Evening briefing Thursday 15th January

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 Radio Evening Briefing on Thursday the 15th of January. Robert Jenrick has announced he's defecting to Reform UK after being sacked as the Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary this morning.

0:44Whilst this government is accelerating our decline, they didn't begin it. We've had 20 to 30 years of this. And why has it happened? Because the two main parties are rotten. They are no longer fit for purpose. Conservative sources say they discovered a copy of Mr Generitt's resignation speech, which they called irrefutable evidence he was about to defect. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenock, says she had no choice but to sack him because he was going to, in her words, torch the party. The people who are dishonest and try and hurt other people are leaving the Conservative Party and going to reform.

1:24So my message to Nigel Farage is Robert Jenrick is not my problem, he's your problem. Nigel Farage insists he wasn't planning to announce Mr Jenrick as a defector any time soon but says it's a big day for his party and for the Conservatives. And I just want to say thank you to Kemi Badenock. This is the latest Christmas present I've ever had. You've handed me on a plate the man that is by far the most popular figure, a 60 % approval rating on Con Home compared to our own 38%. And you've perhaps today really done anything, more than anybody in history, to help realign the centre-ride of British politics.

2:03Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Ed Davies say it's a sign the Conservatives are a sinking ship. Ofsted says it will inspect a school in Bristol which cancelled a visit by a local Jewish MP. The watchdog says it will look into claims the school was intimidated into stopping Damien Egan visiting. It's thought teachers and parents objected to his role in Labour Friends of Israel. The Times has learnt West Midlands Police is gagging its officers from speaking about the future of their chief constable. Craig Guildford is under pressure to resign over the process used to ban Israeli football fans from a match last year.

2:34The White House says it understands 800 executions have been halted in Iran. Donald Trump had threatened military action against the Iranian regime if it killed detained protesters. That was put in doubt when he said that he'd been assured on good authority that the killing had stopped. Retired soldiers in their 60s could be called up to serve again under government reforms to rules about reservists. The current age limit for troops to be forced back into action in a national emergency is 55, but ministers want to raise that to 65. And abortions have risen to the highest number on record in England and Wales since legalisation in 1967.

3:09About 277 ,000 women had abortions in 2023, up 11 % on the year before. The Times' health editor Eleanor Haywood explains why. One of the big ones is the cost of living crisis. So 2023 was the year after the disastrous Liz Trust budget when everyone was kind of cash strapped. And I think a lot of people are saying that maybe women and families decided to put off having more children that year and just felt that they couldn't afford to have another baby. 54 % of the women who had an abortion were already mothers. Don't forget to subscribe to The Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify or listen live to Times Radio online.

3:52This 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.

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