Afternoon briefing Friday 13th February

0:00This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwCWC. Staying competitive means getting ahead, not just keeping up. So how do business leaders cut through the noise and focus on what really matters? PwC takes you further with tech, from optimising the systems that put your data to work, to scaling AI from proof of concept to competitive edge. PwC helps you meet tomorrow's tech demands, so you can compete at a speed that rewrites the rules. Discover more at pwc.co.uk This is Times Radio's afternoon briefing on Friday the 13th of February. The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, says she is disappointed by a High Court ruling that the ban of Palestine action under terrorism legislation is unlawful.

0:48Three senior judges said that while Palestine action used criminality to promote its aims, its activities had not crossed the very high bar to make it a terrorist organisation. Opening the full hearing of the challenge, Raza Hussain Casey told the High Court that the decision was ill-considered, discriminatory and lacking due process, although the ban remains in place for now because the government says it intends to appeal. The Times' chief political commentator Patrick Maguire says it's a significant blow to the Home Office. Shemana Mahmoud wasn't Home Secretary when this legislation was passed by the House of Commons last year, but clearly for a government that wants to take a tough line on what he would call law and order and public order, this is very, very difficult.

1:36A government minister says the Cabinet Secretary's departure from Whitehall was a mutual decision. It's after the Prime Minister reportedly signed off a redundancy payment of£260 ,000 to Sir Chris Wormald, despite concerns from government officials that the cost to the taxpayer could not be justified. Sir Keir Starmer is said to have blamed Wormald for failings in the vetting process for Lord Mandelson before his appointment as the UK's ambassador to Washington. But speaking to Times Radio, the Water Minister, Emma Hardy, rejected suggestions that Sir Chris had been made a scapegoat. Genuinely, all I know about this current situation is that it was a mutual decision and they decided that it was time for a change.

2:18I mean, I've not met Chris personally, but I have a huge amount of respect for all of the civil service and pay tribute to the fact that he's been working as a civil servant for such a long time. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party has secured a majority in the country's first election since the student-led protests against the autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina in 2024. As many as 1 ,400 protesters were killed during the uprising. Hasina's party, the Awami League, was banned from contesting the election, which also served as a referendum to change the constitution. 16 former ambassadors and military chiefs have signed a letter warning President Trump that NATO is vital for US national security.

3:01The letter was published ahead of the Munich Security Conference, which starts on Friday, and warns that leaving the alliance would erode Washington's global influence. Larissa Brown, the Times defence editor, is in Munich. I think they're sort of saying what a lot of people in Europe hoped somebody would point out to Trump, which is NATO isn't a charity. the Americans actually benefit an awful lot from being in NATO. US taxpayers save a lot of money. And so I think those comments have been very welcome by the Europeans today. And Matt Weston is in pole position to claim Team GB's first medal at the Winter Olympic Games in Cortina today.

3:39The skeleton double world champion twice broke the track record ahead of his final two runs later. There's more on these stories throughout the day on Times Radio. This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwC. AI is everywhere. In the news, in our hands, but return on investment, not so much. So how do you get beyond the hype and deliver AI that powers reinvention and growth across your business? Strong foundations unlock AI's potential. That's why PwC takes you further with tech, strengthening the data quality, processes and workflows that shape how well AI performs. PwC turns innovation into implementation so you can accelerate from experiment to scale.

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