Afternoon briefing Friday 6th 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 the Times Radio afternoon briefing on Friday the 6th of February. A former Labour First Minister of Scotland has told Times Radio the government is in a real crisis over Peter Manilson's links to Geoffrey Epstein.

0:46Several Labour MPs have criticised Lord Manilson's appointment as US ambassador and they've suggested Sir Keir Starmer's Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, should resign. But Jack McConnell, who is now a member of the House of Lords, says the Prime Minister needs to take responsibility himself. Look, there's no doubt that a lot of the advisers, not just in Number 10 but elsewhere, are absolutely hopeless. but politicians have to take responsibility and I really want MPs to stop blaming the advisors and I want the politicians to stop letting the advisors be the shield. Zakir Starmer has apologised to Epstein's victims but defended Mr McSweeney.

1:22Russia has accused Ukraine of an assassination attempt on a high-ranking officer who's been shot several times in Moscow. Lieutenant-General Vladimir Alexeyev was one of the officials Vladimir Putin sent to negotiate with Mercenary Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin during a short-lived mutiny in 2023. Several top generals have been killed in Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine. The US and Iran are negotiating in Muscat, in Oman, to try to make a deal to avoid US military action. The American government's proposed wide-ranging talks which include Iran's crackdown on protesters, but Tehran says it will only negotiate on its nuclear programme.

1:57A study from the University of Oxford suggests most side effects linked to statins are actually not caused by cholesterol drugs. Researchers reviewed data from 124 ,000 people and they believe only four of 66 negative side effects are actually caused by statins. Professor David Preece wants warnings about a number of those side effects to be removed from official guidance. I'm holding one of the leaflets here myself and it's almost like a page full of claimed side effects. Things like memory loss, depression, sexual dysfunction, sleep disturbance, hair loss, things which worry people and have been linked in these safety leaflets to taking a statin.

2:33Private equity firms are making vast profits from investing in ADHD clinics which assess and treat tens of thousands of NHS patients. The health service has become dependent on these private services which specialists say has led to exponential growth in spending. The licence fee will go up to£180 a year in April. That's a£5.50 increase which ministers say is in line with inflation. And tonight is the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics which are taking place in Milan Cortina across the Italian Alps. One of Great Britain's best medal hopes is in the curling, with some events already underway.

3:06Men's head coach Michael Goodfellow, who won silver in 2014, told Times Radio why Scotland in particular is so good at the sport. I think it's probably along the lines of just the tradition in the sport. There's lots of facilities which are thankfully funded by the National Lottery. We've got lots of great facilities. I'm sitting in the National Curling Academy right now, where all the Team GB curlers train full-time, all full-time athletes, which allows them to go and compete across the world.

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