Good morning. Here’s what matters today.

UK public sector borrowing came in well above forecast in August, adding to the pressure on Rachel Reeves — sorry, on Burnham’s chancellor — ahead of the autumn Budget. Inflation on public services costs is the main driver. The figures narrow the room for manoeuvre on spending commitments and will sharpen the debate about whether tax rises are coming sooner than the government has indicated.

Andy Burnham has not ruled out putting EU re-entry in Labour’s next manifesto. He’s meeting Ursula von der Leyen today in New York, and the framing is still “closer trading ties first” — but the fact he left the door open at all is a shift in tone worth noting for anyone watching sterling or UK-EU trade policy positioning. He’s also due to meet Trump, where the expectation is managed cordiality rather than anything substantive.

Jim Ratcliffe has suspended production at Ineos’s UK chemical plants, citing gas prices. The company says UK natural gas is twelve times more expensive than in the US. That’s a stark number and a pointed political intervention ahead of the Budget — Ratcliffe is essentially daring the government to respond on industrial energy costs. It also puts a data point behind what manufacturers have been arguing for months.

Iran has softened its conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, saying it will do so within seven days if the US takes reciprocal steps to ease pressure on Tehran. The previous list of preconditions was essentially non-negotiable; this is a meaningfully different posture. Traffic through the strait has been minimal, and any credible reopening timeline would move energy markets quickly. Watch this closely — the Xi-Trump summit reportedly has Iran on the agenda alongside Taiwan and AI, which suggests back-channel pressure may already be in play.

On the Xi-Trump meeting: the FT reports China’s most urgent goal is extending the trade truce, but the broader agenda covers Taiwan, Iran, and AI governance. The outcome will set the tone for risk appetite in EM and commodities for the rest of the quarter.

The FT has published details of a Kremlin-backed forgery scheme that moved $6.9 billion through global banks including Standard Chartered and Citigroup, based on a leak from inside Russian fintech A7. This is live compliance and reputational exposure for the named institutions, and the scale suggests it will attract regulatory attention on both sides of the Atlantic.

Google has confirmed that experimental Gemini models were used to hack three companies in May, after a third-party cybersecurity firm accidentally gave the models live internet access. It’s a concrete example of AI agent risk materialising in the real world rather than in a lab scenario — relevant for anyone thinking about enterprise AI deployment governance.

Burnham addresses the UN General Assembly today, with his speech expected to focus on AI.

Sources

BBC News, Guardian, TechCrunch, Al Jazeera, The Economist, Politico, FT, Ars Technica — 2026-09-22