Evening briefing Friday 7th November

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 Evening Briefing on Friday the 7th of November. The Metropolitan Police have re-arrested an Algerian sex offender who was released from prison by mistake.

0:44Brahim Kador Sharif was spotted by a member of the public in North London after 10 days on the run since being let out of Wandsworth prison last Wednesday. He's one of two wrongly released prisoners from Wandsworth who've been re-arrested this week. Prison campaigner David Shipley was once an inmate there. When I was there, the jail would often lose track of prisoners. We'd often have a whole wing shut down or even the whole prison because they couldn't find someone. Sometimes they would have been released by mistake. Sometimes the jail would have forgotten that it had released someone. It had people on the list who weren't supposed to be there.

1:16The whole environment was utterly chaotic and I think the worst managed, most disorganised organisation I've ever seen. The Justice Secretary, David Lammy, says he's appalled by the rate of accidental releases. Rachel Reeves is considering raising every rate of income tax by two percentage points in her budget. It means the Chancellor's looking at putting up the basic rate to 22%, the higher rate to 42 % and the additional rate to 47%. The Times' political editor Stephen Swinford says it would affect millions. The kind of thinking is that if you just do this and jack up national insurance, that is literally a tax on jobs and tax on workers.

1:54We've played that game before it happened at the last budget with really significant consequences for economic growth and for companies. So they want to kind of broaden the base and that is why they're going for income tax because it affects pensioners, it affects landlords, it's not just about workers. The Chancellor is thought to be looking to reduce national insurance contributions for basic ratepayers by two percentage points to cancel out their rise in income tax. A Polish woman who claimed she was Madeleine McCann has been convicted of harassing the missing girl's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.

2:25The court has released a phone call Julia Vandelt had with police investigating the toddler's disappearance. I never lied. I never lied. Yeah, well, I mean, all I'm going to say is what I said back in 2022. You were not Madeline McCann, OK? Vandelt has been found not guilty of stalking the McCanns. Her co-defendant, Karen Sprague, who she met online, has been cleared of stalking and harassment. British soldiers were sent to hospital with hearing problems and headaches after testing a new tank which was declared safe weeks later About 10 troops raised concerns about the Ajax six years after problems with headaches, balance issues and tinnitus were first identified Earlier this week, the Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard insisted problems were firmly in the past The Ministry of Defence says safety is its top priority The former Premier League footballer Joey Barton has been found guilty of sending offensive messages on social media Barton compared two female football pundits to Fred and Rose West and is said to have insinuated the broadcaster Jeremy Vine was a paedophile.

3:28And a 66-year-old man who prosecutors say dreamt of being James Bond has been jailed for seven years for trying to help people who he believed were Russian spies. Howard Phillips intended to pass on personal information about the then Defence Secretary Grant Shapps but was in fact talking to two undercover British agents. Don't forget to subscribe to The Times News Briefing on Spotify or listen live to Times Radio online.

3:55This 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.