Afternoon Briefing Thursday 24th 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 News Briefing on Thursday 24th July. Doctors must face significant financial consequences for going on strike.

0:41That's the opinion of Sir Jim Mackey, the head of NHS England. Resident doctors will begin five days of industrial action tomorrow morning. During a previous round of stoppages, more than half a million appointments and operations had to be rescheduled. Doctors recouped lost pay by doing overtime to help clear backlogs. This time, bosses want to keep elective care going. The Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, has told Times Radio the medics need to back down. I wouldn't want to make this dispute any more bitter. I wouldn't want to escalate the language, but their claims are unreasonable. The government will not move on pay.

1:13We'd ask them to work with us to improve the NHS as we are doing, but it's not a reasonable request to be received from them. And they've got to understand the government will not be making a further offer above the 5.4 % that's been made. A four-star hotel in London is erecting huge metal barricades ahead of being taken over by the Home Office to house asylum seekers. Protesters turned up in Canary Wharf yesterday. Essex police, meanwhile, have been given powers to disperse people from outside a migrant hotel in Epping. There have been several demonstrations there after an asylum seeker was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl.

1:45Protester Orla Minnehain says she and other local people don't feel safe. This is not a political fight. This is not between left and right. At the centre of this, these protests are local people who are out demonstrating about the safety of the children in the area and the women in our community. Downing Street officials have warned that Britain is fraying at the edges. Lord Glassman, who founded Blue Labour, has told Times Radio that migration is one area the government must get control of, otherwise the Labour Party could be fatally wounded. The three areas are industrial strategy, sovereignty of the borders and fundamental state reform.

2:24Don't imagine that that's not alive in Labour. Labour could live to its death over the next four years or could renew itself. This is life and death for Labour now. Cyber experts say bots are reserving the majority of driving test bookings and selling them on at inflated prices. There's currently a backlog of at least 650 ,000 people waiting to sit their test. But Times Radio has been told the bots could be prevented from exploiting the system within days if the government used AI. Benjamin Barrier from cyber security firm DataDome says the DVSA's computer system needs better security. Even the most simple bots were actually able to go through whatever security was in place, create an account, book a time slot and actually move down in the funnel.

3:09Issue being resolved, it can be a matter of days or weeks. A government consultation on the issue closed last night. Times Radio has approached the DVSA for comment. And you can follow the Times 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.

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