Closing summary
Time to wrap up:
Dockers at Felixstowe are planning eight days of strike action over pay that could cause serious disruption to the UK’s largest container port.
Nearly 1,900 workers plan to stop work for more than a week at the Hong Kong-owned port, starting on Sunday 21 August and ending on Monday 29 August, according to the union Unite. The workers voted 92% in favour of strike action last week.
The union said the latest round of talks with the company at Acas, the conciliation service, had failed to yield a “reasonable offer”, but further talks are planned for Monday.
Prolonged strikes would almost certainly disrupt traffic through the port, adding to the problems facing the UK economy as it braces for a deep, year-long recession.
In another dispute, managers employed by Network Rail have voted to accept a 4% pay offer.
Economists have warned that the UK faces a ‘deepening economic crisis’, after the Bank of England forecast the country will fall into its longest recession in 30 years.
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has defended the Bank’s actions, following sharp criticism from some politicians. He denied that the MPC had been too slow to raise interest rates, and insisted he wouldn’t leave his eight-year post early.
Bailey also called on businesses and workers to resist fuelling inflation by hiking prices, or pushing for large wage increases -- arguing that society shoud recognise that the poorest (who suffer most from inflation) are least able to protect themselves.
A day after predicting that inflation would hit 13.3%, the highest in over 40 years, Bailey told the Today programme:
If everybody tries to beat inflation – and that is in both price-setting and wage-setting – it doesn’t come down, it gets worse.”
Millions of families are now cutting back on energy, food and other essential purchases, data from the Office for National Statistics shows.
Poor households are more likely to be making cuts, as the cost of staple goods and services jumps.
These are truly desperate times, and millions of people have been forced to take desperate measures,” said Sarah Coles senior personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown
“While all of us are facing the pain of rising prices, it’s those on lower incomes, renters, people with disabilities and those in the most deprived areas that are facing impossible challenges.”
Struggling families need help fast, before energy bills jump over £3,000 per year in the autumn. But any new package will have to wait until the Conservative leadership race is over.
Rising borrowing costs may now be cooling the UK housing market, with prices dropping last month for the first time in over a year.
But the US jobs market is hotter than thought, with American firms adding more than half a million new jobs in July.
That takes the US labor market - finally - back to its pre-pandemic level, a milestone in the economic recovery.
But Europe’s economy faces yet another problem - the Rhine, a key waterways, is just days away from being closed to commercial traffic because of very low levels caused by drought.
And Sir Christopher Gent, the former chief executive of Vodafone and ex-chair of GlaxoSmithKline, has been fined £80,000 by the UK financial watchdog for disclosing inside information to shareholders while chair of the medical-devices maker ConvaTec.
We’ll be back on Monday. GW
Some late news: Over 1,600 London bus drivers are set to strike later this month.
The Unite union has announced two days of strike action involving bus workers employed by London United, which runs services in west and south-west Greater London, after their employer failed to make a reasonable pay offer.
It will affect workers based at London United bus depots in Fulwell, Hounslow, Hounslow Heath, Park Royal, Shepherd’s Bush, Stamford Brook, and Tolworth.
The initial strike action will take place on Friday 19 August and Saturday 20 August. The first day of industrial action coincides with strikes planned for the London Underground and Overground.
Unite says workers were offered a pay increase of 3.6% in 2022 and 4.2%t next year, well below inflation.
Unite regional officer Michelle Braveboy said:
“Strike action will cause considerable disruption to passengers across London.
This dispute is of the company’s own making, it can make a fair pay offer to its workers but has chosen not to, so it now faces the prospects of a highly disruptive strike action.”
There are around 25,000 London bus drivers altogether.
