Morning briefing Friday 5th September

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 Morning Briefing for Friday the 5th of September. The Prime Minister has promised he will act on the findings of Sir Laurie Magnus if the independence ethics advisor finds Angela Rayner had breached the ministerial code.

0:49Magnus is today expected to submit to Sir Keir Starmer a report on Rayner's failure to pay a£40 ,000 stamp duty surcharge on her second home. In a setback for the Deputy Prime Minister, the conveyancer that acted on her behalf is denying it gave any legal advice over the transaction. That appears to contradict Rayner's claim that she had followed advice from lawyers. Oliver Wright is the Times' policy editor. We've had a statement from the company that acted for her, a conveyancing company which was not a firm of solicitors, saying they provided Rayner with absolutely no tax advice whatsoever because they weren't in a position to do so.

1:28Now that would appear to knock down one of the key arguments that Raina's allies are putting out as to why she did what she did. The former Conservative MP Nadine Dorries is expected to deliver a speech at Reform UK's party conference, which starts today following her high-profile defection. After 30 years as a Conservative, Dorries says her switch was prompted by her belief that the Tory party is dead. James Price was a chief of staff to the former Conservative Chancellor Nadine Zahawi. Speaking to Times Radio, he said he would welcome an alliance with reform. It's definitely not dead. I think we can see that the death of various parties has been heralded a lot of times.

2:08This idea that things are worth holding on to, the Conservative Party therefore has a great intellectual and ideological history to it that would be well allied with this kind of excitement that reform have. So we try and be positive about it in a week of negative stories. President Trump is directing that the US Department of Defense be known as the Department of War. Trump says his latest executive order will sharpen the focus of the department and signal to the world that America is ready to wage war to defend its interests. Portugal's President and Prime Minister have visited the site of Wednesday's funicular railway crash in the country's capital, Lisbon.

2:48The two men laid flowers at the scene before attending a service at the city's cathedral. President Rebello de Souza said it was a time to mourn the deceased and to help their families. In this hour of mourning, we are waiting for a time when, first and foremost, we must mourn the dead, respect the dead.

3:10Believers pray for the dead, non-believers think of the dead, to accompany their families, their friends, their relatives, their compatriots. Pregnant women with type 1 diabetes in England are to be given a special artificial pancreas to reduce the risk of stillbirth and miscarriage. Mothers-to-be with the condition have higher risks because pregnancy hormones can make it difficult for them to regulate their blood glucose levels. NHS England said the tool will also be offered to women with type 1 diabetes who are planning a pregnancy. You can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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