The Briefing Room

When a disaster or serious event happens, such as the Grenfell Tower fire, the Manchester Arena terrorist attack or the Covid pandemic, you can be pretty sure that a public inquiry will follow. They’re popular with the public as a means of investigating serious state failure. And for Governments they can be a good way of kicking a difficult issue into the long grass, as usually by the time the inq...

Some of the biggest figures in finance, from the CEO of JPMorganChase to the Governor of the Bank of England, have been warning of potential shocks to the global economy. As excitement continues to build about the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence, the US stock market has boomed, potentially forming a fragile bubble. Meanwhile, recent bankruptcies in America have raised worries t...

As Rachel Reeves approaches a tricky budget, her job has got that much harder. Some of our most fundamental economic data, statistics that policymakers are used to accepting at face value, suddenly have major question marks over their accuracy. The UK’s top stats agency, the Office for National Statistics, finds itself under considerable pressure as falling response rates to its surveys leave poli...

There have been in celebrations in Israel and Gaza at the announcement of a ceasefire and the beginning of a longer term plan for peace and reconstruction in Gaza. There have been ceasefires and hostage releases before, but then the death and destruction has resumed, so why is so much more hope being invested in the current plan? And what’s actually in it? Guests: Rushdi Abu-a-loaf, BBC Gaza Corre...

Five years ago we in the UK were in the false lull between the first wave of covid and the second, between the first variant and the second, between the first peak of covid deaths and the second, higher peak. There wasn’t a vaccine and we didn’t know when we might get one. Now it’s a memory. But another deadly pathogen might pop up in fifty years or it might be manifesting its early stages right n...

From councils disrupted by ransomware, leaked defence data or individuals duped by deep fakes, the UK faces increasing cyber threats. David Aaronovitch asks his guests how prepared we are - whether as government defending critical infrastructure or as individuals guarding our digital identities. Guests: Sadie Creese, Professor of Cyber Security in the department of computer science, Oxford Univers...

The UK is getting hotter. And wetter. Extreme weather events in the UK are happening more often. And that trend won’t stop any time soon. It all means more flooding and fire risk. Enter the R word - resilience - how well are we coping with what’s going on now, and how advanced is our planning for what’s coming? In the first of our three part mini series looking at how the resilient the UK might be...

In a time of sluggish economic growth, the favourite way of squaring the circle of spending more but not increasing taxes is to borrow - and we have. Keeping everybody’s lights on during the pandemic and homes heated after the Russian invasion of Ukraine has helped send our national debt up from £1.8 trillion to £2.8 trillion in recent years. But the question for the chancellor Rachel Reeves is ho...

For years there has been an argument, sometimes loud, sometimes subdued, on whether Britain needs an ID card system. One big reason given for wanting them is simply to know who is here legally. With illegal and irregular migration never far from the headlines these days and with President Macron, during his recent visit describing the “pull factor” of illegal migrants being able to work in Britain...

'Britain is back on the world stage' said Prime Minister Keir Starmer in May following the first UK-EU summit since the UK left the EU in January 2020. Outline agreements were reached to remove red tape for British farm exports and energy trading with the EU as well as plans for a security and defence partnership. Then a few weeks later the Prime Minister held summits in London with first the Fren...

It’s been 3 1/2 years since Russia launched an unprovoked invasion of its Ukrainian neighbour. Ukraine’s capacity to resist has depended on two things: its own will to fight and support from its allies. Until January this year the US was one of those allies. Then things changed. But in the last week President Trump seems to have taken a turn against Russia. The US president said he was “very unhap...

The Trump hokey cokey is back. Tariffs on, tariffs reduced - now they’re heading back up again. It really got going on April 2nd- President Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” - when he announced a swathe of punitive tariffs on trading partners across the world. The markets tanked and then there was a pause. Countries had 90 days to strike a trade deal - 90 deals in 90 days - we were told. But ther...

The Government was forced into a humiliating climbdown over its controversial benefits bill this week, and any savings the Treasury had hoped to make were wiped out. The politics of this is a subject on its own, but the underlying problem the government was trying to solve, however, remains. David Aaronovitch asks his guests why the cost of disability benefits has ballooned so unexpectedly, who ge...

President Trump says the conflict between Israel and Iran is over after 12 days. For the US and Israel the declared objective has been to destroy Iran’s capacity to make a nuclear bomb, with a side order of regime change if possible. They have damaged Iran’s capacity to build nuclear weapons but for how long? And what now is the objective for Iran? To rebuild their nuclear weapons programme? Or ju...

Following a deadly terrorist attack in Indian administered Kashmir in April a short military conflict broke out between India and Pakistan. For a brief history of the tensions over Kashmir Caroline Bayley spoke to former BBC India correspondent, Andrew Whitehead, who’s an expert on Kashmir and its history and author of “A mission in Kashmir”. This is part of a new mini-series called The Briefing R...

As the Ukraine war grinds on with little sign of Russian president, Vladimir Putin agreeing to a ceasefire we trace the evolution of his attitude towards Ukraine. David Aaronovitch spoke to Vitaly Shevchenko who is Russia editor for BBC Monitoring and co-presenter of the BBC’s Ukrainecast. This is part of a new mini-series called the The Briefing Room Explainers. They’re short versions of previous...

Tariffs have dominated the first few months of President Trump’s second term. But where did he get the idea from? Ben Carter spoke to Douglas Irwin, professor of economics at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in the US. This is part of a new mini-series called the The Briefing Room Explainers. They’re short versions of previous episodes of the Briefing Room. Presenter: David Aaronovitch Producer:...

Rare earths and critical minerals are precious resources everyone seems to want but what are they and what are they used for? David Aaronovitch speaks to Ellie Saklatvala, head of Nonferrous Metal Pricing at Argus – a provider of market intelligence for the global commodity markets. Guest Ellie Saklatvala This is part of a new mini-series called the The Briefing Room Explainers. They’re short vers...

In the past few weeks Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and Harrods have all been grappling with the effects of cyber attacks. The most profitable form of cyber attack at the moment is ransomware where criminals infiltrate computer systems, shut them down and then demand a ransom to restore services, or even to stop them publishing data they’ve stolen. This is now a global criminal industry which can...

Dire warnings of famine in Gaza, a broken ceasefire and the start by the Israeli government of a new “intense” offensive which could forcibly displace Palestinians to an area in the south of Gaza and perhaps out of the strip altogether, plus the latest release of a US hostage. This is the war between Israel and Gaza 19 months on from the deadly attack by Hamas which killed 1200 people in Israel an...

President Trump has signed a minerals deal with Ukraine, which will give the US access to some of Ukraine’s natural resources. The US president also said he’d like to take over Greenland and even Canada. Why? Well one reason may well be the rare earths and critical minerals found there. Critical minerals are vital for almost every industry from the manufacturing of computers to fighter jets. But i...

Tension is high in Indian administered Kashmir following the killing on 22nd April of 26 civilians almost all of whom were Hindu tourists. They were visiting Pahalgam - an area often described as the “Switzerland of India”. Militants opened fire on them and in the days since relations between India and Pakistan, which both claim Kashmir in full but only administer it in part, have deteriorated. In...

The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer wants the UK to become “one of the great AI superpowers”. Earlier this year the government published a plan to use artificial intelligence in the private and public sectors to boost growth and deliver services more efficiently. Once mainly the preserve of the tech community, AI really entered public awareness with the release of ChatGPT, a so-called “chatbot” f...

President Trump’s fury with China shows no sign of abating. High tariffs - first imposed by the US but now on both sides - are giving way to a very real trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. China’s President Xi Jinping is refusing to blink - so far - and in the past week he's been on the road in South East Asia, visiting Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia. Where this goes now depends i...

Rarely has it been so difficult to see the wood for the trees. The trees being Donald Trump’s new tariffs announced on what he called Liberation Day and which took effect this week, plus the immediate responses to them. And the wood being the economic strategy that lies behind it all. ​​ ​​That strategy seems to evolve on a daily basis. Having vowed to ‘stay the course’ on tariffs earlier this wee...