, but was the wall to wall coverage really necessary? james patterson from essex wasn't sure. there were many instances

throughout the week when bbc news did precisely that. but malcolm hyatt still felt there was too much focus on theresa may and brexit. i was due to play golf, so intended to watch my local bbc breakfast news and weather at 8:30am, for the regional forecast. if it is settled tonight, she can go to the european council tomorrow... instead i had to watch a guy in downing street in a woolly hat setting up a lectern. i therefore surmised that the temperature was low. after much subsequent discussion, mainly of what would happen if mrs may lost the vote, i gave up and ventured out, prepared for all weathers. in the evening, i hear mrs may won the vote,

but there is now much discussion as to whether she has won it by enough. yes, we need to know what's going on, but in manageable chunks, please, and not to the exclusion of everything else. another day of single issues, overconcentration at the bbc, ifeel. david andrews felt the same. is it possible, please, for all this brexit etc that is being bombarded on us by the television, to be moved to another channel, possibly the bbc parliament channel, or even online on bbc three to give the rest of us a little bit of a break and opportunity to reflect on the season? we asked the bbc to respond to those comments about the volume of coverage and explain the reasons behind the schedule changes. they didn't mention the duration changes but told newswatch it was in the public interest for the result of the vote of confidence in theresa may to be broadcast to a mainstream bbc one audience as it was an important political moment with big potential

implications for the country. let's reflect on an extraordinary week of political news with ben wright, the bbc‘s political correspondent. thank you for coming on newswatch. this was one of those weeks where viewers saw the green across parliament packed with politicians and tv cameras. what's it like reporting in those kinds of circumstances? it's never been like this before. i think most viewers and listeners know that themselves. everyone is gripped and glued to this story because certainly in my working life we've never had a political crisis like this. you're right, the college green area in front of parliament is now a gazebo city full of tents. and it's not just british broadcasters. the world's media are there to try to make some sense of this. how do you keep a clear head when it clearly is a circus? i think all the time, what are the questions that the audience actually want answering here. they want guidance through this maze. it's such a multidimensional

political story as well. you've got the stability or not of the government. you have theresa may's own position in her party. you've got gridlock within parliament. it's like this great big enormous political rubik's cube is being twizzled every day. and every day it feels different. you are having to just try and decode that for people. and how do you avoid too much speculation given how many what ifs and potential scenarios there are? it's hard to. and i think a lot of us have been chastened from our experience as political correspondence over the last two or three years where predictions have proved to be completely wrong. back to the 2015 election, which we all thought would be a hung parliament but it delivered a conservative majority government, through to the referendum, which i think wrong—footed a lot of politicaljournalists. politics stopped being predictable quite a long time ago. i think the key thing for us is to show some humility. and not to pretend that we know how this will unfold. when there are facts, how do you report them? sometimes you have competing narratives. ii7 mps voting against theresa may in the vote of confidence this week. depending who you listen to,

the result was either a strong vote of confidence in her or a massive blow to her authority. how do you decide what to report? what's the truth? there is a political hunch that we have. but it's also based, and that's a good example — that day, talking to lots of conservative mps before the result to get a sense from them as to what would constitute a good result, poor result, strong win or destabilising win. from the point of view of viewers, at a time of huge uncertainty, and it's fair to say anxiety, they worry that interpretation can feed further uncertainty. i wonder, as political correspondents, are you conscious, is it a big responsibility with that anxiety? do you get worried that what you say might have its own repercussions? it's certainly unlike any political story we have covered in that people looking at it are very disturbed in many ways, and alarmed by what's unfolding. because all the normal elements of british political life that you think are pretty solid, like a functioning adversarial

parliament that in the end does itsjob, doesn't seem to be working at the moment. and as a politicaljournalist that is terribly exciting to be reporting, but it is slightly disturbing as well. and you feel that as journalists covering it, absolutely. and there is a whole team of people working alongside presenters and reporters like yourself. people see laura kuenssberg, me and my colleagues, but this only happens because of a vast and brilliant political machine, journalistic political machine. they are the ones, the producer standing outside a cabinet minister's house at 6am, doorstepping for the latest comment. it's the researchers following events in parliament all day, they're the people keeping us on the road, as well as lots of crisps and pizza. our diets have collapsed in the last few weeks. it has to be said. ben wright, thank you very much. theresa may had started the week by postponing the big

vote on her brexit deal, and embarking on a whistle—stop tour of european capitals in an effort to win further concessions from eu leaders. on tuesday lunchtime, the bbc news at one reported on her visit to berlin, including this moment. from there it was onto her next stop. at every turn the prime minister appears stuck. political gridlock at home, and here in berlin, even her car door refused to open. her fundamental problem though, she has agreed the deal must have a backstop to avoid border controls ever returning on the island of ireland, and parliament doesn't like it. the moment was also discussed by presenter simon mccoy and berlin correspondentjenny hill on the bbc news channel later that afternoon. i suppose if you wanted an analogy, the difficulty the prime minister had in just getting out of the car, itjust shows how much things are stacked against her. yeah, it wasn't the best start

to her meeting with angela merkel, who was stood on the red carpet waiting as mrs may's staff tried desperately to get her out of the car. as you can imagine, a great deal of heavy symbolism is now being attributed to those first few moments. but that was no laughing matter for patricia betts in sutherland. she called us with this message. the monday lunchtime news showed mrs may's car door stuck as she arrived for an imported meeting regarding brexit. this was used by the reporter as a pun. i was so cross i had to turn off the television. this happens all too often in news reports, a serious news item being treated lightly, and journalists trying to be too clever. perhaps the bbc could learn not to treat the public as if they were children to be amused, entertained or even insulted. but there has been praise for the bbc‘s brexit reporting as well, with one newswatch viewer getting in touch to ask us to thank the team at brexitcast, particularly political correspondent

chris mason and brussels reporter adam fleming. here they are in action. chanting: we demand a people's vote. let me remind you what is in this deal. first of all there is a withdrawal agreement, about 600 pages, that's the terms of the divorce, winding up the uk's membership of the eu. plus it's about protecting the rights of people from the eu living in the uk and protecting the rights of brits living in the european union. correct. david james—bailey from lincoln wrote to us... 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, you can call us, or e—mail. find us on twitter and have a look at our website. that's all from us. we are off air for the next two weeks but we will be back in the new year. happy christmas. hello. after a fairly quiet day on friday, the weather is about to turn much more lively as we head through the course of the weekend. we've got a named storm, storm dierdre, it's been named by met eireann. that is bringing some very disruptive weather this weekend with warnings, amber warnings from the met office for ice and snow, and there will also be freezing rain which will bring widespread ice on any roads

and untreated surfaces too. here is where we've got the amber warnings out through saturday and early into sunday as well. ice warnings across much of northern england and southern scotland and we'll also have snow and freezing rain here. heavy snow across many central parts of scotland, mainly to the north of the central belt. the reason for all this disruptive weather is milder air moving in from the atlantic, with these weather fronts which are which are packing in and bumping into this cold air, so a cold saturday dawn, temperatures sub—zero for many of us. that milder air works in from the west along with the rain, the freezing rain and ice and snow too. notjust the rain, freezing rain, ice and snow, but also some strong winds which will cause some disruption too. so you can see the rain edging its way gradually eastwards across the country, bumping into that cold air in place, and it will be turning to snow, mostly over the higher ground for the north of wales, the pennines too but even to the south we could get one or two flakes of snow earlier on before it turns back to rain, i think, during the middle part of the afternoon. could be about 2—5 centimetres

of snow, even to low levels across northern england. to the north of the central belt, 10—20 centimetres of snow and the freezing rain really will be quite dangerous. that's rain droplets that willjust freeze instantly on impact with the cold ground, bringing a real instant ice rink effect. so some pretty disruptive weather through the course of saturday, all down to storm dierdre. it's going to cause disruption to travel through saturday night and on into sunday too. with that mix of freezing rain, snow and ice and strong winds too, your bbc local radio stations will keep you up—to—date with any disruption to travel. so heading on into the second half of the weekend, we start off sunday still with some rain and snow to the north—east which should slowly clear away. it will be a drier day compared to saturday, not as windy. more sunshine in the east but there will be some lying snow and still the risk of ice. further rain showers then packing in from the west later on in the day.

it won't be quite as cold, so those temperatures starting to nudge up about 6—10 degrees through the day on sunday and then things turn a bit milder into the new working week, still unsettled with further showers for monday and tuesday too. bye for now. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. i'm reged ahmad. breaking news this hour: a federal court in the us declares the affordable care act — also known as obamacare — unconstitutional. donald trump's former lawyer says the president was well aware it was wrong to pay hush money to two women during the 2016 election. britain's prime minister vows to keep her brexit plans on track, despite the rest of the eu saying they can't renegotiate the deal. one of britain's biggest football clubs condemns its own fans — heard singing anti—semitic songs at a match in hungary.