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.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/BlDoKNlzwGVictory to the RMT! 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/duNkwoxBs0As 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/oK44Daba3DJust 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 changedDowning 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 – JKPhoenix 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 Marchbrings 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.

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.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/BlDoKNlzwGVictory to the RMT! 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/duNkwoxBs0As 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/oK44Daba3DFifty-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 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 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.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