Newsflash: The UK economy has returned to growth, and more vigorously than expected,UK GDP expanded by 0,3% in November, new data from the Office for National Statistics shows, after shrinking a little in October,That’s faster than expected; City economists had expected growth of just 0,1%In another boost, September’s growth figures have been revised higher, showing that the economy didn’t shrink that month after all.

The ONS says:Monthly GDP is estimated to have grown by 0,3%, following an unrevised fall of 0,1% in October 2025 and a growth of 0,1% in September 2025 (revised up from our initial estimate of a fall of 0,1%).

More to follow….There’s a surprise shake-up at the top of Britain’s anti-fraud operation.Nick Ephgrave, the head of Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, is to retire at the end of March after about two-and-a-half years in the post – quite a short tenure.The SFO point out that Ephgrave has spent 38 years in public service, including senior roles in UK law enforcement, with the Metropolitan and Surrey police forces as well as the National Police Chiefs’ Council.Ephgrave said:It is with great pride that I reflect on the enormous progress the SFO has made in the last two and a half years.

We have achieved more things, more quickly than even I thought possible thanks entirely to the enthusiasm, commitment and can-do attitude from everyone at the SFO.I am certain that the momentum we have created will continue to propel the organisation forward to bigger and better things.I would like to thank each and every colleague for their support and hard work, without which none of this could have happened.However, the SFO has also faced criticism during Ephgrave’s tenure; in July 2025, City trader Tom Hayes’s overturned his conviction for Libor rigging after a decade, a month later the SFO admitted that five other convictions could be unsafe too.Working at the SFO is not a glamorous posting either.

As my colleague Anna Isaac wrote in 2024:Even to enter Ephgrave’s attic room – a small, corner office looking down on the gun-metal lions beneath Nelson’s Column – he must first go through the security of the Canadian High Commission.Shabby carpet, struggling house plants and chipped mugs give an impression that is more Slough House, in the TV drama Slow Horses, than the UK’s premier anti-fraud squad.At least he has a view; some of its staff work in its basements, taking vitamin D tablets to compensate for the lack of natural light.There, the majority of the SFO’s historical case files are stored in a former swimming pool.Its dilapidated offices and soundtrack are distractions he could do without.

Running the SFO is one of the highest-pressure jobs in law enforcement.His predecessors have faced heavy criticism, so much so that the body was nicknamed “The Nightmare on Elm Street”, referring to a series of failures when it occupied its former offices.Being forced to set aside £250m for potential damages has earned it a new nickname among some senior Treasury officials: “The Cockups on Cockspur”.Stocks have opened higher in New York, as world markets continue to push higher.The Dow Jones industrial average has gained 132 points, or 0.

27%, in early trading to 49,282 points.The broader S&P 500 share index is up 0.6%, and the tech-focused Nasdaq is 0.9% higher.In news that may enrage the waterless residents of Kent and Sussex, the boss of South East Water is in line for a £400,000 long-term bonus regardless of his performance, if he resists calls for him to resign over the outages.

David Hinton, the chief executive of South East Water, is to receive the payout if he stays on until July 2030.Hinton is facing calls to give up his right to the previously unreported “service award”.The payment, which was disclosed in the company’s annual report, is not performance-related, meaning that as long as he remains, Hinton will receive it whatever the company’s record on water supplies or pollution.Over in the US, the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits have dropped.Last week, there were 198,000 initial claims, a decrease of 9,000 from the previous week.

That suggests US companies continued to hold onto workers, despite recent signs that the labor market was cooling,The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) have predicted that the UK economy got off to a good start in 2026,They say that early estimates point to 0,3% growth in the first quarter of the year, following this morning’s GDP report for November,Yesterday’s UK offshore windfarm auction will support up to 7,000 jobs across the country, the government has annouced.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has calculated that the successful renewables auction will bring £3.4bn of private sector investment into the UK, to support factories, ports and domestic supply chainsDESNZ says:Every £1 of public money invested through the government’s new Clean Industry Bonus leverages £17 from industry in an unprecedented vote of confidence in UK’s industrial strategy and clean energy mission.Investment means factories, ports and supply chains built in Britain, supporting up to 7,000 jobs in the country’s industrial heartlands and most deprived regions, as part of 400,000 new clean energy jobs by 2030.As we reported yesterday, subsidy contracts for enough offshore windfarms to power 12m homes were awarded through the auction for renewable subsidies, after ministers doubled the amount of funding available to developers to help them produce projects.Over on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs has reported a jump in revenues and profits.

Goldman grew its revenues by 9% during 2025, to $58.28bn, lifted by higher activity at its global banking and markets division.Earnings per share swelled too – to $51.32 for the year ended December 31, 2025, up from $40.54 a year earlier.

David Solomon, chairman and ceo of Goldman Sachs, says:We continue to see high levels of client engagement across our franchise and expect momentum to accelerate in 2026, activating a flywheel of activity across our entire firm,While there are meaningful opportunities to deploy capital across our franchise and to return capital to shareholders, our unwavering focus remains on maintaining a disciplined risk management framework and robust standards,”Green Party leader Zack Polanski is calling on Sir Keir Starmer to take South East Water into public ownership through the special administration regime, following the company’s failure to provide water to customers in Kent and Sussex since November,In a letter to the prime minister, Polanski says South East Water has “clearly failed” to make the necessary investments in infrastructure in order to continue meeting its duty to customers, spending less on repairs than it handed to shareholders and bond holders,Polanski insists that the threshold for special administration has been cleared, writing:There is a clear alternative: bringing water back into public hands by placing failing water companies into special administration.

In special administration, the government can refuse to pay shareholders compensation,Crucially, it can also refuse to pay debtholders if this would interfere with water company performance,In the case of South East water the government would be entitled to say that the repair costs exceed the debt, so the debt need not be repaid (that the ‘appropriate value’ for debtholders to get is zero),In September 2025, Minister Emma Hardy set an exceptionally high bar for special administration, telling the Defra select committee they would only put a water company into special administration if ‘fundamentally water does not come out of the tap and your toilet does not flush and sewage does not go away,’Even this extremely high threshold set by the government, far beyond what the law requires in order to put a water company into special administration, has been met.

Water this week did not come out of the taps in 25,000 homes around the south of England.Britain’s stock market has hit a new record high this morning, as City traders welcome the UK’s forecast-beating growth in November.The FTSE 100 has hit a new alltime high of 10,235 points this morning, adding to its gains since it broke through the 10,000-point mark at the start of this year.Asset management firm Schroders (+6.8%) after lifting their profit guidance this morning.

Joshua Mahony, chief market analyst at Scope Markets, says:The FTSE 100 once again remains a leader in Europe, although the pullback in oil and precious metals has meant that commodity stocks are lagging behind as financials take the lead.Strong gains for the likes of HSBC, Barclays, and NatWest bring a recovery from a sector that has been hit by Trump’s recent move to limit credit card interest rates to 10%.However, today has seen a positive update out of the UK, with GDP posting a surprise monthly gain of 0.3% for the month of November.This comes after an October contraction, which had been heavily impacted by a 27% slump in car production following a cyber-attack on Jaguar Land Rover.

The snapback in manufacturing highlights how volatile monthly data can be, and why not every piece of data should be seen solely through a political prism.That being said, the underlying picture remains soft in the UK.Construction continues to deteriorate, with output falling again in November and now almost 3% lower since July.There’s also celebration in Germany today after the country’s economy returned to growth.Germany’s Federal Statistics Office has reported that German GDP grew by 0.

2% in the final quarter of last year and also increased by 0.2% over the full-year 2025.That’s the first annual growth since 2022, following contractions in the last two years.Ruth Brand, President of the Federal Statistical Office, told reporters:“After two years of recession, the German economy edged back into growth.The growth is primarily attributable to increased household consumption and government expenditure.

”Household consumption and government spending both added to growth last year, but investment fell.This is “finally, some positive news” for the German economy, says Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING.Brzeski explains:New Year’s traditions vary – ice diving, eating special cakes, or reflecting on the past year’s economic performance.For us, the most relevant is the German statistical office’s tradition of opening the year with a press conference and an assessment of the past economic year.This morning’s press conference delivered mildly positive news on Germany’s economy.

According to the first estimates, the German economy grew by 0.2% year-on-year in 2025, after two years of recession.Private and public consumption were growth drivers, while investments and exports were a drag on the economy.This first estimate is – as always – based on a very tentative estimate for the final quarter of the year.According to the statistical office, the economy grew by 0.

2% quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2025,