Afternoon Briefing Tuesday 3rd November

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0:36Welcome to the Times Radio afternoon briefing on Tuesday, the 3rd of November. MI5 and its Director General have avoided illegal action despite giving false evidence to three different courts. Times Radio's Cara Bentley reports. Senior High Court judges have ruled it's not in the public interest to initiate contempt of court proceedings over the security agency's failures. During a successful bid for an injunction against the BBC in 2022, incorrect evidence was used. That prevented the broadcaster from naming a man known as X who has allegedly abused two women and is a covert human intelligence source.

1:14MI5 maintained the information was accurate for three years, but later admitted it was wrong. Its Director General, Sir Ken McCallum, has apologised. In a statement today, he's said that in this instance, the agency I led fell badly short. Thousands of small and medium-sized business owners are to be offered a 75 % discount on a course to help protect against a cyber attack. Cybersecurity Minister Liz Lloyd says such businesses are particularly vulnerable. Meanwhile, Britain's cybersecurity chief is warning that hackers are likely to hit vital services within two years. Richard Horne says the UK has got away with doing tech on the cheap but needs to act now.

1:56He's been speaking two times radio. Across all organisations, across our society, we've not invested in keeping our technology up to date, like retiring end-of-life systems, investing in updating technology as updates come out and keeping it current. So whether that's individuals keeping your devices on auto-update at home, whether it's small businesses doing the same and large businesses investing in technology renewal and seeing technology as something that needs to be invested in through its life. Two former senior figures at the Equality Watchdog say that draft law to ban conversion therapy is ideological, authoritarian and unworkable.

2:34Baroness Faulkner and Akua Reindorf say the legislation is so broadly drawn that parents could face five years in prison if they refused to pay for their child's gender transition. The philosopher Kathleen Stock, who left her job at Sussex University after a row over gender, says there are major concerns. The worry is that this can apply to parents who are dealing with volatile teenagers who could quite easily have a number of things going on at the same time, be quite self-destructive. They can get into severe alarm and distress quite easily, teenagers notoriously. And it is placing an extremely chilling influence on conversations that need to be had about sexuality, about gender identity.

3:16And mogging has been named the word of 2026 by the Collins Dictionary. It means outperforming someone or something. The former Conservative Cabinet Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has sent Times Radio a voice note. Since Magna Carta, it is hard to think of any more magnificent news. Mogs of England rejoice and expect the transmogrification of the whole of the English language. You can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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