Evening Briefing: Monday 9 November 2026
- If you are one of Thames Water’s 16 million customers, Monday’s deal changes nothing on your bill but buys the government time to choose between a creditor takeover and state control; either way Ofwat has already allowed an extra £3.4bn in tariffs on top of the 36% rise to 2030.
- Consultants strike on 25 and 26 November and Tube drivers from 26 November: if you have a hospital appointment or a London commute that week, expect emergency-only cover and plan around it now.
- Oil fell 4.5% today after Trump played down new Iran strikes; if the fall holds, pump prices should ease within a fortnight, but the Guards’ tanker attacks and the Riyadh strike show how quickly that can reverse.
Nvidia sheds $300bn as Huang’s affair with suspected spy is probed
Nvidia shares fell as much as 7.5% at the New York open, to a seven-month low of $172.75, wiping about $335bn from the world’s most valuable company after its board opened an independent investigation into reports that Jensen Huang was the…
France blames Iran’s Revolutionary Guards for fridge cyber-attacks
France has formally attributed October’s cyber-attacks on supermarket refrigeration to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, summoning Tehran’s ambassador and seeking European sanctions. “It marks the first large-scale cyberattack aimed at sab…
Trump questions whether the midterms were ‘honest’ as Miller starts
Six days after telling the New York Times he was “absolutely willing” to accept the results, Donald Trump posted: “Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest. How could the Polls be so wrong???” He blamed early-voting “dum…
Migrant boats sink: 39 dead off Senegal, 14 off Crete
At least 39 people died when a boat bound for the Canary Islands capsized off the Lompoul dunes, 180km north of Dakar, on Sunday; one person was rescued and 24 victims have been identified. Off Crete, a container ship spotted a boat early…
FTSE 100 rebounds 1% and oil slides 4.5% on Trump’s Iran remarks
The FTSE 100 closed up 1.02% at 10,782.87, recovering part of last week’s losses, as Brent crude fell 4.48% to $93.92 after Donald Trump said renewed strikes on Iran were “highly unlikely” if talks progress. The Dow rose 661 points, or 1.3…
Thames Water asks creditors to push £12bn of debt back to 2028
Thames Water has asked its lenders to extend repayment of debts falling due in March 2027 by a year to March 2028, with creditors holding more than £12bn of secured debt already signed up to the interim deal, as the company raises the firs…
Burnham warns NHS will ‘struggle’ unless consultants return to pay talks
Andy Burnham said the NHS would “struggle” to cope with consultants’ strikes on 25 and 26 November and urged the BMA back to the table: “It’s not a case of ‘dig in’; more a case of, ‘let’s get back around the table’.” Speaking at Watford G…
Poundland cannot buy stock as owner freezes £50m ahead of Thursday deadline
Poundland is unable to buy new stock for its 600 shops because its American owner, Gordon Brothers, has frozen about £50m in the chain’s bank accounts, leaving it “running on fumes” with until Thursday to secure a rescue, when a ten-day mo…
Author of Labour’s Brexit red lines says they deserve ‘dignified retirement’
Chris Ward, the minister who co-wrote Labour’s 2024 pledge never to rejoin the EU, the single market or the customs union, says the red lines “should be given a well-earned and dignified retirement” by the next election because “they no lo…
Rail investigators warn of ‘obvious risk of further tragedy’ at user-worked crossings
The Rail Accident Investigation Branch has found that the lights at Bax crossing near Teynham in Kent “almost certainly” led Brandon Hatcher, a 23-year-old Amazon delivery driver, to believe it was safe to cross when a Southeastern train f…