ahead and he would be standing by to make sure that boris johnson did deliver. tim dorsett e—mailed to say... the main complaint about friday's coverage of brexit night was to do with the prime minister's statement and the bbc‘s decision not to broadcast the footage. usually in these kind of situations, national broadcaster, either the bbc, itn, or sky news, would be invited into downing street, to record the prime minister's words. instead, the statement was recorded by borisjohnson‘s team and distributed via facebook and twitter. the bbc decided not to broadcast it. instead, using a graphic with a quote spoken by the presenter. many viewers complained about this decision and so did the former chairman of the bbc, lord grade, who voiced his concerns on the today programme on thursday.

i'm very critical of the bbc not defending decisions it makes editorially. the most recent one, not running the prime minister's brexit speech. fine, that's a... decision the director—general or the head of news and current affairs should be up front, defending that decision. or not, as the case may be. the bbc hides, when it's under criticism, it hides. and i'm very critical of the bbc for that. and that's completely wrong, because they expect everybody else to come on and be accountable to the bbc‘s journalists when they are enquiring. well, we asked the bbc for an interview to explain the decision did not broadcast the statement. but they refused, instead, giving us this explanation. well, i'm joined now by nigel bonson, who is one of the viewers who contacted us about this and he is in our sheffield studio.

nigel, why were you unhappy with the bbc‘s decision not to broadcast the video? well, i was up waiting for it, as many people were i'm sure. i waited for the interview to be broadcast and it's i waited for the interview to be broadcast and itjust didn't happen. i didn't see any apology or any explanation until later. what you just mentioned about that explanation might involve internal politics between the normal process of the bbc and others going into number ten, but as far as the public‘s concerned, and as far as i was concerned, itjust didn't matter. i don't think the public care how it's done, they wanted to hear

the prime minister's address. so, the bbc might say they did report what he said, including reporting in advance all day what he was going to say and that audiences did get informed on the news content. well, i certainly wasn't informed. but as far as i'm concerned what they reported in short, snappy bits during the day is irrelevant. i, and i'm sure others, wanted to hear the prime minister at 10pm, as had been widely suggested. itn didn't put the footage out either, which is interesting. and you'll be aware that number ten increasingly seem be using social media instead of speaking to national broadcasters, which is usual practice on recording a statement like this. i suppose the bbc and some viewers might feel that there is a potentially dangerous precedent. do you have any concerns about that at all? i don't. what itn chose to do isn't relevant. the bbc, as a national broadcaster, should broadcast these things. and, the average member of the public wouldn't be aware of how it's done. to be honest, i think it's rather petty and to do

with internal politics, rather than meeting the needs of the nation. just to be clear, you'd feel the same, whoever was prime minister, if this was how they chose to release their statements? absolutely, and that's central to my argument and i hope that's not being missed. journalists are definitely concerned that there is an attempt to control the press, to limit how his message is got across, which might, ultimately, i suppose broadcasters would say, be to the detriment of the public and public service to hold the government to acount on behalf of voters. do you think at any stage there might be a point of principle around the prime minister's use of social media as his main way of getting out his message? well, i think social media, nowadays, is just as important as national tv. i would clearly be concerned, as i'm sure with others, if that was being managed too much.

my view is that had the bbc got into number ten to record it, there wouldn't have been any questions and answers anyway, so it wouldn't have held the prime minister to account. so if you had a message to give to bbc executives, given that they made this decision, what would you say they should do? i would say that the public and the viewers first and, as would normally happen, if the prime minister wants to address the nation, he should be able to. i would just draw the analogy of a general election after two months campaign, a decision that affects the next five years of the country, that would have been covered. yet this has been a four year campaign and something that will affect the nation for perhaps generations and yet the prime minister wasn't heard on the night. nigel bonson, thank you so much.

now for some of your other thoughts on topics this week. remember, last week, we featured a mistake from bbc news when they showed a picture of lebron james instead of kobe bryant? surely two black people couldn't be confused for each other again on the bbc, could they? well, here's the parliament channel on monday. the bill does lack any legal guarantees to protect us against undermining food standards here, so... that was not dawn butler, it was in fact her fellow labour mp, marsha de cordova. dawn butler tweeted. .. the bbc parliament channel apologised, saying...

also on monday, bbc breakfast did an interview with former one direction band member louis tomlinson. he was publicising his new solo album. but the line of questioning from presenters louise minchin and dan walker prompted complaints. do you feel that, at some stage, i've put too much of myself in there or is that part of helping you in writing that way as well about the loss of your mum and your sister and other things? i think because of where i started my career, on the x factor and... you know, there's always been a camera on me, and i've always kind of given a lot of myself, it's kind of all i've known in my career, really. so i almost use that to my advantage. i'm brave enough to talk about these things and, yeah, it's worked out. i'm sure you get asked a lot about the potential of one direction getting back together at some stage. you've ticked them all off now, you've gone trauma, zayn and now we're finally on this one, i like it. come on!

erm, i'll give you the answer i give everyone else — it's inevitable. louis tomlinson tweeted after the programme... well, viewer, veronica e—mailed to say... well, the bbc gave us this reply... and, finally, a group of leading reporters from the national media decided not to attend a downing street briefing on monday, when other journalists, who hadn't been invited, were turned away. this prompted matthew dudley to get in touch. why has the bbc failed to report the fact that all journalists walked out of the briefing yesterday, the brexit briefing, yesterday, because of a government attempt

to select particularjournalists? one of the people walking out was apparently laura kuenssberg, your person there. and ifind it unfathomable why you have not made this headline news. well, the story hasn't featured on the main bbc tv news bulletins, but the bbc did give us this response... thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions about what you see here or on bbc news, including its social media and on my output, e—mail newswatch@bbc. co. uk or you can find us on twitter bbc. e—mail newswatch@bbc.co.uk or you can find us on @twitter bbc. you can call us on 0370 010 6676 and you can even appear on the programme. have a look at our website, 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 there. we've got some very strong winds indeed coming our way this weekend. all courtesy of storm ciara, which will arrive on sunday. that's when we are going to see the strongest winds, with met office warnings already in force. these could yet be updated through the weekend so make sure you stay in touch with the forecast over the course of the weekend. now, storm ciara itself will develop under an incredibly strong jet stream, one of the strongest atlanticjet streams i've seen, with the winds in the jet stream 250 miles an hour. that is what will make this intense area of low pressure on sunday, which is storm ciara. before we get there, over the next few hours, we will see the winds pick up as well. it will become quite blowy.

a band of rain pushes east in intensity, followed by some blustery showers across western areas. because it has been quite a windy start on saturday morning. temperatures between 4—8 celsius. the rest of saturday, there'll be a fair bit of sunshine for a time, especially across england and wales, but further north across ireland and scotland, the cloud will thicken through the afternoon. outbreaks of rain and hill snow in scotland and strong gusts of wind. northern ireland and scotland. they could reach up to 70 miles an hour. strong enough to cause some disruption. from there it becomes very windy overnight as well across england and wales. a band of rain pushes its way in. storm ciara doesn't really start arriving until later on sunday. let's take a look at ciara, here it is under pressure charts. you can see how tightly packed the isobars are on this weather system, always a sign of strong winds. the strongest winds will come along in two batches, but really, it is going to be windy on sunday, pretty much across the whole of the uk, with gusts for most of us in the range of something like 60—80 miles an hour. we are going to see some

impacts, some disruptive weather, on sunday. the strongest winds for scotland, along through the afternoon, certainly on the southern flank of this area of low pressure. that is where we will see the sign of strong winds. notice how that comes through, especially through the central belt, late in the day on sunday. that could cause problems. further south for england and wales we have got a cold front that is going to be bringing a squally band of heavy rain through, and that is ahead of this band of rain where we will get the strongest wind gust. with gusts of 60—80 miles an hour, and the strongest winds potentially lasting some 6—9 hours, the risk of impact just increases. transport disruption is to be expected. whether on roads, rails, at airports or even the ferries, we could see significant problems on sunday.

this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk, on pbs in america or around the globe. i'm james reynolds. our top stories: growing anger in china: quarantine squads detain people suspected of having the coronavirus as the death till continues to rise. ——toll continues to rise. thousands of passengers confined to their cabins onboard the diamond princess — more than 60 people are infected with the virus. president trump fires two senior officials who testified against him at his impeachment trial. democrat presidential candidates have held their latest debate in new hampshire ahead of a key vote on who should take on donald trump in november. and scientists find that antarctica has logged its hottest temperature on record, of 18.3 celsius.