Afternoon briefing Monday 26th January

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 your Times Radio news briefing for the afternoon of Monday 26th January. Sir Keir Starmer has defended his decision to block Andy Burnham from running for Parliament, saying it would stretch his party's resources too thinly ahead of May's elections.

0:48The Prime Minister was one of eight members of Labour's National Executive Committee who voted against the Mayor of Greater Manchester standing in a by-election. By not becoming an MP, Mr Burnham cannot challenge the Prime Minister for his party leadership. The Times' chief political commentator Patrick Maguire says Sir Keir Starmer's won the battle, but not the war. This whole row underlines the fact that you have a group of people around the Prime Minister who are very good at organising within the Labour Party. They're very good at telling trade union officials how to vote on the NEC. What they aren't very good at is convincing the public, and Keir Starmer isn't very good at this either, that they have a plan for the country that they can get behind.

1:31Labour MP Kim Johnson told Times Radio Herview. It is really disappointing. Starmer has spoken about putting country first before the party. Well, this clearly isn't the situation. This just plays into the level of factualism that has been inherent in this party for too long and it has to stop. and Keir Starmer now needs to consider his own position as leader of this party. The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners has said government plans to create one national police service brings enormous risks. They say it will give unprecedented power to the Home Secretary and the Commissioner of the New National Service and limit local innovation.

2:12The new measures will also include targets for police response times. Former police commander Dr Victor Alisa says there is a risk the government's view and the reality on the ground are mismatched. There's always the talk that policing is about fighting crime. If you look at social research, possibly about 20-25 % of the things that police do are crime-related. A huge amount of activities that police perform is not crime-related. So if policing was pushed towards being crime fighters, that will not make it as effective, as efficient as the government wants. The UK has been quietly accepting a handful of women linked to ISIS back into the country, despite official policy.

2:54After stopping Shamima Begum from returning from a Syrian camp in 2019, the government applied the same rule to other so-called ISIS brides. However, one of the camp's directors says six women have been taken back, with nine children. The Times' Middle East correspondent, Samah Al-Atrush, says there's a distinction between ISIS fanatics and cases of grooming. There are toddlers who have been born in that camp. They're raising them on the doctrine of the Islamic State. And you can see that when you visit. You have kids who've barely learned to walk and they'll run after you, pelt you with stones and chant ISIS slogans.

3:30But you also have people who literally were not fully mentally developed as teenagers or young adults. Donald Trump suggested he's open to eventually withdrawing immigration or ICE agents from Minneapolis, where at least two US citizens have been shot dead by them. The president didn't give a time frame, but praised the ICE agency for doing an exceptional job. For more stories like this, listen throughout the day to Times Radio. 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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