Happy Monday. Mothers Day yesterday - if you missed it, it’s not too late to pick up some flowers on the way home from work today. Petrol stations stay open late.. Here’s to the mums!

Notable UK earnings this week: Halma (HLMA), Trustpilot (TRST), Next (NXT), Close Brothers (CBG).

Notable US earnings this week: Nike (NKE), FedEx (FDX), Accenture (ACN), Micron Technology (MU).

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🌊 AquaTerra carries out first full length internal caisson North Sea repair. Read more

🏗️ Planning in for Wales’ new tallest building in Cardiff. Read more

Revolut revolution as banking licence granted
Fintech Revolut has at last been awarded a full UK banking licence, ending a years-long stint in regulatory limbo and opening the door to a wider suite of products - lending chief among them. CEO Nik Storonsky called it a “significant moment” and insisted the UK, labelled their home market, is central to the company’s growth. Cue the confetti: the startup can now act as a bona fide bank for retail and business customers.

The licence follows a protracted mobilisation phase with the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA). Back in July 2024 Revolut only had a restricted authorisation that capped total customer deposits at £50,000 - a limit that made it look more like a very popular piggy bank than a rival to Barclays or HSBC, which hold hundreds of billions. Exiting mobilisation means Revolut can scale deposits properly and expand services without that tiny glass ceiling.

For customers it’s more than bragging rights. A full licence paves the way for proper deposit-taking at scale and, importantly, the route to the usual UK consumer protections banks offer - think deposit protection regimes rather than wishful hope. Regulators’ slow and steady approach since the 2023 banking shocks has made such oversight exacting, so this is as much a regulatory thumbs-up as a commercial green light.

Zero growth in January
The Office for National Statistics says the UK economy nudged up 0.2% across the three months to January, yet recorded zero growth in January itself. As the ONS’s director of economic statistics Liz McKeown put it: “The overall picture remains subdued, with no growth in the latest month.” Hardly a victory parade.

Early ONS breakdown showed a bit more life in industry and services, while construction was squeezed by the notorious January weather - soggy sites and fewer diggers, in short. The three‑month tick up is modest and patchy rather than a convincing recovery.

Growth has underwhelmed economists who hoped activity would firm up after pre‑budget uncertainty faded in November. Instead, the economy looks like it’s pacing itself - more of a cautious stroll than the sprint some had pencilled in.

Old lords out
Britain’s upper chamber has finally decided that running a modern democracy with a dash of medieval inheritance is perhaps not the most cutting-edge look. After a quarter-century of polite constitutional tidying, the House of Lords has passed the Hereditary Peers Bill, sweeping away the last remnants of a system where you could help make national laws simply because your great-great-great-grandfather once impressed a monarch.

Until now, 92 hereditary peers - dukes, earls, viscounts and assorted aristocratic syllables - still had the right to sit and vote in Parliament. They were the leftovers from the big reform of 1999, when more than 600 hereditary lords were shown the door but a small group remained as a supposedly “temporary” compromise. Like leftover Christmas pudding, that temporary arrangement lasted about 25 years.

The new bill finishes the job. Once it comes into force at the end of the current parliamentary session, no one will be able to sit in the Lords purely because they inherited a title. In theory, this brings Britain’s legislature more in line with the other democracies of the 21st century - and neatly removes the slightly awkward fact that the UK and Lesotho were the only countries still letting hereditary legislators roam the halls.

Ministers say the change ensures that Parliament rewards merit rather than family trees. Cynics might note the alternative route into little Lords lane - being appointed as a life peer, old pal.

For now, the reform is billed as step one. The government is already hinting at future tweaks around retirement rules and participation requirements, which suggests the Lords may yet undergo further modernisation. Though one suspects somewhere in the countryside, a few family portraits are currently looking a touch nervous.

Hormones hold up
Meanwhile, the NHS has hit pause on a particularly sensitive area of medicine: hormone treatment for teenagers transitioning genders.

Until now, 16 and 17-year-olds diagnosed with gender dysphoria could receive cross-sex hormones on the NHS if they met strict criteria. These drugs - testosterone or oestrogen - trigger physical changes such as deeper voices, facial hair, or breast development. Some effects are irreversible, and can affect fertility.

Following a new review, NHS England has decided that new prescriptions for under-18s will be halted for the time being. Teenagers already receiving the treatment can continue, but their care will be reviewed individually by clinicians.

The reason for the pause is evidence - or rather, the lack of firm conclusions about it. A review of existing research found that the available studies are too limited to clearly determine whether hormone therapy for teenagers brings more benefit than harm.

A public consultation will now run for 90 days while the NHS gathers feedback before making a final decision. In other words, the policy equivalent of a doctor’s note prescribing rest and observation.

Tariffs are back on the menu - with a forced labour twist
The Trump administration has opened a sweeping investigation into alleged forced labour in goods from 60 countries - which, yes, includes the entire European Union - as Trade Representative Jamieson Greer searches for legal ways to resurrect the president’s tariffic ambitions. The probe uses Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act after the US Supreme Court last month knocked down Mr Trump’s global tariff scheme.

Greer says the review targets the top 60 US trading partners - together accounting for about 99% of US imports - to see whether forced labour gives foreign producers an "artificial cost advantage". Cue stern statements and the usual diplomatic tut‑tut; this is as much about trade leverage as it is about labour standards.

This isn’t entirely new ground. The US already bans imports suspected of being made with forced labour - think the 2021 restrictions on goods from Xinjiang unless provenance is proved - but this investigation could be a broader legal route to reimpose tariffs that once raised roughly $170bn for the Treasury.

Oil prices push US cost of living
Donald Trump has performed a neat political pirouette - last month he boasted about gas at $2.30 a gallon, now he’s celebrating higher oil prices because “the United States is the largest oil producer in the world.” The context matters: a war with Iran has sent prices north, Brent briefly touched $100 a barrel, and global supply is wobbling while tankers steer well clear of the Strait of Hormuz.

Economically it’s ugly: Goldman Sachs warns higher oil will lift inflation, slow growth and nudge up unemployment, while consultancy RSM calls any coordinated oil release a temporary salve. The White House has announced a drawdown of 172 million barrels and talks of waiving the Jones Act - moves more stabilising than miraculous, like putting a plaster on a broken petrol gauge.

Pizza bots, Pikachu I choose you!
Back in 2016, millions of people were wandering parks, streets and suspiciously fountain-heavy plazas staring at their phones hunting to be the very best. In hindsight, it may also have been the world’s largest unpaid robotics training programme.

The company behind Pokémon Go quietly built a powerful mapping system from the game’s players. Every time someone pointed their phone at a statue, church or suspiciously photogenic lamppost, their camera was capturing images of the real world from different angles, weather conditions and heights. Multiply that by roughly 230 million players at the game’s peak and - voilà - you’ve accidentally photographed the planet about 30 billion times.

That data now powers a navigation system designed to guide delivery robots along pavements with centimetre-level accuracy. Instead of relying solely on GPS - which often struggles among tall buildings - the robots can recognise landmarks and work out where they are simply by seeing their surroundings.

Brains, bots and the dinner of tomorrow
Meanwhile, if the robots do deliver your dinner successfully, the contents of that dinner may soon be equally futuristic.

Scientists in the UK are currently safety-testing lab-grown foods - including foie gras and chicken - that could appear on restaurant menus within five years. Instead of raising and slaughtering animals, cultivated meat is grown from small samples of animal cells that multiply in laboratory tanks, forming edible tissue. Supporters say it could feed a growing population with far less land, water and environmental impact.

Speaking of experiments, researchers are also exploring computers powered by actual human brain cells. An Australian startup is developing “biological” chips containing living neurons that can learn tasks - recently demonstrated by teaching one to play the video game Doom. The idea is that biological neurons might perform certain types of computation far more efficiently than traditional silicon chips. As we explore DNA and neuronal storage, the brain serves as the ultimate proof of concept.

Chills in cybersecurity, experts uncovered a new global botnet that has quietly hijacked household devices - mostly WiFi fridges and robot vacuum routers - to launch cyberattacks. Owners may notice nothing more than slightly sluggish internet while their appliances secretly moonlight as digital cannon fodder.

Finally, Europe’s game regulators have taken aim at another modern quirk: loot boxes, kid code for gambling. These paid mystery rewards in video games will soon push titles to a PEGI 16 age rating, reflecting concerns they spur future down spirals to ruin and worse. Sugar coating gambling is causing it to become an epidemic, it’s heads they win tails you lose. A fiver says you’ve had two brews already this morning.

Women’s day off or job off
In India this week, the country’s top court wandered into the monthly minefield otherwise known as the menstrual leave debate - and promptly decided to keep the office lights on but the calendar unchanged.

A petition had asked for a national policy giving women two or three days’ leave during their period, arguing that severe cramps and other symptoms can make work genuinely difficult. Around the world, places like Spain, Japan and South Korea already allow some form of period leave. Even within India, a few states and companies offer it: government workers in Bihar and Odisha get two days a month.

But the Supreme Court wasn’t convinced. Chief Justice Surya Kant argued that making such leave mandatory might backfire spectacularly. Their concern: if employers expect women to take regular extra days off, some might simply hire fewer women in the first place.

Cue an immediate national debate. Critics say the ruling reinforces the long-standing taboo around menstruation in India, where the topic is still whispered about and in some places linked to restrictions on women entering temples or staying in the family home during their period. Public-health advocates argue that acknowledging menstrual pain is part of providing dignified workplaces.

So the court kicked the issue gently back to the government, suggesting policymakers consult “stakeholders” before deciding anything nationwide. Which, in bureaucratic terms, roughly translates to: the debate will continue - likely once a month. Would giving all employees an extra 30 days off a year be an easy fix?

One lang to rule em all
In China, lawmakers have taken a rather different approach to unity: pick one language and make it the star, or five, of the show.

China’s parliament has passed a sweeping law called “Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress,” aimed at strengthening a shared national identity among the country’s 56 officially recognised ethnic groups. The Han majority - about 91% of China’s 1.4 billion people - already dominates linguistically through Mandarin, and the new law cements that position.

Under the legislation, Mandarin becomes the primary language for education, government business, and official settings. Minority languages may still appear in public spaces, but Mandarin must take “prominence” - a polite legislative phrase meaning it goes first and biggest on the sign.

The law also touches on everything from housing and migration to culture and tourism, all with the stated goal of knitting China’s diverse regions more tightly together. Minority communities - such as Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongols and others - are largely concentrated in vast resource-rich areas that cover roughly half the country’s land.

There are even provisions aimed at encouraging inter-ethnic marriages and warning that activities deemed to undermine “ethnic unity” could bring legal consequences - potentially even for people outside China. Beijing appears to have decided the best way to celebrate diversity is to make sure everyone can pronounce it the same way.