The Briefing Room

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 politicians flying blind. David Aaronovi...

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 Correspondent Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emer...

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 now.

In the final part of our three-...

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 University Dr Aybars Tuncdogan, Associa...

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 dealing with potential future...

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 how much more debt we can afford - and...

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, the debate is being resurrected....

'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 French President, Emmanuel Macron and...

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 unhappy” with President Putin over the ...

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 there weren’t. There were onl...

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 gets them and why and whether the sys...

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 just for the regime to stay in power?...

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 Room Explainers. They’re short v...

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 episodes of the Briefing Room.

Pres...

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 versions of previous episodes of the Bri...

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 affect the running of whole bus...

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 and took 251 hostages.

So what chance...

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 in recent years the rise of green...