Good morning. Here’s what matters today.

The Burnham government is making its first significant structural move on economic governance. Regional mayors are being given formal roles in a revived National Economic Council — the same mechanism Brown used during the 2008 crisis — with Burnham framing it as the biggest rebalancing of power in modern British history. Whether it amounts to genuine devolution or political theatre is the open question, but the NEC structure does give mayors like Burnham direct input into spending and growth decisions. That has implications for infrastructure allocation and regional investment priorities worth watching.

UK mortgage rates have ticked up to their highest in a month, with lenders citing Middle East tension feeding through into funding costs. Not a dramatic move, but it reinforces that the rate environment remains sensitive to geopolitical shocks even as domestic inflation pressures ease.

On tariffs, Trump has imposed a fresh round of duties on more than 80 countries, including the UK, replacing the 10% blanket levy that the Supreme Court struck down in February. The new rates are 10% or 12.5% depending on country. This is the administration rebuilding its tariff wall through a different legal mechanism. For UK exporters and anyone with dollar-denominated supply chains, the 10% rate on British goods is now effectively locked back in. The EU, Canada, India and China are all caught in the same sweep.

Oil is hovering near $100 as Middle East tensions remain elevated. Tanker crossings through the Strait of Hormuz dropped to their lowest level in two months on Thursday, and Trump has been making public statements about a potential “massive attack” on Iran. Tehran has responded sharply to US threats to use frozen Iranian assets. The Houthi situation is adding a further layer — Chinese shipping is reportedly being allowed through while Western vessels remain targeted. If Hormuz throughput stays constrained, the $100 level starts to look like a floor rather than a ceiling.

Intel reported its fastest revenue growth in 15 years, with second-quarter sales up 25%, driven almost entirely by AI data centre demand. That’s a meaningful data point — Intel had been written off as a structural loser in the AI infrastructure buildout. A 25% quarter suggests the market is large enough to support more than one major chipmaker at scale, which has read-across for AMD, whose new Helios rack-scale system starts shipping later this year in a direct challenge to Nvidia.

The AI Kill Switch Act has been introduced in the US, which would give the Homeland Security secretary authority to order the shutdown of AI systems deemed rogue. Early-stage legislation, but worth noting: if it advances, it creates a new regulatory variable for any firm deploying large models in the US market.

The next scheduled data point to watch: the US PCE inflation print drops today, Friday 25th July. That’s the Fed’s preferred inflation measure and will set the tone going into next week’s FOMC meeting.

Sources

BBC News, Al Jazeera, Guardian, FT, Politico, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, The Economist — 2026-07-24