Afternoon briefing Monday 20th 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. Welcome to the Times Radio afternoon briefing for Monday 20th July. Sir Keir Starmer has left Downey Street after just over two years as Prime Minister.

0:43He made a short address in front of Number 10 before heading to Buckingham Palace to see the King. So as I now pass the baton to Andy Burnham, I wish him every success. He has my full support. And finally, I want to thank once again my family, Vic and our children, My team, all the staff here and across the Labour Party, everyone at Number 10 and across the Civil Service, and everyone who has supported our efforts along the way. For all the focus on individuals, politics will always be a team sport. Andy Burnham will become Britain's seventh Prime Minister in ten years. He says the cost of living will be a main priority for his government.

1:29The former Labour Defence Secretary John Hutton has told Times Radio Burnham must set out a plan. What's going to be important for all of us is to get a signal from him and his new team of ministers about what they are going to prioritise because you can't simply have everything as a priority. And I think the defence of the country and our international commitments to NATO are really, really fundamental to our economic and our social wellbeing and that's why all previous governments have said that it's their number one priority. but sadly they haven't actually made it their number one priority.

2:01The US military says it's attacked Iran for the ninth consecutive night. It says it's degrading assets used to attack commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. It follows the deaths of two US troops in Jordan after attacks by Iranian missiles and drones on Friday. Amina Bakar is head of Middle East research at the intelligence company Kepler. She's told Times Radio there are alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz. There are contingency plans, I mean, that have been used since the start of the conflict, mainly the pipelines in Saudi Arabia, the east-west pipeline that has been exporting through the port of Yemba, around 4.8 million barrels a day.

2:38And then you have the UAE pipeline through Fujairah, which again, that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz. We've been having flows of around 1.8 million barrels a day. There's another pipeline, Iraq to Turkey, that had kind of limited flows of 300 ,000 kbd. The newly crowned Champion Golfer of the Year, Ryan Fox, says he's struggling to articulate what he's achieved. The New Zealanders' birdie on the 18th at Royal Birkdale sealed an unlikely and dramatic victory at the Open, finishing one shot ahead of American Cam Young. Fox didn't turn pro until he was 25 and never imagined achieving something like this.

3:13When I turned pro, I mean, I think the goal was just to get on a major tour, to be honest. I think I said to my team last night, you know, if you'd have given me my career up till yesterday when I turned pro, I would have jumped at that. I don't know what to think now, to be honest. England's Tommy Fleetwood tied for fourth on seven under par. 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?

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