Evening briefing Thursday 28th May

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 Times Radio's Evening Briefing on Thursday the 28th of May. Andy Burnham has launched a blistering attack on 40 years of neoliberalism, arguing Britain can no longer rely on free market economics to fix falling living standards.

0:49Writing in the Times, Mr Burnham accused successive governments of failing working-class communities and called for far greater state intervention in housing, transport and energy. It comes after Tony Blair warned Labour risked drifting too far to the left under a future leader. Sir Keir Starmer has defended his government's record, insisting Labour's policies are already delivering change. My response to Tony is, yes, it's right to talk about policy, it's right to talk about ideas, that's where the debate should be, but actually, no, I don't agree that the policy choices of this government weren't the right policy choices, given what we inherited, very different situation in 2024 to 1997.

1:30The youth unemployment crisis is getting worse, with more than a million young people not in work, education or training. A new review says youth inactivity is costing the country more than£125 billion a year, prompting calls for welfare reform. Health advisors say only a few thousand high-risk men with a family history of cancer should routinely be screened for prostate cancer on the NHS. The National Screening Committee says wider testing could lead to unnecessary treatment. Possible side effects include incontinence and erectile dysfunction. But charities say the decision is a step backwards that risks costing lives.

2:09Amy Rylance is from Prostate Cancer UK. Really important that we recognise that screening does save some lives. And the data showed about two lives in every thousand men screened. But what they also found was that ten times that number of men will get a diagnosis of a cancer that is so slow-growing that actually the treatment will cause that man far more harm than the cancer ever would. Two teenage boys have died in separate water incidents in Kent and Oxford, bringing the number of heatwave-related drownings across the UK to 11. A 15-year-old boy was found in a pond in Swanscombe while a 14-year-old died in the River Thames near Oxford.

2:52People are being urged to take extra care around open water during the hot weather. Guy Addington from the RNLI told Times Radio even experienced swimmers can get into trouble. People do tend to sometimes overestimate their capability in terms of swimming and looking after themselves in open water and also tend to underestimate some of the hazards and risks associated with those environments. And 8 ,000 homes and businesses in Whitstable and Kent are without water. South East Worcester claims it's down to increased demand during the very hot weather. There's more on these stories throughout the day on Times Radio.

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4:53All rights reserved. Copyright 2026. McDonald's at the FIFA World Cup 2026.