Top story: Base rate poised to bounce back to 0.5%
Hello, it’s Warren Murray pointing you in the right direction this morning.
Britain is today anticipating its first interest rate rise in more than a decade as the Bank of England moves to end an era of rock-bottom borrowing costs. The official rate is widely predicted to return to its pre-Brexit referendum level of 0.5% on the back of strong industrial performance and the lowest unemployment figures in 40 years. At the same time, the Bank will want to rein in high inflation, which reached 3% in September, and curb a surge in consumer borrowing, according to analysts.
The predicted rise in the cost of borrowing by 0.25 percentage points obviously has its downsides – such as increased mortgage repayments for the 5 million people with variable home loans. Some analysts have warned the positive indicators driving this rise could be short-lived. The retail sector is feeling a downturn in high-street sales. Deutsche Bank has predicted that weak household income, slowing jobs growth and stalled house prices will cut Britain’s GDP growth from 1.6% in 2017 to 1% in 2018.
And there is more than one way to judge a country’s prosperity. Child poverty in Britain is about to reach record levels, affecting 5.2 million children over the next five years, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, as welfare cuts hit young and poor families the hardest. While at current rates of progress women won’t reach pay equality with men for 217 years, says the World Economic Forum.
‘My previous conduct fell short’ – Michael Fallon has cited the need to set a good example for the military after resigning as Theresa May’s defence minister over claims made in the Westminster sexual harassment scandal. But other Tory ministers have hit back – they include Dominic Raab, who said a spreadsheet being circulated contained “false and malicious” material. Some of those listed as victims have disowned the allegations that are attributed to them. In the wider world of public life and celebrity, the actor Dustin Hoffman has apologised after a female writer said he repeatedly groped and humiliated her with sexual remarks in 1985, when she was 17; while the Old Vic theatre has been accused of ignoring years of lecherous behaviour by Kevin Spacey towards young males.
‘Followed Isis instructions to a T’ – The Uzbek national charged over the New York attack wanted to display the Islamic State flag in his hospital room, authorities say. Sayfullo Saipov, 29, was shot and arrested by a “heroic” NYPD officer after a pick-up truck ran down eight people. He has been brought into federal court in a wheelchair, handcuffed and with his feet shackled, to face terrorism and other charges. Saipov was a fervent Isis supporter who watched scores of its horrific videos, and rented a truck on 22 October to practise for the attack, says the criminal complaint.
The attack killed five people from Argentina, one from Belgium and two Americans – the only New York resident among them was 23-year-old Nicholas Cleves, a software engineer and web developer. Nine survivors remained in serious or critical condition last night, some having lost limbs. New Yorkers have taken in the news and got on with their lives, with joggers and cyclists diverting around the sealed-off route of Saipov’s attack.
Osama files – Documents released by the CIA suggest Osama bin Laden didn’t think much of Shakespeare and felt as a child that the British seemed “loose and decadent”. Journal notes detailing his time in the UK when he was 13 include an account of visiting Stratford-upon-Avon and the Bard’s house. “I was not impressed and I saw that they were a society different from ours and that they were a morally loose society.” The notes were seized during the 2011 Pakistan raid in which US special forces killed the al-Qaida leader. Bin Laden wrote that his age had not allowed him to form a complete picture of British life – judging from other things the navy Seals grabbed, he might have tried to fill the gaps in his knowledge with Mr Bean videos, episodes of Wallace and Gromit, and more than 30 videos on crocheting.
Boris goes to Washington – The foreign secretary is to urge US senators against scuppering the Iran nuclear deal as he visits Capitol Hill next week. Donald Trump hates the 2015 pact, which limits Tehran’s development of nuclear fuel and technology in return for lifted sanctions and greater international engagement. Boris Johnson says the “amazing triumph of diplomacy” has its failings but must not be allowed to fail. Johnson is also likely to raise the US Treasury’s slapping of massive trade tariffs on Bombardier aircraft from Northern Ireland, and to put out feelers about a post-Brexit trade deal – he warned that “the US will strike a very hard bargain”.
English enters a new phrase – The Collins Dictionary has made “fake news” its word of the year. It does seem like the phrase has already been rendered meaningless by overuse, misuse and, especially, you-know-who’s dishonest use of it to condemn anything the media puts out that he doesn’t like. The Collins has also added “fidget spinner”, “gig economy”, “Insta” and “cuffing season” to its corpus in what has clearly been a golden year in the storied evolution of the English language.
Lunchtime read: How double-barrelled became hoi polloi
Giving the children both your last names is no longer the preserve of the posh – today, 11% of average newlyweds are doing the double-barrelled thing and passing it on to the next generation.
So why is this proliferating? Should you hyphenate, or not? And what happens when your children have children? Unwieldy concatenations might work for someone like Richard Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie but only because he’s got “5th Earl of Wharnclife” in front of the whole mess. Paula Cocozza looks into the politics and practicalities of compound surnames.
Sport
Trevor Bayliss has written off hopes of Ben Stokes’s involvement in the Ashes, leaving the England coach to draw up contingency plans without the all-rounder. Mauricio Pochettino has challenged his Tottenham Hotspur players to take the club to “the next level” and start winning trophies on the back of their victory over Real Madrid – a result that saw the club’s English core put Real’s stars in the shade. Elsewhere in the Champions League, Sergio Agüero wrote his name into the record books by registering his 178th goal for Manchester City in their win against Napoli, while Mohamed Salah opened up Maribor in a 3-0 win for Liverpool that was a reward for patience, self-belief and experience.
Chris Robshaw has criticised the behaviour of his erstwhile Harlequins team-mate Marland Yarde, saying his club will be better off without the wing, who has signed for Sale after being shown the door at the Stoop for repeatedly missing training. And the crisis facing the Paralympic movement over alleged abuse of the classification system deepened yesterday after claims swimmers are deliberately exaggerating their disability in order to win more medals.
Business
The big business news will be the Bank of England’s rates decision. But before that shares on Asian markets touched 10-year highs on Thursday amid optimism expressed by the US Federal Reserve about the American economy.
Overnight the pound was buying US$1.33 and €1.14.
The papers
Front pages are dominated by the fallout from Fallon. Although the Mirror isn’t sure which is the bigger story – the defence minister resigning or Dustin Hoffman being accused of unwanted sexual advances. The front page is split in half but the main headline is “Fallon quits as defence sec in sex storm”.
The Sun goes with “Fallon his sword” and, not content with that dubious pun, decides on the headline “Grabuate” to describe the Dustin Hoffman sex allegation story. The Mail has opted for a headline that almost appears to be in mourning – white on black, rather than black on white. “Commons sex furore: the first scalp” it blasts. The Guardian splashes with Fallon too, saying that a replacement for the cabinet minister is expected to be named today. “Fallon resigns as new sleaze allegations emerge”, says the Times, adding that another unnamed Tory MP has been accused of groping a female worker. The Telegraph says the Conservatives have fallen into a new “sleaze crisis”.
Finally the FT has Fallon on the front – but it leads with a story about a British peer accusing HSBC of “possible criminal complicity” in an alleged money-laundering scandal involving South Africa’s wealthy Gupta family.
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