Afternoon Briefing Monday 1st September

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 afternoon briefing on Monday 1st September. The Prime Minister is reshuffling his government in an attempt to get a tighter grip on policy delivery.

0:43Darren Jones, who has been Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will now move into No. 10 and be Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister. The Times' political editor Stephen Swinford says the PM is trying to get his administration onto a firmer footing. If you talk to Keir Starmer, he's obviously had this awful first year in office, which has seen Labour's popularity plunge dramatically. And he is of the belief that Whitehall is not responding, that the machinery of government is not up to the scale of the challenges that the nation faces. and he wants a new senior minister to oversee that. The Home Secretary of Ed Cooper will announce new restrictions on the rights of asylum seekers to bring family members to Britain.

1:21English language tests will be tougher, as will financial requirements. And the rules over what counts as a family member will be narrowed. Times columnist and Times radio presenter Trevor Phillips says ministers are approaching the migration crisis in a dry, managerial manner. But he says it's about emotion and democracy and the people need to be heard. When they see, however justified, people who are not from their community living in hotels, you can give them any number of facts. From their point of view, this is unjust. And governments are there to solve injustice. And they need to get on with it.

2:02A huge rescue mission is underway after more than 800 people were killed in an earthquake in eastern Afghanistan. arm. Almost 3 ,000 people have been injured after the magnitude 6 tremor struck close to the city of Jalalabad. Efforts are being hampered by earlier flash floods and the mountainous terrain. This man lives in a village that's been flattened. Almost the entire village has collapsed. The earthquake struck at midnight. Children are trapped under the rubble. The elderly are under the rubble. Young people are under the rubble. We need help here. There's no one who can come to recover the their bodies.

2:35A new book says Queen Camilla was the victim of an attempted indecent assault as a schoolgirl. Written by former Times journalist Valentine Lowe, it says she fended off her attacker on a train with the heel of her shoe. She told Boris Johnson when he was the mayor of London. Johnson's former spin doctor, Guito Harriers, told Times Radio the Queen was very brave. She was a young adolescent on the train alone and some man, you know, doing what sadly, tragically appallingly is far too common, attempting a sort of sexual assault. And she had the presence of mind to do what her mother had apparently advised her, to take a shoe off and use the heel as a weapon for the most vulnerable part.

3:16And you can follow the Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

3:24This 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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