Daily Briefing Saturday 18th 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. Hello, this is your Times Radio daily briefing for Saturday the 18th of July with me, James Kitchen. Andy Burnham will reveal his new cabinet on Monday, insisting it would be premature to announce his top team before becoming prime minister.

0:47The new Labour leader says he's still finalising appointments ahead of replacing Sir Keir Starmer next week. The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is understood to be moving to the Treasury after opponents of Ed Miliband campaigned to prevent him becoming chancellor. The Times columnist Fraser Nelson says the Energy Secretary's supporters believe he has a divine right to head to number 11. He does have economic ideas, but the problem is that we're not terribly good ones. Just because you've got some economic grand theory, it doesn't really mean to say you're qualified to be chancellor. In the British system as well, we tend not to be able to pick experts from this field and that field.

1:22We go with the politicians that we've got. What Shabana Mahmood is showing is a single-mindedness to withstand political pressure because she's really controlled immigration despite a lot of her backbenchers wishing she hadn't. The incoming Prime Minister has pledged to usher in the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years, with more power handed to local communities. He's preparing to unveil a policy blitz, including cuts to energy bills and bus fares, public control of utilities, an overhaul of social care, and new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. Ed Miliband's former senior advisor, Max Wilson, told Times Radio the new PM can reach a compromise on energy policy.

2:02What Ed Miliband has previously done, in my view, quite successfully, was articulate an economic argument about how investing now in that sort of sustainable energy infrastructure will lead to greater jobs, more investment in the future. And I think that it's possible to continue to make that argument whilst also having a little bit of immediate term realism around what this country needs. Elsewhere, the U.S. has launched a fresh wave of strikes against Iran for the seventh night in a row. A series of bridges were hit in the latest attack, with Tehran retaliating by striking a desalination plant in Kuwait.

2:41It's believed dozens of people have been killed in Iran during the past week, with some American troops injured too. Pharmacies are preparing for next week's launch of a meningitis B vaccine program for Year 13s and students starting university. A first dose will be offered from Monday, with a second needed at least four weeks later for full protection. It follows recent outbreaks, including one in Kent, that killed two teenagers earlier this year. Firefighting efforts are heading into a fourth day as flames spread through Heathland in the Cairngorms. A number of homes and businesses, including campsites and ski resorts in the Glenmore Forest Park area, have been evacuated as a precaution.

3:22An estimated 1.5 square miles of land has burned. Holidaymakers are being warned of long waits at ferry ports because of delays caused by the EU's new fingerprint system. 10 ,000 cars are expected to pass through Dover today. Hues of nearly an hour built up there last night and those arriving this morning are waiting around 30 minutes to be processed. Remember, you can follow The Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and you can listen live to Times Radio Online.

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