Afternoon Briefing Tuesday 11th November

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 Tuesday, the 11th of November. The outgoing BBC Director General has been holding an all-staff call.

0:41He's been joined by Chairman Samia Shah. Meanwhile, a government minister has told Times Radio there's no need for a national meltdown over the crisis at the BBC. I think the question I have is, has there been bad editing here? Has there been issues? If there has, the answer to that is to get better editing and to invest in quality journalism and sort the problems out. I don't think we need to have a national meltdown about this. I think we need to make sure that the BBC, one of our most trusted media organisations, invests in quality journalism and tells the stories that we all want to hear. Local Government Minister Alison McGovern, the BBC's deciding how to respond to Donald Trump's threat to sue it for a billion dollars.

1:21Tim Davies spoke to reporters as he arrived at Broadcasting House earlier. I'm very, very proud of our journalists in this building. They're doing work, I think, that's incredibly important. I want to thank every one of them. They're doing a wonderful job. Also, everyone across the BBC doing their thing for the UK. And personally, I'm here to lead and support them. The BBC's going to be thriving and I support everyone on the team. I'm very proud of them. Nine four-star generals have accused the Prime Minister of allowing human rights law to undermine the effectiveness of Britain's armed forces.

1:53In a letter to the Times, the former officers say that today every British soldier deployed must consider not only the enemy in front of them but the lawyer behind them. One of the critics is General Sir Peter Wall who served as chief of the general staff. Wherever there's new evidence that people operated outside the law, those things should be investigated and people should be held to account. The situation here is one where former soldiers who were found to be compliant back in the day have had retrospective application of the human rights legislation applied to those very same cases with no new evidence.

2:29They've been overturned and people are now being summoned in their 60s and 70s to go into the dock. Unemployment has risen to 5%, a level not seen since late 2020. The Office of All National statistics says that covers the three months to September. It stood at 4.1 % when Labour took office last year. But the Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden says we need to look at the bigger picture. Over the year, 329 ,000 more people are in work. Real wages are up and the rate of economic inactivity is down over the year. So the British economy is still generating jobs. And you can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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