Morning briefing Monday 19th 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 Morning Briefing for Monday the 19th of January. Denmark's foreign minister is due in London today to discuss the security situation in the Arctic.

0:44Donald Trump wants to take over Danish-controlled Greenland, claiming America's best place to defend it from threats from Russia or China. He's threatened the UK and seven other European countries with import tariffs, unless they drop their opposition. In a phone call yesterday, Sir Keir Starmer told the US president that he's wrong. Rasmus Sondergaard is a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. He's told Times Radio that the country's relationship with the US is now badly damaged. The second Trump term has done a lot to make people aware of the fact that we don't really have an alliance with the United States that's necessarily built on shared values the way we thought we had once.

1:28The vast majority of Danes now view the United States as a necessary sort strategic partner, but not a true ally like the European nations. At least 21 people have been killed and more than 100 injured after two high-speed trains collided in southern Spain near Cordoba. They were carrying around 500 passengers between them. A new report suggests that Rachel Reeves' U-turns have cost£8.2 billion. Using OBR data, the Resolution Foundation says that includes retreats on personal independence payments and universal credit, as well as the winter fuel allowance and the two-child benefit cap. Dr Joe Mitchell is an associate professor of economics at the University of the West of England.

2:13Usually when you see a claim like this, that policy U-turners cost£10 billion, let's say, what it's effectively saying is we expect in 2030 the government will be spending£10 billion more than it otherwise would have been on our previous forecasts. and of course those forecasts are unreliable. The shadowed junior minister Andrew Rossendel has joined Reform UK. He's become the second Conservative MP to defect to Nigel Farage's party in the last few days after Robert Jenrick. Jim Pickard is deputy political editor of the Financial Times. We've been talking for weeks about which Tories are going to cross over to Reform UK.

2:51They sort of come in different levels of importance, right? So when it's a former Tory backbencher who's no longer sitting in Parliament, we kind of shrug and think, so what? Because I think there are now more than 20 of them. Andrew Rosendale is more what you might call a more sort of junior figure in the Conservative Party. And he's a very whirlwind guy. And the Duke of Sussex's long-awaited trial with Associated Newspapers begins today. It's over allegations of hacking mobile phone voicemails, tapping landline calls and blagging personal information. Associated Newspapers has denied the allegations.

3:27Among the other claimants alongside Harry are Sir Elton John, Sadie Frost, Elizabeth Hurley and Baroness Lawrence. And you can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

3:47This 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 Here's a tip for you. There's a podcast out there with fans waiting to be your next customer.

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