Once you’ve decided you want a hard Brexit & a soft Irish land border that policy is leading you to one place bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northe…

Fine Gael has launched its blueprint for a United Ireland.

‘The first-year cost of reunification ranges from about €3 bn to €25 bn, depending on the design chosen, what is agreed with the UK and how much it costs to bring NI pay and welfare to Republic levels.’

More on that latest attempt to pull the Stormont Brake. This time it’s about a major overhaul of EU customs processes which will apply in NI. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

A deal between the BBC and Belfast City Council over a new city centre studio is to go ahead in spite of opposition.
bbc.in/4iuj06U

A glimmer of hope for households heading into winter as home heating oil prices have dropped by 2% since yesterday (£11 off 500L) - the biggest daily decrease since June. Brent crude is down around by 13% this week to $98 per barrel - steepest weekly fall since March 2020.

Exactly 6 months until Polling Day.

A potential difficulty in persuading the SoS is that Stormont’s Dept for Economy found this measure would not ‘have a significant impact on everyday life that is liable to persist.’ The UK & EU have also agreed that GB/NI parcels will be exempt from the new €2 handling fee.

#OnThisDay 1926: Belfast comedian, the late Frank Carson was born. Following his move to Blackpool, he spoke about his love of Northern communities, and how his famous catchphrase helped propel him to celebrity status.

Unionist parties have got the numbers to ask the Secretary of State to pull the ‘Stormont Brake’ in respect of new customs regulations which the EU says should be applied in NI via the Windsor Franework. Last time around the SoS declined to use the brake.

Two reports commissioned by Stormont’s Dept for the Economy suggest businesses are still facing difficulties with the sea border. The problem of persuading GB suppliers to remain engaged has not gone away. The concept of ‘at risk’ goods is not understood.

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

WATCH:

Not just a rate rise. Bank of England v interesting on UK growth strength. Bailey to me on EU rapprochement/ single market for financial services too.

GROWTH:

UK Q3 is coming in at 0.7%., the Bank says. For context, outside the pandemic rebound, the joint fastest 2017.

Actual data is on Thursday, but absent massive revisions, it has to be 0.6-0.8%. Way above the consensus forecast even a few weeks ago. The OBR at the Budget (forecast closed in September) implied Q3 growth of …. 0.27%.

Bank did quite a detailed study of the strength. AI and consumer. Both obviously now have clouds in Q4, Bank has 0.3% for that.

I asked the Governor about the UK economy performing much better than forecast, he said: “it has, and this is obviously encouraging. We're seeing more resilience in terms of activity in the economy. It's probably quite sectorally concentrated…. For the first time we've been able to say... we think AI is part of that story".

On UK-EU closer relations:

I asked Bailey if the new Burnham push for closer relations would boost growth he said while he does not take a position on Brexit as a public official: “the broader question that underpins that, which you rightly ask, is would the UK being able to trade more openly with its nearest neighbours, to have that trade, to have that market openness, be beneficial for growth in the UK? My view is yes, it would”

And then I further asked him if that would stretch to single market membership for financial services [where in the past as FCA chief, in this area he is chief regulator, he has not embraced “rule-taking”]… he was sounding very neutral on this:

“I think that's very interesting. So, one thing I would say about the last decade, let's go back 10 years from now to the post-referendum period. I mean, people were predicting sort of doom and gloom and the end of the city of London, and that hasn't actually happened. And there's all sorts of reasons why that hasn't happened. But we're not in the single market. That's true, and I'm not taking a position on whether we should be, by the way. But financial services has remained one of the more open markets, actually, and I'm very pleased with that. I mean, we at the Bank of England have been very strongly supportive of that because we believe in open financial markets, and we will go on believing in open financial markets and working closely with our partners in other parts of Europe.”

FULL interview - growth and EU stuff at the end.

New research from @pj_lambert & colleagues suggests that about 4.6% of adults in Northern Ireland use a paid for AI service. The UK average is 5.1%. NI is middle of the pack. Interesting how the ranking is similar to other regional economic data.

Who pays for AI? In a new working paper, we study this using banking data covering billions of transactions to see who pays for tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc. We find that 1-in-20 UK adults now pay for AI, representing a $1.4 billion market annually. (1/N)

Quite the journey Seagate has been on this year. Started 2026 with its share price at $288 ($65 billion market capitalisation). Peaked at $1,094 per share in June – with a market cap reaching almost a quarter trillion USD. Back to $467 ($108 bn).

Galway university 'fake news' expert claims fake doctorate
@RTE_PrimeTime 👇
rte.ie/news/primetime…

Journalists at the BBC, the UK’s troubled public service broadcaster have voted to accept a pay award of 1.5%, far below the rate of inflation.

I like how Vronsky goes on his holidays & changes his fit, like some guy going to Ibiza who starts wearing lots of bracelets.

“Is this it?”

The very sharp share falls in the US were concentrated in data centre buildout adjacent stocks and Elon Musk adjacent stocks.

Falls in Asia also a bit wider. In Europe more widespread but much shallower falls.

Clearly given the astonishing investment cycle and build up in valuations, a reckoning was always coming. S&P futures are up from here though. For now it feels like a corrective reappraisal brought on by the less supportive political environment in the US. It could be the trigger, the pin in the bubble. Fridays can be perilous especially towards the end of trading.

For now there is some degree of discernment rather than outright panic.

This is interesting. From next week these sorts of toys are regulated in NI under the EU AI Act. Meanwhile for GB the govt is consulting on ‘how toy safety regulations should evolve to keep pace with new and emerging technologies including AI-enabled products.’

‘It is clear that the more the worker spends himself, the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects which he creates over and against himself, the poorer he himself – his inner world – becomes.’

If you want a sense of how public consultations in the UK have changed over the last 50 years:

In 1970 an application to build a nuclear power station at Portskewett in south Wales attracted just *10* local objections.