Evening briefing Wednesday 27th 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. Welcome to the Times Radio evening briefing on Wednesday the 27th of May. Residents doctors in England have announced more strike action.

0:42They'll walk out between the 15th and 19th of June in their disputes with the government over pay and conditions. Callum Parr is the deputy chair of the BMA's Resident Doctors' Committee. He's told Times Radio the new health secretary, James Murray, should find the money to end the dispute. Ultimately, the new secretary of state has a Treasury background. He's just come from being a minister of the Treasury. Ultimately, they can find the money to cover strike action to the tunes of now billions of pounds. what we're asking for is a fraction of that cost to be invested into the pay and more jobs for resident doctors.

1:15I think most people in the public would think it is better to spend a fraction of the cost of covering strikes on bringing this dispute to an end. All it takes is the political will to do so. James Murray says further substantial pay increases this year are unrealistic, unaffordable and unsustainable. Sir Tony Blair says Sakir Starmer should rip up Ed Miliband's net zero agenda. He also says he doesn't see the logic behind the drive for net zero when Britain cannot solve climate change alone. And he says British people are being overtaxed and that a new leader of the Labour Party would be irrelevant without a big debate on policy.

1:49The former Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has told Times Radio he agrees with Sir Tony. The way I came to the job, there was an economic crisis. It happened very quickly. and you benefit if there's been a debate about ideas and then you have a mandate as Prime Minister to implement your agenda. So what I would say is this shouldn't just be a personality contest, it shouldn't be a quick coronation. If there's going to be a change, there should be a genuine debate about the ideas. The number of babies born last year was the lowest since 1976. There were 585 ,396 live births in England and Wales.

2:25The latest figures from the ONS say that the average father of a newborn is aged 34 and the average mother is 31.1. Tom Calver, The Times' data editor, has more details. The number of live births where either parent was born outside the UK has risen again to 40.2%. So it's four in ten of every baby is born to at least one parent that was born outside of Britain. And I think this is a really fascinating consequence of a lot of the migration that we've had over the past few years. Anna Head of GCHQ says British intelligence is tackling covert Russian attacks on the UK's infrastructure constantly.

3:04Russia is scaling up its daily hybrid activity against the UK and Europe, stretching from the seabed to cyberspace, Relentlessly targeting critical infrastructure, democratic processes, supply chains and public trust. Anne Keist-Butler says one of the biggest threats lies underwater, with spies countering Russian attempts to tamper with crucial undersea energy and data cables. She also says about half a million Russian soldiers have been killed in the war with Ukraine, according to intelligence. And you can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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