ISSUE NO. 25 · MONDAY 7 SEPTEMBER 2026

The week in review — a gilt yield at 2008 levels, a shop price line that turned in a single month, and a tax on hiring that retail wants moved by £1,000

Last week had one subject, and it took until Thursday to show its face. UK gilt yields moved to levels not seen in a generation — the ten-year at its highest since 2008, the thirty-year back at 1998 — with Britain paying more than £130bn a year in debt interest against a national debt approaching £3tn. By Friday that had stopped being a market story and started being a set of accounts.

Around it, prices turned. Shop price inflation hit 1.5 per cent in the year to August, up from 0.9 per cent the month before, with food doing most of the work. And retail spent the week asking John Healey for one number: move the employer national insurance threshold from £5,000 back to £6,000, after £2.3bn of extra cost and 115,000 jobs gone in two years.

The three biggest stories are below, rewritten shorter, then everything else from the week in one list. After those, eight numbers, the week ahead — which ends with July GDP — and one calculator.

The Week’s Biggest Story

The ten-year gilt yield is at its highest since 2008. The thirty-year is at a level not seen since 1998.

Britain pays more than £130bn a year on debt interest alone against a national debt approaching £3tn, and every basis point of yield adds to that before a single policy is chosen. Andy Burnham arrived as Prime Minister with a growth plan, but the bond market sets the limits of what John Healey can fund. A Prime Minister can pick his growth theory; he cannot pick the price of borrowing. By the end of the week the consequence was visible in company results: Lloyd’s of London underwrote better than it has in years and still reported profit down 16.7 per cent, because it holds a great many bonds, and Crest Nicholson’s covenant talks slipped again in a market that has repriced what lending is worth. The room for a generous Budget has already gone. Read the full story →

Nearly 1m young people are out of work, education or training. The tax on hiring them went up.

The 2024 Budget lifted employer national insurance to 15 per cent and pulled the threshold down from £9,100 to £5,000. The threshold is the part that bites, because lowering the point at which the tax starts falls hardest on part-time and entry-level work — precisely the jobs that get young people into employment. It has cost retail more than £2.3bn, the sector has shed 115,000 jobs in two years, and it puts its own extra hiring costs at £6bn. The ask at next month’s Budget is narrow: push the threshold back to £6,000. Not a rate cut, not a bailout — one number, so the cheapest job to create stops being the most expensive to tax. Read the full story →

Prices in the shops rose 1.5 per cent in the year to August. The month before it was 0.9 per cent.

That is not a drift but a step change, and the British Retail Consortium puts the cause on energy and commodity costs moving down the supply chain. Food inflation reached 2.8 per cent, up from 2.2 per cent, reversing a downward trend that had held for most of 2026 — and food is the line households read first. The wider figure now sits above its own three-month average of 1.2 per cent, which is what makes one month look like a turn rather than noise. The Bank of England has flagged inflation topping four per cent if the Strait of Hormuz stays closed to oil and gas shipping. A rate of 1.5 per cent is not a crisis; the direction is what matters, and it changed while energy costs were still filtering through. Read the full story →

The Brief

Everything else published last week, newest first.

• Crest Nicholson Loss Lands as Lender Talks Slip Again — a guided profit became a £10m loss.
• OFSI Fines Citi £4.7m Over £19.7m in Payments — what a sanctions breach costs once the regulator does the arithmetic.
• Lloyd’s of London Profit Slides 16.7% on Bond Hit — better underwriting, worse profit.
• Just 38% of UK Startups Survive Five Years — against 46% in the EU and 51% in the US.
• UK Business Investment Set to Shrink 0.2% in 2026 — a smaller contraction is still a contraction.
• Allica Bank Lifts Its Loanbook 23% to £3bn — lending to the firms the big banks left behind.
• The Brent Crude Price Now Sets Your Energy Cap — £1,723 for the fourth quarter, up 4%.
• Entain Faces FTSE 100 Reshuffle After £150m Hit — what a quarterly index review actually decides.
• Frozen Tax Thresholds Now Hit 1m Pensioners — the same freeze, a different generation.
• Stealth Taxes Add £16,350 to a London First Home — a threshold held still while prices did not.
• 50 Companies Gone and London Keeps Losing More — the listings exodus, counted.

The Numbers

Bank Rate is 3.75% with ten days to the 17 September decision, and CPI is still July’s 2.9% — but the shop price card is the one that moved last week, and it moved the wrong way. The index below finished the week almost exactly where it started for the second week running, having fallen three sessions and then jumped 75 points on Thursday. Note the twelve-month low has rolled up to 9,196 as last September dropped out of the window.

The Week Ahead

• Today, 7.00am BST — Lloyds House Price Index. The first house price read of the month, and the one to set against a housebuilder that has just guided to a loss.
• Wednesday, 9.30am BST — Musculoskeletal treatment waiting times and labour market outcomes. An unusual ONS release linking NHS waits to whether people are working, which is one of the few concrete reads on why so many are out of the workforce.
• Thursday, 9.30am BST — Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators. The fastest series the ONS publishes.
• Friday, 7.00am BST — GDP monthly estimate for July, with UK Trade and the Index of Services. The week’s big one. Last week’s forecast had growth built almost entirely in the first half of the year; July is the first month of the half where it was supposed to drain away.

The Toolbox

One tool from the site each issue, picked to fit what has just happened. Free, no sign-up, and it shows its workings.

Remortgage comparison calculator

“Ten days before a Bank Rate decision, and with gilt yields where they are, the number worth having is what your current deal costs against what is actually on offer now.”

The Close

Every story last week was a version of the same one: money got more expensive, and the bill went looking for somebody to hand itself to. It found the Treasury first, at £130bn a year in interest before a single decision. It found Lloyd’s, which did its actual job better than it has in years and still earned less. It found Crest Nicholson, whose lenders are pricing risk in a world that changed under them. It found the shopper, at 2.8 per cent on food. And it has been sitting on retail for two years, at £2.3bn and 115,000 jobs, which is why the ask this week was so small — move one threshold by £1,000. That is what a repricing looks like from underneath: not a crash, just everyone finding out in turn. Ten days to the Bank Rate decision, fifty-one to the Budget.

If something here is wrong, or there is something you want dug into, just reply. It comes straight to me.

MJB