of sn’f rwmcmru bait sn’f rmelru bljl il‘3 piece of administration, but it's not quite the same as full u nfettered not quite the same as full unfettered access, and these things matter in northern ireland. there are issues of enormous sensitivity and right across the political spectrum in northern ireland now, people are saying this isn't what we signed up for. this is what we expected. so i think there is a problem therefore borisjohnson in terms of trust, if you like. because he said we were going to look after northern ireland, and the union is important to us, but even those who we re important to us, but even those who were his allies there feel this deal is letting them down, and may become a you know, the future of the northern ireland economy doesn't win oi’ northern ireland economy doesn't win or lose votes in the heart of england during an election. but i do think we are going to have from jeremy corbyn, who has his own issues with this, but we are going to hear that this is an issue of trust. you can't believe the pre—minister says. trust. you can't believe the pre-minister says. one of the very many issues we will hear about in the course of the day, chris morris, thank you very much for that. we will be back at the top of the hour, we will take you into the debate this evening, plenty more analysis to come, remember, the debate on for

an hourat 8:30pm to come, remember, the debate on for an hour at 8:30pm on bbc one, so do stay with us for that. now though, it is time for news watch. hello and welcome to news watch with me samir ahmed. all other major party leaders have faced the questioning of andrew neil but not boris johnson. is this the fault of the bbc? and in a fractious campaign, have bbc interviews helped or hindered the election process? interviews with party leaders during election campaigns are often feisty affairs and andrew neil is widely considered one of the bbc‘s toughest interrogators. as he showed this week with his questioning ofjo swinson and jofra archer. borisjohnson‘s failure to commit himself firmly to andrew neil's questioning initially led the bbc last week to say the prime minister would not be on the andrew marr show until he committed to the andrew neil interview. but after friday's knife attack on london bridge,

the corporation withdrew that ultimatum, arguing it was now in the public interest for him to appear. here are the thoughts of maria jeffrey. i am dismayed and disgusted by the way that the tories have played the bbc. why was boris johnson allowed the oxygen of publicity for his election campaign on the andrew marshall, a u—turn given the bbc ban after he had declined to have his policies and behaviour scrutinised by andrew neil? a process that the other party leaders had been through. but if the suggestion was that borisjohnson would have an easy time on the andrew marshall, that turned out to be ——time on the andrew marr show, that turned out to be far from the case. in a often acrimonious conversation, the presenter pressed the prime minister on the circumstances under which the london bridge attacker had been released from prison. under the conservatives he was let out. under the conservatives... this was a conservative decision.

you have been in powerfor ten years. because of changes to the law that were brought in by the labour party. that i voted against. you have been in powerfor ten years and have done nothing about it. jeremy corbyn voted in favour of it. voted in favour of early automatic release. for ten years you have done nothing about it. you cannot retrospectively change... for ten years, you have done nothing about it. dave mann was one of the thousands of viewers to reject the interview and recorded his reaction on video. i am a huge admirer of andrew marr and watch his programme most sundays, but i was appalled by the way here interviewed boris johnson last week. he kept posing questions and then when boris was about to answer, would not let him answer and kept asking more questions and talking over his answers. in fact, he seemed more concerned about moving onto the next question than actually hearing what borisjohnson had to say. with me to discuss that and other issues around the bbc‘s election campaign coverage is the editorial

director of bbc news, ahmed, thank you for coming on news watch. the london bridge attack had already become politicised. so viewers are right to say that there wasn't a case for the prime minister to go on the andrew marshall? ——for the prime minister to go on the andrew marr show? i think there was a very strong case. the prime minister had already made a statement about how law changes may have affected the treatment of the perpetrator of this crime. and i think audiences quite rightly would want to see the bbc interview the prime minister. there was a significant change in the political weather because of the events on london bridge. i think it was quite easy for the bbc to say that the prime minister was available and the bbc was the place where that interview should take place. ok, it is pretty obvious, isn't it, that the bbc should have pinned now ok, it is pretty obvious, isn't it, that the bbc should have pinned down all of the party leaders before running all the andrew neil interviews? you didn't get the balance right on the andrew neil interviews.

why didn't you? these are very complicated issues. i am involved in question time for example, and when you are doing a whole series of programmes, to say that you need to nail all of them down before the campaign or before announcing any of them, that has two big problems. not for announcing them. first of all, giving the parties a veto over us doing anything. it will be one party that said they are not doing it and that would mean we'd have to abandon everything we are doing. we also have to be practical. diaries change, events change, we need to offer various different interview slots. i don't think people feel it is about a veto, they feel it is not a prime minister playing games and avoiding scrutiny. well, we offered many, many different opportunities for the prime minister to sit down, do the interview andrew neil, that in option is still open. there is nothing we can do to compel them to appear, we can just do our best. too many interviews, viewers feel, and upping arguments without offering genuine insights

for voters in an election. the andrew marr account with borisjohnson when you can even —— couldn't even hear them talking over each other, it was painful, wasn't it? i don't think it was painful, i think he got some interesting information out of the prime minister. the fact that 7a other people who had been released from prison under possibly similar terms to the perpetrator of the crimes of london bridge attack was a very important point. of course sometimes politician central to answer the questions that are put to them and i think it is quite right for andrew to say that it wasn't the answer to the question i was asking. i was asking a different question. we are going to move onto another issue now. allegations against the bbc of political bias are par for the course in election campaigns, but those who suspect the corporation of favouring the conservative party point to two incidents which we have featured on newswatch.

the replacement on breakfast of this year's pictures of borisjohnson laying a wreath on remembrance sunday when he had been criticised for his appearance with what was considered more flattering footage of him from three years ago. and the cutting from a news report of audience laughter directed at the prime minister during a question time leaders special. the bbc has apologised for both mistakes, but questions are still being asked about how and why they came about. at the same time, there has been criticism of the airtime given to photo opportunities and stunts such as borisjohnson‘s spreading a scone last week. designed to show politicians in a good light, there is the suspicion here again that the conservatives have benefited more than other parties, with tony padilla begging for no more sycophantic photo ops with scones and jam. kamal ahmed is still with us. all of the political leaders do try the stage—managed stunts like this, or in a boxing ring to make themselves look good, why is bbc news pandering to them?

we are not. these are just pictures that audiences see all the time. they are well able to judge how important these things are. they have to be put up against the huge amount of information that is on our online site, the rest of the package, these are all tiny little bits. the point about these allegations around the bbc, these are things that are on air for a matter of seconds. we produce hundreds of hours of election campaign coverage — really serious, really in—depth, really holding our political leaders up to account. of course, you can take tiny clips of a second here or a second there, but that doesn't reflect our overall election coverage. it is interesting you say that because viewers say that it adds up. it is a fact that the bbc hasn't had a good election. it has had to apologise for a couple of stories mentioned there. the explanation for the editing off of the question time audience laughter, it was concerning. it didn't actually save time and there was something

editorially important that was lost in taking off that laughter. what is going on at bbc news? it did save some time. it was a few seconds. we admitted it was a mistake. again, this is in the context of hundreds of hours of material. that piece came from a question time special done by the bbc the night before. it was run in full on all sorts of output. that was one outing where it was trimmed and a mistake was made. you say we have had a bad election, we have had the question time special — all four of the main party leaders on air on prime—time bbc one. the seven—leader debate, andrew neil interviews withjeremy corbyn and jo swinson and nicola sturgeon and nigel farage were all fantastic pieces of work. all right, thank you very much. we have another issue. throughout the campaign, broadcasters have been showing a wide range of programmes involving senior politicians

and the questions of who is invited where and who actually turns up and takes part have been as fraught here as they have with those interviews with party leaders. we're recording before friday night's head—to—head leaders debate on bbc one betweenjeremy corbyn and borisjohnson, but have been receiving complaints from viewers for weeks like this from alice. let's talk about this, kamal. imean at i mean at a time, you know, women mps are quitting parliament in significant numbers because of abuse and hostility. so the decision to exclude the only female national party leader, jo swinson — nick clegg was there with david cameron and gordon brown in 2010 — and it looks like very poorjudgment

by bbc news, doesn't it? all of these leaders debates that you have been referring to should be taken as a set of programmes. this is the leaders debate. six days before the election. on the question time special, you havejo swinson and nicola sturgeon, jeremy corbyn and borisjohnson in one programme. jo swinson has already been involved as well in special programmes to do with the election. when it comes to who appears in the prime ministerial debate, we compare or we test our output against the result in 2017. in that election, 80%, more than 80% of the votes, went to the conservative party or the labour party. that fashions the way we look at how we build our programmes. i hear what you say, but viewers will say, look, it doesn't matter how many other programmes you have of other leaders, the bbc is promoting

this as the big one, it is six days ahead of the election. we are not saying it is the big one, it is a very important moment. the prime ministerial debates? there are many different ways of engaging. one programme out of all of that set of programmes is defined by who could actually be by minister on december 12 after december 12. that is one... that is the prime ministerial debate between jeremy corbyn and boris johnson. kamal ahmed, thank you very much. because of the general election, there is no news what checks ——because of the general election, there is no newswatch next week, recall until the new year. please continue to get in touch with your opinions about what you see on bbc tv news, online or bbc social media. you can e—mail us and you can find it on twitter, you can call us as well. do have a look at previous interviews on our website. we will be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again from january the 3rd. happy christmas.

hello there. well, it's been a pretty grey and cloudy day today, really, with outbreaks of rain around at times. this was how the skies looked earlier on. this is an lincolns temperature, but most of us will have seen skies like these at some point during the day. overnight tonight, we will continue to see the feet of cloud and a few passing showers in northern and western areas of the country. it's the breeze and cloud that stops temperatures from falling too far too fast. so, overnight lows around 4-7dc. too fast. so, overnight lows around 4—7dc. now, saturday, not starting up 4—7dc. now, saturday, not starting up too badly, there will be some dry and great weather, particularly across england and wales with the occasional spell of sunshine here. a few showers initially pushing northwards across scotland, but later in the day, we will see a heavier zone of rain arriving across northern and western areas of scotland. so, turning wet and increasingly windy in these areas. it will be quite mild though, temperatures up to 10 degrees, and then for sunday, we've got a zone of

stronger winds on the way, particularly late in the day across wales in southwest england. that's your latest weather. i for now. wales in southwest england. that's your latest weather. ifor now. —— bye for now.

i'm christian fraser in maidstone. welcome to the countdown to the bbc‘s the prime ministerial debate between borisjohnson and jeremy corbyn, which starts in just 30 minutes' time. the two leaders go head—to—head for the final time during this election campaign. the hour—long programme will be hosted by nick robinson. mrjohnson and mr corbyn will face questions from the public and an audience of about 100 people here in maidstone in kent. jeremy corbyn was first to arrive here tonight.