with a different part of new broadcasting house. so see what you think and, in the meantime, the bbc are reshooting background footage of the newsroom to use behind some interviewees on bbc news, to replace those filmed before the epidemic, so that we reflect the current socially—distanced way of working here. and it was covid—19 again which provided the big news of the week for many of those in england, with the unveiling of which tiers of restrictions would apply where, from next week on. some areas will be in the highest level of restrictions. pubs and restaurants will be forced to provide takeaway only, and there will be no mixing of households, except up to six people in public outdoor spaces, like parks. john silcock objected to some of the language being used, writing...

the impact of the pandemic was keenly felt in wednesday's announcement by rishi sunak of the government's spending plans for the coming year. the chancellor's statement was so much anticipated by bbc news, that when, carol kirkwood was telling viewers of the news channel that morning about what weather to expect, this happened... and some of the showers across western scotland and northern ireland could be heavy and we will see a few of those giving... just pulling away from the weather, because... oh, you know what? we havejust missed him. he has... the chancellor, that is, we were talking about him just a second ago, just left number 11 and has disappeared into that car. one viewer got straight onto the phone to newswatch and left us this message. i was watching the weather forecast,

which i was interested in, and it was, i would say brutally interrupted from the studio, to show a piece of non—news. we were told, "unfortunately, we have just missed the chancellor rishi sunak getting into his car." since when has somebody getting into a car been news and so newsworthy as to interrupt other essential services? well, the chancellor's car did deliver him to the house of commons, and just after he spoke there, political correspondent jonathan blake reported from westminster about the sums of money we had been told had been spent so far, as a result of covid—19. it's about five—times the amount the government spends each year on its most expensive departmental bills. distant shouting. the department for work and pensions, essentially,

welfare payments. it will spend another £50 billion next year. shouting continues. the chancellor said that level of spending and borrowing the government is having to do to spend, is not sustainable. those noises off gave rise to a complaint we had frequently last year, when demonstrators for and against brexit, were frequently head off camera, outside parliament. here is trevor adams. there were plenty more opportunities over the next couple of days to hear analysis of, and reaction to, rishi suna k‘s statement. particularly active on—air, as you would expect, was the bbc‘s economics editor, faisal islam. today's forecasts show

that the economy is set to shrink by over 11% this year. a three—century record, before recovering more slowly from next year. that means an annual increase in borrowing only seen during world wars, nearly £400 billion, i9% of the size of the national economy. a staggering figure, yet the interest bill to pay for it is also tumbling. not everyone finds it easy to get their heads around those numbers, notjust because they are so large, but because, in the case of a spending review or budget, there are simply so many of them. and as a report released by office office of national statistics on wednesday found, a large proportion of people lack a basic understanding of economics statistics, such as employment figures, or the deficit, and also mistrust official data. well, that's one of the challenges faced by faisal islam, whojoins me now from our camera position upstairs in the newsroom. welcome to newswatch. even wjem we are not in a pandemic, the spending review would be a huge even when we are not in a pandemic, the spending review would be a huge task for you to process and explain. can you briefly talk us through how

you go about doing that? in the days running up to it, we obviously try and scope out exactly what the broader parameters, and exactly how much is going to be spent. you tend to get quite a lot of it preannounced by the treasury. a mixture of leaks, unauthorised, but also actually the announcements that are going to come, say on the following wednesday, happening during the course of the previous few days. so you have to analyse there. there is a particular, there is a particular challenge there, because you don't get all the information, so you might get a partial announcment, the full announcement to come a few days later, so you have to be wary of exactly what is being communicated. and faisal, you have already hinted one of the concerns that viewers have, which is how far you should be reporting government leaks and rumours put out beforehand. if we take the example of the cut in foreign aid budget, which was definitely leaked well in advance, do you ever feel that you are being played? i think, whenever you get a piece

of information unofficially, you do have to process the motive for getting that piece of information, kick the tyres on it, make sure it is not only being given to you in a partial way so that it will be reported in a slightly... with a lack of nuance. you have to be aware of the basis upon which information is turning up in your inbox or on your whatsapp oi’ in your messages, or occasionally by carrier pigeon. you have to be aware of why you're getting that information and how you report it. but i tend to find that, actually, it is worth just waiting a little but until the official information comes out, and you can fully assess the context of that government announcement. but i think it would be naive to assume that you would never report these things in advance. these discussions and debates are happening in private, good journalists would want to be in on that, but i think you are right to say that we should put a certain health warning on the quality of some of that

information that comes through before it is official. the office for national statistics this week reported that most people do not really understand very much about economic data and its terms, and i wonder if you should not be doing even more to explain, to spell out the difference between, say debt and deficit, some of these concepts for viewers? yes, and i think it depends on the outlet as well, but you're absolutely right. i would say that there are twin deficits, but this would run up against the problem even in my answer, so twin challenges i probably should say, of complexity, and controversy. and we need to be able to guide viewers, listeners, readers, through all of that. 0n complexity, it is true that we have to bear in mind some basic concepts for an economic audience or a political audience, such as the deficit needs to be unpacked, but i also think there is a challenge, as well, with brevity. if you try to explain

with a sentence or a couple of sentences every single thing every time you said that, you would never actually say anything. the numbers that we are now talking about, because of the pandemic, are so huge, the scale of borrowing can be hard for many of us to grasp, but equally i am wondering, as an economist yourself, when you report that we're talking about the biggest debt situation for 300 years, is that actually a bit scary, even for you? yes. i mean, ithink you have to bear in mind... it is not ourjob to scare anybody, it is ourjob to inform people. i think one way to communicate that and give context to that is historical comparisons. so you mentioned the borrowing, as a proportion of our national income, the largest since world war ii. perhaps a better way, which is one that i try to use to explain it, is we have only seen this level of borrowing in world wars.

so that gives you a better idea of the scale of the crisis that the government has dealt with. it is like a world war. you need to come up with ways of explaining things that bring alive a decimal point or a percentage to give some context to the challenge. but it is a challenge, and it's not surprising that some would feel that this is daunting. it is daunting, but there are obviously ways through it. faisal islam, thank you so much. wednesday was a busy day on the news channel, as well as that spending review. there was some sad and distressing breaking news to report. hello, good morning and welcome to bbc news. and we begin this morning with the news which has just emerged in the last few minutes, which we brought you in the headlines, that the duchess of sussex has revealed she has

had a miscarriage. she revealed the news in an article she has written for the new york times. christine bedford e—mailed us to say... later in the day, the news channel had something else new to report. the newsjust coming in, in the last few moments, that the argentinian football legend, diego maradona, has died. jan riddle was less than impressed with the coverage that followed, asking... thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions about what you see or hear on bbc news,

on tv, radio, online, and social media, e—mail... or you can find us on twitter. you can call us on... and to have a look at our website. that's all from us. we will be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week. goodbye. hello there. it's been a cold day today where that fog lingered through parts of bedfordshire and 0xfordshire, for example, but where the fog did lift, it left us with some great sunsets, this one taken in lincolnshire. another weather watcher picture, this one in tingley in leeds. now, there's still some patchy fog around, but it is tending to lift because there's cloud moving up from the south and it's thick enough to give a little rain and drizzle here and there. that's moving its way northwards, but clearing skies will develop in northern ireland, parts of northern england, southern and eastern scotland.

so, here, we're more likely to have a frost, whereas further south, it's going to be much milder by the end of the night. this weekend looks like it's going to be quite a dull one. there will be a lot of cloud around, but it's not going to be as cold as it has been of late, and that's because the colder air is getting pushed northwards up towards scotland with this milder air coming in on a bit of a breeze from continental europe. that, though, is bringing all the cloud, of course. we start with some sunshine across many parts for scotland and also northern ireland, perhaps the far north of england, but it's clouding over from the south. these clouds moving northwards, bringing with it a bit of rain and drizzle. that's heading into northern ireland, eventually southern scotland. we keep the sunshine elsewhere in scotland, but it's going to be quite cold, temperatures of 5 or 6 degrees. further south where we have all the cloud, it's milder air, of course, and those temperatures will reach 12 or 13 celsius, so quite a bit milder than we've seen of late. second half of the weekend, we lose that breeze from off

the continent and instead, high pressure builds back in again. the air stagnates and we're left with lots of cloud, low cloud, so some mist and some fog in the hills. a bit more breeze in northern scotland, perhaps some sunshine in the northeast of scotland, some sunshine developing in west wales and the far south of england through the channel in particular. 12 degrees here, elsewhere, temperatures typically nine or 10 celsius. that's the weekend. as we head into the last day of autumn, the last day of november, we're going to find the high pressure getting squeezed a bit by atlantic air coming around the top of it and these weatherfronts as well. so, the breeze will start to pick up a bit during the day on monday, initially westerly and then northwesterly. we've got thickening cloud, patchy rain for scotland, northern ireland and pushing further south into england and wales, where it's going to be cloudy. probably not quite as misty on monday, and those temperatures not bad for the time of year at around nine or ten celsius.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. one of iran's top nuclear scientists, mohsen fakhrizadeh, has been assassinated after gunmen opened fire on his car. tehran points the finger of blame at israel, saying it's trying to provoke a war. three police officers are held over the beating up of a black music producer. president macron describes the images as "a shame" for france. the uk and eu will resume face to face brexit trade talks in london this weekend with fishing stocks likely to be a majorflashpoint. and can living the life of ninja help us to stay safe during the pandemic?