Afternoon briefing Thursday 18th June

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 Thursday the 18th of June. The US Secretary of War has said other NATO allies must step up their defence spending and has criticised them in not coming to the swift support of America in its conflict in Iran.

0:49Pete Hegseth says the alliance's original spirit had faded. Europe was not supposed to be a dependency of the United States. That's not what Winston Churchill or Charles de Gaulle or Conrad Adenauer wanted or expected. No, Europe was supposed to be a military power allied with a strong America. NATO's power did not come from committees or from meetings or from small flags on fancy tables. It came from warriors. He was sitting right next to Dan Jarvis, who's been the UK's defence secretary for less than a week. His predecessor, John Healy, resigned over the government not having a defence investment plan ahead of this gathering in Brussels.

1:33The UK spent about 2.4 % of GDP on defence last year, but the target is 5 % by 2035, split into traditional defence and broader security spending like cyber defence. Meanwhile, the Wall Street stock market has bounced back following news that America and Iran's presidents have signed the Memorandum of Understanding to try to end their conflict. Donald Trump signed it at the G7 in France, where he cited economic stability as a driving force. So the one thing I didn't want to see is I didn't want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened. But all I know is every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship.

2:15It never went down. They didn't like it. The people, you know, the stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including the people on this stage, other than me, of course. The deal includes creating a$300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran, although the US is not obliged to contribute. Iran must not buy nor make nuclear weapons and must allow safe and free passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Unemployment in the UK has decreased slightly from 5 % to 4.9%. Times Radio's business correspondent Dominic O 'Connell explains what's happened to wages. In the private sector, regular earnings are growing by 3.4%.

2:54This is an annual number, 3.4%. So we're close to the point where wage growth is going to cross over with inflation because inflation, we learned yesterday, is just under 3%. The economic inactivity rate for 16 to 64-year-olds is 21%. That's those not in work and not looking for work in the next four weeks. Thomas Tuchel's half-time pep talk seemed to do the trick last night, taking England to a 4-2 victory over Croatia after ending the first half on 2-2. The England manager explains what he told the players. We encouraged them to go for it, to play with more courage, to be brave, to be ourselves.

3:30And like I said, I love the reaction. We created a lot of chances. We had a lot of ball wins. We scored goals. And overall, I think we deserve to win. There are still things to improve. I think this is also quite normal after a first match. You need to grow into a tournament. For more stories like this, listen throughout the day to Times Radio.

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