Evening briefing Monday 3rd August

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0:35This is Times Radio's evening briefing on Monday the 3rd of August.

0:43withdrawing its backing for Gianni Infantino's re-election as FIFA president. He's reportedly lobbied the Trump administration for help keeping his job, despite a growing backlash against his botched plans to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors. Opposition to that plan, and to his position as head of FIFA, is being led by UEFA, the governing body of European football. UEFA's vice president, Laura McAllister, has been speaking to Times Radio. I think we needed to lance that boil of how poorly governed football has been at FIFA level and the kind of egocentrism around the leadership.

1:20And this, in many respects, has been the straw that's broken the camel's back. Nigel Farage has been setting out reforms plans to stop the small boats crossing the Channel. He's promising a vast deployment of the Royal Navy to intercept the boats. Here's the Reform UK leader speaking in Westminster. Operation Fortress will be a combined military operation. It will save lives, it will help the French in fulfilling their job of stopping the boats, and it will save a huge amount of money. The French government claims the plans would violate maritime and international law. Meanwhile, Nigel Farrar says he's open-minded about holding talks with Rupert Lowe over a possible pact between Reform UK and Lowe's Restore Party.

2:07But the reform leader has rejected several of Lowe's conditions, including demands to rule out former Conservative ministers from future cabinets. It's emerged Reform UK's Deputy Leader Richard Tice is being looked into by the Parliamentary Standards watchdog. It's understood it relates to a possible failure to declare an interest when talking about Israel in a Westminster Hall debate. Newspaper columnist and broadcaster Rod Liddle has died at the age of 66 following a short illness. The Sunday Times and Sun columnist, who also presented a weekly programme on Times Radio, was described by his children as their guide on how to live an extraordinary life.

2:46Robert Thompson, chief executive of News Corp, says Rod was puckishly profound and profoundly puckish. Broadcaster Justin Webb has also been paying tribute to his friend and colleague. There was a kind of life force about Rod. Not everyone liked him or appreciated him and he liked that fact about himself, I think it's fair to say. He was a life force, you know, he's just one of these people who just took part in everything with such gusto. It's been confirmed England and Wales have experienced their driest July and sunniest month on record. The Met Office also says their average temperature in Wales equaled the high set 20 years ago, with England just below that peak.

3:26There are warnings of potential food shortages, with drought declared across the majority of both nations. There's more on these stories throughout the day on Times Radio.

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