Weekly Roundup
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The Week In Numbers
- Democrats took both houses of Congress on Tuesday, flipping seven Senate seats including Texas, Kansas, Ohio, Maine and South Carolina. They lead the House by at least 253 seats to 157, and the Senate stands at 54 to 44 with Alaska and Mississippi still counting, where Scott Colom led Cindy Hyde-Smith by fewer than 2,500 votes on Friday. In an election-day voter poll 63% said the United States was wrong to attack Iran. In Jerusalem, 67 members of the Knesset recommended Gadi Eisenkot to form a government against 46 for Benjamin Netanyahu, and Paraguay’s Senate removed Santiago Peña by 44 votes to nil.
- The Bank of England raised Bank Rate to 4% on Thursday by eight votes to one, its first increase since August 2023, and now expects inflation, 3.5% in September, to peak at 4.9% next spring and return to the 2% target only in the third quarter of 2028. The rise adds about £31 a month to a typical tracker mortgage; 1.4 million households come off fixed deals in the next year, and the Resolution Foundation puts the average worker £390 worse off in real terms in 2027 than in 2025. House prices fell 0.6% in October to £296,285, the sharpest monthly drop since August 2023, with the average two-year fix at 5.97%. Sterling reached its strongest level since June 2016 on the Bank’s trade-weighted index.
- The Nasdaq fell 5.5% on Thursday, its worst day since 2020, and about $2.5tn was wiped from global technology shares in a week in which the index lost 3.4% and the S&P 500 2.7%; Taiwan’s market had its worst week since 1991. Brent fell 16% to $98.32, below $100 for the first time since 7 October, while US payrolls rose 165,000 against a forecast of 59,000. More than 50 European flights were disrupted by hoax bomb threats; Russia’s strike on Komyshuvakha killed 53; a gunman killed six in Kraków, among them a British citizen; and Russell Brand was convicted of rape and three sexual assaults.
What Moved Forward
Democrats Sweep Congress and Trump Reaches for the Veto Pen
GeopoliticalTuesday’s midterms ended Republican control of both chambers, something a midterm has done only three times since the Second World War. Kansas elected its first Democratic senator since 1932, James Talarico ended a 38-year drought in Texas and Susan Collins lost Maine after three decades; Hakeem Jeffries is set to be the first black Speaker in January. JD Vance said flatly that “the reason we lost is the war”, and Donald Trump, who called the assessment “largely true”, said he would “do it again”, posted a cap reading “VETO” and, on Friday, replaced Susie Wiles with Stephen Miller as chief of staff. Democrats are mapping oversight hearings and a war powers resolution. The president keeps his veto and his command of the armed forces, so this is a check rather than a change of course, but his judges will stop being confirmed and his nominees now need Democratic votes.
The Bank Moves First, and Says It May Not Be the Last
MarketsAfter eleven months on hold, the Monetary Policy Committee raised Bank Rate to 4% on Thursday, with Catherine Mann alone wanting half a point. The minutes attribute the move to the Middle East conflict, which pushed Brent to an average of $108 and UK gas to 216p a therm in the fortnight to 27 October, 38% and 81% above July’s assumptions. Andrew Bailey said the rise “should not be seen as the first in an inevitable long sequence of hikes”, but that without progress on the war he could “see the argument for a further increase”; Megan Greene said “additional hikes will likely be required”. The next decision is on 17 December. For the 87% of borrowers on fixed deals nothing changes until they remortgage; for 1.3 million on variable rates and 510,000 on trackers it changed on Thursday. Nationwide answered with a 5.3% members’ bond, a sign that savers, at least, are being competed for.
Herzog Passes Over Netanyahu and Hands Eisenkot the Mandate
GeopoliticalIsrael’s election committee certified the result on Wednesday, rejecting Likud’s claim that Arab-led parties had “stolen” the vote, and the consultations that followed went decisively one way: 67 members of the Knesset, including the Joint List and Ra’am, recommended Gadi Eisenkot against 46 for Benjamin Netanyahu. President Herzog told Mr Eisenkot on Saturday night that he would receive the mandate, conferred at a ceremony today. He has 28 days, extendable by 14, to build a coalition, and a majority on paper is not a government: every Jewish party but one pledged before the vote not to govern with the Arab lists, and Mansour Abbas is still declining to call Hamas a terrorist organisation. Donald Trump’s polling-day announcement that American aid to Israel will end this year, which Mr Eisenkot learned of “through the media”, adds urgency. If he fails, the mandate passes back to Mr Netanyahu for four weeks.
Burnham’s Reset Week: North Sea, Settlement and a Draft Deal With Brussels
DomesticThe government legislated steadily while the prime minister was in Antigua. Shabana Mahmood’s settlement rules doubled the default wait for indefinite leave to remain to ten years, with a five-year route for those earning over £50,271 and for doctors, nurses and teachers; care workers already here were spared the fifteen-year wait after Angela Rayner’s objections, a concession the Conservatives called a surrender and Ms Mahmood declined to cost. The Energy Independence Bill removes the North Sea Transition Authority’s power to grant new oil and gas licences, scraps gas standing charges, which ministers say saves 60% of gas account holders about £45 a year, and seeds a £2bn energy wealth fund. Britain and the EU agreed a 200-page draft removing post-Brexit food checks, alongside texts on emissions trading and youth mobility for a summit on 20 November. Each is a bill or a draft rather than a law, but the direction is now set.
What Stalled
Hormuz: Strikes, Mines and a Qatari Plan Nobody Has Signed
GeopoliticalThe week began with American “defensive” strikes on Qeshm island and ended with more: a “minor” attack on Friday, Task Force Iron Gate on Saturday extending the blockade to Iran’s land borders and the Caspian, and a US aircraft disabling the cargo ship Huda in the Gulf of Oman. Tehran answered by lifting its self-imposed 2,000km missile-range limit and restating its seven conditions. The Revolutionary Guard says tankers keep striking mines on the southern route, and UKMTO counted at least 11 ships attacked in the week to 6 November, three of them sunk, with transits roughly 65% below pre-war levels. Qatar’s “bridge deal”, under which Washington would lift its blockade and release part of $8bn in frozen assets while Iran reopened the strait and readmitted inspectors, is on the table but unaccepted, and satellite images show rebuilding at the Garmdareh and Shahroud missile sites. Oil fell 16% on the week anyway, on a bet that a chastened White House wants out. Donald Trump promised a decision “very soon”; he has said that before.
The AI Trade Cracks on a Vote About Data Centres
MarketsThe rout was political before it was financial. Texas elected a governor, Gina Hinojosa, who promised “a moratorium, a ban, on all data center approvals”, 56% of voters told CNBC that AI and data centres shaped their vote, and Bernie Sanders demanded a national moratorium. On Thursday the Nasdaq lost 5.5%, the S&P 500 4.36% and the Dow 3.44%; Nvidia fell more than 9%, AMD and Micron more than 17%, and the seven largest technology companies shed a trillion dollars between them. Japan’s Nikkei dropped 6%, Seoul halted trading, and Taiwan had its worst week since 1991. A strong jobs report steadied Wall Street on Friday, but London did not join the relief: the FTSE 100 closed 1.01% lower at 10,673.94, more than 300 points off July’s record. The Nasdaq has now fallen four weeks running and sits more than 10% below its peak. Microsoft trimming its “neocloud” partners suggests the build-out is being rationed, not abandoned. For British savers in global trackers, the concentration risk flagged here last week has now been priced.
After Oleshky, the War Returns to Kyiv’s Power Grid
GeopoliticalThe Kherson truce ended last Sunday and the week that followed showed what it had interrupted. On Monday nine 3,000kg glide bombs hit a school used as an aid point in Komyshuvakha, a second strike landing as survivors sheltered; the toll reached 53. On Friday night Russia fired 36 ballistic missiles, including North Korean KN-23s, and 172 drones at the Kyiv grid, and Ukraine intercepted four of the missiles. Diplomacy continued in parallel. Melania Trump hosted Russian and Ukrainian envoys at the White House, the first time a first lady has done so, Volodymyr Zelensky awarded her Ukraine’s highest honour for women, and the Kremlin confirmed it will attend US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday, the first three-way round since February. Mr Zelensky’s verdict was pointed: “When Putin wants the fighting to stop, it stops.” Britain and France will rehearse a post-ceasefire deployment in Poland this month. The humanitarian corridor worked; the war it paused did not.
Decisions Deferred: Police Mergers, Parliament’s Repairs and the Ten-Year Plan
DomesticSeveral large domestic questions moved no closer to an answer. Sir Mark Rowley warned that policing is “heading for failure” unless 43 forces become eight to ten, and England’s regional mayors turned on him within a day, Steve Rotheram calling it “the wolf of centralisation dressed up in sheep’s clothing”; Lord Hogan-Howe’s review remains unpublished and Andy Burnham, who ran Greater Manchester’s police as mayor, has not said where he stands. The Public Accounts Committee warned of a Notre-Dame-style fire at Westminster, with restoration now costed at up to £40bn and each year of delay adding £420m, yet the whips have set no date for a vote. Mr Burnham told The Economist his ten-year plan “may go into the new year” and that the Chagos deal must be “recast” to satisfy Washington. At PMQs Louise Haigh could not say when welfare spending will be cut, and the Commonwealth communiqué produced a “time-bound” dialogue on slavery with no date attached. The BMA’s window for averting a consultants’ strike on 25 November also ran down without a deal.
What To Watch Next Week
Abu Dhabi: The First Three-Way Talks Since February
GeopoliticalAmerican, Russian and Ukrainian delegations meet in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday after two days of preparatory talks in Brussels with Britain, France, Germany, the EU and the World Bank. Moscow arrives having just struck Kyiv’s grid with 36 ballistic missiles; Kyiv arrives asking for written security guarantees and Patriot interceptors, and believing the midterms “may now grow” its chances of American help. Donald Trump has predicted “a big agreement” that “might involve all of Europe”. Watch whether Moscow offers to repeat the Oleshky model elsewhere, whether Washington puts guarantees in writing, and the intercept rate on the next ballistic salvo, which is the number that decides how Ukraine’s winter goes. Exercise Koalicja, the Anglo-French rehearsal for a post-ceasefire force, begins in Poland this month.
Trump’s Iran Decision, the Qatari Bridge and Monday’s Oil Open
GeopoliticalThe president said on Thursday that Americans would know “very soon” whether he strikes Iran again, and the weekend brought a new task force rather than a decision. Doha insists its bridge deal is alive; Tehran insists on its seven conditions and has now removed the ceiling on its missile range. The Houthis fired three ballistic missiles at Riyadh and the Eastern Province on Sunday, opening a second Gulf front at the moment Washington tightens its blockade on the Houthis’ patron. Brent closed on Friday at $98.32 after a 16% fall on the bet that the midterms made a deal likelier; Rapidan Energy puts the odds of renewed fighting at 80%. Watch Monday’s open, any reply from Tehran to the Qatari text, and whether Senate Democrats move their war powers resolution before January. Gadi Eisenkot’s 28-day clock in Jerusalem runs alongside.
Brand Sentenced, Prisoners Released and the Consultants’ Final Fortnight
DomesticRussell Brand is sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Monday for one rape and three sexual assaults, with the Metropolitan Police investigating two further rape allegations and Sir Mark Rowley expecting “many, many more” complainants; his barrister has referred himself to the Bar Standards Board. On Tuesday the next tranche of early-release prisoners leaves custody, which the charity Pact says will test Andy Burnham’s Christmas pledge on rough sleeping, given that 14,360 leavers went straight onto the streets last year. The BMA’s window for averting a 48-hour consultants’ strike from 25 November is in its last two weeks; the Supreme Court’s judgment on the Palestine Action ban is pending with 1,200 prosecutions in limbo; and RMT Tube drivers strike from 26 November. Watch too for Mr Burnham’s answer on police mergers, and for the whips to name a date on Westminster’s repairs.
The Fed Repricing, the Last Two Senate Seats and the FTSE’s Nerve
MarketsFriday’s payrolls, 165,000 against 59,000 expected, pushed the odds of a Federal Reserve rate rise on 8–9 December to 76.8%, and traders will test whether Thursday’s rout was a correction or the start of something worse; the Nasdaq has fallen for four weeks and Micron lost more than 20% in the five days to Thursday. Mississippi must certify its Senate result by Friday, with no recount provision and Scott Colom ahead by about 2,500 votes; Alaska is still counting, and Stephen Miller takes over the West Wing on Monday. In London, lenders have begun repricing fixes, house prices are falling at the fastest rate in three years, and 2.3 million fixed deals expire in 2027. Watch gilt yields, which sat near 5.16% on Friday, and whether the FTSE 100’s 7.5% gain for the year survives another week of AI selling in New York.
Morning Briefing
What It Means For You
- The two-minute silence falls at 11am; the King leads the Cenotaph service, which is broadcast live on the BBC, ITV and Sky News, with about 10,000 veterans marching and 10,000 members of the public expected on Whitehall.
- The Resolution Foundation reckons the Bank’s new forecast, not Thursday’s rate rise, is the real blow: inflation peaking at 4.9% next spring, 1.4 million households rolling off fixed mortgages in the next year and the average worker £390 worse off in real terms in 2027 than in 2025.
- Consultants in England strike from 06:59 on 25 November to 06:59 on 27 November unless a deal is reached; hospitals will run Christmas Day-level cover, so expect planned appointments in that window to be rescheduled.
GEO Geopolitical
US extends Iran blockade to land routes; aircraft disables cargo ship
Central Command announced Task Force Iron Gate on Saturday “to prevent Iran from using ground routes to transport advanced weapons and other materials”, extending the months-long naval blockade to Iran’s land borders and the Caspian Sea. Hours later a US aircraft fired “precision munitions at the stern” of the St Kitts-flagged M/V Huda in the Gulf of Oman after it tried repeatedly to run the blockade. Iranian state media reported explosions on Qeshm island and at Jask, Sirik and Bandar Abbas overnight.
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IRGC lifts self-imposed 2,000km limit on ballistic missile range
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said on Saturday that the range restriction it had long cited to reassure Europe no longer applies. “This limitation has been lifted for us,” its spokesman Hossein Mohebbi told reporters in Tehran, adding that Iran would “demonstrate these capabilities in practice” rather than make statements. The announcement followed Mojtaba Khamenei’s order for an unrestrained response to any future US or Israeli threat.
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Gunman kills six in Kraków square, including a British citizen
A 25-year-old Polish man opened fire with an automatic weapon from a moving car in Kraków’s Main Market Square at about 3pm local time on Saturday, killing four women and two men and wounding 16, among them two police officers and five foreigners. Polish police said one of the dead was a British citizen. Interior minister Marcin Kierwiński said: “Everything indicates he was fascinated by far-right ideologies.”
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Russia fires 36 ballistic missiles at Kyiv energy grid before Abu Dhabi talks
Russia struck power infrastructure around Kyiv overnight on Friday with 36 ballistic missiles, including North Korean KN-23s, and 172 drones; Ukraine’s air force intercepted only four of the missiles. The Northern Bridge over the Dnipro was damaged and at least two people were killed across the country. “The capital is facing serious difficulties with its electricity, water, and heat supplies,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, with temperatures near freezing.
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Saudi coalition downs three Houthi ballistic missiles aimed at Riyadh
The Saudi-led coalition said on Sunday its air defences destroyed three ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthis, two of them towards Riyadh and one towards the Eastern Province, according to spokesman Major-General Turki al-Maliki. The Houthi-run health ministry said 33 people, including 13 children, were killed by coalition strikes on the village of al-Shariyah near Sanaa on Saturday; the claim could not be independently verified.
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UK UK Domestic Politics
King leads two-minute silence at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday
The King leads the nation in the two-minute silence at the National Service of Remembrance this morning, joined by the Royal Family, the Prime Minister and senior politicians. About 10,000 veterans from more than 300 organisations take part in the Royal British Legion’s March Past. Andy Burnham said Remembrance Sunday “gives us an opportunity to mark sacrifice and offer gratitude”.
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Burnham writes to councils to house rough-sleeping veterans by Christmas
The Prime Minister is writing personally to every council in England asking for specific plans to offer accommodation to veterans sleeping rough before Christmas. “No one who has served our country should be left to sleep rough on our streets,” Mr Burnham said. The Reducing Veteran Homelessness programme allocates £8.7m to eight organisations, including Veteran Housing Scotland, SSAFA, Launchpad and Wigan Council.
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Opinium: Labour 28, Reform 21, Conservatives 20 as Greens climb to 11
Labour holds a seven-point lead over Reform UK in Opinium’s poll for the Observer, though both fell — Labour to 28% and Reform to 21% — with the Conservatives unchanged on 20% and the Greens up three to 11%. Andy Burnham’s net approval slipped two points to +5; Kemi Badenoch stands at -1, Nigel Farage at -27 and Zack Polanski at -30.
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Resolution Foundation: Bank forecast means £390 real pay cut by 2027
The Bank of England’s new outlook, not Thursday’s quarter-point rise to 4%, is where “the real danger lies”, the Resolution Foundation says. Inflation is forecast to peak at 4.9% next spring and not return to target until the third quarter of 2028; private-sector real earnings fall 0.5% next year, leaving the average worker £390 worse off in 2027 than in 2025. Some 1.4 million households roll off fixed mortgages over the next year.
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Consultants’ 48-hour strike on 25 November nears as BMA deadline runs
Senior doctors in England will walk out from 06:59 on 25 November to 06:59 on 27 November unless Yvette Cooper intervenes, in the first consultants’ action since 2023. The BMA consultants committee co-chairs, Helen Neary and Shanu Datta, said ministers had “kicked the can down the road” and that “that road has now run out”. Hospitals would provide Christmas Day-level cover for the two days.
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One To Read
Qeshm Island and Hormuz hit, as mediators try to prevent US-Iran escalation — Al Jazeera’s Tehran-datelined dispatch sets the weekend’s strikes, the lifted missile-range limit and the UKMTO shipping data against the “pendulum swing between war and negotiations”, and explains why the midterms may have removed Washington’s incentive to deal.
Morning Briefing
What It Means For You
- Thursday’s rate rise reaches your pocket fastest if you are one of 1.3 million on a variable mortgage; if you are a saver, Nationwide’s 5.3% members-only bond and easy-access accounts near 5% mean it pays to move cash now.
- New US strikes on Iran and a Qatari plan to reopen Hormuz pull in opposite directions on oil: Brent ended the week at $98 after a 16% fall, so Monday’s open will decide whether the recent easing at the pump continues.
- The fight over merging England’s 43 police forces into eight to ten is now a mayors-versus-Met contest for Andy Burnham to settle; whichever way he goes will decide who you call, and who answers, for the next decade.
GEO Geopolitical
Trump orders ‘minor’ strikes on Iran as Qatar pushes Hormuz deal
American forces struck an Iranian air-defence site on Qeshm island on Friday, the first attack since the midterms. “They built a little bit of an anti-aircraft device and we knocked it out in about 15 minutes, maybe five,” Donald Trump told reporters in West Palm Beach, adding: “We are talking to Iran. We have been.” Qatar is circulating a plan: the US lifts its naval blockade, Iran reopens the Strait of Hormuz and admits nuclear inspectors.
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Trump makes Stephen Miller chief of staff as Susie Wiles departs
Donald Trump has replaced Susie Wiles with Stephen Miller, the architect of his immigration crackdown, as White House chief of staff three days after the midterm defeat. “Sometimes in life you have to make moves,” the president said; Mr Miller, 41, starts on Monday and Ms Wiles moves to his political operation. Hakeem Jeffries called the appointment “a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist who has American blood on his hands”; Chuck Schumer said Mr Trump “learned nothing from his historic defeat”.
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Paraguay’s Peña impeached 44–0 and placed under house arrest
Paraguay’s Senate voted 44 to nil on Friday to remove Santiago Peña from office over the collapse of Ueno bank, and prosecutors arrested him at his home minutes later on suspicion of illicit enrichment, money laundering and influence peddling. Pedro Alliana, the vice-president, was sworn in to serve until 2028 and promised depositors would be “fully compensated”. Around three million people — about 60% of adults — remain unable to reach savings and pensions frozen in the bank.
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Wall Street steadies as US adds 165,000 jobs; FTSE closes 1% down
The Nasdaq rose 1.1% and the S&P 500 0.3% on Friday after Thursday’s rout, helped by an October jobs report showing 165,000 posts added against a forecast of 59,000 and unemployment falling to 4.1%. The Dow slipped 0.4%. London did not share the relief: the FTSE 100, down as much as 2.35% during the day, closed 1.01% lower, and Brent crude fell 16% over the week to settle at $98.32.
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Bomb hoaxes top 50 flights this week as Ireland sees ‘coordinated campaign’
At least 18 more flights to or from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, France, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Britain were disrupted by hoax bomb threats on Friday, taking the week’s total past 50, and Dublin’s broadcasters were evacuated after emails warning of bombs. The Irish government said “it seems likely that this is a coordinated campaign of disruption”; investigators have found no evidence of a hostile state behind it, and nobody has been arrested.
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UK UK Domestic Politics
Brand inquiry widens as barrister reports himself over courtroom clash
The Metropolitan Police are investigating two further rape allegations against Russell Brand and will begin sifting reports about other potential victims next week, with detectives reported to fear the eventual number could reach double figures. Sir Mark Rowley said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if many, many more come forward.” Brand’s barrister, Ian Winter KC, has referred himself to the Bar Standards Board after telling a Sunday Times journalist outside court: “Well, it wasn’t. You fucked it.”
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Variable-rate borrowers feel Thursday’s rise as savers are offered 5.3%
Around 1.3 million households on variable-rate mortgages are the first to pay for the Bank of England’s quarter-point rise to 4%, while one borrower coming off a 1.4% five-year fix faces paying about £200 a month more at the best two-year rate of 5.69%. Nationwide, by contrast, is offering members a 30-month bond at 5.3%, which it calls market-leading, on up to £10,000. StepChange says requests for debt help are up 20% this year.
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Northern mayors call Met chief’s ‘super-force’ plan a threat to local policing
England’s regional mayors have turned on Sir Mark Rowley’s proposal to merge the 43 police forces into eight to ten, a day after his speech warning that policing is “heading for failure”. Liverpool’s Steve Rotheram called it “the wolf of centralisation dressed up in sheep’s clothing”; the North East’s Kim McGuinness said “the Met is not in a position to preach to northern police forces”. The mayors want any new forces drawn on their own boundaries.
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Early-release prisoners sleeping rough up 130% in three years, charity finds
The number of prisoners released into rough sleeping has risen 130% in three years, from 6,040 in 2022–23 to 14,360 in 2025–26, according to the prison charity Pact, as probation officers warn that the next tranche of early releases on 10 November will send more people straight onto the streets. About one in seven leavers now has no fixed abode, up from around one in ten. Napo’s Tania Bassett said: “There is very little available and it is a big concern for our members.”
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Hoyle: Parliament restoration delays ‘frustrating’ as cost estimate hits £40bn
The Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, says MPs are “putting ourselves in handcuffs” by endlessly surveying the Palace of Westminster instead of repairing it, days after the Public Accounts Committee called this “crunch time” for a restoration that could cost up to £40bn and take 61 years, with each year of delay adding £420m. “Why don’t we start repairing the building?” he asked. Whips have discussed a vote by the new year but set no date.
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Morning Briefing
What It Means For You
- If you have a pension or an ISA, Thursday’s Wall Street rout and Friday’s falls in Asia and London will show up in your next statement; the FTSE 100 is still up almost 7% this year, and the Nasdaq about 4.6%, so this is a correction from a high, not a wipe-out.
- House prices fell 0.6% in October and the average two-year fix is near 6%: if your deal ends in 2027, as 2.3 million do, budget for a higher rate now rather than hoping Thursday’s rise is reversed quickly.
- Salaries on job adverts will become a legal duty; until the bill arrives, the government is urging firms to publish now, so expect more pay ranges in listings this winter and ask for the figure if one is missing.
GEO Geopolitical
Global stocks plunge as AI rout spreads to Asia and London
Trillions of dollars were wiped off technology shares after the Nasdaq fell 5.5% on Thursday, the S&P 500 4.36% and the Dow 3.44%, on fears that the new Democratic Congress will curb data-centre building. Japan’s Nikkei closed 6% lower on Friday, South Korea halted trading after the Kospi fell more than 8% before ending down 6%, and the FTSE 100 was 1.9% lower by mid-morning, heading for its worst day since March.
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Bomb hoaxes hit Dublin newsrooms as flight threats enter fourth day
RTÉ, the Irish Independent, Newstalk and Today FM were evacuated in Dublin on Friday after emailed bomb threats, and Sky in London said it had received a security threat, as the wave of hoaxes against European aviation spread to the media. At least 17 flights were disrupted by midday, Hungary scrambled fighter jets three times, France reported four new threats against aircraft in its airspace and Prague airport said nine flights were affected. No government has attributed the campaign.
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Trump promises Iran decision ‘very soon’ as satellites show missile-base rebuilding
Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he would decide shortly whether to strike Iran again: “I would prefer not to destroy what is left of the country, if possible, but I may have to do so. You will know very soon.” Satellite images analysed for the BBC show significant new construction near at least two major missile sites, at Garmdareh and Shahroud, and the Financial Times reports Russia agreed in 2024 to supply Iran with 90 helicopter-borne missile launchers.
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Melania Trump hosts Russian and Ukrainian envoys, urges lasting truce
Melania Trump brought Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev, Ukrainian MP Davyd Arakhamia and the two countries’ human-rights ombudsmen to the White House on Thursday, the first time a first lady has hosted representatives of two warring states, and handed over letters for Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. “Together, we can create something more enduring than a temporary ceasefire,” she said, after a six-day truce around Oleshky in Kherson allowed nearly 800 civilians to leave.
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Mississippi and Alaska Senate races within 2,000 votes; Hegseth and Rubio stay
Democrat Scott Colom led Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by just over 1,800 votes in Mississippi on Friday with about 3,600 mail ballots outstanding, and Mary Peltola was around 600 ahead of Dan Sullivan in Alaska, as the last two Senate contests stayed uncalled. In the House Democrats led 253 to 157 with 25 seats open. The White House dismissed as “fake news” reports that Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth would leave after the Republican defeat.
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UK UK Domestic Politics
House prices fall 0.6% in October, steepest drop in three years
The average UK home cost £296,285 in October, down 0.6% on September and 1.2% on a year earlier, according to Lloyds, whose index recorded its fourth monthly fall in a row and the sharpest since August 2023. Economists had pencilled in a 0.1% rise. The lender’s mortgages director, Andrew Asaam, said renewed inflation “driven in part by the conflict in the Middle East” was “keeping borrowing costs high and adding to the squeeze on household finances”.
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Burnham to force employers to put salaries on job adverts
Andy Burnham says his government will legislate “as soon as possible” to make pay details compulsory in job advertisements, and is telling firms to start now rather than wait. “Whether you’re a young person starting out or a parent trying to support your family, you should know what a job pays before spending your time and effort applying for it,” the prime minister said. Ministers have yet to decide which companies must comply, what they must publish or how it will be enforced.
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Tube drivers to strike eight times from 26 November
RMT Tube drivers will stage eight 24-hour strikes beginning at noon on Thursday 26 November, with further stoppages on 17 and 19 December — the last Saturday before Christmas — and on 4 and 6 January and 17, 23 and 25 February, in a dispute over Transport for London’s plan for a four-day week. The union says the scheme, which TfL insists is voluntary, is “a wholesale attack on drivers’ working conditions”; the rival Aslef union, which backs it, called the strike “a strange choice”.
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Met chief warns policing ‘heading for failure’ without regional forces
Sir Mark Rowley is using a speech on Friday to argue that policing in England and Wales is “heading for failure” unless the 43 forces are replaced by eight to ten regional ones, hundreds of local commands and a new National Police Service — the biggest reorganisation since the 1960s. “We have 43 overstretched forces trying to do too much, with too little,” he says. He also said he “wouldn’t be surprised if many more” women came forward with allegations against Russell Brand.
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Seven arrested as Bonfire Night mobs burn police van in Glasgow
Seven people were arrested after a night of fireworks attacks on emergency crews across Scotland, in which a police van was set alight in Greenside Street, Provanmill, and a police officer and an ambulance worker were hurt as they answered a call about an injured man. A 16-year-old boy was arrested over the burning vehicle. Fire crews were attacked in Knightswood, Castlemilk, Cumnock, Larkhall and Blackridge, and fireworks were thrown at the public in Clydebank and at police in Edinburgh.
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Evening Briefing
What It Means For You
- Bank Rate is 4% from today: a typical tracker mortgage costs about £31 a month more and a variable deal about £14 once your lender moves, while savings rates should edge up; fixed-rate borrowers are unaffected until they remortgage.
- The Bank now expects inflation to climb from 3.5% to around 5% by the middle of next year before easing, so the squeeze on food, fuel and energy bills gets worse before it gets better — and the Bank says more rises are possible.
- Expect the January energy price cap to bite harder than the rate rise: the BBC’s economics editor says a typical household bill surges by 27% in January to £2,150 a year, which is why the Bank sees inflation near 5% by spring.
GEO Geopolitical
Midterms: Mississippi still uncalled as Republicans turn on each other
Two days after the midterms the Senate race in Mississippi remains uncalled, with the Democrat Scott Colom 1,138 votes ahead of Cindy Hyde-Smith on 96% of the expected vote; the state has no formal recount process and mail ballots postmarked by polling day count until 10 November. Ted Cruz called the result “a Watergate-level repudiation” and Ron DeSantis “close to an extinction-level event”, as the party’s 2028 hopefuls dissected the rout.
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Nasdaq enters correction as Democratic sweep sparks AI fears
Wall Street fell sharply on Thursday as investors priced in tougher Democratic scrutiny of artificial intelligence and data centres: the Nasdaq dropped as much as 5%, more than 10% below its record close, on course for its worst day in eighteen months, and the Dow lost 2.5%, or 1,346 points. The S&P 500 was 3.5% lower by 17:30 GMT on CNBC’s feed. The FTSE 100 closed down 0.4% at 10,782 after rising 100 points earlier.
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Paraguay’s president resigns after collapse of bank holding public funds
Santiago Peña resigned as president of Paraguay on Thursday, a day after opposition deputies moved to impeach him over the collapse of Ueno Bank, which the central bank seized on Tuesday after its capital fell below half the legal minimum. The bank claimed more than 60% of the country’s adults as customers and held around $800m in public deposits, including pensions. “It was never my intention to betray the trust you placed in me,” he said.
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France: ministry counts 600,000 marchers as CGT claims 1.6 million
At least 600,000 people joined Thursday’s strikes and marches across France by the government’s estimate, while the CGT union put the figure at almost 1.6 million; riot police fired tear gas at the end of demonstrations in Bordeaux and Lyon, where a car was set alight and black-bloc protesters clashed with officers, but the day was largely peaceful. The night before, the National Assembly had voted unanimously against the government’s 2027 budget plans.
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Joint List backs Eisenkot, handing him a majority of recommendations
Israel’s Joint List said it would tell President Herzog on Thursday evening that it recommends Gadi Eisenkot to form the next government, which Al Jazeera calculates would give him 67 recommendations, above the 61-seat majority, once its eleven members are counted. Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am has also backed Mr Eisenkot, while Degel HaTorah’s four members are recommending no one, so Benjamin Netanyahu’s 53-seat bloc may not deliver 53 endorsements.
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UK UK Domestic Politics
Bank raises rates to 4% and warns inflation will near 5%
The Bank of England raised Bank Rate by a quarter point to 4% on Thursday, its first increase since August 2023, by eight votes to one; Catherine Mann wanted a half-point rise to 4.25%. The committee now expects inflation, 3.5% in September, to reach around 5% by the middle of next year as energy prices feed through, before falling back. “Monetary policy is not on a pre-set path,” it said.
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Russell Brand guilty of rape and three sexual assaults; sentencing Monday
A jury at Southwark Crown Court found Russell Brand guilty on Thursday of one count of rape and three of sexual assault, and cleared him of two further rapes and one attempted indecent assault, after eight and a half hours of deliberation. The judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, said a conviction for rape meant “inevitably a significant custodial term” and remanded him in custody until sentencing on Monday. The Metropolitan Police are investigating allegations from two more women.
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Burnham seeks to ‘recast’ Chagos deal and may delay ten-year plan
Andy Burnham says Britain is talking to Washington about how to “recast” the Chagos Islands agreement “that better meets their concerns”, pointing to America’s Greenland deal with Denmark as a possible model for Diego Garcia, after President Trump called the arrangement “a terrible deal”. In the same interview with The Economist he said his promised ten-year plan for Britain “may go into the new year … December or January”, and confirmed Vladimir Putin will not be invited to the Manchester G20.
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Farage fears Trump will escalate Iran war after midterm ‘shellacking’
Nigel Farage said he worried that President Trump “will continue aggressively attacking Iran” after what he called “an absolute shellacking” in the midterms, warning of “even more serious implications for the price of oil, for inflation, for the whole western world”. Asked whether the war was a mistake, the Reform leader said: “There’s no question about it.” He was unveiling Angus MacIntyre, a former RAF wing commander, as Reform’s defence spokesman.
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BT sheds 7,731 jobs since March as profits rise 12%
BT’s workforce has fallen by 7,731 to 90,000 since the end of March, excluding its international business, most of the cuts falling at Openreach, the company said with half-year results that showed pre-tax profit up 12% to £1.1bn in the six months to September. Shares rose as much as 6% to a five-year high. Headcount is down 11,712, or 11%, on a year earlier, and stood at about 130,000 including contractors two years ago.
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Morning Briefing
What It Means For You
- If you have a tracker mortgage, a quarter-point rise to 4% at noon would add about £31 a month to a typical loan, according to UK Finance; the 470,000 households on variable rates must wait for their lender’s response, and savers should see better returns.
- Sterling at its strongest since the 2016 referendum on the Bank’s trade-weighted index means more buying power on imports and foreign holidays, and helps hold down inflation at home.
- The Energy Independence Bill would formally scrap gas standing charges, as promised in the Budget, though the saving depends on the bill passing; the new £2bn energy wealth fund is to invest oil and gas tax revenue in renewables.
GEO Geopolitical
Vance blames Iran war for defeat as Brent sinks below $95
JD Vance has told Republicans that “the reason we lost is the war”, in a statement on X that the BBC describes as 600 words long and carefully calibrated. President Trump called the assessment “largely true” but said he would “do it again”. Brent crude settled 8.7% lower at $94.62 on Wednesday as traders bet that the result makes a deal with Tehran more likely.
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Komyshuvakha toll reaches 40 as bodycam shows Russian double-tap strike
The death toll from Monday’s Russian attack on a school used as an aid point in Komyshuvakha, in the Zaporizhzhia region, has climbed to 40, Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday, with more than 30 people feared still under the rubble. Regional officials have confirmed 37 deaths and say some 38 may be trapped. Bodycam footage from a police officer killed in the strike shows residents being sent into a shelter seconds before it was hit.
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Joshua Wong jailed for ten years under Hong Kong security law
Joshua Wong, the face of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests, was sentenced on Thursday to ten years in prison for colluding with foreign forces under the national security law. Judge William Tam called him “a mastermind of the conspiracy” and reduced a 13-year starting point for his guilty plea. Mr Wong, who turned 30 last month, has spent almost six years in detention and had been due for release in January.
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France braces for 700,000 protesters as five unions strike
France’s five main unions have called a national day of strikes on Thursday, with the authorities expecting between 500,000 and 700,000 demonstrators and more than 250 separate actions. The interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, has deployed 70,000 police and gendarmes and promised “an extremely firm response” after more than 2,000 shops were looted on 17 October. Rail, hospital, postal and air-traffic staff are expected to join.
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Bomb hoaxes divert a dozen European flights for second time this week
An Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome was escorted by French fighter jets to the Evreux air base on Thursday after a bomb threat, one of at least a dozen aircraft targeted across Europe in a single morning. The French prime minister’s office said 151 passengers and six crew were moved to safety. Flights to Sofia, Prague, Brussels, Warsaw, Vienna and Bucharest were also diverted or searched; nothing was found and no arrests have been reported.
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UK UK Domestic Politics
Bank expected to raise rates to 4% as pound hits post-referendum high
The Bank of England announces its decision at 12:00 GMT, and most analysts expect the first rise since August 2023, from 3.75% to 4%, after inflation climbed to 3.5% in September. Sterling has reached its joint highest level since the June 2016 referendum on the Bank’s trade-weighted index, at 86.4, and stood at $1.3495 at 04:15. A quarter-point rise adds about £31 a month to a typical tracker mortgage, UK Finance calculates.
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Ministers move to outlaw new North Sea oil and gas exploration
The government has introduced an Energy Independence Bill that would strip the North Sea Transition Authority of its power to grant new oil and gas licences, making Labour’s manifesto moratorium permanent and reversible only by a Commons majority. Existing fields could still add output from adjoining areas under new transitional certificates, which ministers say could yield about 60 million barrels and support hundreds of jobs. Rosebank and Jackdaw are unaffected.
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UK signs up to ‘time-bound’ dialogue on slavery as summit closes
Commonwealth leaders ended their Antigua summit with an 18-page communiqué welcoming Britain’s agreement to “a structured, time-bound, inclusive and good-faith dialogue” on the transatlantic slave trade and its historical harms. No deadline is set, though Ed Miliband says the talks are likely to conclude within about a year, and Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda expects the framework to be settled by early next year. Andy Burnham has ruled out reparations but left an apology open.
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Palestine Action ban caused ‘crisis in confidence’, Supreme Court told
Lawyers for Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, told five Supreme Court justices that proscribing the group last year had produced a “crisis in confidence” in anti-terrorism law and provoked unprecedented civil disobedience. Home Office figures seen by the BBC show more than 4,000 arrests at protests where supporters held signs, with 1,200 charges authorised; those trials are in limbo. Twenty-seven people were arrested outside the court on Wednesday.
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British health worker with Ebola flown home from DR Congo
A British healthcare worker who tested positive for Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo is being evacuated to the UK, the first British national infected in the current outbreak, which has killed more than 5,000 people. The patient is in a stable condition and will be taken by specialist ambulance to a high-consequence infectious disease unit, according to an official document seen by Reuters. The government says the risk to the public “remains low”.
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Evening Briefing
What It Means For You
- If the Energy Independence Bill passes, the daily standing charge on household gas bills goes: the government says around 60% of gas account holders would save an average of £45 a year, with 23 million households affected.
- The Bank of England decides on interest rates at noon on Thursday; a majority of the committee is expected to vote for a quarter-point rise to 4%, the first increase since 2023, which feeds straight through to tracker and variable mortgages.
- The Budget’s £100 winter energy payment for up to 20 million households in England and the £50 cut to the annual price cap stand alongside the bill; both are government figures and depend on the measures passing.
GEO Geopolitical
Trump ‘a little bit surprised’ as Republicans turn on him over defeat
Donald Trump said he was “a little bit surprised” by the Democrats’ sweep of both houses of Congress, blaming high petrol prices from the Iran war and, in a string of posts, Fox News. “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” he wrote. Inside his party, shock turned to anger: “It’s on him. It’s not on anybody else,” a senior Texas Republican lobbyist told the BBC.
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Brent falls below $100 for the first time since 7 October
Brent crude dropped below $100 a barrel on Wednesday for the first time since 7 October, a fall of nearly $9 or more than 8%, as traders bet that the election result would push President Trump towards ending the Iran war without a major escalation. West Texas Intermediate slipped 8% to about $89. Earlier in the session Brent had been down a more modest 2.5% at $101.02.
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Zelensky decorates Melania Trump as Russia cuts power across Kyiv
Volodymyr Zelensky has awarded Melania Trump the Order of Princess Olha, first class, Ukraine’s highest award for women, for her “significant personal contribution to humanitarian support for Ukraine” after the Kherson ceasefire that allowed several hundred people to leave occupied Oleshky. Overnight Russian strikes on generating plants and substations in nine regions caused hours-long power and water outages across Kyiv, while Ukrainian drones killed three people in Russia’s Belgorod region.
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Hackers hit French blood banks as freezer attacks spread to 11 countries
The French Blood Establishment said hackers raised the temperature of cold rooms storing donated blood at three sites, through a refrigeration supplier, but monitoring systems caught it and “no blood products or samples were compromised”. It is the first known medical target in a wave of attacks that has spoiled tonnes of food in supermarkets across at least 11 European countries; the EU calls the incidents “not isolated”, and no one has claimed responsibility.
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Israel certifies election result as Herzog begins coalition talks
Israel’s Central Elections Committee certified the results of last week’s election on Wednesday, finding no evidence of fraud and rejecting claims from Benjamin Netanyahu’s camp that Arab-led parties had been “stealing” it. President Isaac Herzog, receiving the results in Jerusalem, began consultations on whom to invite to form a government, telling party leaders that “not every commitment and promise can be fulfilled” if they want to avoid another election.
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UK UK Domestic Politics
Energy Independence Bill ends new North Sea licences and scraps standing charges
The government introduced its Energy Independence Bill on Wednesday, removing the North Sea Transition Authority’s power to grant new oil and gas licences and making Labour’s manifesto moratorium permanent, while letting existing fields add output from adjoining areas under transitional energy certificates. Ministers will amend the bill to scrap standing charges on household gas bills, which they say gives about 23 million households more control and saves around 60% of gas account holders an average of £45 a year.
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Burnham: US result is an ‘opportunity’ to unite on cost of living
Andy Burnham said the midterm results gave the world “an opportunity now to unite around the issue that is affecting us all, and that’s the cost of living”, speaking from the Commonwealth summit in Antigua. “President Trump has accepted the results,” he said, adding that he could not bring living costs down “until the conflict in the Middle East is resolved” and Russia’s war in Ukraine ended. He promised to press other leaders to focus on both.
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Haigh and Burghart trade welfare figures at PMQs in Burnham’s absence
With the prime minister in Antigua, Louise Haigh took her first Prime Minister’s Questions against the Conservatives’ deputy leader, Alex Burghart, who pressed her on working-age welfare spending; when she declined to give a figure he put it at £183bn. Ms Haigh countered that welfare spending had risen by £88bn in a decade under the Conservatives. Mr Burghart also claimed the Office for Budget Responsibility had said 215,000 jobs were at risk from the Budget’s tax rises.
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Cocaine overtakes heroin as leading cause of drug deaths
Cocaine was involved in more drug-poisoning deaths in England and Wales last year than any other substance for the first time, the Office for National Statistics said, with 1,233 deaths and a 22% share. Total deaths fell slightly to 5,519 registered in 2025, 46 fewer than in 2024 and the first fall in the age-standardised rate since 2012, but they remain double the rates of ten years ago.
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MPs warned of ‘Notre Dame-style fire’ as Parliament repair costs climb
The Palace of Westminster is at risk of a Notre Dame-style fire or a similar catastrophe unless MPs stop delaying its restoration, the Public Accounts Committee has said, with maintenance costs set to reach £2m a week and every year of inaction adding an estimated £420m to the programme. A recent estimate put the full restoration at as much as £40bn over up to six decades. Decisions have been repeatedly delayed amid disagreement over method and spiralling costs.
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Morning Briefing
What It Means For You
- If you save into a workplace defined-contribution pension, ministers propose that your scheme should offer a default income for life as you approach retirement; you would remain free to choose another option.
- The Bank of England announces its interest-rate decision on Thursday, and a first rise since 2023 is widely expected; ten-year gilt yields stood near 5.27% on Tuesday, which feeds through to fixed-rate mortgage pricing.
- Under the planned UK–EU agrifood deal, pets travelling to Europe would need a pet passport rather than a certificate for every trip, though parts of the package will not take effect until 2028.
GEO Geopolitical
Democrats seize both houses of Congress in rebuke to Trump
Democrats have won control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, flipping seven Republican-held Senate seats, among them Texas, Kansas, Ohio and Maine. The BBC projects 245 House seats for the Democrats to 166 for the Republicans. “Today begins the great American comeback,” said Hakeem Jeffries, who is poised to become the first black Speaker when the new Congress sits in January.
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Trump concedes Iran war cost votes, but signals vetoes ahead
President Trump acknowledged that the war had contributed to Republican losses — “Iran was a piece of it” — but said he did not regret launching it and that it would end “when I say it ends”. He told CBS he wanted to strike deals with congressional Democrats, then posted an image of his red cap emblazoned with the word “veto”.
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Tehran says Americans ‘said no to war’ as tankers burn near Hormuz
Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said the midterm results showed that “Americans said no to war”, warning that if Washington betrayed that will, “our ‘no’ comes with a nightmare”. The Revolutionary Guard claimed four tankers had been destroyed by naval mines on a prohibited route south of the Strait of Hormuz, two of them still burning. The claim has not been independently verified.
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Oil firms and US futures slip as markets weigh divided government
Brent crude rose 0.8% to $104.42 a barrel by 05:10 GMT in volatile trading, reversing earlier losses, as investors awaited Washington’s next move on Iran after the Democratic sweep. S&P 500 futures were 0.1% lower and Nasdaq futures 0.3% lower, while Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.4%. Brent had settled on Tuesday at its lowest level in nearly four weeks.
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Spain’s transport minister resigns after Urda crash that killed 69
Óscar Puente has resigned as Spain’s transport minister, six days after a high-speed train ploughed into a stationary one near Urda, south of Madrid, killing at least 69 people. “A transport minister in a country like Spain cannot remain in office after two accidents of this seriousness in less than a year,” he told Congress. He will not stand in the 29 November election.
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UK UK Domestic Politics
Burnham to unveil EU deals on youth visas, pets and carbon
Andy Burnham is preparing to announce three agreements with the EU at a Brussels summit on 20 November: an agrifood deal including pet passports, British access to the EU emissions trading scheme, and a visa scheme for under-30s. He says the package would add £17bn, or 0.4%, to the economy. “I will not run ahead of public opinion,” he told ITV.
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Miliband says slavery apology will not cost British taxpayers
Ed Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has insisted that a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade would not mean higher costs for taxpayers, and accused past governments of a “sweep it under the carpet” attitude. “Is it weak to do this? I think it’s the opposite of weak,” he told the BBC. An apology may come around the Manchester G20 summit in November 2027.
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Cyber chief warns of AI-powered ransomware on infrastructure by 2028
The National Cyber Security Centre judges it “highly likely” that AI-powered malware will be used in a ransomware attack on Britain’s critical infrastructure by 2028. Its chief executive, Richard Horne, said this week’s hacking of supermarket freezers across Europe was “just the foothills”. “For decades, we have collectively got away with doing tech on the cheap,” he said.
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Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor summonsed to give evidence in fraud trial
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been served with a witness summons to give evidence in a High Court fraud trial on or around 15 December, the BBC understands — thought to be the first such summons to a royal since the 19th century. He is not accused of wrongdoing, but is said to have received some of the disputed payments, including £750,000.
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Ministers propose default lifetime pensions for 17 million private-sector savers
Around 17 million private-sector workers saving into defined-contribution pensions would be offered a default income for life under “guided retirement” plans launched by Torsten Bell, the pensions minister. Schemes would have to provide the default as savers approach retirement, though members could still choose otherwise. “We are resurrecting proper pensions for private sector workers,” Mr Bell said.
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Evening Briefing
What It Means For You
- Most analysts expect the Bank of England to raise Bank Rate from 3.75% to 4% on Thursday, its first rise since 2023; the decision feeds through to mortgage, credit card and savings rates.
- Some drivers mis-sold car finance between April 2007 and November 2024 may now receive early compensation offers, starting with Barclays; accepting is voluntary, but it ends any further claim.
- Hoax bomb threats disrupted seven European flights on Tuesday, two of them from the UK; all were false alarms. The government said Britain has “one of the most robust aviation security systems in the world”.
GEO Geopolitical
Americans vote as Democrats seek control of Congress
Voting is under way across the United States in midterm elections that will decide control of Congress for the last two years of Donald Trump’s presidency. Democrats need net gains of three House seats and four in the Senate, and go into polling day with a nine-point lead on the generic ballot in CNN’s poll of polls. The first polls close at 23:00 GMT.
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Trump says American military aid to Israel will end this year
President Trump said on polling day that the United States would stop its roughly $4bn a year in aid to Israel at the end of 2026, under a deal he said he had struck with Benjamin Netanyahu. “We’ve already agreed that by the end of this year we won’t be paying Israel,” he told Fox News. Israeli defence officials said they had not expected the announcement.
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Tehran holds to its terms after American strikes on Qeshm
Iran insisted on Tuesday that its conditions must be met before the Strait of Hormuz reopens, hours after American forces struck Qeshm Island in what US officials called a defensive response to Iranian surface-to-air missile fire. A senior Iranian official told Reuters the two sides remained far apart. Qatari mediators were in Tehran discussing a draft agreement.
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Komyshuvakha toll rises to 33 as Kremlin confirms Abu Dhabi talks
At least 33 people are now known to have died in the glide-bomb strike on an aid centre in Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia, and President Zelensky called it “one of the largest mass killings committed by Russia during this war”. Russian strikes also hit a hospice in Dnipro and a hospital in Kharkiv. The Kremlin confirmed it will attend US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi on 10–11 November.
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Hoax bomb threats disrupt seven flights across Europe
At least seven passenger flights bound for Warsaw, Sofia, Rome and Murcia were searched after bomb threats on Tuesday, including a Ryanair flight from Manchester and a LOT flight from London diverted to Warsaw’s Modlin airport. No devices were found. The government called them “malicious hoax threats”; no one has claimed responsibility.
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UK UK Domestic Politics
King calls slave trade a ‘shameful chapter’ but offers no apology
Opening the Commonwealth summit in Antigua, the King said the transatlantic slave trade “fills my heart with horror and my soul with the most profound personal sorrow”, and that it “still casts a shadow” over the 56-nation association. He stopped short of a formal apology. Andy Burnham, also at the summit, is open to one but rejects reparations.
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MI5 spared contempt proceedings despite lying to three courts
Three senior judges, including the Lady Chief Justice, ruled that MI5 and its officers will not face contempt of court proceedings, although the agency admitted giving false evidence to three courts about an abusive informant known as Agent X. A contempt case would be too complex for the court, they said; police could instead investigate possible misconduct in public office.
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Gilt yields climb as Bank is tipped for first rise since 2023
The ten-year gilt yield rose back above 5.2% on Tuesday, recovering from near two-month lows before Thursday’s Bank of England decision. Economists polled by Reuters expect Bank Rate to rise from 3.75% to 4%, its first increase since August 2023, with a 7–2 vote. The FTSE 100 fell 1.1% to 10,638 in a global sell-off.
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Watchdog clears early car finance payouts as Barclays moves first
The Financial Conduct Authority will allow lenders to make early compensation offers to drivers mis-sold car finance, provided they are no worse than its proposed redress scheme, which faces a legal challenge in February. Barclays will begin making offers now. “Fair settlement offers could result in some people getting money sooner,” said the regulator’s Stephen Braviner Roman.
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Welsh first minister warns BBC cuts risk ‘irreversible deterioration’
Rhun ap Iorwerth has warned the BBC’s director-general, Matt Brittin, that planned cuts in Wales risk an “irreversible deterioration” in its service and could put the corporation in breach of its Royal Charter obligations. BBC Wales announced 58 job cuts in September under UK-wide plans to save £500m. Mr Brittin replied that the BBC takes its duties to Wales “extremely seriously”.
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Morning Briefing
What It Means For You
- Foreign care workers already in the UK who earn at least £25,000 a year will now wait five years for permanent settlement, rather than the 15 originally proposed.
- The draft UK–EU food deal would scrap £200 export health certificates and £25 phytosanitary certificates, and allow exports of fresh sausages, burgers and seed potatoes to resume.
- Binance customers should see withdrawals restored for more crypto assets in phases, the exchange said, after last week’s record $6.3bn hack.
GEO Geopolitical
US carries out ‘defensive’ strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island
American forces struck Iranian targets on Qeshm Island, at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, late on Monday; US officials called the action limited and defensive, a response to the Revolutionary Guard firing on a US aircraft. Iranian state media reported several explosions. Hours earlier President Trump said: “We had a war with Iran. We won.”
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Americans vote in midterms seen as referendum on Trump
Control of both chambers of Congress, each held by the Republicans, is at stake in today’s midterm elections. Mr Trump’s approval rating stands at 34% in CNN’s poll average, and voters say the cost of living is their foremost concern. On the eve of polling, the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s bid to set aside 20,000 disputed Californian ballots.
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Russian bombs kill 29 at Ukrainian aid centre
At least 29 people were killed and 48 remain missing after at least nine 3,000kg aerial bombs struck a school used as an aid centre in Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia, regional officials said on Tuesday. President Zelensky called the attack “utterly horrific”, saying a second strike hit the place where survivors had sheltered. Washington has announced new peace talks for 10 and 11 November.
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Anglo-French force to rehearse Ukraine deployment in Poland
Britain and France will lead Exercise Koalicja in Poland this month, rehearsing how a European force could deploy rapidly to Ukraine after a peace deal. Some 2,800 personnel will take part, including 1,500 French troops and 300 from Britain’s 7th Light Mechanised Brigade. Western officials said troops would be permitted to return fire if attacked by Russian forces.
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North Korea denies record $6.3bn Binance hack
Kim Yo Jong, sister of Kim Jong Un, rejected FBI claims that Pyongyang orchestrated the $6.3bn theft from Binance, the largest crypto hack on record, calling them a “grave political provocation”. The FBI and blockchain analysts Elliptic and Chainalysis attribute the attack to the state-backed TraderTraitor group. Binance said it would progressively reopen withdrawals.
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UK UK Domestic Politics
Mahmood declines to cost settlement climbdown on care workers
The home secretary has refused to say how much scrapping longer settlement waits for foreign care workers already in the UK will cost; the Home Office had suggested the original plan could save £10bn. Shabana Mahmood insisted the state would still save “billions”. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp called it “a U-turn”; the morning papers broadly agree.
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UK and EU agree draft deal scrapping Brexit food checks
Britain and the EU have agreed a 200-page draft sanitary and phytosanitary agreement removing post-Brexit checks on food and agricultural trade, ahead of a UK–EU summit this month. EU member states will consider the text in Brussels on Wednesday, alongside drafts on emissions trading and a youth mobility scheme. It is the most significant element of the Brexit reset so far.
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Burnham offers Commonwealth ‘debt reset’ as slavery apology talks begin
Andy Burnham will join the King at the opening of the Commonwealth summit in Antigua and begin talks on a formal UK apology for the slave trade within the next year. Downing Street said he would set out a “debt reset” for members burdened by interest costs. “Britain is bringing a new approach to this meeting,” the prime minister said.
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Labour ends Green coalitions in 11 councils over Zionism motion
Labour has withdrawn from power-sharing arrangements with the Greens in 11 councils, including Sheffield, Warwick and Lewes, after the Green Party adopted a policy defining Zionism as racism. Party chair Bridget Phillipson said the policy “crosses a line and we cannot work with any party that supports it”. Zack Polanski said the move would “backfire”.
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Carla Lockhart quits DUP over Drumcree parade dispute
The Upper Bann MP has left the Democratic Unionist Party with immediate effect, citing a “point of principle”, and will sit in the Commons as an independent unionist. She had urged the DUP to withdraw the deputy first minister to force Michelle O’Neill from office over Sinn Féin’s role in Garvaghy Road protests that blocked an Orange Order parade.
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Evening Briefing
What It Means For You
- Brent fell almost 8% today to about $105 a barrel; if the slide holds, pressure on petrol and heating costs should ease in the coming weeks.
- Economists unanimously expect Bank Rate to rise to 4% on Thursday, which would push up tracker and variable mortgage payments, though savers should see better rates.
- Migrants on the route to settlement now face a default ten-year wait unless they meet earnings or public-service thresholds; those earning over £50,271 can still settle after five years.
GEO Geopolitical
Oil plunges as Rubio signals Washington prefers peaceful end to war
Brent crude fell 7.7% to $104.66 a barrel by midday in New York after Marco Rubio said President Trump “hasn’t made a decision” on renewed military action and that the administration “would prefer to do it peacefully”. West Texas Intermediate slid below $97. Abbas Araghchi said an agreement was achievable if Washington “demonstrates goodwill”.
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Iranian delegation leaves Qatar amid fears of post-midterm strikes
Qatari mediators met Iranian officials on Sunday for a third consecutive day in an effort to restart direct talks with Washington. Tehran says it has a two-day plan to halt attacks on Hormuz shipping and resume negotiations, contingent on the American response. The region is braced for possible US and Israeli strikes shortly after Tuesday’s midterm elections.
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Election chief rejects Likud bid to delay certifying Israeli result
Justice Noam Sohlberg refused a Likud request to postpone certification of the election, ruling that the Central Elections Committee has no authority to withhold results or intervene in an ongoing investigation. Avigdor Liberman said he would not serve with Benjamin Netanyahu “under any circumstances”. Anti-Netanyahu parties hold 67 of 120 Knesset seats.
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Coordinated cyberattacks sabotage supermarket fridges across six European countries
Hackers seized refrigeration control systems at supermarket chains in Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg and Estonia, switching evaporators to defrost mode and spoiling food. Affected chains include ICA, Coop, Ahold Delhaize, Colruyt and Carrefour; thirteen Musgrave SuperValu stores in Ireland were hit.
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Yotova becomes Bulgaria’s first elected female president
Acting President Iliana Yotova won Sunday’s run-off with 57.6% of the vote against 39.5% for the liberal Andrey Gyurov, who conceded. Yotova said she had voted “for national consensus through dialogue, for institutions that work for citizens”. She will be inaugurated on 22 January for a five-year term.
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UK UK Domestic Politics
Mahmood unveils earned settlement, doubling default wait to ten years
Shabana Mahmood set out rules ending near-automatic settlement after five years. The default qualifying period rises to ten years; the highest earners may settle within three, while those earning over £50,271 and some public servants, including doctors, nurses and teachers, keep five. Those who breached immigration rules face at least twenty.
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Bank of England expected to raise rates for first time since 2023
All 35 economists in a Bloomberg survey expect the Monetary Policy Committee to raise Bank Rate to 4% from 3.75% on Thursday, its first increase in more than three years. Ten-year gilt yields fell to their lowest since 22 September, around 5.2%, as oil retreated.
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FTSE 100 edges higher as BP and Shell slide with crude
The FTSE 100 closed up 0.29% at 10,761.33, while the domestically focused FTSE 250 gained 1.4%. BP fell 4.4% and Shell 3.3% as oil tumbled; Ryanair rose 3.5%. Sterling firmed to $1.3415. October manufacturing PMI rose to 52.8, a five-month high.
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Commons committee says government has failed to deliver China strategy
The Business and Trade Committee’s first report on doing business with China concludes the government has not delivered its 2024 promise of a strategic, long-term approach. Ministers began re-engagement “without having finalised its China audit or published a strategy”, the 102-page report says.
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Badenoch rejects slavery reparations, provoking Antigua’s prime minister
Kemi Badenoch said the Chogm summit was “yet another opportunity for people to start asking Britain for money because of the slave trade”, adding that Andy Burnham should not apologise. Antigua’s prime minister told ITV News it was “no wonder” she was not prime minister.
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Morning Briefing
What It Means For You
- If you fly with Ryanair next year: its chief executive expects European fares to rise by 10%, “maybe even 20%”, in 2027 as cheap fuel hedges expire. Unhedged jet fuel is at $170 a barrel, and the airline says higher fares will not fully cover a €2bn rise in its fuel bill.
- If you have a mortgage or savings: the Bank of England announces its next rate decision on Thursday 5 November. Bank Rate stands at 3.75%; three of nine committee members voted for 4% in September, and the Bank says the Iran war has pushed up energy prices and inflation.
- If you are a legal migrant, or employ one: the home secretary puts final settlement rules before MPs today. Most applicants are expected to wait ten years rather than five for indefinite leave to remain, some up to fifteen, with social care workers already in the UK likely to be exempt.
GEO Geopolitical
Iran says two tankers hit mines and caught fire in Hormuz
The Revolutionary Guards say two crude tankers struck mines and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz, two days after a Qatari gas carrier was attacked. President Trump says the war will end “very soon, one way or the other”: “Either they’ll make a deal, or we’ll just end it.” Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister, says talks with mediators on a two-day plan to reopen the strait continue.
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Israeli election officials reject Netanyahu’s claim the vote was stolen
Israel’s election chief says last Tuesday’s result stands, after the prime minister’s Likud party claimed without evidence that Arab-led parties “stole” the vote with Qatari money. “Even if the suspicions are substantiated, this would not undermine the integrity of the electoral process,” said Noam Sohlberg, appearing with the Shin Bet chief and the attorney general. Qatar calls the allegation “ridiculous and dangerous”.
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Ukrainian and Russian air-raid alert apps hacked as Kherson truce ends
Ukraine’s air-raid alert app sent fake warnings of nuclear and chemical threats around Kyiv on Sunday evening, including a false report that the Oreshnik hypersonic missile had been launched. Hours later Moscow said its own emergencies app had suffered a “massive cyberattack”. Both followed the end of the localised ceasefire in occupied Kherson, the longest of the war.
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Trump makes final pitch as Americans prepare to vote on Tuesday
President Trump closed his midterm campaign with rallies in Florida, Iowa and Kansas — states he once won easily — as polls suggest Democrats could win at least partial control of Congress. Facing anger over prices, he warned that Democrats would “bankrupt your family” and urged supporters to “pretend I’m on the ballot”. Both final speeches were repeatedly interrupted by hecklers.
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Ryanair warns fares could rise 20% as the war’s fuel shock bites
Ryanair’s half-year profit fell 15% to €2.15bn as the cost of its unhedged fuel doubled, and the airline is weighing temporary pay freezes. “Unless there is a swift resolution of the Middle East conflict, we expect jet-fuel prices to remain elevated well into 2027,” said Michael O’Leary, its chief executive, who expects European fares to rise by up to 20% next year.
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UK UK Domestic Politics
Mahmood sets out ten-year wait for migrants seeking settlement
The home secretary puts final rules before MPs today under which most legal migrants are expected to wait ten years, not five, for indefinite leave to remain, and some up to fifteen. Social care workers already in the UK are likely to be exempted after Cabinet objections. “To become a part of this country, permanently, is therefore not a right but a privilege,” Shabana Mahmood said.
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Reeves says Britain’s future lies inside the European Union
Rachel Reeves, in her first major intervention since leaving the Treasury, says Brexit made the country “poorer, weaker and less secure”. “I do believe Britain’s future lies in the European Union,” she wrote. Separately, ministers are prepared to spend up to £450m a year letting EU students pay home fees — but only if Brussels admits Britain to its Made in Europe industrial scheme.
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Healey signals delay to equal minimum wage for younger workers
The chancellor, John Healey, has declined to promise that 18 to 20-year-olds will receive the full adult minimum wage before the next election, putting a Labour manifesto pledge in doubt. “We’ll take one step at a time,” he said. From this year the younger rate rises to £11.27 an hour against £13.21 for over-20s.
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MPs warn Britain is making up China policy as it goes along
A Commons committee says Britain’s failure to set a coherent China strategy since 2024 has “combined the worst of both worlds”, leaving businesses without opportunities and security risks unaddressed. Liam Byrne, its Labour chairman, warns the UK risks being “cut off” from big European manufacturing contracts as the EU turns protectionist.
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King to address slavery at Commonwealth summit in Antigua
The King will speak on the transatlantic slave trade with “unflinching honesty, sincere sorrow” when he addresses Commonwealth leaders in Antigua on Tuesday, the Palace says. Andy Burnham has said he is “open” to a formal British apology, though not to reparations. Kemi Badenoch called “endless talk about apologies” a “distraction”.
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Evening Briefing
What It Means For You
- If you have a mortgage or savings: markets expect the Bank to raise rates to 4% from 3.75% on Thursday, which would be the first rise since 2023. That is an expectation rather than a decision. Inflation was 3.5% in September, the energy cap rose 3.6% on 1 October, and a further rise of about 22% is forecast for January.
- If you are travelling by train at Christmas: book around ten days of engineering works now. Birmingham New Street closes from Christmas Eve to 29 December, Great Western services terminate at Reading from 27 December to 4 January, and the east coast main line is part-closed on Christmas Eve with buses between Newark and York adding two hours.
- If you follow the Gulf: nothing has been agreed and no date exists for anything. Tehran has cut the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz it is offering from seven days to two, mediation is in its third day, and the American president says one or two nuclear sites remain. Oil rose 2.4% on Friday on that uncertainty.
GEO Geopolitical
“One or Two Sites” Left, as Mediators Cut the Hormuz Window
Speaking to reporters at his Florida club on Saturday, the American president said of Iran: “We’ve knocked out their nuclear. We still have to take care of, I would say one or two sites, but we can do that in 10 minutes.” Meanwhile Qatari mediation entered a third day, and Tehran has cut its offered reopening of the Strait of Hormuz from seven days to two.
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Ebola Passes Five Thousand Deaths, With No Vaccine for This Strain
More than 5,000 people have now died in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s deadliest Ebola outbreak, with more than 10,300 confirmed cases across eight of its 26 provinces. The epicentre is a conflict zone. There is no treatment or vaccine for the species responsible, though trials are under way.
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Oleshky Emptied, and the Ceasefire That Allowed It Ends Tonight
The local truce in Kherson region, the most significant between Kyiv and Moscow since the invasion, is expected to end this evening. It allowed a joint evacuation of the besieged front-line city of Oleshky that finished on Saturday. About 2,000 civilians were there when it began; the number who left has deliberately not been published.
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Tusk Says There Can Be No Compromise on the Polish Court
In a prime-time address on Saturday night, after the riot police we reported yesterday, Poland’s prime minister vowed to see the contested overhaul of the constitutional court through: “in certain matters, there can be no compromise”. He said the tribunal in the form his predecessors imposed “was not a genuine court”.
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Sixteen Minutes of Silence, and the Arrest of a Police Chief
Thousands marched in silence through Novi Sad in the rain today, two years after a station canopy collapsed and killed sixteen people — sixteen minutes of silence, sixteen wreaths. Hours earlier, the head of Serbia’s criminal police, whom student groups accuse of brutality against the protests, was arrested over an unrelated case.
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UK Domestic
An Apology Without Reparations, and a Leader Who Rejects Both
The chancellor confirmed this morning that the apology the prime minister is open to would carry no financial liability: considering one “doesn’t mean accepting that British people now should accept the financial liability” for acts “in which they had no role”. The Conservative leader rejects an apology too, calling it a lever to open the door to cash.
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Starmer Says Europe Can No Longer Rely on American Money
The former prime minister told an audience in Dublin on Friday that the change in Europe’s defence relationship with the United States is permanent, not “an aberration of the Trump presidency”, and that Washington will no longer “bankroll” European security. He called for a common security framework with Britain at its centre.
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325 Arrested Outside the Embassy as the Ban Faces Appeal
The Metropolitan Police say 325 people were arrested at a protest supporting the proscribed group Palestine Action outside the American embassy at Nine Elms on Saturday, 320 of them for expressing support for a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act. At least 4,000 arrests have now been made over the group.
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Green Party at a Crossroads After the Zionism Motion
A former Green co-leader says the party is at a “crossroads” and should return to its “core values”, weeks after members adopted a motion defining Zionism as a form of racism. The current leader replied that there is “no environmental justice without social, racial and economic justice”.
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Ten Days of Christmas Rail Works Close Paddington and New Street
Engineering works over the holidays will shut London Paddington, disrupting intercity services to the west of England and Wales into January, and close Birmingham New Street for five days. The east coast main line is partly closed on Christmas Eve. Network Rail says most routes stay open and expects to carry out about £152m of work.
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Weekly Roundup
The stories that defined this week View roundup
The Week In Numbers
- John Healey’s first Budget handed about 20 million households a one-off £100 towards energy bills, at a cost of £2.6bn, paid for by doubling the bank surcharge to 6% for 15 months and lifting the tax on savings and property income to 24%, 44% and 49% from April 2027. The OBR cut its 2027 growth forecast to 1% and expects inflation to peak near 3.75%; the IFS identified a £28bn-a-year gap, and the Resolution Foundation expects typical working-age incomes to fall by £1,050, or 3%, by 2029.
- Technology stocks had their worst week of the autumn. Alphabet shed just over $500bn in a single session on Thursday after warning that AI summaries were eroding search advertising; Intel fell 29% on Friday, its worst day since 1974, and US tech lost more than $1tn in value. The S&P 500 slid 1.8% on Friday to 7,580, while the FTSE 100 held near 10,730 on the strength of Shell’s best quarter since 2022. Gold fell to a one-year low of about $3,875, down 5.9% in October. Brent spiked to $115.59 on a Houthi strike claim against Ras Tanura and finished near $113.
- Binance lost $6.3bn in what is likely the largest exchange hack ever, which the FBI has attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group; it says 90% has now been replenished and withdrawals began reopening this morning. Israel’s election left Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc on 53 seats and Gadi Eisenkot’s on 48, both short of 61, with Arab-led parties on a record 19. At least 69 people died in Spain’s worst rail crash in 13 years, and Lula won a fourth term in Brazil with 51.79% of the vote.
What Moved Forward
Healey Delivers a Budget of Modest Relief and Deferred Pain
DomesticThe first Budget of Andy Burnham’s premiership came on Wednesday and was built for “breathing space”, not reform. Households in council tax bands A to D get £100 towards winter energy bills, gas standing charges are abolished during 2027, the 5p fuel duty cut runs on to July and the minimum wage rises 3.9%. Banks and savers pay for it: the surcharge doubles to 6% and the tax on savings and rental income rises four points, although the planned cut to the cash ISA allowance was dropped. Burnham then ruled out an election within twelve months. The measures cover less than a fifth of the expected rise in bills, but the government has shown it can get a Budget through without a market revolt.
The Kherson Truce Holds and Oleshky Is Reached at Last
GeopoliticalA ceasefire brokered by Melania Trump and Pope Leo XIV began in occupied Oleshky on Tuesday, two days early, and was soon extended across the Kherson region without a reported breach. On Friday a convoy of 25 buses carried hundreds of residents out of the devastated town. It was the first joint relief operation of the war; several hundred mostly elderly residents chose to stay. Kherson itself had its first quiet days in years. It is a single humanitarian corridor, not a peace process, and the Kremlin still rejects Volodymyr Zelensky’s broader ceasefire offer. Even so, it shows that a negotiated pause can be agreed and kept, which the war had not managed until now.
Voters Topple Vučić and Return Lula
GeopoliticalTwo elections last Sunday ended with decisive results. In Serbia, a leaderless student list that grew out of two years of protest defeated Aleksandar Vučić’s party, which has governed since 2012, on the highest turnout in decades. Vučić conceded before the final count, and the new MPs are already demanding that the police and intelligence chiefs go before the handover is complete. In Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, now 80, overturned a first-round deficit to beat Flávio Bolsonaro by 4.4 million votes. Bolsonaro demanded the result be annulled, then left the country after his passports were cancelled. In both countries the institutions held up under heavy pressure.
Binance Covers Its Losses as the FBI Names North Korea
MarketsBinance lost $6.3bn on Thursday, a breach wider than first disclosed and the largest exchange hack on record. Chainalysis and TRM Labs blamed the North Korean unit TraderTraitor, and on Saturday the FBI formally attributed the theft to the Lazarus Group. The exchange then moved quickly: it froze about half the funds, set aside more than the stolen sum from its own treasury, and by Saturday said it had replenished 90% of losses, with bitcoin, ethereum and Tether holdings fully restored. Withdrawals began reopening in phases this morning. The theft confirms that Pyongyang is now the most capable thief in crypto, but the industry’s largest firm avoided a run.
What Stalled
Hormuz Diplomacy Circles as the Shooting Resumes
GeopoliticalThe week brought plenty of diplomacy over Iran and no settlement. Defence and intelligence chiefs from the Mecca pact states met President Pezeshkian in Tehran and agreed only “to continue the dialogue”. JD Vance wrote to Iran’s security chief offering direct talks in Istanbul or Doha; Tehran acknowledged the letter but sent no reply and kept its seven conditions. Meanwhile the Houthis fired at Saudi Arabia and claimed a strike on Ras Tanura, and a limpet mine disabled a tanker off Oman, the first such attack of the war. Araghchi’s offer to reopen the strait within two days depends on sanctions relief, a US drawdown and the release of frozen funds, which Washington is unlikely to accept. The strait remains shut.
Israel’s Election Produces Deadlock, Not a Government
GeopoliticalTuesday’s turnout was the highest since records began in the early 1970s, but the result settled nothing. With every vote counted, Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc has 53 seats and Gadi Eisenkot’s 48. Arab-led parties won a record 19 and now hold the balance. Likud has accused them of “stealing” the election, and Shin Bet is investigating claims of illegal Qatari and Turkish funding. Thousands rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday urging Eisenkot to govern with Arab support, which would give him 67 seats but has no precedent in Israeli politics. President Herzog’s consultations begin this week, and weeks of bargaining or another election look more likely than a quick coalition.
The AI Trade Breaks Down
MarketsResults week tested the AI investment story, and it did not hold up. Alphabet grew revenue 25% but reported a 25% fall in profits and negative free cash flow, and conceded that its own AI summaries were hurting search advertising; it lost $500bn in a day. Amazon fell after hours, and Intel’s 29% collapse on Friday wiped more than $1tn from US technology stocks. Gold, which had been a refuge all year, fell to a one-year low, and the Federal Reserve held rates while two members voted to raise them. For British savers in global trackers, which are heavily weighted to these companies, the week was a reminder of how concentrated their exposure is.
Defence, Welfare and Local Government Reform Postponed
DomesticFor all its short-term giveaways, the Budget put off the hardest decisions. The route to 3% of GDP on defence by 2030 was deferred to next year’s Spending Review, and departments were told to find another 1% of capital savings to cover a £4.7bn hole; Kemi Badenoch called it “a plan to have a plan”. Burnham could not promise a cut to welfare spending, forecast to reach £431bn, before the election. The government withdrew nine of fourteen planned council mergers, including Kent, Devon and Lancashire, while it seeks legal clarity. The DUP also blocked Michelle O’Neill from Burnham’s first National Economic Council for the nations, and the first ministers of Scotland and Wales told him that devolution within their nations is for their own parliaments to decide.
What To Watch Next Week
America’s Midterms and the Strikes Promised to Follow
GeopoliticalAmericans vote on Tuesday. Democrats lead the generic ballot by about eight points, and more than 43 million early votes had been cast with five days to go. Losing the House would leave the second half of Donald Trump’s term exposed to subpoenas and budget fights. The more immediate risk is in the Gulf: Trump has said strikes on Iran would not resume until after polling day, has told Gulf allies to prepare for a short, intense campaign, and insists one or two nuclear sites remain to “take care of”. Watch whether Tehran answers the Vance letter before the polls close. If it does not, Brent could move sharply in either direction soon after.
The Bank of England’s November Decision
MarketsMarkets expect the Bank of England to raise interest rates this month. The OBR’s inflation forecast of about 3.75%, oil above $110 and ten-year gilt yields near 5.3% have all pointed that way, and the two hawkish dissents at the Federal Reserve add to the pressure. A rise would push up the cost of new and remortgaged home loans just as the Budget’s £100 energy payment arrives, and it would erode Healey’s already reduced headroom by raising the cost of servicing nearly £100bn a year of debt interest. Watch the vote split and the Bank’s guidance on how much of the energy shock it expects to persist into 2027.
The King in Antigua and the Slavery Apology Row
DomesticThe King addresses Commonwealth leaders in Antigua on Tuesday and will speak, the Palace says, with “sincere sorrow” about the transatlantic slave trade. The prime minister has expressed “sorrow and regret” and said he is open to a formal state apology while ruling out reparations, a position that satisfies neither Caribbean governments, which want compensation, nor critics at home who accuse him of drawing the monarch into a political dispute. Protests are expected in St John’s. Watch what the communiqué says, whether Burnham commits to an apology at the summit, and how far the King departs from his government-approved script.
Mahmood’s Settlement Rules and Poundland’s Deadline
DomesticShabana Mahmood will put her final decision on indefinite leave to remain before Parliament this week. Most workers would have to wait ten years rather than five, and some lower-paid workers fifteen, though social care staff already in Britain are likely to be exempt. Cabinet colleagues have objected, so watch for further concessions. In the high street, Poundland’s ten-day window to find a rescue deal runs out at the end of the week, with 12,000 jobs at stake after its US owner rejected a takeover offer. Together they will show how Burnham handles immigration and job losses under pressure.
Morning Briefing
What It Means For You
- If you are aged 18 to 20 and on the minimum wage: your rate rises to £11.27 an hour against £13.21 for over-20s, and the chancellor would not promise this morning to close the gap before the next election — “We’ll take one step at a time,” he said.
- If you watch your energy bill: the chancellor says ministers will sign off new offshore wind farms only if the grid can carry their power without raising costs. The National Audit Office warned in September that paying turbines to switch off could cost homes and businesses £7.8bn a year by 2030.
- If you hold Binance funds: the exchange says it has covered 90% of the $6.3bn stolen, with bitcoin, ethereum and Tether holdings fully replenished, and remains on track to reopen withdrawals today. It will confirm details before doing so.
GEO Geopolitical
Iran Offers Two-Day Hormuz Reopening if Washington Meets Its Terms
Abbas Araghchi says talks with Qatari mediators have produced a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within two days, down from five, provided America lifts sanctions, cuts its regional forces and releases frozen funds. President Trump said talks were “going fine but you know they’re not very reliable”, while insisting one or two nuclear sites remained to “take care of”.
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German Youth Protests Turn to Looting as France Marches Again
Cost-of-living demonstrations organised by the youth group Gen Z regelt turned violent overnight in Frankfurt, where shops were looted, a gun shop’s windows smashed and molotov cocktails thrown at emergency services. Police used water cannon in Cologne and Hamburg. In France, the interior ministry counted 320,000 protesters, 70,000 of them in Paris.
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Tel Aviv Rally Urges Eisenkot to Govern With Arab Parties
Thousands rallied in Tel Aviv urging opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot to strike a deal with Arab-led parties to remove Benjamin Netanyahu. With all votes counted, Mr Netanyahu’s bloc holds 53 seats and Mr Eisenkot’s 48 — both short of the 61 needed — while Arab-led parties won a record 19. Together, Eisenkot and the Arab parties would command 67.
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Tens of Thousands Rally in Delhi Demanding Election Chief Quit
Rahul Gandhi is leading a Congress rally at Ramlila Maidan demanding the resignation of the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, over a voter-list revision that has removed 130 million names from draft rolls. The Election Commission says it is purging the dead and those who have moved; the opposition calls it “vote chori” — vote theft.
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Binance Covers 90% of Losses as FBI Blames North Korea
The FBI said on Saturday that North Korea was responsible for the $6.3bn theft from Binance, naming the Lazarus Group, also known as TraderTraitor. The exchange says it has replenished 90% of the stolen assets from its own treasury and other funds, and remains on track to reopen withdrawals today.
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DOM UK Domestic Politics
Reeves Says Britain’s Future Lies in the European Union
In her first major intervention since leaving the Treasury, Rachel Reeves writes in the Sunday Times: “I do believe Britain’s future lies in the European Union.” She offers no timetable and does not say whether a referendum would be needed. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said any change would require a mandate at a general election.
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King to Address Slavery With ‘Sincere Sorrow’ as Apology Row Grows
The King will speak with “unflinching honesty” and “sincere sorrow” on the transatlantic slave trade when he addresses Commonwealth leaders in Antigua on Tuesday, Buckingham Palace says. The Sunday papers lead on Mr Burnham’s openness to a formal apology, the Express accusing him of letting the King down.
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Healey Will Not Promise Equal Minimum Wage Before Election
The chancellor, John Healey, has declined to commit to paying 18 to 20-year-olds the full adult minimum wage before the next election, potentially breaking a 2024 manifesto pledge. “There is no question about whether or if, it’s a question of when,” he told the BBC. He also signalled readiness for deep departmental cuts.
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Healey to Veto Offshore Wind Farms That Cannot Lower Bills
New offshore wind projects bidding for subsidy contracts will be signed off only if the grid can absorb their power without pushing up consumer costs, the chancellor says. “There’s no sense building power that can’t connect and then paying to switch it off,” he wrote in the Times.
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Mahmood to Set Out Settlement Rules With Care Workers Spared
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, will present her final decision on indefinite leave to remain to Parliament this week. The BBC understands social care workers already in Britain are likely to be exempt from a longer wait, while most other workers would need ten years rather than five before qualifying for settlement.