Morning briefing Friday 23rd October

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1:21This is Times Radio's morning briefing on Friday the 23rd of October. Security experts are urging people not to panic despite government advice to stockpile three days of emergency supplies. It's amid a warning from the Defence Secretary that Britain must be prepared for a national crisis, launching a nationwide resilience conversation where Streisand said cyber attacks, the threat from Russia, wildfires and flooding all posed a risk to immediate supply chains. Daniel Garnham is the General Secretary of the Security Industry Union. Speaking to Times Radio, he said the UK has a degree of resilience to work with.

2:00A lot of our national infrastructure and businesses are very well trained in how to deal with cyber threats and cyber attacks, but it's happening almost every minute of every day and it's not just Russia, it's China or other hostile states. and unfortunately it's a constant probing of our systems to see what can be pushed to its limit. The Education Secretary Lucy Powell has asked an independent pay review body to recommend how ministers could make teachers' working hours more flexible. The reforms could enable teachers in council-run schools to complete their contracted hours over four days, although schools would still be required to provide lessons five days a week.

2:41Howell told the review body that no full-time teacher should be required to be available on more than 195 days a year. The Secretary-General of the Commonwealth has suggested that the King should apologise for the British Empire's role in the transatlantic slave trade. Shirley Ioko-Bochwe said that the time has come for a discussion about reparations, and she believed an apology from Charles wouldn't hurt at all. Speaking to Times Radio, the former Conservative MP Julie Kirpride said an apology could be interpreted as an admission of guilt. Today is a different world and my worry about this is that it is clearly designed to embarrass the palace because an apology sounds reasonable.

3:23But I'm a little bit concerned whether an apology from our head of state would then create some kind of legal tort or mechanism. The Palace previously said that reparations and apologies were a matter for the government. And the singer-songwriter Ray has won this year's Mercury Prize, receiving praise for what the judges said was a cinematic and musically ambitious creation. She saw off 11 rivals, including Sir Paul McCartney and Olivia Dean, to claim the award for her second studio album, This Music May Contain Hope. Hope is a very cheesy word, you know, especially for us British people, do you know what I mean?

4:03we don't do that kind of deep stuff like that but hope is just something that we all need and I think music is that you know music is medicine so I just hope as well that message comes across to anyone who needs it and thank you so much for this work. There's more on these stories throughout the day on Times Radio.