Twas the night before budget 💼

Happy Monday. Only a couple more windows left on the accountants advent calendar, with Rachel Reeves set to reveal the Autumn budget on Wednesday. It’s Christmas morning for the nation’s accountants, policy wonks, and anyone who gets misty-eyed over fiscal forecasts.

Whether you’ve been a good taxpayer all year or not, expect more financial socks than tax-reduction treats, as we brace ourselves for a toughie. Here’s to you and yours on this special week.

MARKETS

Data: Google Finance, 5-day Market Close

Notable UK earnings this week: Compass Group (CPG), Zegona Communications (ZEG), EasyJet, (EZJ), Pets at Home (PETS), AO World (AO.), Halfords (HFD).

Notable US earnings this week: Alibaba Group (BABA), Deere & Co. (DE), Dell Technologies (DELL), Workday (WDAY), Zscaler (ZS).

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PROJECT WATCH

🌊 Dogger Bank C offshore wind cable works award for SPIE. Read more

🛢️ DeepOcean takes on tie-back work in UK waters. Read more

🏟️ Birmingham City FC unveil £1.2bn stadium plan. Read more

BUSINESS & FINANCE

Inflation drops (a little bit)
Inflation's finally chilled out a bit, dipping to 3.6% in October - just in time for the Chancellor to strut out with her red box next week. It’s a slight drop from September’s 3.8%, and yes, that is cause for a mild sigh of relief, if not a full-on street party. Core inflation - basically everything except the fun stuff like energy, food, and alcohol - also nudged down, but let’s not uncork the champagne unless you already bought it on special.

The reason for the dip? Gas and leccy prices didn’t spike like they did last year, thanks to Ofgem’s latest energy cap shuffle. Meanwhile, hotel prices fell too - not that any of us were planning a cheeky November minibreak with the economic outlook resembling a grey Tuesday in Hull. The inflation figures are decent news, though some of it’s been offset by a food price rebound. Because nothing says British resilience like paying more for a loaf of Hovis.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves says the inflation drop is great news - and just in time for her Autumn Budget on 26 November. She’s promising “fair choices” to tackle NHS backlogs, reduce the national debt, and, naturally, trim the cost of living. A festive miracle? Possibly. But with Christmas shoppers eyeing their wallets like MI5 agents, she'd better deliver.

Daily Mail to buy The Telegraph
Just in time for the season of giving (and taking over), Daily Mail owner DMGT has agreed to acquire the Telegraph in a £500 million deal. It’s the kind of corporate coupling that would make even Strictly Come Dancing’s judges sit upright. If it all goes through, DMGT will be helming a juggernaut of Britain’s most right-leaning papers - imagine a Christmas dinner with everyone agreeing on Brexit...

The agreement follows the not-so-mysterious vanishing act of RedBird Capital Partners from the bidding stage - after the government culture secretary all but said “not in my backyard” to plans that would’ve left the paper with Abu Dhabi-backed fingers in the editorial pie. A bit too much foreign state influence in media for comfort, apparently.

POLITICS

Scalping the scalpers
At long last, the UK government is cracking down on ticket touts. From next year, reselling tickets above face value will be illegal - bots, bulk buyers and back-alley eBay bandits, your time is up. Fans can expect to save £112m a year, enough for a pint and a taxi home (just about).

It's not just indie bands, fans, and Ed Sheeran’s manager doing celebratory cartwheels; Virgin Media O2, Alt-J and the FanFair Alliance have all sung the government's praises. But as with every encore, the devil’s in the delay.

Campaigners are urging ministers to move faster than a Beyoncé pre-sale queue to legislate, lest the touts squeeze in a few final encores. And Ticketmaster, still smarting from the Oasis ticket debacle, is under new pressure to be clearer on pricing - less "Wait, why is this £300?" and more "At least the heartbreak was itemised".

Spy-Fi in the city & nets of nationalism
Over in London’s Royal Mint Court, something massive this way comes: the biggest Chinese embassy in Europe. Ministers, MI5 and MI6 have all been consulted, and a green light now seems imminent despite espionage concerns. Critics worry the site’s proximity to sensitive data cables could make it less “welcome to London” and more “welcome to your firewall’s funeral”.

Labour, in its newfound diplomatic groove, argues cooperation is key - though Priti Patel and Ed Davey accuse Starmer of cosying up to Beijing like it’s dumplings date night. The Prime Minister’s rumoured trip to China next year only fans the fire, especially after a collapsed spy case left everyone red-faced and mumbling about outdated legislation.

And just across the Channel, the French are casting nets to stop migrant boats. The nets, designed to entangle propellers, are meant to reduce crossings... but coastguards warn they’ll cause panic, shipwrecks, and likely fatalities. Yet with nearly 40,000 crossings in 2025 and UK political pressure tightening like a knot in a dinghy rope, France appears determined to paddle in risky waters.

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ACROSS THE POND

US Strategic defence deal with Saudi
At a White House meeting last week, Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman signed a new Strategic Defence deal. Cue, fanfare. We're talking stealth F-35 fighters flying into Saudi skies, but mum's the word on more specifics than that. The Middle East is biting its nails in anticipation as the current unknowns become known.

During this diplomatic courtship, Trump announced Saudi Arabia's new status as a 'major non-NATO ally' and a wallet-busting jump in US investments - talking a cool trillion dollars, far outstripping the mere half-billion declared back in May.

The White House threw a leaflet out boasting of 300 shiny, new U.S.-made tanks heading to Saudi shores, and increases cooperation on areas of civilian nuclear energy, artificial intelligence, with semiconductors thrown into the mix too, just to keep things spicy.

Naturally, Cristiano Ronaldo attended the White House dinner alongside the Saudi leader - and even more naturally, Trump subsequently posted a AI video of himself playing football with him in the Oval Office.

When Donald met Zohran…
The highly anticipated face-off between Donald Trump and New York City's mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, was less of a red-blooded rumble and more of a lukewarm latte meet-up.

But, as fate would have it, rather than a sparring match, the meeting turned into an idyllic tête-à-tête. Despite their past barbs, the two Queens natives found unexpected commonality, turning vitriol into verbal volleying of a much gentler sort. Trump's talk of holding back $10bn in federal funding to New York if Mamdani won, now felt as outdated as last week's headlines.

TECH

Robots, rust, and rogue riches
While you were still struggling to complete your morning jog, China’s AgiBot robot nonchalantly power-walked its way into the Guinness World Records, clocking a 65-mile trek from Suzhou to Shanghai without so much as a tea break - or a reboot. It powered on like your mum marching towards a high street 3-for-2, Boots gift card in hand, thanks to its hot-swappable batteries.

This 5’9” bipedal marvel not only followed traffic rules (take note, cyclists) but also navigated slopes, bridges, and tiled pavements with more grace than you ever did on a Monday morning. Meanwhile, in the quantum corner, scientists in Stuttgart managed to teleport a quantum state between photons, proving once again that reality is optional.

Crimes of the crypto-kind
British hacker Joseph James O’Connor - last seen hijacking Barack Obama and Elon Musk’s X accounts to run a Bitcoin scam - has been ordered to repay £4.1m in crypto. The CPS, not normally known for flair, flexed hard with a civil recovery order after his US jail stint. His victims may not have doubled their Bitcoin, but at least now they’ll see a bit of coined justice.

Meanwhile, Guernsey is giving Ruja “Missing Cryptoqueen” Ignatova a polite yet firm deadline to cough up millions in ill-gotten gains from her £4bn OneCoin scam. She’s got until December to object to her assets being seized, though, given she’s been missing since 2017, the court might be waiting longer than a Christmas post delivery.

WORLD

From roaches to riches
A beverage so bold it makes pumpkin spice lattes look positively pedestrian: cockroach coffee. Yes, the bug-bitten brew being slung in a Beijing insect museum promises a “burnt and slightly sour” taste. Ground roaches and mealworms sit atop the £6 concoction, which some claim boosts circulation and immunity, others suggest it’s just a digestive dare.

In a dusty attic in California, a forgotten cardboard box containing a mint-condition Superman #1 comic flew higher than a speeding auction paddle - selling for a heroic $9.12m. The brothers who found it say their mum always claimed she had a valuable comic collection. Somewhere, a caped hero with excellent preservation instincts is smiling down on a climate-controlled attic.

And over in Japan, 21-year-old Ukrainian refugee Danylo Yavhusishyn just body-slammed history. Now known as Aonishiki Arata, he’s become the first Ukrainian sumo champ, defeating a top Mongolian wrestler, to hoist the Prime Minister’s Cup.

Baby busts to ballads and boycotts
Eurovision, that glorious glitter-drenched annual confetti storm of key changes and questionable outfits, is finally saying “nein danke” to government meddling. After this year’s voting turned into a geopolitical glitter bomb - Israel topped the public vote but drew boycott threats from several nations - the rules are tightening like spandex on a synth-pop trio.

Vote limits are being halved, juries are back in the semi-finals, and third-party promotional interference (read: government-funded ad blitzes) are getting the thigh-high boot. Eurovision boss Martin Green insists this is to keep things “impartial and neutral,” which in Eurovision speak means less national propaganda, more fabulous chaos.

And speaking of population crises, Trip.com co-founder James Liang has launched a HK$500 million baby-boosting fund in Hong Kong. Yes, from booking holidays to encouraging childbirth, Liang's now offering cash to PhD students who manage to write a thesis and have a baby. There’s also money for fertility-friendly art and a global forum, because nothing says romance like academic symposiums and tax incentives.