In London this week, the pressure continues to be on Prime Minister Andy Burnham. From geopolitical tensions with Russia over Ukraine to high energy prices and rising inflation, he is in the middle of a very difficult situation—a situation that President Donald Trump seems to have all the answers for.
Devolution & Regional Power
Prime Minister Andy Burnham delivered a major address in Motherwell, Scotland, advocating for "devolution by default" to shift authority away from Westminster and Holyrood directly into regional hubs.
Foreign Affairs & Diplomacy
Downing Street reaffirmed its "rock-solid" commitment to Ukraine during bilateral discussions with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while navigating ongoing diplomatic complexities with Washington.
Trade & Economic Realignment
Discussions regarding closer trade alignment with the European Union returned to the forefront ahead of the upcoming November EU-UK Summit, alongside potential tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
Parliamentary Efficiency
The House of Commons returned from conference recess, immediately confronting procedural strain as a Procedure Committee report highlighted soaring costs from written parliamentary questions.
BURNHAM PUSHES REGIONAL DEVOLUTION IN SCOTLAND
Addressing an audience in Lanarkshire, Prime Minister Andy Burnham called for an expansion of local governance, arguing that power concentrated in central governments has historically neglected industrial heartlands. Proposing closer collaboration between No 10 North, the Scotland Office, and Holyrood, Burnham emphasized shifting decision-making directly into cities and regions to drive reindustrialization and local economic growth.
"Devolution was never meant to stop at the doors of parliament—putting control directly back into the hands of local communities is essential to rebuilding regional prosperity." — Prime Minister Andy Burnham
FOREIGN POLICY & DIPLOMATIC TRAJECTORY
In Downing Street, UK ministers hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to review defense supply chains and long-range air defense capabilities ahead of the winter months. Concurrently, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting engaged in high-level talks in the United States to align security strategies amid evolving transatlantic relations and ongoing geopolitical tensions.
TRADE RELATIONS: EU ALIGNMENT & CHINESE TARIFFS
Trade policy dominated cabinet discussions this week. Ministers signaled an openness to closer regulatory alignment with the European Union on agricultural and food standards ahead of the UK-EU Summit scheduled for late November. Additionally, No 10 left the door open regarding potential tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports, evaluating whether to coordinate with European trade frameworks to protect domestic manufacturing.
WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY & SYSTEM STRAIN
As Parliament resumed sittings following the autumn party conference recess, the Procedure Committee released a critical assessment of parliamentary operations. The report revealed that over 131,000 written parliamentary questions were submitted during the recent session—costing an estimated £28.6 million—prompting calls for strict caps to prevent administrative overload and maintain effective executive oversight.
FTSE 100 in London had a good week, and the FTSE 250, the UK mid-cap stock index, also saw gains.
FTSE 100: Closed the week at 10,881.90, up 3.1% (+329.85 points). This marked its strongest weekly performance in six months, heavily supported by defensive sector rotation—such as consumer staples, healthcare, and defence (BAE Systems, Babcock)—which offset broader global technology weakness. Cooling inflation expectations and reassuring fiscal messages from the Treasury also helped lift sentiment ahead of the upcoming Budget.
FTSE 250: Advanced to 24,533.90, posting a solid gain of 0.5%. Mid-caps tracked positive domestic sentiment, anchored by gains in consumer services and notable corporate developments, including a sharp rally in e-commerce group THG following an upgraded core profit outlook.
The great British pound found support and was up 0.72% for the week.
Commodities this week seen Brent crude oil, the world's benchmark oil price, traded at $111 to its resistance price where it found its high after the US started war with Iran, and this is not just any resistance on a chart; if oil breaks out of that to $120 and even pushing higher like when Russia invaded Ukraine, we could also see the same inflation levels as what we seen then. It was a bad week for gold but a worse week for the silver trade, selling off around 6%.
In stock markets this week, the US benchmark stock index, the S&P 500, the biggest five hundred companies in America, sold off 2% due to hotter than expected domestic inflation data print CPI (consumer price index), a bit more dramatic for the NASDAQ US tech 100 closing the week around 5% down. The CAC 40 stock index in France and German DAX both ended the week up as it looked they were a safe haven away from the US heavily tech-exposed stock markets.
Over in Asia, maybe another flight out of tech, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo closed around 5% down, but even more of an extreme in Korea as the tech-heavy economy KOSPI stock index was down 14% for the week. The Vanguard MSCI Index International Shares ETF (ASX: VGS), a global stock market index, was little changed, up 0.50% for the week.
In global currencies, the DXY dollar index was down for the week even with the macro economic narrative looming; not a great deal of volume in the Japanese currency, the yen (JPY/USD). Crypto currencies this week: Bitcoin (BTC) came back down to trade around $80,000 dollars per coin; Ethereum and Ripples (XRP) also sold off for the week.
