Afternoon briefing Tuesday 14th October

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 The Times afternoon briefing on Tuesday 14 October. Israeli soldiers have killed at least three people in Gaza this morning.

0:43The Israeli military says it opened fire to stop people who were approaching its troops and crossing the line of withdrawal laid out under the peace agreement. Though the latest Palestinians killed since the ceasefire came into force, over the weekend, mass sources say the terror group has killed at least 33 Gazans. Former US Special Envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues David Satterfield says there are plenty of hurdles to peace. What would make me more hopeful would be to see the sustained attention of President Trump and the sustained and unified position of critical Arab and regional states applying pressure and constraint to Hamas.

1:20But that has yet to be shown to be anything other than a possibility, not a reality. The government's been warned it could be breaching the European Convention on Human Rights with its guidance banning trans people from single-sex spaces. Michael O. Flaherty, who oversees the ECHR for the Council of Europe, says trans people could be excluded from many areas of life. He also says the government could be breaching the convention by prescribing Palestine action as a terror group. More than 16 countries are thought to be backing the UK government in an effort to reform the ECHR, but former Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption told Times Radio change will be difficult.

1:58The real problem is that the Strasbourg court operates a precedent-based system, so its rules are embedded in half a century of case law. It's difficult to backtrack on that short of actually amending the convention. The Strasbourg court just doesn't have a reverse gear. Former Premier League referee David Coote has pleaded guilty to making an indecent image of a child. The 43-year-old has changed his plea at Nottingham Crown Court, having been charged in August. Unemployment rose slightly to 4.8 % in the three months to August. That's up 0.1 % from the Office for National Statistics numbers for July.

2:36Times Radio's business correspondent Dominic O 'Connell says the jobs market is cooling. The big picture is that the jobs market really heated up after the pandemic because lots of people left the workforce. There was a big rise in the number of economically inactive people, people who are of working age but are not available for work for whatever reason, long-term illness, caring for others. And we had a big surge in vacancies and in wages. And for the past year, or more than a year actually, we've had this slow calling off, and these numbers bear that out. Average earnings growth fell to 4.7%, but was still above inflation.

3:10And new polling for the Times suggests Kemi Bade-Knox's announcements at Conservative Party conference have made no difference to her party's position. The leader of the opposition laid out a series of proposals, including abolishing stamp duty. However, YouGov polling suggests support for the Conservatives is the same as the week before, at 17 percentage points, behind Reform on 27 and Labour on 20. Don't forget you can subscribe to the Times News Briefing on Spotify or listen live to Times Radio online.

3:46This 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. PwC turns innovation into implementation, so you can accelerate from experiment to scale. Discover more at pwc.co.uk. I thought, what if I've scaled businesses? What if I scaled my philanthropy?

4:32What if I did as much in one year as I've done in my whole life? See how your wealth could have even greater meaning at creativeplanning.com.