Afternoon Briefing Monday 13th April

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. Welcome to the Times Radio afternoon briefing on Monday the 13th of April. A government minister has confirmed to Times Radio that Britain will not play any part in US plans to block the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping lane on Iran's southern border.

0:47US Central Command says it will start at 3pm UK time. Donald Trump says the UK will be sending minesweepers, something Downing Street has not responded to. Education Minister Olivia Bailey says the UK is taking a leadership role. We are doing everything we can to bring this conflict to a close. We've been leading on the world stage with Keir Starmer's calm, decisive leadership, acting in the British national interest at every stage, determined to bring the conflict to a close and determined to protect people with the cost of living at home. So we are taking every step we can to save money for families.

1:20This is going round in circles. Pope Leop says he will continue to criticise the war in Iran despite Donald Trump making a personal attack on him. Leo, originally from Chicago, described what he called the madness of war in an appeal for peace over the weekend. On his way to Africa for a 10-day visit, he told reporters he will continue to speak out loudly against military conflict. But the US president says he's not impressed. He's a man that doesn't think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world. I'm not a fan of Pope Leo. So Keir Starmer could sign up to EU single market rules without a vote in Parliament.

2:02It would be approved through secondary legislation which cannot be amended and is usually rubber stamped without an official vote by MPs. It would cover things like food standards or carbon emissions. Andrew Griffith, the Shadow Business Secretary, says it's a ridiculous idea. Nobody ever says to Canada, right, everyone in the media loves Mark Carney. No one says to Mark Carney, the thing you need to do if you want to trade with the United States, their largest single trading partner, their economies are more interlinked than ours is with the European Union. The thing that the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa needs to do is hand over its powers over making food product safety or trade deals to the US Congress, right?

2:42No one ever says that. Victor Orban, who's been seen as Vladimir Putin's closest ally in the EU, has been swept from power in Hungary after 16 years as Prime Minister. Peter Magyar, a former official in his party says he will now travel to Poland, Austria and Belgium to establish closer relations. Orban's defeat could free up a 90 billion euro EU loan to Ukraine that he had stopped. There was a record election turnout of almost 80 percent. We did it. We won the election. Our dictatorship is quite down. It's spectacular for us that we belong to Europe. We proved it. It means a bright future. It means freedom.

3:20This country is not dead. We have hope now. And you can follow The Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online. 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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