How did commuters fare today? We talk to some of them
Just in – my colleague Rachel Obordo has talked to some commuters about their journey today.
Emma, who works as a librarian, took nearly three hours to get into work from Edgware this morning. Instead of getting the Jubilee line to Marylebone station, she took the bus which she said was “excruciatingly slow” and full of people. “The bus also terminated early at Finchley Road so I had to walk about 40 minutes from there,” said the 33-year-old.
Despite her journey taking longer than the usual 45 minutes, she supports those on strike.
Working 35 hours a week is a lot of time for anyone, especially those operating heavy machinery. I personally support moving to a four-day working week across society.
Marketing data planner, Kate, from Wraysbury, is one commuter who found her journey into work easier today. “The train was super quiet, even for a Monday,” said the 58-year-old. Travelling into Waterloo she felt the stations on the line that typically fill up with people were not as busy as they normally would be.
I feel for the people who have been affected. We have one day a month at work where everyone is supposed to be in the office but we’re not even a quarter full today.
I am pro-union as a rule but I don’t know a huge amount about the details behind the strikes apart from wanting a shorter working week. I suspect that though it may be a fair request, it may not be the right time for people in public services to be going on strike right now.
For 31-year-old Luke,* a scientist who cycles to work in central London, he said his morning commute was like the “wild west”. Normally taking 45-minutes from Finsbury Park to Warren Street, he is used to it being a “pretty relaxed affair” of back roads and cycle lanes.
Today the roads were full of aggressive drivers, queues of traffic on previously quiet streets, and frustrated pedestrians weaving in and out of stopped traffic.
It only took a little longer, but there was a lot more dicing with death than I’d have preferred. As a cyclist you often get to enjoy being traffic-proof, but that was certainly not the case this morning. It was like the hazard perception test times a hundred.
He supports the strike but feels there is a way of “minimising the fallout” for other people trying to get to work.
I support the union, however, it is important to acknowledge that public support gets lower each time a strike makes an entire city grumpy.
We should tolerate the inconvenience of the strikes, but it also means that punishing the entire city with the strike is a misstep. RMT should encourage its members to keep services running without taking payment, properly targeting their industrial action to the people they want it to hit.
*Name has been changed
Updated
Closing summary
Downing Street has urged the RMT union and Transport for London to get back to the negotiating table to end this week’s tube strikes, as it said Londoners were “fed up” with the disruption.
The strikes have brought almost the entire underground network in London to a halt and are due to run until 8am on Friday.
Our other main stories:
Thank you for reading – we’ll be back tomorrow with the latest business and economic news. Take care – JK
Phoenix Group to rename itself Standard Life next year
Phoenix Group, one of the UK’s biggest long-term savings and retirement firms, will change its name to Standard Life next spring, after acquiring the insurance business seven years ago.
Phoenix acquired the Standard Life brand in 2021 following a deal three years earlier to buy Aberdeen’s UK and European life insurance arm.
Aberdeen, formed by the £3.8bn merger of Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management in 2017, was subsequently called Standard Life Aberdeen but dropped the Standard Life name and renamed itself Abrdn in 2021. In March this year, it changed its name again, to Aberdeen, to remove any “distractions” after being ridiculed for the vowel-free name.
The Standard Life brand traces its history back to 1825 in Edinburgh.
Andy Briggs, the Phoenix chief executive, said the name change next March
brings our most trusted brand to the forefront and demonstrates our commitment to helping customers secure a better retirement.
The decision was announced alongside financial results. Phoenix made an adjusted operating profit of £451m, up 25% from £360m a year earlier.
However, total cash generation was down 17% to £784m, lower than expected. This triggered a 7.2% fall in the FTSE 100-listed share price.
Nick Sherrard, manging director of Label Sessions, said:
The transition of Phoenix into Standard Life has been the worst-kept secret in the industry. The original move to acquire the Standard Life brand from what is now Aberdeen, though, looks like an incredible bargain. Or, to put it another way, the Standard Life brand name was a massively undervalued asset.
Brand recognition and trust are both very hard and hugely expensive for a company to build, but Phoenix has managed to become Standard Life simply and inexpensively. The new owners will reap the rewards of years of investment made by shareholders of Aberdeen and there are lots of possibilities for the new Standard Life in the future.
The defenestration of the brand that was Standard Life and is now Aberdeen is going to be a business school case study for many years to come.
Aberdeen is left with big brand issues that it will need to face into fast.
Updated
Downing Street: Londoners 'fed up,' calls on RMT and TfL to negotiate
Downing Street has called on the RMT union and Transport for London to get back to the negotiating table to end this week’s tube strikes, which are due to run until 8am on Friday.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said:
I think Londoners will rightly be fed-up with the disruption from Tube strikes this morning - as parents try and drop their kids off at school, get to hospital appointments, get to work - and RMT and TfL need to get back around the table, work together to resolve this dispute in the interests of passengers.
Strikes by the RMT union have closed the London Underground, with people crowding on to other transport and roads congested at the start of four days of commuter misery. The TfL website crashed earlier this morning but is back to normal.
Rides on Uber were quoted at multiples of normal levels, with some journeys costing about £50 for a five-mile trip in the capital.
The government’s employment rights bill could reduce barriers to strike action but No 10 insisted this was because it wanted a more constructive relation with unions rather than the “scorched earth” approach under the Tories.
We’ve always said in introducing our reforms that we want to, unlike the previous government, have a more constructive relationship with the unions and also a more secure workforce is good for the economy, it’s good for productivity.
But we want to see RMT and TfL get back around the table when it comes to these strikes, work together in good faith to resolve this situation in the interests of passengers.
Tube strikes are a bit inconvenient but @4Day_Week Foundation we offer our full support to the @RMTunion leading the fight for a 32-hour working week.
— Joe Ryle (@JoeRRyle) September 8, 2025
The five-day week is a century-old model that no longer reflects how we live and work today. We are long overdue an update. pic.twitter.com/BlDoKNlzwG
Victory to the RMT!
— Cllr Martin Abrams 🕊️🍉 (@Martin_Abrams) September 8, 2025
Proud to join London Underground workers on the picket line at Brixton Tube station this morning fighting for safer and healthier working hours & conditions across London Underground. #TubeStrike pic.twitter.com/duNkwoxBs0
As Londoners prepare for a week of tube strikes over pay, a reminder that over 2,000 TfL workers are paid more than £100,000 a year. pic.twitter.com/oK44Daba3D
— Joe Hill (@jo3hill) September 5, 2025
Updated
Protests expected as 51 Israeli arms makers among exhibitors at London trade fair
Fifty-one Israeli arms makers and the US defence giant behind the F-35 fighters used to bomb Gaza are among the 1,600 exhibitors at the biennial DSEI trade show that begins in London’s Docklands on Tuesday.
Their presence will be the focus for hundreds planning to demonstrate outside the four-day arms fair, at which the defence secretary, John Healey, is expected to speak alongside senior British military officials.
Campaign Against Arms Trade (Caat) said Israel’s three biggest arms companies – Elbit Systems, Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) – were among those planning to attend despite the UK barring an Israeli government delegation last month.
Emily Apple, Caat’s media coordinator, said the British government had reached “peak complicity in genocide” in allowing Israeli arms makers to exhibit, a decision that she said allowed “companies to market their genocide-tested weapons” to international buyers.
George Osborne ‘to miss out on big windfall’ from sale of investment bank
George Osborne is expected to miss out on a large windfall payment from the $196m (£145m) takeover of Robey Warshaw, the investment bank where the former Conservative chancellor has been working since 2021.
Osborne, who is a partner at the bank being acquired by its US rival Evercore, will miss out on a big payout from the deal, according to the Financial Times.
The paper said most of the payout will be received by the bank’s three founding partners, with the largest cut going to Sir Simon Robey – the deal veteran known as the City’s “trillion-dollar man”.
Evercore has agreed to pay $96m in shares when the deal – which was announced in July – closes in October, followed by a further $100m in cash or shares after it completes. There could be further payouts for the partners if certain performance targets are met after six years.
Tesla's US market share hits eight-year low as competition heats up
Tesla’s market share in the United States has fallen to a near-eight-year low, as the market becomes more competitive.
The share of the electric vehicle market held by Elon Musk’s company has fallen to 38%, the lowest since 2017, when it was ramping up production of the Model 3, Tesla’s first mass market car, Reuters reported, citing data from Cox Automotive. Tesla once held more than 80% of the US market.
Buyers are increasingly opting for other electric cars rather than Tesla’s ageing line-up, at a tough time for the industry. Analysts expect overall sales to drop in the coming months, as federal tax credits are due to expire at the end of September.
While other automakers are rolling out new models, Tesla has turned its attention to building robotaxis and humanoid robots, and has delayed or ditched plans for cheaper new versions of its cars.
Much of Tesla’s trillion-dollar valuation hangs on that bet. The company’s board on Friday proposed an unprecedented $1 trillion pay package for Musk that is partly dependent on the carmaker’s value rising to $8.5 trillion over the next decade.
For now, Tesla’s core auto business generates most revenues. But its last new model introduced in 2023, the Cybertruck pickup, was not as popular as its Model 3 midsize sedan or Model Y midsize SUV.
Tesla has tweaked the Model Y, once the world’s best-selling car, but the changes have not met expectations, and Tesla is on course for a second year of sales decline.
Stephanie Valdez Streaty, Cox’s director of industry insights, told Reuters:
I know they’re positioning themselves as a robotics, AI company. But when you’re a car company, when you don’t have new products, your share will start to decline.
Cox has more complete data for July, when Tesla’s market share fell to 42% from 48.7% in June. The drop was the sharpest since March 2021.
Musk’s political work as Donald Trump’s ally has also damaged the Tesla brand. Musk helped the US president slash government jobs earlier this year, but left the administration in May and fell out with him publicly.
For years, Tesla was able to increase sales rapidly and command a premium price for its vehicles, but has had to cut prices in recent years, squeezing its margins and worrying investors.
The July data showed rivals catching up. Carmakers Hyundai, Honda, Kia and Toyota rolled out higher incentives than Tesla and drove up EV sales between 60% and 120%, boosting their market share.
Streaty said:
These legacy manufacturers are all benefiting from this sense of urgency, and they’re able to have attractive offerings for their vehicles - and it’s working. I think we’re going to continue to see this momentum through September.
Shrinkflation bites as boxes of Quality Street and Celebrations lose weight
Tucking into a box of Quality Street or Celebrations is a Christmas tradition.
But as this year’s supply arrives in British supermarkets, it is becoming clear that the Grinch has already struck and made the tubs of the confectionery lighter.
Someone has also taken a bite out of Toblerone, with 20g shaved off its chocolatey peaks, reducing a 360g bar to 340g.
The latest round of shrinkflation means anyone prising the lid off the Quality Street box may be underwhelmed by the number of sweets – as 50g has been lost from the weight, taking it from 600g to 550g.
Meanwhile, at 500g, there’s less to celebrate about tubs of Mars’s Celebrations, which weighed 550g in 2024.
The Irish deputy prime minister has had talks with US trade representative Jamieson Greers to try and nail the Donald Trump administration down on its tariffs on pharmaceuticals and whiskey, reports Lisa O’Carroll, the Guardian’s senior correspondent for international trade and post Brexit affairs.
Simon Harris told reporters there was still a “big body of work” to be done to get discounts for generic pharma products, a sector that includes own-brand ibuprofen or paracetamol, medical devices and spirits and wine.
The EU-US framework agreement talks about generic pharma products, but it doesn’t define what is a generic product. [there is a big body of work that needs to be done in relation to that, because there’s going to be up to a 15% tariff in general for pharma in the EU, but it [the agreement] does say that the current regime, zero for zero [tariffs] would be maintained for generics.
He told reporters on the sidelines of the British Irish Conference in Oxford:
We don’t yet have a list of what generics [are included]. Medical Device is the same. What is the list of medical device products? [that would be rated zero].
Harris said he had a productive talk on the phone with Greer and would continue to fight for Ireland’s significant pharma, whiskey and gin sector.
Whiskey exporters in Ireland and wine exporters in continental Europe were battling for the existing zero tariff on whiskey and the marginal (0.5% to 1.8%) tariff on wine to be maintained.
“We in Ireland and in the European Union, feel very strongly about the drink sector, the alcohol industry, being a part of that ... All of the work at an EU level, and all of the work at a national government level in the European Union now is about trying to pad out and fill out the agreement,” Harris said.
Bond markets calm; German 10-year bund yield hits one-month low
Let’s take a look at the government bond markets. Calm has been restored after last week’s turmoil, when a sell-off pushed bond yields to multi-year highs. (Yields go up when prices move down.)
The yield, or interest rate, on 10-year UK government bonds, known as gilts, edged up by 1 basis point to 4.663%. The yield on 30-year bonds rose by 1bp to 5.51%, down from the 27-year highs hit last week. Last Tuesday, the 30-year yield hit its highest level since 1998, and further rose to 5.75% on Wednesday, indicating that it will cost the UK more to borrow from the markets.
The yield on German government bonds, or Bunds, seen as the eurozone benchmark, hit a fresh one-month low today, after weak US jobs data on Friday reinforced expectations of interest rate cuts. The Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut rates at its meeting next week.
Germany’s 10-year bond yield rose by 0.5bp to 2.66% after falling to 2.65%, its lowest level since 8 August. The yield on the 30-year bond dropped by 1bp to 3.30%, after rising to 3.434% early last week, the highest since the summer of 2011.
France’s 30-year government bond yield was down 1 bp at 4.37%. Last week it hit 4.523%, its highest since June 2009. The French government is about to fall but markets have remained calm so far today, even though prime minister François Bayrou’s likely departure after a confidence vote means more political uncertainty, which will make it harder to reduce the country’s high debt levels.
A survey out today showed investor morale in the eurozone plunged in September to its lowest level since April, with Germany posting an even sharper decline.
sentix economic index (09/25): The next blow for the eurozone
— sentix (@sentixsurvey) September 8, 2025
The new September data from the #sentix economic index dashes hopes of an #economic recovery. The overall value for the #eurozone slipped by 5.5 points to -9.2. Both the current situation and future expectations are… pic.twitter.com/VSjAjhIq4K
The European Central bank meets later this week but markets are not expecting any changes to interest rates.
Updated
Joshua Mahony, chief market analyst at Scope Markets, has looked at the moves in markets.
European markets are on the rise in early trade today, following on from an upbeat Asian session that benefitted from a 1.45% gain in the Nikkei. The sudden resignation of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba over the weekend injected fresh uncertainty into Japanese markets, although the perception that his successor will be more fiscally expansive raises hope that we will see stocks benefit in response.
With any successor likely to lean towards a pro-growth strategy, the possibility of additional spending kept the 30-year yield near record highs despite declines elsewhere. This is problematic for a nation with a 250% debt-to-GDP ratio.
For the Bank of Japan, the change raises doubts over the pace of normalisation, with political instability potentially delaying a shift away from ultra-loose policy in a bid to keep yields anchored. The yen weakness we saw in response reflects capital outflow concerns and renewed uncertainty about Japan’s monetary and fiscal outlook.
Turning to oil, where prices have risen by 2% today, Mahony said:
Over the weekend, OPEC+ confirmed its latest production strategy, opting to raise October production by another 137k barrels per day (bpd). This stands in stark contrast to the pace seen in the months prior, with August and September announcements standing at 555k bpd. The question for many is whether there is any capacity left to enact these production increases, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE likely to be the only nations that have the ability to add any more into the market. With oil prices on the rise, this announcement looks to see the expansive period for OPEC+ drawing to a close.
At the same time, global geopolitics have flared up once again, with Russia enacted its largest ever aerial attack on Ukraine that included strikes on the prime minister’s building in Kyiv. With Donald Trump warning of potential sanctions against Russia if the war persists, the pathway to peace remains far from simple. Unfortunately for the US, their previous sanctions have had little impact on Russian exports, with China and India showing a willingness to side with their BRICS partners rather than curb cheap Russian oil imports.
Gold breaks through $3,600
Gold has broken through $3,600 an ounce, after weak US jobs data on Friday bolstered expectations of an interest rate cut from the US Federal Reserve at its meeting next week.
Spot gold gained 0.7% today to $3,611 an ounce.
Lower interest rates weigh on the dollar, making gold cheaper for investors holding other currencies. UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said:
We look for gold to rise to $3,700 an ounce by mid next year.
The yield on benchmark 10-year US government bonds, known as Treasuries, meanwhile, hovered near their lowest level in five months.
Eurozone investor confidence drops; France's government to fall today
In the eurozone, investor confidence dropped sharply in September, and France’s government is likely to fall today.
The French prime minister, François Bayrou, is expected to be ousted in a confidence vote on Monday afternoon, plunging the eurozone’s second biggest economy into political crisis.
Opposition parties from the left to the far right have made clear they will vote against the 74-year-old centrist, meaning he and his minority government would fall after only nine months in office.
The centrist president, Emmanuel Macron, is then likely to face the challenge of appointing his third prime minister in a year, and the fifth since he began his second term in office in 2022.
Leo Barincou, senior economist at Oxford Economics, has sent us his thoughts.
The Sentix suffered a sharp drop in September. While we are sceptical that the deterioration in investor confidence heralds a significant worsening in economic activity in the eurozone, the survey nonetheless supports our expectation that the economy will broadly stagnate in the second half.
In the other direction, German’s industrial production advanced in July, displaying resilience despite the tariff hit. However, we doubt this marks the start of a sustained upswing, as leading indicators point to weak momentum in thme near-term.
In France, Bayrou’s government is virtually certain to be toppled in today’s confidence vote. Although we do not expect major market volatility, the government’s fall likely seals the end of meaningful deficit-reduction efforts for 2026.
The French stock market is currently 0.2% ahead, while the UK’s FTSE 100 index has edged 0.1% higher. BP is among the biggest risers, up 1.1%, with oil prices rising sharply today following last week’s losses.
Brent crude has gained 2% to $66.8 a barrel. The oil cartel Opec and allies including Russia agreed a modest boost to output over the weekend, and oil prices have also been boosted the possibility of more sanctions on Russian crude after Moscow’s overnight strike on Ukraine.
UK housing secretary Steve Reed vows to 'build baby build!' ahead of meeting with developers
The UK’s new housing secretary Steve Reed, who has replaced Angela Rayner, is due to meet the bosses of Britain’s biggest developers and housebuilders this week.
He told senior civil servants over the weekend that his mantra is “Build Baby Build!”, adding that he intends to
move on to the next stage in unleashing one of the biggest eras of building in our country’s history.
Reed, previously the environment secretary, will meet with sector bosses this week to discuss the next phase of planning reform and ways of speeding up housebuilding in the months ahead. He is expected to tell them
I will leave no stone unturned to build the homes Britain desperately needs.
According to sources, up to 1.4m homes have been granted planning permission but have not yet been built.
Updated
Vistry Group and Homes England form long-term venture
Shares in Vistry Group have risen by nearly 4% after the housebuilder, formerly known as Bovis Homes, formed a long-term joint venture with the government’s housing agency.
Homes England and the company have created a new vehicle, called Hestia, backed by a combined £150m of capital investment. It is part of the government’s pledge to build 1.5m homes in this parliament, over five years. Homes England said:
Hestia’s investment strategy will focus on identifying sites to bring forward vital new infrastructure and manage the construction of new communities of between 400 and 3,000 homes each.
This investment comes after the December 2024 announcement of a £700m extension to the Home Building Fund, and ahead of the launch of the £16bn National Housing Bank, which the government hopes will unlock a further £59bn of private sector investment in UK housing.
Matthew Pennycook, housing and planning minister, said:
Rapidly growing the pipeline of large mixed tenure sites across the country, making more use of Modern Methods of Construction, and backing SME housebuilders are all essential to achieving our Plan for Change target of building 1.5m homes in this Parliament.
By mobilising private capital alongside government investment, this significant new joint-venture will bring forward more high-quality, mixed-tenure developments and deliver thousands of new homes to buy and rent.
Share your experience: We would like to hear from people about how their commute has been affected by the tube strike.
Have you been able to find an alternative route to work?
Spurs say they have rejected two takeover approaches and club ‘not for sale’
Tottenham Hotspur has insisted that it is not of sale, after its majority shareholder Enic turned down two takeover approaches, including from dealmaker and former Newcastle United shareholder Amanda Staveley.
The Tottenham board says it has “unequivocally rejected” two expressions of interest in acquiring the club and that the Premier League club is “not for sale”.
Daniel Levy stepped down from his role as Spurs chair last Thursday, after being invited to leave the position he had held since 2001 by its owner, Enic, which is owned by the Lewis family trust. Family members of the billionaire Joe Lewis own more than 70% of Enic through a trust, with the rest held by trusts on behalf of Levy and his family.
Spurs said one of the approaches had been from PCP International Finance, the investment vehicle led by Staveley, and on Monday PCP confirmed it had been interested in a potential move but said “it does not intend to make an offer for Tottenham”.
The Spurs board said in a statement that it had
received, and unequivocally rejected, separate preliminary expressions of interest in relation to proposals to acquire the entire issued, and to be issued, share capital of Enic from (i) PCP International Finance … and (ii) a consortium of investors led by Dr Roger Kennedy and Wing-Fai Ng through Firehawk Holdings Limited.
Staveley has sold her minority stake in rival English Premier League club Newcastle United, which is controlled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
Updated
Here’s our full story on the tube strikes and TfL website issues.
The ride hailing app Uber warned users of higher fares because of increased demand. Rides were quoted at multiples of normal levels, with some journeys costing about £50 for a five-mile trip in the capital.
Labour must improve workers’ rights to fulfil promise to voters, says Unite’s Sharon Graham
Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, has urged the government not to water down the employment rights bill, saying it had “made a promise to the British people,” while serial entrepreneur Luke Johnson warned that the bill will increase the burden on employers.
In a heated clash on BBC radio 4’s Today programme, Graham said:
What I hope is not going on is that the government are looking to water down the Employment Rights bill. They made a promise to the British people. This was a central part of what they promised that they would make work pay. And already, prior to this [government] reshuffle, we were already seeing fire and rehire watered down; a zero hour contracts ban, watered down; councils being allowed to fire and rehire added and so therefore the mood music wasn’t looking too good. And what I do hope is that they don’t intend on now slowing this down, or indeed, scrapping some parts of it altogether.
Her comments came as the Trades Union Congress (TUC), of which Unite is a member, is holding its annual congress in Brighton, which started on Sunday and lasts until Wednesday.
Johnson, the former chairman of Pizza Express, Channel 4 and the bust cafe chain Patisserie Valerie, who now sits on the board of Brompton Cycles, said:
Labour’s paymasters, the unions, want to see more rights, and the fact is.. unemployment is rising. Business sentiment is very weak, and every single major business or employer organisation opposes this bill. It is going to place much higher burdens on employers of day one rights, for example.
He was referring to giving workers full rights from the first day of employment, rather than putting people on probation for the first two years. This is about to change under the legislation.
That means it’s much more dangerous to take someone on. And I am quite sure, having talked to lots of employers and people thinking of starting a business, that all this extra red tape will just discourage people from investing, from taking on new workers and from creating jobs.
Turning to Graham, Johnson said:
Sharon is so ignorant about the reality of business. She’s never run, she’s never created a job. She doesn’t understand how hard it is actually out there. We’re on the cusp of a recession. The idea that all these extra costs and bureaucracy should be layered on employers is nuts.
Graham responded:
We have done a very detailed survey of 17,000 companies. I’ll send it to you, if you like, across Britain, that shows since before the pandemic, profit margins have gone up, on average, by 30%.
Updated
Buses, Elizabeth line take the strain as tube network shut
Buses and the Elizabeth Line were taking the strain with queues to board other modes of transport around London, as strikes by Tube train and station staff left virtually the entire Underground network suspended, our transport correspondent Gwyn Topham reports.
Monday morning marked the first of four days of expected total Tube shutdown closure through the strikes, which started in places on Friday with minimal disruption.
Very limited Tube services on the outer, above ground stretches of the Central and Metropolitan line started running later in the morning.
The London Overground and most national rail services also continued to operate, although some major rail interchanges such as Farringdon were closed due to the RMT action.
TfL’s online journey planner and its TfL Go app appeared to be struggling under the weight of searches, failing to load, returning error messages or no results on early Monday morning.
The worst impact for congestion and transport is expected on Tuesday, with more Londoners still typically working from home on Mondays and Fridays.
Docklands Light Railway trains will also not run on Tuesday or Thursday because of strikes arising in a separate dispute.
AroundAbout 10,000 member of the RMT are taking industrial action in the Tube row, as the union attempts to secure a shorter working week as part of pay negotiations.
TfL has made a pay offer of 3.4%, which it urged the union to put to its members in a fresh ballot. It has said it cannot not meet demands to cut hours below the current 36 per week.
An RMT spokesperson said:
We are not going on strike to disrupt small businesses or the public.
This strike is going ahead because of the intransigent approach of TfL management and their refusal to even consider a small reduction in the working week in order to help reduce fatigue and the ill-health effects of long-term shift work on our members.
Nick Dent, London Underground’s director of customer operations, said the demands were “simply unaffordable” and called on the union to end its action, warning:
It will be very damaging for us.
Support for the union came from the 4 Day Week Foundation. Joe Ryle, campaign director, said:
It’s a bold and necessary stand, and these workers deserve widespread support. The five-day week is a century-old model that no longer reflects how we live and work today.
Commuter misery: Tube strikes and website issues
Commuter misery deepened this morning as the Transport for London website crashed, on the first day of a week of tube strikes.
People clicking on specific lines to find out more about the impact of a five-day strike by the RMT union were greeted with an “internal service error” message earlier this morning.
This appears to be fixed now, but the journey planner section on the TfL website is still not working.
The series of strikes will mean almost no tube trains running until Friday, with other transport in the capital likely to be affected by crowding and congestion.
The RMT union has batted back pleas to call off the industrial action, involving about 10,000 workers, as it attempts to secure a shorter working week as part of pay negotiations.
London’s other rail services – the Elizabeth line, London Overground and National Rail services – will continue to run, as will buses. Some central rail stations with tube interchanges will be closed.
Shelly Asquith, health & safety policy officer at Trades Union Congress, said on X:
A very good morning to all London Underground workers on strike today
— Shelly Asquith (@ShellyAsquith) September 8, 2025
Fatigue from long hours and extremely early or late shift work takes a major toll on the body, increasing likelihood physical and mental health conditions
You deserve better! #tubestrike @TfL @RMTunion
Economist Ben Ramanauskas, a former government adviser, said:
The @RMTunion shouldn't be able to hold Londoners to ransom and stifle the UK's economic growth. As much of TFL as possible needs to be automated ASAP. In the meantime the Tube should be declared an essential service and its workers banned from striking.
— Ben Ramanauskas (@BenRamanauskas) September 8, 2025
If anyone needs TFL train strike information for this week here you go 🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/IloadltsFh
— T24s (@2wenty4s) September 7, 2025
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New business secretary Peter Kyle going to China for trade talks this week
The UK’s new business secretary, Peter Kyle, will fly to Beijing this week as part of Keir Starmer’s continuing efforts to revitalise the UK’s trade relationship with China and provide growth to the British economy.
The former science and technology secretary, who was promoted in Friday’s government reshuffle, is expected to land in China on Wednesday, picking up the schedule of his predecessor, Jonathan Reynolds, who is now the chief whip.
Kyle was due to fly to Washington on Sunday evening as part of the preparations for Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK and then meet in Beijing with the Chinese minister of commerce, Wang Wentao, at the first gathering of the UK China joint economic and trade commission (Jetco) for seven years.
Updated
Introduction: US tariff tensions hit Chinese export growth, slowest in six months; oil prices climb
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.
China’s export growth slowed to the lowest in six months in August, as Beijing shipped less to the US amid tariff tensions.
Exports from China rose by 4.4% year-on-year, according to official figures, less than economists had expected, and down from July’s better-than-expected 7.2% increase. Imports grew by 1.3%, down from a 4.1% rise in July.
Beijing’s shipments to the US fell by 33% while exports to southeast Asian nations rose by 22.5%. Policymakers want manufacturers to shift to other markets in light of Donald Trump’s erratic trade policy.
The US president delayed sweeping tariffs on China in mid-August, announcing another 90-day pause just hours before the last agreement between the the world’s two largest economies was due to expire.
Trump had threatened tariffs on China as high as 245%, with China threatening retaliatory tariffs of 125%. However, Chinese imports are subject to a a baseline tariff of 10% and a 20% extra levy in response to fentanyl smuggling allegations against China. Some products are taxed at higher rates.
China’s trade surplus rose to $102.3bn in August from $98.2bn in July, but below June’s $114.8bn. Analysts are waiting to see whether officials will rollout extra fiscal support measures in the fourth quarter to revive domestic demand.
Separately, Germany’s exports fell unexpectedly in July while industrial production rose.
Shipments from Europe’s biggest economy dropped by 0.6% from the previous month, against economists’ forecasts of a 0.1% gain. Imports were also down, by 0.1%. The country’s foreign trade surplus reduced to €14.7bn from €15.4bn in June, and compared with €17.7bn in July 2024.
On a brighter note, German industrial production rose by 1.3% in July.
Oil prices climbed, recouping some of last week’s losses, after the oil cartel Opec and allies such as Russia, known as Opec+, agreed over the weekend to raise output at a slower pace from October on expectations of weaker global demand. The possibility of more sanctions on Russia, a major oil exporter, also rose after Moscow’s overnight strike on Ukraine.
Brent crude rose by 1.5% to $66.45 a barrel.
On Sunday, eight members of OPEC+ agreed to lift production from October by 137,000 barrels per day, far below the monthly increases of 555,000 bpd in September and August, and 411,000 bpd in July and June.
The Agenda
TUC Congress in Brighton
4pm BST: US Consumer inflation expectations for August
Updated
