Afternoon briefing Friday 8th May

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 8th of May. Sikia Starmer says he won't resign despite Labour suffering heavy losses in council elections in England.

0:45The Prime Minister acknowledged it had been a tough night for Labour but said it wouldn't weaken his resolve to deliver the change that he promised. He also said he would not plunge the country into chaos. The results are tough. They are very tough. We have lost brilliant Labour representatives across the country. And that hurts. And I take responsibility. When voters send a message like this, we must reflect and we must respond. A Labour peer, however, is calling for the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, to replace Starmer as the Labour leader, saying it's clear we need a change. Lord Watts, a former party chair and minister under the Blair and Brown administrations, argued the leadership question must be confronted head-on and without further delay.

1:35Kevin McEver was the chair of Burnham's last leadership campaign. I think there are spontaneous conversations amongst some members of the PLP about what might be an effective thing to do to change leaders, particularly in the North West. I'm not sure if that will happen this weekend, but certainly I think there are some MPs that are sounding themselves out and offering themselves up for sure. Labour has lost more than 250 councillors as well as losing control of eight local authorities. As for Reform UK, they're celebrating significant gains across the country. It's so far picked up around 400 seats and control of two councils, including the London Borough of Havering.

2:16Speaking in Havering, Reform UK's leader Nigel Farage described it as an historic shift in British politics. The pattern that's emerging over the country is that Labour are being wiped out by reform in many of their most traditional areas. And what you're going to see is the Conservative Party being wiped out in their heartlands like Essex. There's been success too for the Liberal Democrats who've gained control of Stockport in Greater Manchester as well as Portsmouth. And votes cast in elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments will be counted throughout the course of the afternoon. A third British national has suspected Hantavirus after travelling on a cruise ship that's been affected by an outbreak.

2:56The UK Health Security Agency said the passenger is on the remote Atlantic island of Tristan da Kuna. And David Hinton has resigned as the Chief Executive Officer of Southeast Water. A major outage in Tunbridge Wells last year left tens of thousands of people, many of them in care settings, without drinking water for two weeks. There's more on these stories throughout the day on Times Radio.

3:26This 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.

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