Is nothing sacred? 🍫

Happy Monday. It feels like the art of the chocolate biscuit has been thrown in the bin - either that or I’m feeling overly nostalgic about my old school lunch box.

While some may have said McVitie’s sold their soul, some may be more understanding when the news broke that the chocolate on Penguins and Club bars are being swapped out for an artificial “chocolate flavour coating”. They’ve pointed the finger at rising cocoa prices - heaven forbid they endure a reduced margin and let us keep our childhood alive.

MARKETS

Data: Google Finance, 5-day Market Close

Notable UK earnings this week: HSBC (HSBA), Shell (SHEL), GSK (GSK), Standard Chartered (STAN), Asos (ASC).

Notable US earnings this week: Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META), Visa (V), Mastercard (MA).

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PROJECT WATCH

🏗️ £1bn Druids Heath regeneration approval for Lovell. Read more

🛣️ Marlborough bags Windsor highways contract worth £115m. Read more

🚂 £120m for new stations and to reopen Cowley Branch Line. Read more

BUSINESS & FINANCE

Lidl hits new heights
Lidl (the German supermarket giant) is eating up the competition faster than you can say "bargain baked beans," as it remains the UK's fastest growing supermarket. That's some proper German engineering for you! This retail blitzkrieg saw its latest pre-tax profits triple to £156.8 million in the year leading up to 28 February, with operating profits reaching a cool £314.1 million.

The supermarket titan's secret weapon? A 7.9% sales boost to £11.7 billion, with switchovist shoppers contributing £400 million from rival purges, and £500 million coming from loyal customer returns. A extra 38 million more visits means shoppers are flocking to Lidl like it's the Harrods Sale but without the pomp or even a whiff of caviar.

Lidl's commitment to fiscal frugality is paying off, as it has pumped nearly half a million quid into its infrastructure upgrades. This includes a £435 million warehouse revamp in Leeds and London—because, let's face it, Boris bikes aren't going to deliver those knock-off Jaffa Cakes on time.

Government borrowing hit five year high in September
As we edge closer to Halloween, the UK's public sector is practising some financial fright tactics of its own. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has announced that, excluding banks, the public sector net borrowing hit a chilling £20.2 billion in September. To put it in perspective, that's the highest borrowing in five Septembers. Someone, call the costume party—we have a frontrunner.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor knitting together her autumn budget—due out on November 26th—has got her work cut out. It appears when it comes to balancing the national ledger, we'll be seeing a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts, somewhere between £20-30 billion. Alas, the time for indulgent spending is so last year.

POLITICS

Chocolate club chaos: flipping flavour fakers
Once proud bastions of British biscuitdom, McVitie’s Club and Penguin bars have been stripped of their "chocolate" status. Due to sky-high cocoa prices, owner Pladis has swapped out actual chocolate for a “chocolate flavour coating” - a phrase that screams “budget supermarket disappointment”.

The reason? Climate-induced cocoa chaos in West Africa has turned chocolate into luxury goods territory. For now, the famous "If you like a lot of chocolate..." jingle might need a rewrite: "If you like a vague resemblance to chocolate..." doesn’t quite have the same ring.

Labour’s left hooks and Corbyn’s comeback crew
Lucy Powell has strutted into Labour’s deputy leader slot, vowing to “be bold” while gently elbowing Starmer for more spine. Elected on a promise to listen to grassroots grumbles, Powell's win isn’t just a power shuffle - it’s a subtle shot across the centrist bow.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn’s new left-wing outfit Your Party pinched three Scottish Green councillors, proving the hard left still has some juice north of Hadrian’s Wall. The Greens called it “disappointing,” which in political PR-speak is one notch below “betrayal”.

Semantic shenanigans: the vanishing ‘enemy’
The collapsed China spy trial has turned into a Westminster whodunnit with more redactions than a Cold War memo. Key witness Matt Collins confessed he removed the word “enemy” from his statement because - plot twist - calling China that didn’t “reflect government policy” at the time.

Cue political finger-pointing across the aisle, with Labour claiming no interference and the Tories yelling “You let them off!” louder than a pub quiz team denied half a point. Starmer’s top legal minds, civil servants and security officials will now face grilling in Parliament - but the real mystery remains: can you prosecute espionage if no one’s brave enough to say the E-word?

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ACROSS THE POND

US-China trade framework agreed
After two whirlwind days in Malaysia, US and Chinese trade wizards claim they've conjured a preliminary framework around a plethora of thorny issues to secure a trade deal. This diplomatic dance has set the stage for old sparring partners, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, to meet on Thursday —hopefully stirring the cauldron of global markets a little less this time.

US Treasury’s man of the moment, Scott Bessent, announced that Trump's eye-watering 100% tariffs on Chinese goodies have been shoved back under the bed, at least for now. Expectation is for China to nibble on 'substantial' soybean imports and dangle a carrot, deferring their rare earth export kerfuffle.

Markets and bespectacled analysts are still snooping for details in this thriller deal. But whatever the outcome, a stable trade relationship between the US and China would be welcomed with open arms and allowing those thinking about their pensions to breathe a sigh of relief.

Reagan ad bags Canada an extra 10% tariff
Donald Trump has added another 10% to US tariffs on Canadian imports. This comes hot on the heels of Ontario's audacious anti-tariff TV advert featuring none other than Ronald Reagan – a move that's ruffled Trump's hair in a way not even a gust of Scottish wind could match. He branded the advert, which channels Reagan's 1987 anti-tariff rhetoric, a "fraud" for airing ahead of the World Series, where the Toronto Blue Jays are pitted against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It's the quintessential clash of maple syrup and Californian sunshine.

Canadian PM Mark Carney, donning his diplomatic cricket whites, responded by reaffirming Canada's commitment to trade talks, all while keeping an eye on diversifying their economic alliances as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, US-Canada trade minister Dominic LeBlanc insists that dialogue – presumably without incendiary advertisements playing in the background – remains the most effective strategy.

TECH

Duopoly duel: Apple and Google get a regulatory reboot
Move over, Big Ben - the ticking now comes from the Competition and Markets Authority’s stopwatch, counting down to the moment Apple and Google might finally lose their grip on the UK’s app economy. The CMA has labelled them with “strategic market status” - less spy thriller, more “you’ve had your fun, now play nice”.

Apple may soon have to open its walled App Store garden to outsiders, while Google’s Android gets a nudge to stop treating rival app stores like unwanted party guests. Both giants are sulking - Apple says regulation will delay new features and Google calls the ruling “disappointing”.

Space, satellites and supreme control
Elon Musk has officially outpaced NASA, Bezos, and probably Captain Kirk, launching his 10,000th Starlink satellite and controlling a cosmic two-thirds of all orbiting tech. While Starlink beams broadband to now everywhere on this planet and soon to others, experts are sounding the alarm: too many satellites, not enough rules.

There’s talk of Kessler Syndrome - a very sci-fi way of saying space could become an orbital scrapyard. Musk’s satellites also now fall to Earth daily, potentially warming the atmosphere and giving chicken little something real to worry about. Galactic power? Tick. Accountability? TBD.

Vision, velocity and pardons
This week, we blinked and saw the future. A brain chip has restored partial vision to the blind in a world-first breakthrough so sci-fi it makes Minority Report look dated. From dated to damn right daredevil, China’s BYD U9 electric hypercar pulverised the Nürburgring record like a Yorkshire pudding blender blitz, going sub-seven minutes with 3,000 horsepower and more torque than your uncle’s pub rants.

And in Trumpworld, the crypto community rejoiced (and regulators recoiled) as Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, fresh from a money-laundering conviction, received a presidential pardon.

WORLD

Japan: new PM, Takaichi iron-ladied in
Move over Mount Fuji - there’s a new historic peak in Japan. Sanae Takaichi has become the nation’s first female Prime Minister, winning with a Thatcherite grin and a parliamentary majority stitched together at the eleventh hour. Nicknamed the “Iron Lady” (because no political woman ever escapes that comparison), Takaichi’s hardline conservatism has both inspired and irked.

While she may shatter a glass ceiling, critics argue she’s polishing the patriarchy beneath it. Her next challenge? Navigating a prickly economy, a rice crisis, and a potentially explosive summit with President Trump.

Heists, home offices & historical hijinks
In Paris, a Chinese woman was charged over the theft of six kilos of native gold from the Natural History Museum - including nuggets from Tsars, gold rushes, and Aussie outback glories. Not to be outdone, the Louvre was robbed only a month later. Museums everywhere: maybe try locks?

Meanwhile in Australia, a woman has won the legal right to work from home every single day - a ruling hailed as groundbreaking, and probably envied by anyone who’s ever battled rush hour just to sit on a Zoom call. And in China, a tightly choreographed ceremony marked Taiwan’s “retrocession” - with all the historical revisionism and zero Taiwanese officials allowed.

Statelessness and scams
In Madagascar, ex-president Andry Rajoelina has been stripped of his citizenship following a military coup and an inconvenient French passport revelation. His claim? He secretly obtained French nationality to help his kids study abroad - a noble gesture, now leaving him in political no man’s land.

In Asia, Thailand has seen over 1,000 people flee across the border from Myanmar after its military raided KK Park - one of Southeast Asia’s most notorious scam compounds. The sprawling site, packed with gambling, trafficking and cyber fraud operations, was busted wide open, with 2,000 arrests and 30 of Elon Musk’s Starlink terminals seized in the sweep.

Many fleeing workers claim they were tricked, trafficked, and locked into the compound under armed guard, forced to scam or else, while others reportedly joined willingly, lured by promises of easy cash in a multibillion-dollar scam industry.

The fallout didn’t stop at the riverbank. In China, 11 ringleaders of the Ming crime syndicate - a Myanmar-based mafia family clan behind one of the largest scam networks - were all handed the ultimate final sentence. Their empire employed over 10,000 people in Myanmar’s murky “Kokang business parks”.