Growth slows to 0.1 per cent

Good morning,

“Would you like the good news or the bad news, Chancellor?” Well, the good news for John Healey is that the economy has grown a bit, and unexpectedly. The bad news is that growth was down to 0.1 per cent in August, down from 0.4 per cent in July.

Meanwhile, the excitement around the Airtel Money mega-IPO last week masked a bleaker trend for London’s capital markets. Listings have fallen to the lowest levels seen since 2023, with just one public offering in the third quarter this year.

So, here’s everything you need to know this morning. We’ll be back in your inbox at noon with Midday Markets.

Matt

The 1958 classic horror film The Blob scored mixed reviews on its release, with critics lamenting the poor acting and weak dialogue. Posters for the movie warned that the alien blob “devours everything in its path” and “nothing can stop it” – which is why, half a century later, Michael Gove resurrected and popularised the term “blob” for the sprawling web of teaching unions, local councils and progressive experts who opposed his education reforms in 2010.

People who have spent their careers in the private sector will recognise some of its traits: the elevation of process over outcomes and the state of inertia that comes from a lack of leadership or hostility to innovation, writes City AM Editor-in-Chief Christian May.

Figures were driven by growth of 0.8 per cent in the production sector. Services, the most dominant sector in the country, did not increase activity while construction fell by 0.2 per cent. Over a three-month period, the UK economy grew by 0.7 per cent.

When Asos customers were sent a cryptically-worded push notification on Tuesday last week, some shoppers thought they were being hawked the fast fashion retailer’s new Christmas collection. 

One thought the alert was “some crappy marketing scheme to get me to check the app and to view their snowflake collection,” they wrote on X. The notification was in fact a direct threat to Asos’s management, threatening to leak information belonging to the company’s millions of customers.

Mortgage worries overriding retirement excitement? Marianna Hunt is back to take a look over whether retiring while still owing money on your mortgage is a bad idea.

The Independent Football Regulator has improving English clubs’ failing finances in its sights but its treatment of Manchester City is what will likely define it, writes Ed Warner.

In the twentieth century’s first great play, written between 1901 and 1903, the aristocrats are fading from power against the rise of the upwardly mobile middle class, represented by Stephen Mangan’s self-made merchant, Yermolay Lopakhin.

Capital markets are undergoing a structural shift as investment banks move away from legacy, self-operated back office functions toward shared, collaborative systems capable of supporting AI, says Joe Channer.

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