Afternoon Briefing Tuesday 2nd September

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 2nd of September. The Home Secretary has told Times Radio she wants to empty migrant hotels before the current deadline of 2029.

0:43That's despite the number of people in such hotels rising by 8 % in the first year of the Labour government. Yvette Cooper has also announced plans to pause refugee family reunions. But the former Labour Home Secretary Lord Blunkett has written to the Times saying a derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights is necessary to achieve that. Ms Cooper admits the ECHR is causing problems. You can have often a third of cases being treated as exceptions to the rules. That is too high to be treated as exceptional, and that's because of the way Article 8 has been interpreted in the courts and also the way it's been interpreted in our asylum rules.

1:18So we have to change our rules and the way it's being interpreted, and we will set out more detail later this year on that. Confusion still surrounds the tax affairs of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner. Experts have told The Times there are questions over whether she was entitled to a£40 ,000 reduction in stamp duty after buying a second home in Brighton. The Labour MP Graham Stringer has told Times Radio the deputy PM should be more transparent, but also says she's the victim of snobbery. I think Angela has suffered in the same way that John Prescott suffered as a woman from a poor background with very little education.

1:55The sneering classes have had a go at her. She's entitled to spend her money in whatever way she wants within the law. being open about it is good for MPs without infringing on their personal life. The Foreign Office has announced emergency funding to support families affected by the earthquake in Afghanistan. Victims are continuing to be pulled from the rubble. The tremors killed about 800 people and injured more than 2 ,500 in the east of the country, according to the Taliban government. Salam al-Junabi, a UNICEF spokesperson in Afghanistan, has been updating Times Radio. People are still stuck in these areas.

2:33Access out is difficult, just as access in is, because these roads are blocked. So we still see people trying to get out, and hopefully, with the sort of rescue operations, more people will be rescued from under rubble. And Merseyside is the birthplace of more successful British comedians per size of population than any other region of Britain. Cumbria, Cornwall and the City Isles have produced the fewest, according to a survey by marketing agency Dark Horse. There's a suggestion that the Liverpudlian accent makes a difference, but comedian Steve N. Allen has told Times Radio it's more about being able to learn your trade.

3:10You've got to get your time on stage. You've got to build up your Malcolm Gladwell 10 ,000 hours, but you do it with five-minute slots. Imagine how long it takes on the open-mic circuit to build up that time. So if you live in London, where there's an open-mic circuit, or up in the northwest, you can easily get along to any of the Manchester or Liverpool gigs. You do loads. if you're in Cornwall, then it's very difficult to get those gigs. And I'll tell you who definitely has an accent, the Cornish. And for a roundup of the news on demand, subscribe to the Times News Briefing on any podcast platform.

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