Morning briefing Tuesday 2nd December

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 Tuesday 2nd December. The Chancellor says the government is committed to protecting the independence of the Office for Budget Responsibility following its chair's resignation.

0:45It comes after the fiscal watchdog's forecast, along with all the major budget policies, appeared online ahead of Rachel Reeves' announcement last week. In a letter to Rachel Reeves, Richard Hughes called the leak a technical but serious error. Angela Knight is a former Economic Secretary to the Treasury and former Conservative MP. There was clearly arguments that were taking place and the leap was to a certain extent a large straw. And I suspect that what happened inside the OVR is that the head of it thought, well, do I carry on knowing that I'm going to not quite be able to say what I really think?

1:21Or do I throw in the towel now and give myself the opportunity to really tell the story from my perspective at a later date and it seems to me that he has decided on the latter. Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff is due to meet Vladimir Putin later today in Moscow. Volodymyr Zelensky met the French president yesterday before travelling to Dublin ahead of a full day of engagement marking the first state visit by a Ukrainian president to Ireland. And he says that the topic of territories is the most complicated when it comes to a peace plan to end the war. Yulia Serko is a Ukrainian MP. The Ukrainian delegation clearly delivered a message that we will not agree on the concession of territory as well as no NATO refusal in the constitution.

2:10So I think we delivered messages and I think that the plan was rewrite. But let's see what will be the outcome when Vitkov will come back from Russia because it's a Ukrainian-US plan but I don't think that the Kremlin will agree on it. Sir Keir Starmer has used an annual speech on foreign policy to warn Britain must not shrink back from a chaotic world. Speaking at the annual Lady Mayor's Banquet, which is traditionally used to set out foreign policy for the year ahead, Sir Keir said the government will focus on its relationship with China. The White House has defended lethal attacks on alleged Venezuelan drug boats after claims that survivors were killed in the water in a war crime.

2:51There were two survivors after an initial strike, but Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, ordered a second missile to kill them, according to the Washington Post. General Jack Keane is a retired four-star general and chairman at the Institute for the Study of War. It looks like the second strike would be unnecessary, but we don't know all the circumstances, we don't know what the communication took place among the players that were all involved in, that's what the investigation will lead us to. if anything has to be addressed as a result of it. There's more on these stories throughout the day on Times Radio.

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