in last night's final in italy. the country's entry, the kalush orchestra, flew to the top of the leaderboard after winning the popular vote. sam ryder of the uk finished second, but topped the jury votes with his song space man. this year, more than most, eurovision had a political dimension with that victory by ukraine's kalush orchestra being widely seen as a symbolic show of public support for the country. and that, coupled with an unusually successful night for the uk — who came second in the competition — explains why it featured prominently on bbc news on sunday. but for some viewers, the amount of attention devoted to it was still notjustified. stuart gordon e—mailed:

on monday, the footballer jake daniels made a name for himself — and not for any exploits on the pitch, as sports editor dan roan reported. some will be surprised that in this day and age, a player revealing their sexuality has made so many headlines. but others believe this is truly an historic moment forfootball, despite the issues that it continues to confront. jake daniels�* statement and the media coverage of it was widely applauded, with stigma base tweeting: but, as dan roan suggested, others questioned whether the publicity around his coming out was appropriate or helpful. here's tris bianconero:

well, we put those points to bbc news, and they told us: bbc two's politics live on tuesday featured as a guest the leader of the reclaim party, actor laurence fox. one of the subjects under

discussion — culture wars. the implementation of all of this — of gender theory, of critical race theory — in our schools and institutions is appalling, and actually... why is it appalling? because you don't — because children are not racists and you don't teach a child, you don't teach a child — and you certainly don't say to the most disadvantaged and underprivileged portion of society, which happened to be young, white, working class people, that they are in some way privileged. and that's what wokery and class wars and culture wars are all about. it's — it's all about division. it has nothing to do with unity. anthea viewer was watching that and contacted us with this question: well, bbc news told us that

politics live features politicians representing the various political parties and a wide range of other guests with varying perspectives. they added: for some time, bbc news has been investigating the activities of an agent working for mi5 who used his status to abuse and terrorise his partner, before moving abroad to continue intelligence work while under investigation. evidence shows that he is a right—wing extremist with a violent past. but as daniel de simone reported on thursday, the path to getting that evidence shown on air has not been easy. the government took us to the high court, first trying to stop this story ever being broadcast, and then seeking to dramatically limit

what we could report. they failed, but we've been legally prevented from naming the agent because of a risk to him, despite the threat he poses. so, why did the bbc — unlike the government — consider the broadcasting of this horrific story to be in the public interest? barrie philpott had some concerns, writing: well, let's find out more about this from ed campbell, who's investigations editor for bbc news. ed, thanks for coming on newswatch. can you talk us through the process, then, of how the government tried to prevent you running the story? sure. so, with all our stories where we allege that some wrongdoing has taken place,

we offer a right of reply to the person or the organisation concerned. and in this case, we offered a right to reply to mi5 and we told them the details of the story — not the whole story, but the details of everything that we proposed to say in the story — and asked them to respond. essentially, when they did respond, it was to say that they were not going to allow the story to go out and they were going to bring an injunction against us, unless we agreed to effectively hold the story. we had some discussions behind the scenes which i can't really go into but essentially, we came to the point where we decided we had to run the story. we felt it was in the public interest to name the person responsible and identify them and at that point, an injunction was taken out against us. so, clearly the government felt that there wasn't a public interest in broadcasting the story. why do you insist there is? well, i think it's a question of what the balance of the public interest is.

so the government felt that the public interest weighed on national security and the potential threat to the agent concerned. we felt that the public interest was served by identifying the man concerned, who had used his status as an mi5 agent to terrorise and coerce his partner and to carry out a violent attack. and we felt in the light particularly of the wayne couzens case, that this was so serious... we should say this is the police officer who murdered sarah everard. correct — and used his status as a police officer to trick her into his custody. we felt the way this man was acting was so serious and the abuse of his position so serious that it was in the public interest to warn people everywhere — particularly women and children — of who he was, what he was doing and what his modus operandi was. the court ruled that you're not allowed to name this mi5 agent because it might endanger him and it might endanger other agents — is that right, and do you still disagree? so, i believe what they are arguing is essentially firstly that he could be endangered

by being named — and we disputed that, but we accept the ruling of the court that they — they went on that side. they also made a wider argument about national security, which is effectively that to name him would indicate to other agents — and these are effectively informants working for mi5, informing on terrorist groups and suchlike — that the bbc might come along and name them and that they would then stop working for mi5. we would never normally try and identify a state agent in this way but we felt in this case, there was an exceptional public interest in doing so. to make the decision to challenge the government and go to court over this must have been a big decision for the bbc news to make. sure, and it was their decision to take us to court and it was our decision to defend our position and to fight that, and that's a scary thing. it involves a lot of time, it involves a lot of money, unfortunately,

and it's always very difficult to know where it will end. so, you go into court sort of knowing what your position is and during the proceedings, you often feel, "we mightjust "completely lose this". there was a scenario in which we would have never been able to tell any kind of story about this man whatsoever. we would've liked to be able to identify him. we weren't able to do that, and we accept that. but when you go to court, there is jeopardy and you don't know how it's going to end up and we are pleased that we've been able to tell a story that we think is firmly in the public interest. so, is this story a one—off, or is there a wider issue behind this investigation? the truth is, with an organisation like mi5, we simply don't know. there is no public scrutiny of this organisation in the sense that there is public scrutiny, there are committees and such that look into them but there's no public right to know about their activities. and it's clear why that is — because their activities are carried out in secret — but we simply don't know. we've scratched off a tiny corner on a picture and seen what's underneath it

but the picture is much bigger. we don't know what the rest of it is. ed campbell, thank you so much. and 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. and do you have a look at previous interviews on our website. that's all from us. we'll be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week. goodbye. the weekend for many of us actually is not looking too bad at all. some sunshine around and feeling pleasantly warm, but we have scattered showers in the forecast too. in fact, it will end up fairly cloudy in northern ireland

and western scotland eventually later on saturday. now, the clouds have been clearing overnight and into the early hours of saturday morning. in fact, it's largely clear across the uk. perhaps some mist and murk on the coasts in the south—west, and just a few showers there in the western isles and maybe central scotland. but other than that, i think it's mostly sunny right from the word go with temperatures between nine and 11 degrees. now, here's how it looks across saturday morning, largely bright and sunny across england and wales. northern ireland and western scotland, particularly the south—west, will cloud over with some rain. but let's have a closer look then. at lipm, the best of the weather across england and wales, with temperatures around 21. just the chance of a shower — an outside chance. this is where most of the cloud will be in northern ireland, south—western and western scotland, outbreaks of rain as well.

although the north, we'll probably have sunny spells. coco, —— kirk well, maybe aberdeenshire getting some sunshine, around 17. through the afternoon, it'll turn progressively wetter in the western isles. further south, it stays dry in england and wales. how about sunday? we'll see a weather front brushing north—western parts of the uk, the south and the south—east under the influence of high pressure sitting around holland and germany. some warmth being spread in our direction. temperatures will rise only a bit on sunday across the south and south—east. many north—western and western areas will remain cool. we still have the atlantic breeze. the weather fronts are coming in. showers, maybe 15—16 at best. whereas in london and the south—east, temperatures could be around 23. how about next week? it stays relatively settled in the extreme south—east, but for many areas, a case of sunshine and showers.

this is bbc news. i'm rich preston. our top stories: russia intensifies its attacks on ukraine's donbas region as its forces advance on the battlefield in the south and east of the country. the outcome of this war depends on ukrainian resilience, on the amount of help its army gets from nato and president putin's determination to fight on whatever the cost to russia. polls are open in australia's general election, with voters choosing between the incumbent scott morrison and his rival, the labor leader, anthony albanese. the world health organization convenes a meeting to discuss the global rise in monkeypox infections.