Evening briefing Friday 6th February

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 Radio evening briefing on Friday the 6th of February. Police are searching addresses in Wiltshire and in Camden in North London as part of their investigation into Peter Mandelson.

0:46The former US ambassador is currently living in Wiltshire. It's alleged he leaked market-sensitive information from Downey Street to the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. The Met Police says no arrests have been made. Mandelson has denied any wrongdoing. Thangam Debenair, meanwhile, the Labour peer and former frontbencher, has told Times Radio that Sir Keir Starmer will be considering whether he needs to step down as Prime Minister following the Epstein scandal. I think Keir is a man of such integrity, he will be considering every possibility. And he's done that before after the Hartlepool by-election, as is well known.

1:19And he said when the thing about beer was going around that he would resign if he was found to have broken the rules. And he wasn't, so he didn't. Keir will always think of what's best for the country, what's best for the Labour Party, and he's dedicated his entire life to public service, so of course he's going to be thinking about, is this the right thing to do? A serial killer known as the Suffolk Strangler has been told he will die in jail after being sentenced to a minimum of 40 years for the murder of a 17-year-old girl. The 67-year-old admitted abducting and killing Victoria Hall in 1999 and attempting to abduct a 22-year-old woman the day before.

1:55Hall's father, Graham, spoke outside the Old Bailey. Victoria was a loving girl with a whole life before her, with plans of what she wanted to achieve. All this was snatched away from her by Steve Wright. We lost our lovely daughter, sister, niece, granddaughter, have endeared 26 years of hell. A former vet has been sentenced to almost 24 years in prison for attacks on children at a summer camp in Leicestershire. John Rubin laced sweets with tranquilizers to sexually assault two boys and harm others at Stafford Lodge in July last year. The 76-year-old also admitted drugging his wife so she wouldn't wake up.

2:31He ran a holiday camp for at least 27 years. Detective Neil Holden says the impact of his crimes has been enormous. A lot of the parents blame themselves. They blame themselves for trusting John Rubin. They blame themselves for allowing their children to go away and be supervised by John Rubin. They have been traumatised. And Iranian and US officials have sat down for face-to-face negotiations in Oman for the first time since American strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities last June. Donald Trump has been building US military forces in the Gulf. He's threatening military action if Iran fails to agree to a deal on its nuclear program.

3:08Tehran says it will defend itself if necessary. Charlie Gamble, a former British diplomat on the Iran desk at the Foreign Office, says the Americans want the talks to be broad-based. US negotiators want to take this as a holistic issue, because if you just do nuclear and Iran gets sanctions relief and then they start rearming their proxies, you're going to have the Saudis and the Israelis and other Gulf nations saying, hang on a minute, this is not what we signed up for. And you can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online. This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwC.

3:44AI 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? What if I did as much in one year as I've done in my whole life?

4:28See how your wealth could have even greater meaning at creativeplanning.com slash impact.