Afternoon Briefing Friday 17th July

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. Hello, this is your Times Radio afternoon briefing for Friday the 17th of July with me, James Kitchen. Andy Burnham will promise a new path for Britain as he becomes the new Labour leader.

0:44The Makerfield MP is being confirmed in the role at a special party conference in London. In his first speech, he'll pledge his government will have the courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected. But speaking to Times Radio, the political historian Sir Anthony Seldon warned the incoming Prime Minister needs to prove he's not a vassal of his party. Andy Burnham is critically short of a mandate from the country to justify his premiership. So he will need to do something, calling an early general election, or doing something to show that he is not the prisoner of the Labour Party.

1:21He has to stand tall above them. Meanwhile, Mr Burnham's facing a revolt from supporters on the Labour left against his plans to appoint Shabana Mahmood as Chancellor. It follows warnings that Ed Miliband would become a lightning rod for criticism, including over his stance on North Sea gas and oil. The Labour MP for Southport, Patrick Hurley, told Times Radio his new leader has to be decisive in his selection. Andy knows what he wants. Andy knows his own mind. He's his own man. And if he says that his agenda and his approach is not up for discussion, and he approaches somebody in that context, he will have my backing because I think he is confident and strong enough as a leader to say that if somebody is appointed, then that's the person he actually wants, rather than trying to play people off against each other.

2:08MPs are warning that tough access to legal aid is creating an unacceptably high risk of miscarriages of justice. The Justice Committee found the means test threshold for legal aid's not been updated since 2009, despite fees rising by 65%. Its chair, the Labour MP Andy Slaughter, spoke with Times Radio. If you don't have a lawyer, if you don't have somebody who understands all the ins and outs of the case, then there is more of a danger of things going wrong. There are no figures checked on this, which itself is a problem. But good estimates are that about 50 % of people appearing in administrative courts now don't have representation.

2:46A man's been charged under the National Security Act for allegedly assisting the Iranian Intelligence Service. Mahid Eberi, who's from Liverpool, was arrested in the Birmingham area on Wednesday. Counter-terror police say there's no direct threat to the public. The 39-year-old is appearing in court. Donald Trump's accused China of carrying out the largest compromise of election data in history during the 2020 vote. Beijing's denied involvement, but the US president claims the country manipulated ballots, which led to the Democrat Joe Biden's victory. Speaking to Times Radio, the founder of the China Dialogue Trust, Isabel Hilton, cast doubt on the president's accusations.

3:25Direct interference in a way that would measurably affect the outcome of the election, that simply hasn't happened. And, you know, getting hold of voter registration data, that's semi-public anyway. You can buy it and sell it on the dark web. And when you have it, then what? You know, there's no direct connection between that and the outcome of an election. Remember, you can follow The Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and you can listen live to Times Radio Online.

3:58This 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. Discover more at pwc.co.uk