The London-listed miner Anglo American has agreed to merge with its Canadian rival Teck Resources, in a deal that will create a $53bn (£39bn) global copper group after both companies saw off takeover attempts.The merger to form one of the biggest copper producers in the world is expected to bring hundreds of job losses at Anglo’s London office as the company prepares to move its headquarters to Vancouver, Canada.The new company will retain Anglo’s primary listing on the London Stock Exchange – held since 1999 - with secondary listings in Johannesburg, Vancouver and New York.But Anglo Teck’s senior leadership team will be based in Vancouver after sweeping efforts by the Canadian government to protect the country’s minerals sector.In London, the tube network was brought to a standstill for a second day as RMT workers went on strike, in a dispute over pay and conditions.

Our other main stories today:Thank you for reading.We’ll be back tomorrow.Take care – JKThe US economy created 911,000 fewer jobs in the 12 months through March than previously estimated, according to government figures, suggesting that job growth was already stalling before president Donald Trump’s aggressive trade tariffs.This was towards the high end of expectations.Bradley Saunders, North America economist at Capital Economics said:The bulk of the downgrade appeared to be over the latter six months of the October 2024 to March 2025 period.

If that pattern held into more recent months, then it raises the risk that the more worrying 500,000 decline in the household survey measure of employment over the past seven months provides the more accurate guide to labour market conditions,The revisions imply that monthly non-farm payroll gains from April 2024 to March 2025 averaged around 71,000 per month, rather than 147,000 as the current data show (although they will not be officially incorporated into the data until the January 2026 employment report),The breakdown shows broad-based revisions, with the largest downgrades in various services sectors – specifically leisure and hospitality (15,000 per month lower), professional and businesses services (13,000) and retail trade (10,000),With services being the last bastion of employment growth, this does not bode well for the overall health of the labour market,More from Lisa O’Carroll reporting on the Munich car show.

The chief executive of Nordic car brand Polestar has launched a scathing attack on German rivals claiming they are pushing for “delays” and “lifelines” from Brussels to rescue them from Chinese electric vehicle rivals.Hours after the German chancellor Friedrich Merz called for more “flexibility” from Brussels in relation to the phasing out of new petrol cars by 2035, Michael Lohscheller, condemned what he called the delay tactics warning that Europe does not need “tech neutrality” but “ambition and action” from Brussels.It seems that legacy brands that once were symbols of industrial dominance, are now symbols of strategic confusion.Instead of adapting to change, many in this industry are doubling down on the past.They blame EVs for their problems.

They lobby for delays, loopholes, and lifelines.Calls for “technology neutral” policy opens the door for synthetic fuels and continued investment in hybrid rather than fully electric cars, he said.In reality, it is a smokescreen, it is tech-washing and a delay tactic.His remarks at the Munich car show come just days before the EU launches a “strategic dialogue” with the car industry over its future.With France in political crisis, French borrowing costs have risen above those in Italy for the first time in the eurozone’s history.

The yield, or interest rate, on 10-year French government bonds rose to 3,48% at one stage, above Italy’s 3,47%,It is the first time this has happened since 1998,Bloomberg News said the shift was due to technical reasons, as the French bond moved to a slighter later maturity than the Italian equivalent – but the trend towards convergence between the two nations’ debt has been years in the making.

Europe’s second-largest economy is without a government (again) after the centrist prime minister François Bayrou’s resignation today (he lost a confidence vote yesterday, which he had called himself, after only nine months as prime minister).In a speech to lawmakers on Monday, Bayrou called France’s debt level “life-threatening” for the country, adding:The biggest risk was not to take one, to let things continue without anything changing.Our economics correspondent Richard Partingon is at the TUC’s annual congress in Brighton.He reports:For union delegates gathering in Brighton, sunshine glimmered on the Channel outside the annual TUC conference but the focus for many inside was on stormy developments elsewhere.After a tough first year in power for Labour, two big spectres dominated the meeting: disappointment with Keir Starmer’s government, and the march of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

The prime minister’s unexpectedly far-reaching reshuffle had provoked union fears that Labour may temper its plan to boost workers’ rights in yet another pro-growth reset,Business leaders are already sensing an opportunity: Britain’s economy is weak, inflation is rising, Rachel Reeves’s tax on employment in her first autumn budget has chilled the jobs market, and the prospect of further rises, in her second act on 26 November, are looming,For many it was ironic that the union gathering was taking place while the London Underground was brought close to a standstill by striking RMT members,Meanwhile, Labour was entering a potentially fractious deputy leadership battle of the kind Starmer promised was only really a feature of the last Tory government,Businesses reckon Angela Rayner’s resignation and the sacking of Justin Madders, the junior minister responsible for the workers’ rights legislation – both politicians have close links to the union movement – could remove obstacles, while Peter Kyle, the new business secretary, had a warm relationship with tech bosses in his old job.

For union leaders, however, Labour watering down its workers’ rights bill, after a string of measures in Starmer’s first year hitting the poorest in society – not least cuts to winter fuel and proposed disability benefit cuts – would be a red line,Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, said: “I do not understand how a Labour government has been attacking some of poorest in our society … pensioners, the disabled … whilst leaving the super-rich totally untouched,“What the hell are Labour doing?”A business minister said he cannot confirm or deny whether a cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) was state-sponsored,When pressed by the Conservatives to reveal who was behind the attack, Sir Chris Bryant said he will not “jump to conclusions”, with investigations ongoing, PA reported,JLR was forced to halt production on 31 August after discovering hackers had infiltrated its systems a week ago.

The UK’s biggest car manufacturer, owned by India’s Tata group, revealed its production and sales had been “severely disrupted”, with factory staff told to work from home.Production at JLR and dozens of its suppliers is to remain on hold for at least this week, with disruption from the crippling cyber-attack at the carmaker expected to last until October.Thousands of production workers at the UK’s biggest car manufacturing sites in Halewood on Merseyside, and Solihull and Wolverhampton in the West Midlands have been told to stay away until at least today.They will continue to be paid as usual and “bank” their hours to be picked up later on.The City regulator has warned it will challenge lenders claiming to have lost data linked to the car finance scandal, helping ensure consumers get their fair share of a potential £18bn compensation schemeSpeaking to MPs on the Treasury Committee on Tuesday, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) chief executive Nikhil Rathi confirmed that data retention had become a major sticking point, as the regulator weighed whether to open its redress scheme to contracts dating back to 2007.

The scheme is meant to draw a line under the car finance scandal, compensating millions of drivers who were overcharged as a result of controversial commission arrangements between lenders and car dealers.It follows a landmark supreme court ruling in August, which upheld one of three consumer complaints over commission.But some lenders claim they may not be able to verify claims that are nearly 20 years old, with consumer data and contrast likely to have been lost or deleted.Most banks typically purge customer data after six years.However, Rathi said that this would not be accepted as a blanket excuse.

“Where a firm says to us that they don’t have the data, we’re not just going to take that at face value, we will look at that very forensically.”The FCA ordered firms to stop deleting car finance documents when it launched its initial investigation in car finance commission payments in January 2024.Sheree Howard, the FCA executive director in charge of authorisations, also told MPs that firms could end up retrieving data by working with other companies.There is an ability, we think, across quite a high proportion [of firms] to get reasonable data, and… firms can work with third parties to try supplement that data like credit reference agencies.Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, has called for “more flexibility” from Brussels in relation to targets for the transition to electric vehicles – siding with German car manufacturers and opening up a divide with other European carmakers who want to stick to the deadline for phasing out combustion engines.

The bosses of Volvo and Polestar were among 150 car chiefs who wrote to the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen on Monday urging her to maintain the 2035 target for cars and vans and arguing that any change would hand an advantage to Chinese rivals.Michael Lohscheller, Polestar’s chief executive, said in a statement:Weakening targets now would send a signal that Europe can be talked out of its own commitments.That would not only harm the climate.It would harm Europe’s ability to compete.But on Tuesday, the German chancellor weighed in on Volkswagen’s and Mercedes-Benz’s side, calling for more regulatory flexibility from the EU.

He threw his weight behind the German auto industry’s push to soften rules that would effectively ban sales of new petrol vehicles in 10 years’ time,“We are of course committed to the transition to e-mobility,” the conservative leader told the opening of a motor show in Munich, but added that “we need smart, reliable and flexible European regulation”,Merz stopped short of calling for the 2035 deadline for selling only emission-free vehicles to be delayed or scrapped,Polestar says it would be wrong to let the target date slip saying it would “punish the frontrunners and benefit those” like Volkswagen and Mercedes Benz who lagged behind,Merz reiterated his coalition government’s support for “technology openness,” a reference to the auto sector’s desire for hybrid and other vehicles to be exempted from the rules.

We need smart, reliable, flexible European regulation.One-sided political commitments to specific technologies are the wrong economic policy path, and not just for this sector.Here is Prof Dieter Helm’s view on water minister Emma Hardy’s remarks.Helm, professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford, told the Efra committee that “it would be a disaster” if a special administration was only used in extremis for Thames Water.Let’s imagine that the government thinks that Thames should go into a SAR.

I am not close to the legal bits, though the government did toughen up the SAR regime rules generally recently.It can apply to the court according to the below.Imagine Thames decided to resist.Really? In practice an application in itself would trigger practically the outcome.And then there is the relationship between Ofwat and the government.

As to what constitutes a serious breach etc, imagine trying to argue that Thames had not in fact done so…pretty difficult in practice I guess, given all the evidence of its failings,Finally – and this is the really important bit - if the criteria are as demanding as the minister suggests, a SAR would only be used in extremis and by then it might be very hard to guarantee the continuity of services which is the reason a SAR is deliberately “special”,It would be a disaster,SARs were designed to deal with failures long before the company and its performance goes over a cliff… If they can’t then there needs to be a new Utilities Failures Act to put a proper regime in place as a matter of urgency,More from the UK’s water minister Emma Hardy.

She told MPs on the environment, food and rural affairs committee that beleaguered water company Thames Water has “not met the threshold” for special administration and suggested it would not do so until taps run dry.Thames is racing to secure funding to avoid temporary nationalisation and recently secured a controversial, high-interest, £3bn loan to stave off collapse.The company recently secured a payment plan with the industry regulator for fines it owes worth £123m.The company has been trying to raise money for a turnaround plan for the past year, after building up a net debt pile worth £17.7bn under successive private owners.

Hardy claimed to the committee that it is not the government’s decision whether a company goes into SAR,She said:There is a mistaken belief that it’s the government or secretary of state’s decision to take a company into special administration,The government doesn’t put companies into SAR, the court does,A water company goes into special administration when either the secretary of state applies to the court and makes the case for the water company to enter SAR, or if the water company says it can no longer operate and needs to go into SAR,Hardy added:[Thames] hasn’t met the threshold for going into special administrationIt has to be a serious breach of its principle statutory duties.

This would mean fundamentally water doesn’t come out of the taps, toilets don’t flush,Under further questioning she added that SAR can also be met when the company does not meet performance targets set by Ofwat, the regulator,Hardy added:The situation as it is at the current moment is that Thames water has not met the threshold,Asked by the committee if that was formal advice she’s been given she said “yes”, adding:Ofwat is talking to the company, the company is still solvent, it hasnt met the threshold for insolvency, and it hasn’t met the threshold for performance,Helena Dollimore, Efra committee member, said in response “the regulator is pretty useless, it does not want to bark, let alone bite.

”Ministers appear to be getting ready to place the company into SAR, and have appointed FTI Consulting as potential administrators.Hardy confirmed the appointment, adding:It is absolutely right that we should be prepared for everything.I don’t want to be one of those ministers that is caught on the hop so we have made sure we have got everything ready.