john—davis, who considered monday's decision and utter disgrace asked this. televised debates between politicians have a tortured history, with broadcasters attempts to get or main party leaders to take part failing at the last two general elections. more recently, at the end of last year, plans for a head—to—head between theresa may and jeremy corbyn over brexit fell apart and led to disagreement. undeterred, the bbc has announced a programme featuring

all the remaining contenders in the leadership contest. our next prime minister, presented by emily late list will be shown at eight o'clock next tuesday evening on bbc one, by which time the current list will have been whittled down even further. but there are a couple of odd things about this programme. first, it was announced before nominations have opened so without any guarantee that anyone would take part. secondly, unlike in a general election or a referendum, the audience were to be able to act on what they see unless they are members of the conservative party. that concerned rob spencer who asks... then there is the issue of the programme's content. will it focus on policy? or the character and previous misdemeanours of the candidates?

the bbc‘s executive producer for next tuesday's programme isjonathan munro and he is with us for now and thank you forjoining us on newswatch. let's pick up on that point from rob spencer, the decision on the winner of this contest is ultimately going to be made by conservative party members. so, what is the point of presenting the different candidates viewpoints on prime—time tv bbc one, when the vast majority of people can't vote? well, mr spencer is right. the electorate is really small for this vacancy at number 10 but we are all affected by it, it is going to be an election

effectively and directly for the prime minister, notjust for the conservative party. that is actually quite rare. when theresa may took over, there wasn't an election, there was effectively a coronation. you have to go back to sirjohn major for this. all of the audiences will be affected by who the next prime minister is. why did you announce the programme before you even knew who was standing, let alone whether they would agree to take part or not? there is always a bit of a debate about when you announce the intention to have a programme of this sort. is it early or late? we don't want to be caught up in a clash with other events to do with the conservative party's own campaign hustings, this is an independent bbc production. we needed to work around some diary commitments there. secondly, when you are building a prime—time schedule for channel, you need to do this in advance. to get it out publicly enabled

the candidates to know, even though they didn't know which ones would still be standing by next tuesday, and they will be fewer than by now, but it also enables us to plan properly for a peak—time show. i take your point about planning but is it also that you wanted all of them had said they will participate, which is a great position for us to be in, for the audience to see the great range of candidates, and all but borisjohnson had said that more than 2a hours ago. their view is that the credibility of the prime minister is enhanced by public scrutiny. how much of a headache it has been wondering whether borisjohnson would take part? it's not a headache, we are delighted he is taking part. we wouldn't have gone down the route of having an empty chair on a podium or any of that sort.

this is a serious political policy led discussion and i am not up for those gimmicks. but we would obviously, had he chose not to take part, had told the audience that we had invited him and he had declined the invitation. but he is coming, and it will be the first televised debate he has done and it will be fascinating for everybody. of course there is a long way to run in this selection. we're making any assumptions about who will win. absolutely. can you give us a sense of how the behind—the—scenes negotiations worked to get him to agree? i should imagine they have been quite complicated. we tried to keep them as simple as we could. you made the point at the beginning of the programme that there have been a number of debates over the last few years so we have learnt lessons from those. at no stage was this a push pull negotiation, we will only come if you do x or y. we presented a format so viewers can question the candidates. there has been no negotiation about that at all, none of the candidates have pushed back

in any significant way at all on that, so it has been relatively simple, in truth. you mention format, there is no studio audience, why? we thought the most important thing was to allow bbc viewers and listeners to connect directly with the person who may be prime minister of this country. we can deliver a network of newsrooms across the uk where we can get viewers and listeners into our newsrooms to question the candidates directly. a studio audience creates other problems. how many of the audience would be conservative party members, who as your own viewer pointed out, can only vote, or should it reflect the broader electorate? should we weight the audience in some way? that would have caused a contentious discussion between us and some of the candidates. in this example, we have a few days to go before the programme, but touch wood, simple format seems like it has served us well. some viewers, you'll be aware, say there has been a lot of focus

on personality and past behaviour, how much will that feature in the debate and how much will it actually be that policy? our objective is this is a policy led discussion. we have not seen all the questions yet, we cannot tell whether they will be a huge volume of questions... but you choose the questions to be asked. yes, we will choose them on policy areas, there is so much policy to talk about. we have laid down one condition, so all questions have to be asked to all candidates, so any question about a previous record in taking drugs wouldn't be question that is allowed, it wouldn't be a legitimate question for a policy debate. policy will come first. jonathan munday, thank you. if borisjohnson‘s media appearances lately have been rather elusive, he did invite some questions from journalists at his campaign launch on wednesday. when laura kuenssberg's turn came,

she didn't hold back. you suggested brexit would be as straightforward win—win and actually it has been a chaotic mess. as foreign secretary, you offend the people at home and abroad, you have reputation for being cavalier with vital information and already you are telling some supporters you will do everything to avoid leaving the eu without a deal and others that you would gladly do that, a simple question, if you want to be prime minister, can a country trust you? yes, of course, laura. the answer in that great minestrone of observations as one substantive question which was that the newswatch crouton. he can'tjoke his way out of controversy, though. there were some cheers.

when he was challenged about remarks on muslim women and being fit for office. that response in the room prompted the bbc‘s political editor to write later on the news website, and his supporters acknowledge tonight that allowing the crowd to cheerjournalists who were asking legitimate questions was a mistake. but the response from viewers was divided. and john smith agreed. but gordon simpson saw it differently.

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, do e—mail us. or you can find us on twitter. you can call us. do have a look at our website. that is all from us. we will be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage next week. in the meantime, thank you for watching and goodbye. hello. the weekend isn't looking as wet as it's been, particularly in those areas which have had a soaking in the past week but there will still be some rain or showers around

and the reason why low pressure is still close by towards the north—west of the british isles, around that we're seeing weather disturbances moving through, with either some rain at times, very least getting showers from west to east. still fairly unsettled this weekend. it won't be wet all weekend long. some sunshine occasionally, looking breezy this weekend. still not particularly warm, though feeling a bit warmer than it has done for the past week. it looks like quite wet start to saturday morning in northern ireland after rain overnight. it peps up at the end of the night. some rain too towards western scotland, wales and western parts of england. this is that first weather disturbance coming our way, slowly moving eastwards, reain becoming more patchy, showery in nature but still one or two heavy showers. ahead of that, some sunny spells, maybe a shower, brightening up. the chance of catching a shower on a breezy saturday with temperatures close to 20 in the warmest parts of eastern england. most of us will fall a few degrees short of that. saturday evening, this first area of showers will push away. we could see more coming in towards south—west england and wales on through saturday evening and pushing a bit further northwards as we go through the night. clear spells too — the chilliest spots into single figures maybe towards mid single figures in one or two areas, certainly prolonged clear spells overnight and onto part two

of the weekend, look familiar? deja vu. weather disturbances moving around the showers at times could be heavy and possibly thundery. we'll start off with a batch of showers, close to northern england on sunday, especially north—west england. south—west scotland pushing northwards across scotland as the day goes on. sunshine, one or two showers elsewhere and the potential for some heavier downpours to come into northern ireland through the day, into parts of wales as well. still some sunshine occasionally, not everywhere will be wet. maybe not many showers at all towards east anglia. close to 20 in the warm spots. it looks like a similar picture on monday. showers in northern ireland and scotland. she rain and a few showers affecting parts of england and wales, south—east of that, it could be a bit warmer into the low 20s and for many, it will start to feel a bit warmer. monday to tuesday. right now, tuesday is looking mainly dry. so the story of next week's weather is something drier, a bit warmerfor a time at the start of the week. i think it looks like it turns wetter again around mid—week and it starts to turn

cooler once again as well.

them a call welcome to bbc news — broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. i'm reged ahmad. our top stories: president trump claims the attack on two tankers in the gulf of oman has iran "written all over it". iran denies the claims. thousands of venezuelans rush to cross into peru in a bid to beat the introduction of tougher migration laws. emergency teams in chile try to locate three miners trapped 70 metres below ground, after a landslide. and it's paradise for a paleontologist — we go fossil hunting in search