Global cooperation seems unlikely despite AI increasing the risk of digital fraud and the need to protect the financial system

Rogue French fridges were an unlikely talking point for the world’s leading economists, central bankers and finance chiefs meeting in a sultry Bangkok last week – helping to underline the spiralling cost of cyber-attacks.

Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, seized on news that supermarket chains across France had to chuck out piles of spoiled food after hackers accessed their fridge controls and turned up the temperature to 50C.

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© Photograph: Fred Tanneau/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Fred Tanneau/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Fred Tanneau/AFP/Getty Images

Bank’s chief knowledge officer says the tech could speed up economic development from centuries to decades

The World Bank is urging developing countries to kickstart the creation of “small AI” models, which can run on a mobile phone with low connectivity, to reap the full benefits of artificial intelligence.

While Silicon Valley big tech firms are focused on ever more sophisticated consumer products, Paschal Donohoe, the World Bank’s chief knowledge officer, said AI could also accelerate development for emerging economies – but only if it was adapted to local needs.

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© Photograph: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy

© Photograph: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy

© Photograph: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy

In the west the technology comes with at least some effort to provide security and a benign intent – not so from China

There is much to fear from artificial intelligence developed in China and handed to businesses and governments in the west almost free of charge.

Every month Chinese AI developers such as DeepSeek and Xiaomi dispatch the latest versions of their “open-weight” models that allow users to take the core software and use it without paying an expensive ongoing licence.

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© Photograph: GK Images/Alamy

© Photograph: GK Images/Alamy

© Photograph: GK Images/Alamy

Sky-high oil prices and geopolitical turmoil have made less of a dent than feared … just don’t bank on it to last

Inside the vast, glass-walled Queen Sirikit conference centre in Bangkok, the air-conditioned atmosphere was calm as policymakers from more than 100 countries gathered this week for the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting – and contemplated the surprising strength of the global economy.

A small army of smiling, uniformed Thai staff were on hand to explain the baffling geography of the heavily guarded building, where lunch options were as cosmopolitan as the delegates – including, improbably, a Burger King.

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© Photograph: Matt Hunt/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Matt Hunt/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Matt Hunt/Anadolu/Getty Images

Hot summer getaways are still popular – but tourism industry fears impact of rising jet fuel costs and squeezed household incomes

After a year marked by extreme heat and war sending fuel prices skywards, British travel executives hoped for solace in Madeira’s benign subtropical climate, separated by hundreds of miles of blue sea from the overtourism protests and six-hour EU-entry queues seen on the Portuguese mainland.

As bosses admitted, holidays will be ever less affordable, AI is coming for their jobs, and the visitable world is shrinking – not least those parts where tourists remain welcome.

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© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Supporters of planned tax, however, say banks were bailed out by taxpayers during financial crisis and can afford to pay more now

• John Healey poised to raise taxes on banks in budget

The International Monetary Fund has urged John Healey to target savings on pensions and welfare, instead of taxing Britain’s banks at the budget later this month.

Helge Berger, deputy director of the IMF’s European department, was asked about bank taxes after the Guardian revealed Healey plans to tap the sector for additional revenue.

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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• John Healey poised to raise taxes on banks in budget

Elsewhere in the markets today, South Korea’s Kospi share index has recorded its biggest weekly loss since October 2008, down 14.5% this week.

Although the Kospi did rise today (+2%), it was still a bad week for technology stocks – as investors worried about the borrowing, spending commitments and future profitability of AI companies.

The reality is that while companies embraced AI aggressively as it first emerged, now they are figuring out how to use it effectively while keeping AI costs under control. A slowing, more careful, path towards corporate adoption has been missed by the market which remained wildly frothy about valuations.

“A UK bank tax risk is now a base case. If it is confirmed on 28 October, it’ll be the size and timing that will be key.

If Healey does go ahead, shares of Lloyds and NatWest, which are almost entirely exposed to the UK, would likely be impacted most, and you are seeing this already in the share price reaction today. Barclays is partly exposed. HSBC is least exposed in the mix.”

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© Photograph: Sakchai Lalit/AP

© Photograph: Sakchai Lalit/AP

© Photograph: Sakchai Lalit/AP

Shevaun Haviland argues PM is right to revisit Labour’s EU red lines as current trading relationship is bad for business

Repairing the economic damage of Brexit should be the top priority for Andy Burnham as he reconsiders Labour’s red lines on EU membership, the head of one of Britain’s leading business groups has said.

Shevaun Haviland, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), said she welcomed the prime minister reopening the Brexit battle lines despite the uncertainty it could create, arguing that the UK’s current trading relationship with the EU was bad for business.

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© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

© Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Exclusive: Isabella Weber prescribes a common-sense solution to poverty, inequality and fascism – making life’s essentials affordable for all

The trouble with economists, Isabella Weber believes, is they do not behave like dentists. They obsess over ideological purity and are inflexible when searching for solutions, regardless of society’s symptoms. Dentists have no such pretensions – patients have little patience for dogma when in insufferable pain.

John Maynard Keynes, Weber clarifies in the canteen of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Berlin’s Institute for Advanced Study), was the first to draw this dental comparison – and she is running with it. As she sees it, the symptoms could not be more severe. “The status quo for the majority is entirely unbearable,” while extreme inequality and corporate concentration has reached levels “simply incompatible with democracy” worldwide. This is exacerbated by a climate crisis that “generates massive windfall profits” for big business as the “ecological foundations of our lives disintegrate”. All the while the far right is making hay.

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© Photograph: Steffen Roth/The Guardian

© Photograph: Steffen Roth/The Guardian

© Photograph: Steffen Roth/The Guardian

In his latest Notes on the Crises, Nathan Tankus reflects on the lives and deaths of three great lights of heterodox economics: Robert Skidelsky, Anwar Shaikh and Perry Mehrling. "I keep having whiplash between how reflecting on these three giants highlights how fortunate I've been and the sadness their deaths bring me. How generous people have been with me; how extraordinary my opportunities and life has already been."

Exclusive: Chancellor to target sector in his first budget, to help offset Iran war’s damage to public finances

John Healey is poised to tax Britain’s banks in his 28 October budget, to help offset the damage inflicted on the public finances by war in the Middle East, the Guardian understands.

The chancellor is in Bangkok, where the International Monetary Fund has praised the UK’s progress towards balancing the books, urging him to “stay the course”.

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© Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

© Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

© Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

Voters’ opposition to the state of Trump’s economy is well established – despite his desperate attempts to deflect

• Our reporters answer your questions about the US economy and the midterm elections

It’s indisputable that the political polarization of our time has reduced (and confused) the influence of economic conditions on US elections.

In September of 2024, in the waning weeks of the Joe Biden presidency, 65% of Republicans believed the US economy was getting worse. About six months later, as Donald Trump launched a trade war on the rest of the world with his “liberation day” tariffs, the share of Republican pessimists had dropped to 33%.

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© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Speaking at IMF meeting, chancellor says he will stick to fiscal rules while recognising business and living costs

• UK politics live – latest updates

• Business live – latest updates

John Healey has promised to use his first budget in a fortnight’s time to offer consumers and businesses a “breathing space” while sticking to Labour’s fiscal rules.

Speaking to journalists in Bangkok, where he has been attending the International Monetary Fund annual meetings, the chancellor said he was conscious of rising costs.

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© Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

© Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

© Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

Latest data showing surprise 0.1% growth is boost to John Healey a fortnight before his first budget

• Business news – live updates

The UK economy unexpectedly continued to grow in August despite a fall in consumer spending before John Healey’s first budget as chancellor.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 0.1% last month, compared with 0.4% growth in July. That confounded a forecast by City economists of a 0.1% contraction.

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© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

John Healey has spoken to UK journalists at the IMF annual meeting in Bangkok, and said banks are a part of the “jewel” in the UK’s economic crown

Today’s better-than-forecast UK growth report is good news for chancellor John Healey as he hobnobs with other finance ministers at the IMF meeting in Bangkok.

But it may encourage the Bank of England to raise interest rates as soon as its next meeting in November….

“While August’s unexpected uptick all but confirms that the OBR will raise its growth forecast for this year from 1.1% to 1.4%, the Chancellor still faces a major Budget headache, as elevated borrowing costs eat into fiscal headroom and increase pressure for tax rises.

“These unexpectedly upbeat figures will further embolden hawkish sentiment among policymakers by reinforcing the view that the economy is strong enough to withstand a rate rise, making a November hike look highly likely.”

“The latest GDP figures are encouraging, with the economy growing by 0.7% in the three months to August, its strongest growth rate since May. On its current trajectory, the UK is likely to record growth comfortably above 1% this year, which would probably be enough to make it the second-fastest-growing economy in the G7.

“The UK’s growth performance has been a bright spot amid a less impressive run of economic news following events in the Middle East. Business investment has been an important driver, particularly spending on ICT hardware, likely linked to the build-out of AI infrastructure. The UK still lags the US in both the scale of that investment and the boost it provides to growth, but it is making progress and remains ahead of many of its European peers.

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© Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

© Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

© Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

Chip makers and tech investors such as Samsung and SoftBank plunge as global investors fret over potential interest rate hikes

• Business news – live updates

• Larry Elliott: the global economy is muddling through. But a storm is coming

An accelerating sell-off of AI-linked shares has hit global markets, as fears over rising inflation and future interest rate hikes spooked traders already wary of the heavily indebted sector.

South Korea’s benchmark Kospi 200 index, which is heavily skewed towards the companies that make memory chips, fell more than 8% overnight to a six-month closing low, triggering circuit breakers that brought trading to a halt at various points.

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© Photograph: Lee Jin-man/AP

© Photograph: Lee Jin-man/AP

© Photograph: Lee Jin-man/AP

In the final part of our series on the country, Poles tell how wages have soared – along with the cost of living

• Will military spending help or hinder Poland’s growth story?

• Poland’s push for EU energy resilience amid Russian aggression

Above the rain-soaked streets of Warsaw, the observation deck of the Varso tower overlooks Joseph Stalin’s gift to Poland that has divided opinion for decades.

For some, the Soviet-era Palace of Culture and Science is a drunk confectioner’s nightmare; standing as a relic of oppression that should have been demolished. For others, it is an icon on the skyline and a monumental warning from history.

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© Photograph: Anna Liminowicz/The Guardian

© Photograph: Anna Liminowicz/The Guardian

© Photograph: Anna Liminowicz/The Guardian

Finance ministers gathering for the IMF annual meeting know the need for multilateral cooperation to deal with many crises. There is little chance of that

Not much has gone right for the global economy this year, and plenty has gone wrong. Two big regional wars are destabilising prices and supply chains everywhere. Businesses and consumers are feeling the effects of a serious energy shock. Rising inflation has made it a lot more expensive for governments to finance their debts. China and the US are at loggerheads over trade.

Yet, so far, the impact has been modest. It is something of a miracle that the finance ministers and central bank governors gathered for this year’s annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Bangkok are not having to deal with a full-blown crisis. This is not like the autumn of 2008, when the meetings took place during the worst of the global banking meltdown.

Larry Elliott is a Guardian columnist

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© Illustration: Sébastien Thibault/The Guardian

© Illustration: Sébastien Thibault/The Guardian

© Illustration: Sébastien Thibault/The Guardian

David Redshaw and Fernando Quintana respond to reports of a billionaire exodus from Britain

The idea that the departure of the super-rich is a problem ignores a historical fact (Apparent exodus of super-rich suggests UK is no longer billionaires’ playground, 7 October). Capitalism works better without them. The most successful countries today are states where redistributive taxation has empowered the working masses and provided a better and more stable market for business people.

How do today’s complaining uber-rich explain the postwar decades, when the top rate of income tax was commonly 80% or 90%, and yet the period is known as a golden age of capitalism? Then Margaret Thatcher lowered the top rate to 60% and the country tilted into a massive recession. The rich get to a point where they simply become wealth extractors, using their money to buy assets and raising the cost of them for the rest of us – housing being a good example today.

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© Photograph: Remy Musser/Alamy

© Photograph: Remy Musser/Alamy

© Photograph: Remy Musser/Alamy

Ola Källenius says it will ‘weaken the industry on both sides’ ahead of act intended to counter non-EU competition

Locking the UK out of the EU’s flagship industrial “Made in Europe” legislation would amount to a “deliberate choice” by EU leaders to “hurt” the car industry across the bloc, the head of Mercedes-Benz has said.

Speaking in his capacity as president of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), Ola Källenius said such a move would “weaken the industry on both sides”.

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© Photograph: Christoph Steitz/Reuters

© Photograph: Christoph Steitz/Reuters

© Photograph: Christoph Steitz/Reuters

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, including the IMF meeting in Thailand and the IEA’s new oil market report

• Full story: US inflation rose to 3.7% in September

• Global financial system is failing developing countries, says Ed Miliband

UK government borrowing costs are dropping this morning, which will please John Healey and the IMF alike!

The yield, or interest rate, on UK 10-year bonds is down 3.5 basis points to 5.4%, while thirty-year bond yields are 3bps lower at 5.89%.

Chancellor John Healey is expected to pay for all new giveaways in this month’s Budget — including a cost-of-living package — with higher taxes or spending cuts rather than more borrowing.

People briefed on UK Budget preparations told the FT that the October 28 fiscal package would be “scorecard positive” in 2029-30, the final year of the parliament, meaning that all extra discretionary spending was fully funded.

China’s exports, imports, and trade surplus all comfortably beat expectations in September as the trade boom continued. Key trade ties look set to remain stable through year-end, which should keep this year’s key growth engine humming.

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© Photograph: Brian Leddy/AP

© Photograph: Brian Leddy/AP

© Photograph: Brian Leddy/AP

Exclusive: Douglas Alexander, on trade delegation to India, talks up economic benefits of joint trading arrangements with Europe

Britain will benefit from much closer trading relations with the EU even if that means giving up its ability to negotiate free trade agreements, the Scotland secretary has said.

Douglas Alexander helped negotiate deals with India and the US when he was a trade minister under Keir Starmer.

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© Photograph: X/Douglas Alexander

© Photograph: X/Douglas Alexander

© Photograph: X/Douglas Alexander

Firms turning crude oil into the ‘workhorse’ fuel stand to gain most despite economic fallout from record prices

• Business live – latest updates

Days after Donald Trump announced a deal to import Russian diesel into the US in an effort to lower soaring pump prices, the world’s energy watchdog has warned that the global fuel shortage will drag into 2027.

Trump’s temporary sanctions reprieve was criticised for offering “too little, too late” to temper the sky high pump prices triggered by the shutdown of war-damaged refineries in the Middle East and Russia – once the world’s second-largest diesel exporter behind the US.

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© Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP

© Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP

© Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP

Kristalina Georgieva says online fraud could lead people to opt out of system and turn to ‘shoeboxes under their bed’

• Business live – latest updates

The heads of the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund have issued a stark warning that rising cyber-attacks risk undermining trust in the financial system.

Speaking on a panel about online fraud at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok, the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, pointed to alarming headlines about self-replicating AI agents hijacking personal devices, and the French supermarket hack that heated fridges up to 50C.

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© Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

© Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

© Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

UK foreign secretary will call for World Bank and others to help governments trapped by hefty borrowing costs

The foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, will claim the global financial system is failing developing countries, as he calls for a “new deal” for governments struggling under the burden of debt.

Promising to throw the UK’s diplomatic weight behind urgent reform, he will evoke the example of the Gleneagles summit under the last Labour government in 2005 – the culmination of the Make Poverty History campaign.

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© Photograph: Radek Pietruszka/EPA

© Photograph: Radek Pietruszka/EPA

© Photograph: Radek Pietruszka/EPA

Fund upgrades UK’s GDP growth forecast for 2026 to 1.3%, but says it is likely to edge down next year

• IMF warns global economy ‘could soon test the limits of resilience’

John Healey should “stay the course” and continue repairing the UK’s public finances, the International Monetary Fund’s top economist has said, after the fund lifted its growth forecast for Britain.

Little more than a fortnight before Healey’s first budget, Silvana Tenreyro, the IMF’s economic counsellor, said the UK “stands out” among G7 countries in having a plan to narrow its deficit.

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© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

US economists developed models that help central bankers and finance ministers to stabilise their economies

• Business live – latest updates

Two US economists have won the 2026 Nobel economics prize for their work developing models that help central bankers and finance ministers to stabilise their countries, avoiding long recessions and runaway inflation.

Robert Hall of Stanford University, California, and Michael Woodford of Columbia University, New York, were recognised for developing the “microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation”, giving policymakers better tools to smooth out the peaks and troughs of their economies.

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© Photograph: Tom Little/Reuters

© Photograph: Tom Little/Reuters

© Photograph: Tom Little/Reuters

Our business, labor and consumer rights reporters will answer your questions in a live Q&A on Thursday 15 October

• Our reporters answer your questions on whether Trump’s economy will sink Republicans in the US midterms

The US economy is top of voters’ minds ahead of the November midterms with food and gas prices remaining high, the job market unstable, consumers angrier than ever, and a new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, in place.

We’ll be hosting a live midterm election Q&A on Thursday 15 October 2026 at 12pm EDT on the Guardian US site with a panel of our business, labor and consumer rights reporters: Lauren Aratani, Michael Sainato, Heather Timmons and Gaya Gupta. The team will cover cost of living challenges, tariffs, inflation and new federal policy proposals from local candidates.

Will the Iran war cost Trump in the US midterm elections? Your questions answered

Who are the groups financially backing the candidates in the midterms?

The makeup of the Democratic party, plus key races to watch

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© Illustration: Teresa Lo/Guardian Design

© Illustration: Teresa Lo/Guardian Design

© Illustration: Teresa Lo/Guardian Design

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel has been awarded to Robert Hall and Neil Woodford for developing the “microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation”

There’s some movement in the Nobel economics prize betting, with around 45 minutes to go until the announcement.

Sidney Winter, the professor emeritus of management at the Wharton School, and Lawrence Katz, the Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics at Harvard University, have both appeared high on Polymarket’s odds at times this morning (although the market is very volatile).

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© Photograph: Anders Wiklund/EPA

© Photograph: Anders Wiklund/EPA

© Photograph: Anders Wiklund/EPA

Brussels uses WTO rules to quickly impose quota, which will halve Chinese market share to 3%

• Business live – latest updates

• VW boss backs EU plan to bolster domestic industry

The EU is to limit the number of hybrid electric vehicles imported from China to 350,000 cars a year, the European Commission has confirmed.

Imports have been soaring in the past two years; about 800,000 battery and plug-in hybrids are likely to be sold this year.

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© Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

© Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

© Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Thinktank’s influential pre-budget report urges key decisions to be made now and not put off until next year

John Healey has been warned by Britain’s leading tax and spending experts that his budget risks being a “work of fiction” unless he sets out plans to cover £35bn in spending pressures.

As the war in the Middle East rattles the public finances, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the damage from higher inflation meant the chancellor would need to either top up funds for his current government spending plans or impose deep real-terms cuts by the end of the decade.

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© Photograph: UK MOD Crown copyright/Royal Navy/Reuters

© Photograph: UK MOD Crown copyright/Royal Navy/Reuters

© Photograph: UK MOD Crown copyright/Royal Navy/Reuters

Just as Brown and Blair did in 2005, Andy Burnham aims to champion debt relief to help developing countries

• Developing nations face triple shock, UN warns

From Washington to Paris, London to Tokyo, policymakers in every large economy have been counting the costs of bond market turmoil in recent weeks. But the brunt of the pain is being borne by heavily indebted developing countries that have little hope of influencing the whims of global investors, but pay the price regardless.

Markets have responded to the war in the Middle East, and a spendthrift White House, by dumping government bonds – driving up borrowing costs just about everywhere.

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© Photograph: Héctor Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Héctor Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Héctor Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

Waves of protests expose debt crisis faced by French government, but political wrangling is stalling an escape plan. Is there a way out?

Eight years have passed since rising fuel prices brought the gilets jaunes (yellow vest) demonstrators to the streets of France, prompting the first big crisis of Emmanuel Macron’s time in the Élysée Palace.

As the French president contemplates his exit next year, turmoil has again gripped the streets in the form of student protests, but this time the financial markets are unhappy too.

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© Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné says bloc will support 46 strategic projects including lithium and rare earths plants

The EU is “pulling out all the stops” to fend off an imminent potential trade crisis with China, the industry commissioner, Stéphane Séjourné, has said, as the bloc announced its backing for a string of critical materials projects.

Séjourné said on Friday that the EU would support 46 new strategic projects to accelerate supplies of critical raw materials by 2030 across the bloc.

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© Photograph: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

© Photograph: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

© Photograph: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

First Edition newsletter will be hosting a reader Q&A with economist Isabella Weber, a leading voice on inflation, affordability and cost of living and now’s your chance to put your questions to her

Isabella Weber is one of the most sought-after and influential economists of her generation, and has advised policymakers and governments in the US, Germany, Europe and Latin America.

She has become a leading voice on inflation, affordability and the cost of living. Her new book, Anti-Fascist Economics, looks at the relationship between economic insecurity and the rise of the far right, arguing progressive politics must respond to the rise of authoritarianism by urgently addressing the economic pressures people experience in their daily lives. For years Weber was treated as an outlier.

Weber is an associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an associate in research at Harvard’s Fairbank Center, and is the author of the prize-winning How China Escaped Shock Therapy.

We’d love to hear your questions. Perhaps you would like to find out how the cost of living affects the current political landscape? What’s happening in the bond markets? Or the advice she’d give to progressive politicians, from incumbents like Burnham and Mamdani to the German parties taking on the AFD. From austerity to zero deficits, nothing is too simple or complex.

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© Photograph: Steffen Roth/The Guardian

© Photograph: Steffen Roth/The Guardian

© Photograph: Steffen Roth/The Guardian

Readers respond to an article in which Larry Elliott argues that Andy Burnham must challenge neoliberal nostrums

Larry Elliott’s column on the rightwing economic myths constraining Andy Burnham’s government should be required reading before John Healey’s budget (Rightwing economic myths could derail Burnham’s project – to destroy them, look to Keynes, 1 October).

I spent 20 years trading bonds, and agree that the household budget analogy bears no relation to how the UK state finances itself. Parliament votes on the spending, the Treasury instructs the Bank of England, and the Bank credits accounts in the private sector. Taxes withdraw money afterwards.

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© Photograph: Tim Gidal/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tim Gidal/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tim Gidal/Getty Images

Energy and housing costs threaten biggest decline in modern times unless bold action taken, says thinktank

Soaring energy and housing costs mean Labour is on course to preside over the worst parliament for living standards in modern times, a stark analysis warns.

Three weeks ahead of John Healey’s budget, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said Britain faces a “dire” outlook unless the government takes “bold policy action”.

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© Photograph: Simon Dack/Alamy

© Photograph: Simon Dack/Alamy

© Photograph: Simon Dack/Alamy

If recent complaints are believed, London and the UK are no longer welcoming for ultra-high net worth individuals

London was once globally renowned as the “billionaires’ playground”, where the world’s super-rich could relax in the Georgian townhouses of Mayfair undisturbed by the grasping hand of the state.

But if recent complaints by fleeing ultra-high net worth individuals are to be believed, the city is no longer as welcoming for those who consider themselves to be Britain’s most-persecuted minority.

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© Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

© Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

© Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

In the second article in a series on the Polish economy, we look at how the country is forging closer ties with its neighbours

Two miles off the coast of Gdańsk, the white steel piles of Poland’s first offshore gas terminal rise from the slate-grey Baltic. Installed at a height eight metres above the waves, the floating cranes and construction vessels here are on the frontline of Europe’s push for energy security.

Since the taps were turned off on Russian gas after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago, Poland has turned to the global energy market for supplies. But while conditions are far from ideal as the Middle East war drives oil and gas prices to stratospheric levels, strengthening the diversity of the country’s energy mix remains a top priority for Poland, its Baltic neighbours, and the EU at large.

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© Photograph: Anna Liminowicz/The Guardian

© Photograph: Anna Liminowicz/The Guardian

© Photograph: Anna Liminowicz/The Guardian

Pamela Toler (History in the Margins, 9/5/26), "The Great Panic of 1893": "occasionally an event, or person, or book, or idea ... shows up in footnotes or casual asides ... if it's interesting or important enough, I share it ... Lately, the Great Panic of 1893 has become insistent." Neil Flanagan (The Birth of a Capital, 9/4/26), "How often do you think about the 1893 World's Fair?": "what draws us to an event, story, or image depends less on the context of the events than the context we inhabit." Photos / maps / VR of the fair. Foods, sweet treats, and "orange cider" of the fair. Pall Mall Magazine and RIBA Journal on the fair. And other magazines that began in 1893 feature Ida Tarbell on "Pasteur at Home," famous prints, rules for psychic / occult investigators, articles on orchidology and astronomy, "Last Week's Paris" followup on anarchists, and the first story of Sexton Blake.