Downing Street: Londoners ‘fed up,’ calls on RMT and TfL to negotiate
Downing Street has called on the RMT union and Transport for London to get back to the negotiating table to end this week’s tube strikes, which are due to run until 8am on Friday.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said:
I think Londoners will rightly be fed-up with the disruption from Tube strikes this morning – as parents try and drop their kids off at school, get to hospital appointments, get to work – and RMT and TfL need to get back around the table, work together to resolve this dispute in the interests of passengers.
Strikes by the RMT union have closed the London Underground, with people crowding on to other transport and roads congested at the start of four days of commuter misery. The TfL website crashed earlier this morning but is back to normal.
Rides on Uber were quoted at multiples of normal levels, with some journeys costing about £50 for a five-mile trip in the capital.
The government’s employment rights bill could reduce barriers to strike action but No 10 insisted this was because it wanted a more constructive relation with unions rather than the “scorched earth” approach under the Tories.
We’ve always said in introducing our reforms that we want to, unlike the previous government, have a more constructive relationship with the unions and also a more secure workforce is good for the economy, it’s good for productivity.
But we want to see RMT and TfL get back around the table when it comes to these strikes, work together in good faith to resolve this situation in the interests of passengers.
Travellers pause and walk past a closed London Underground entrance during the morning rush hour, as London tube strikes continue, at Waterloo Station in London. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters
Tube strikes are a bit inconvenient but @4Day_Week Foundation we offer our full support to the @RMTunion leading the fight for a 32-hour working week.
The five-day week is a century-old model that no longer reflects how we live and work today. We are long overdue an update. pic.twitter.com/BlDoKNlzwG
— Joe Ryle (@JoeRRyle) September 8, 2025
Victory to the RMT!
Proud to join London Underground workers on the picket line at Brixton Tube station this morning fighting for safer and healthier working hours & conditions across London Underground. #TubeStrike pic.twitter.com/duNkwoxBs0
— Cllr Martin Abrams 🕊️🍉 (@Martin_Abrams) September 8, 2025Share
Updated at 14.21 BST
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Protests expected as 51 Israeli arms makers among exhibitors at London trade fair
Fifty-one Israeli arms makers and the US defence giant behind the F-35 fighters used to bomb Gaza are among the 1,600 exhibitors at the biennial DSEI trade show that begins in London’s Docklands on Tuesday.
Their presence will be the focus for hundreds planning to demonstrate outside the four-day arms fair, at which the defence secretary, John Healey, is expected to speak alongside senior British military officials.
Campaign Against Arms Trade (Caat) said Israel’s three biggest arms companies – Elbit Systems, Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) – were among those planning to attend despite the UK barring an Israeli government delegation last month.
Emily Apple, Caat’s media coordinator, said the British government had reached “peak complicity in genocide” in allowing Israeli arms makers to exhibit, a decision that she said allowed “companies to market their genocide-tested weapons” to international buyers.
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George Osborne ‘to miss out on big windfall’ from sale of investment bank
George Osborne is expected to miss out on a large windfall payment from the $196m (£145m) takeover of Robey Warshaw, the investment bank where the former Conservative chancellor has been working since 2021.
Osborne, who is a partner at the bank being acquired by its US rival Evercore, will miss out on a big payout from the deal, according to the Financial Times.
The paper said most of the payout will be received by the bank’s three founding partners, with the largest cut going to Sir Simon Robey – the deal veteran known as the City’s “trillion-dollar man”.
Evercore has agreed to pay $96m in shares when the deal – which was announced in July – closes in October, followed by a further $100m in cash or shares after it completes. There could be further payouts for the partners if certain performance targets are met after six years.
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Tesla’s US market share hits eight-year low as competition heats up
Tesla’s market share in the United States has fallen to a near-eight-year low, as the market becomes more competitive.
The share of the electric vehicle market held by Elon Musk’s company has fallen to 38%, the lowest since 2017, when it was ramping up production of the Model 3, Tesla’s first mass market car, Reuters reported, citing data from Cox Automotive. Tesla once held more than 80% of the US market.
Buyers are increasingly opting for other electric cars rather than Tesla’s ageing line-up, at a tough time for the industry. Analysts expect overall sales to drop in the coming months, as federal tax credits are due to expire at the end of September.
While other automakers are rolling out new models, Tesla has turned its attention to building robotaxis and humanoid robots, and has delayed or ditched plans for cheaper new versions of its cars.
Much of Tesla’s trillion-dollar valuation hangs on that bet. The company’s board on Friday proposed an unprecedented $1 trillion pay package for Musk that is partly dependent on the carmaker’s value rising to $8.5 trillion over the next decade.
For now, Tesla’s core auto business generates most revenues. But its last new model introduced in 2023, the Cybertruck pickup, was not as popular as its Model 3 midsize sedan or Model Y midsize SUV.
Tesla has tweaked the Model Y, once the world’s best-selling car, but the changes have not met expectations, and Tesla is on course for a second year of sales decline.
Stephanie Valdez Streaty, Cox’s director of industry insights, told Reuters:
I know they’re positioning themselves as a robotics, AI company. But when you’re a car company, when you don’t have new products, your share will start to decline.
Cox has more complete data for July, when Tesla’s market share fell to 42% from 48.7% in June. The drop was the sharpest since March 2021.
A Tesla Model Y electric vehicle travels along a highway near San Juan Capistrano, California. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters
Musk’s political work as Donald Trump’s ally has also damaged the Tesla brand. Musk helped the US president slash government jobs earlier this year, but left the administration in May and fell out with him publicly.
For years, Tesla was able to increase sales rapidly and command a premium price for its vehicles, but has had to cut prices in recent years, squeezing its margins and worrying investors.
The July data showed rivals catching up. Carmakers Hyundai, Honda, Kia and Toyota rolled out higher incentives than Tesla and drove up EV sales between 60% and 120%, boosting their market share.
Streaty said:
These legacy manufacturers are all benefiting from this sense of urgency, and they’re able to have attractive offerings for their vehicles – and it’s working. I think we’re going to continue to see this momentum through September.
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Shrinkflation bites as boxes of Quality Street and Celebrations lose weight
Tucking into a box of Quality Street or Celebrations is a Christmas tradition.
But as this year’s supply arrives in British supermarkets, it is becoming clear that the Grinch has already struck and made the tubs of the confectionery lighter.
Someone has also taken a bite out of Toblerone, with 20g shaved off its chocolatey peaks, reducing a 360g bar to 340g.
Quality Street. Photograph: Alamy
The latest round of shrinkflation means anyone prising the lid off the Quality Street box may be underwhelmed by the number of sweets – as 50g has been lost from the weight, taking it from 600g to 550g.
Meanwhile, at 500g, there’s less to celebrate about tubs of Mars’s Celebrations, which weighed 550g in 2024.
ShareLisa O’Carroll
The Irish deputy prime minister has had talks with US trade representative Jamieson Greers to try and nail the Donald Trump administration down on its tariffs on pharmaceuticals and whiskey, reports Lisa O’Carroll, the Guardian’s senior correspondent for international trade and post Brexit affairs.
Simon Harris told reporters there was still a “big body of work” to be done to get discounts for generic pharma products, a sector that includes own-brand ibuprofen or paracetamol, medical devices and spirits and wine.
The EU-US framework agreement talks about generic pharma products, but it doesn’t define what is a generic product. [there is a big body of work that needs to be done in relation to that, because there’s going to be up to a 15% tariff in general for pharma in the EU, but it [the agreement] does say that the current regime, zero for zero [tariffs] would be maintained for generics.
He told reporters on the sidelines of the British Irish Conference in Oxford:
We don’t yet have a list of what generics [are included]. Medical Device is the same. What is the list of medical device products? [that would be rated zero].
The US biotech Thermo Fisher’s plant in Currabinny, Co. Cork, Ireland. Photograph: David Creedon/The Guardian
Harris said he had a productive talk on the phone with Greer and would continue to fight for Ireland’s significant pharma, whiskey and gin sector.
Whiskey exporters in Ireland and wine exporters in continental Europe were battling for the existing zero tariff on whiskey and the marginal (0.5% to 1.8%) tariff on wine to be maintained.
“We in Ireland and in the European Union, feel very strongly about the drink sector, the alcohol industry, being a part of that … All of the work at an EU level, and all of the work at a national government level in the European Union now is about trying to pad out and fill out the agreement,” Harris said.
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Bond markets calm; German 10-year bund yield hits one-month low
Let’s take a look at the government bond markets. Calm has been restored after last week’s turmoil, when a sell-off pushed bond yields to multi-year highs. (Yields go up when prices move down.)
The yield, or interest rate, on 10-year UK government bonds, known as gilts, edged up by 1 basis point to 4.663%. The yield on 30-year bonds rose by 1bp to 5.51%, down from the 27-year highs hit last week. Last Tuesday, the 30-year yield hit its highest level since 1998, and further rose to 5.75% on Wednesday, indicating that it will cost the UK more to borrow from the markets.
The yield on German government bonds, or Bunds, seen as the eurozone benchmark, hit a fresh one-month low today, after weak US jobs data on Friday reinforced expectations of interest rate cuts. The Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut rates at its meeting next week.
Germany’s 10-year bond yield rose by 0.5bp to 2.66% after falling to 2.65%, its lowest level since 8 August. The yield on the 30-year bond dropped by 1bp to 3.30%, after rising to 3.434% early last week, the highest since the summer of 2011.
France’s 30-year government bond yield was down 1 bp at 4.37%. Last week it hit 4.523%, its highest since June 2009. The French government is about to fall but markets have remained calm so far today, even though prime minister François Bayrou’s likely departure after a confidence vote means more political uncertainty, which will make it harder to reduce the country’s high debt levels.
A survey out today showed investor morale in the eurozone plunged in September to its lowest level since April, with Germany posting an even sharper decline.
sentix economic index (09/25): The next blow for the eurozone
The new September data from the #sentix economic index dashes hopes of an #economic recovery. The overall value for the #eurozone slipped by 5.5 points to -9.2. Both the current situation and future expectations are… pic.twitter.com/VSjAjhIq4K
— sentix (@sentixsurvey) September 8, 2025
The European Central bank meets later this week but markets are not expecting any changes to interest rates.
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Updated at 12.19 BST
Joshua Mahony, chief market analyst at Scope Markets, has looked at the moves in markets.
European markets are on the rise in early trade today, following on from an upbeat Asian session that benefitted from a 1.45% gain in the Nikkei. The sudden resignation of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba over the weekend injected fresh uncertainty into Japanese markets, although the perception that his successor will be more fiscally expansive raises hope that we will see stocks benefit in response.
With any successor likely to lean towards a pro-growth strategy, the possibility of additional spending kept the 30-year yield near record highs despite declines elsewhere. This is problematic for a nation with a 250% debt-to-GDP ratio.
For the Bank of Japan, the change raises doubts over the pace of normalisation, with political instability potentially delaying a shift away from ultra-loose policy in a bid to keep yields anchored. The yen weakness we saw in response reflects capital outflow concerns and renewed uncertainty about Japan’s monetary and fiscal outlook.
Turning to oil, where prices have risen by 2% today, Mahony said:
Over the weekend, OPEC+ confirmed its latest production strategy, opting to raise October production by another 137k barrels per day (bpd). This stands in stark contrast to the pace seen in the months prior, with August and September announcements standing at 555k bpd. The question for many is whether there is any capacity left to enact these production increases, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE likely to be the only nations that have the ability to add any more into the market. With oil prices on the rise, this announcement looks to see the expansive period for OPEC+ drawing to a close.
At the same time, global geopolitics have flared up once again, with Russia enacted its largest ever aerial attack on Ukraine that included strikes on the prime minister’s building in Kyiv. With Donald Trump warning of potential sanctions against Russia if the war persists, the pathway to peace remains far from simple. Unfortunately for the US, their previous sanctions have had little impact on Russian exports, with China and India showing a willingness to side with their BRICS partners rather than curb cheap Russian oil imports.
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Gold breaks through $3,600
Gold has broken through $3,600 an ounce, after weak US jobs data on Friday bolstered expectations of an interest rate cut from the US Federal Reserve at its meeting next week.
Spot gold gained 0.7% today to $3,611 an ounce.
Lower interest rates weigh on the dollar, making gold cheaper for investors holding other currencies. UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said:
We look for gold to rise to $3,700 an ounce by mid next year.
The yield on benchmark 10-year US government bonds, known as Treasuries, meanwhile, hovered near their lowest level in five months.
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Eurozone investor confidence drops; France’s government to fall today
In the eurozone, investor confidence dropped sharply in September, and France’s government is likely to fall today.
The French prime minister, François Bayrou, is expected to be ousted in a confidence vote on Monday afternoon, plunging the eurozone’s second biggest economy into political crisis.
Opposition parties from the left to the far right have made clear they will vote against the 74-year-old centrist, meaning he and his minority government would fall after only nine months in office.
The centrist president, Emmanuel Macron, is then likely to face the challenge of appointing his third prime minister in a year, and the fifth since he began his second term in office in 2022.
Leo Barincou, senior economist at Oxford Economics, has sent us his thoughts.
The Sentix suffered a sharp drop in September. While we are sceptical that the deterioration in investor confidence heralds a significant worsening in economic activity in the eurozone, the survey nonetheless supports our expectation that the economy will broadly stagnate in the second half.
In the other direction, German’s industrial production advanced in July, displaying resilience despite the tariff hit. However, we doubt this marks the start of a sustained upswing, as leading indicators point to weak momentum in thme near-term.
In France, Bayrou’s government is virtually certain to be toppled in today’s confidence vote. Although we do not expect major market volatility, the government’s fall likely seals the end of meaningful deficit-reduction efforts for 2026.
The French stock market is currently 0.2% ahead, while the UK’s FTSE 100 index has edged 0.1% higher. BP is among the biggest risers, up 1.1%, with oil prices rising sharply today following last week’s losses.
Brent crude has gained 2% to $66.8 a barrel. The oil cartel Opec and allies including Russia agreed a modest boost to output over the weekend, and oil prices have also been boosted the possibility of more sanctions on Russian crude after Moscow’s overnight strike on Ukraine.
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