Morning briefing Tuesday 2nd June

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 Times Radio's morning briefing on Monday the 2nd of June. I'm Daryl Jackson. The Prime Minister will chair a meeting of his Cabinet this morning after messages were released in relation to Lord Peter Mandelson's appointment as UK Ambassador to the US.

0:48In the documents, Lord Mandelson describes Sakhir Starmer as lacking verve and panache. The US Ambassador was sacked by the PM over his personal relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In one exchange via WhatsApp, Work and Pension Secretary Pat McFadden told Mandelson that every meeting with Labour MPs was about who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others. Matthew Laza, former Labour advisor, told Times Radio that's not a revelation. Pat was saying what a lot of us were thinking and what a lot of journalists were writing, that the government had its problems, that it wasn't showing enough initiative.

1:24and clearly there was frustration with Labour rebels over welfare. So although they're embarrassing, I don't think they're revelatory because I think literally Pat Mofadden is saying what the rest of us were thinking. The mayor of Kiev says at least 14 people have been reported injured across the Ukrainian capital during a wave of Russian strikes overnight. Thousands of residents have been taking refuge inside metro stations and other shelters. It comes after Russia warned last week that it intended to launch systematic strikes on targets in Kiev linked to the Ukrainian military. Well, on Friday, a Russian drone hit a block of flats in Romania, causing a fire and injuring two people.

2:00The issue was addressed overnight at a meeting of the UN Security Council. Colleagues, this reckless act was not a fluke. It is a direct result of Russia's continuing war of aggression against Ukraine. Russia bears full responsibility for the consequences of its escalatory behaviour and its continued military actions, which once again threatened the security of EU citizens, regional stability and international peace. Donald Trump says that Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel have agreed to stop shooting at each other in Lebanon. The US president says he asked the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to carry out a major raid in the capital Beirut and says he's turned his troops around.

2:40But Trump remained cautious on whether both sides would stop attacking each other. But Mick Mulroy, former US Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, told Times Radio this doesn't leave the ceasefire talks in a good position. It's clear that Iran thinks that it can outlast the US. The US is under a lot of political pressure, of course, because this has affected the global economy, including the economy in the United States. And unlike Iran, the US is a democracy and we have an election coming up in November. So there's a lot of reasons why President Trump wants to see ceasefire, but he also wants to see a new nuclear agreement that is more restricted than the one he elected to pull out of.

3:16And a bill designed to slow the sell-off of social housing has cleared its first hurdle in Parliament. It will increase the time secure tenants of council homes must live in a property before they have a right to buy from three to ten years. Peers backed the social housing bill at a second reading last night, but critics in the Lords have warned it risks putting home ownership out of reach for many social housing tenants. And you can hear more on all of those stories and more throughout the day on Times Radio.

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