Bank’s base rate gift to borrowers is wrapped in an inflation warning | Phillip Inman

A reduction in interest rates by the Bank of England should rank as a joyful summer gift to borrowers weighed down by the high cost of mortgages and loans.Yet the latest quarter-point cut to the cost of borrowing, from 4.25% to 4%, is laced with so many warnings that any celebration will be muted.Most prominently, the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) said in its latest assessment of the UK’s economic outlook that inflation is on course to peak at a higher rate in the second half of this year than previously forecast.Price spikes in food and energy and the higher cost of business services would push the consumer prices index to 4% in September, it said, before falling only slowly to an average of 3% in a year’s time

Another Bank of England rate cut this year less likely given inflation fears and split vote – as it happened

The chances of another cut to UK interest rates this year, to 3.75%, have fallen today, following the Bank of England’s warning that inflation will rise higher than expected this year.The closeness of this week’s vote to cut rates, with four out of nine policymakers wanting to hold rates at 4.25%, also appears to make further cuts in 2025 less likely.The money markets are now indicating that the next cut is not full priced in until February 2026

I spoke to the AI avatar of a Leeds MP. How did it cope with my Yorkshire accent?

As anyone with even a trace of a regional dialect who has had to pay a parking fine can attest, voice recognition services struggle with accents. Now, people in Mark Sewards’ constituency in Leeds are likely to find the same problem with his AI variant.A chatbot billed as the first AI version of an MP responds in Sewards’ voice with advice, support or by offering to pass on a message to his team – but only if it understands you.The website, a virtual representation of the MP for Leeds South West and Morley – complete with a Pixar-style cartoon – was launched by a local startup to field questions from his constituents, some of whom have broad Leeds accents.I was interested to see how “Sewardsbot” would handle a conversation with someone from only a couple of miles away from his constituency border

OpenAI says latest ChatGPT upgrade is big step forward but still can’t do humans’ jobs

OpenAI has claimed to have taken a “significant step” towards artificial general intelligence (AGI) with the launch of its latest upgrade to ChatGPT, but has admitted there are still “many things” missing in its quest to create a system able to do humans’ jobs.The startup said its GPT-5 model, the underlying technology that will power its breakthrough AI chatbot, represents a big upgrade on its predecessors in areas such as coding and creative writing – and is also a lot less sycophantic.It said the upgrade was being made available to all of ChatGPT’s 700 million weekly users immediately.Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, called the model a “significant step forward” to achieving the theoretical state of AGI, which the startup defines as a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work – or, in other words, can do their jobs.However, Altman admitted GPT-5 had not reached that goal yet

The ultimate test: watching this glorious sporting summer has given me a headache | Emma John

There is a crick in my neck, a rick in my back, and a permanent ache behind my eyes. A friend refuses to offer sympathy. “You did this to yourself,” she says as I pop paracetamol. Thousands of hours of medical research are ploughed into elite sport, but where are the studies into the physical and mental demands of keeping up with it?While winter may be fiercely programmed, it’s the multi-disciplinary bunfight of summer that is the ultimate test of a sports fan. Right when our diaries demand we’re at our most sociable, our most available, our most outdoors, the calendar loses all sense of perspective and dumps events on us like it’s trying to save them from a burning building

Emma Raducanu: ‘I hope Francisco Roig can help me beat the top players’

Emma Raducanu believes her new coaching partnership with Francisco Roig can help to take her game to the next level as she tries to continue her recent rise up the rankings. “First impressions are it’s going really well,” Raducanu said, speaking for the first time about the move in an interview with the Guardian. “We did a few days after Wimbledon together and I was really happy with how it went. I’m just so excited to have him on board, so much experience. I’m really looking forward to continuing