Morning Briefing Tuesday 19th November

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This is your Times Morning Briefing for Tuesday 19th November. Britain's biggest retailers are warning Rachel Reeves that shops will close, jobs will be lost and prices will rise, following her decision to raise national insurance in the budget. More than 70 companies, including Tesco, Sainsbury's Astra next, are written to the Chancellor, claiming the sheer scale of new costs on businesses mean that job losses are now inevitable.

It's a combination of measures, including the rise in employees' national insurance, along with an increase in the national minimum wage could increase the industry's costs by up to £7 billion a year. It comes as thousands of farmers are expected to descend upon Westminster and protest against changes to inheritance tax rules also in the budget. The National Farmers Union has organised a lobby event involving 1,800 representatives, while independent farmers are holding a separate rally nearby.

They're demonstrating against plans to impose inheritance tax on farms worth more than a million pounds at an effective rate of 20%. Agricultural land had previously been exempt from the tax. Martin Williams is a farmer helping to organise the protest. They're suggesting that it's only going to affect 500 farms a year. There's 1,500 to 1,800 farms working farms in my county and heritage, I'm a heritage farmer.

and just imagine 500 per year to disappear. So in three years then, you're suggesting, Mrs. Chancellor and government, that we are going to wipe out my county of farms. Does that sound acceptable when it's put in those terms? To me, it doesn't. And that's why we're here. The Kremlin has warned that Washington's decision to allow Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia with American missiles will trigger a dangerous escalation in tensions between the two superpowers.

President Biden's relaxation of a ban on Kiev's use of the weapons came after months of desperate appeals from Ukrainian officials. The policy change leaves Russian military facilities and defense enterprises vulnerable to strikes for the first time. Solomir Babrowska is Secretary of Committee on Foreign Affairs and Deputy Head of the Ukrainian delegation at NATO. She says Britain now needs to step up and follow America's lead.

UK is very decisive and very strong in their leadership. That's why we want leadership from UK, more stronger, staying on the Ukrainian side. And not to take an example, just only from the US and to continue their position. Because Ukraine is not the region of interest for the US.

President Xi Jinping says Britain and China can break new ground in their relationship, as he met Sir Keir Starmer for the first time with the G20 summit in Brazil. The Chinese leader used Labour's own political slogan to praise the Prime Minister, saying the new government was working to fix the foundations of the economy and rebuild Britain.

Starmer said it was in the UK's national interest to have a close relationship with one of our biggest trading partners after years of diplomatic tensions. But the former diplomat Charles Pardon told Times Radio Britain should still be on its guard.

It's in the area of science and technology, which is one of the main Chinese areas that they are using as a weapon, in fact, to create dependencies to get an awful lot of data. So there's very consistent efforts on the Chinese part to get hold of art science and technology, which they need. Some of it by

espionage and hacking, but others are basically purchasing or unguarded cooperation, one might say, with academia and businesses buying up businesses. Remember, you can follow the Times News Briefing on Spotify, and you can listen live to Times Radio Online.