Oil workers and tanker drivers could take strike action in an effort to force UK and Scottish ministers to protect jobs threatened by the green transition, Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary has predicted.Graham told trade union activists based at PetroIneos’s Grangemouth oil refinery near Edinburgh, which is set to close over the next 18 months with the loss of 400 jobs, that direct action was being considered.Speaking outside Scottish Labour’s annual conference in Glasgow, she suggested Unite members could target petrol and diesel production, throttling fuel supplies to forecourts, our Scotland editor Severin Carrell writes.Graham told the rally:“Puts these politicians on notice, we are not going to allow oil and gas workers to be the coal miners of our generation.I have already been meeting with refinery reps up and down the countries in Britain, and we will escalate this action if necessary.

“We will push back hard to save UK jobs,If the pumps run dry in Britain, if the pumps run dry, the public will know who to blame,It will be the Scottish government and the UK government for allowing the sale of our jobs,If politicians do not act, we will,”She told the Guardian industrial action “was on the table.

” Unite is pressuring UK and Scottish ministers to invest in low carbon aviation fuel, known as sustainable aviation fuel or SAF, production at Grangemouth.She said Sweden had spent the equivalent of £700m on converting an oil refinery there to produce green aviation fuel.Similar projects were underway in China and the US.Unite had told the UK government the UK would need 3,500 times more sustainable aviation fuel that was available now by 2030, to meet its emissions reductions targets.“We’ve had experts in, they now accepted - the governments - that green aviation could be produced in Grangemouth after months,” she said.

“And we’re saying, pause that.And let’s make this green aviation.If we’re not getting it from Britain, where’s it coming from?”Time to wrap up for the weekend (!).Here’s a quick summary:The head of the Unite union has warned that Oil workers and tanker drivers could take strike action in an effort to force UK and Scottish ministers to protect jobs threatened by the green transition.Speaking outside Scottish Labour’s annual conference in Glasgow, Sharon Graham said Unite would now allow oil and gas workers to be the coal miners of our generation, adding:“We will push back hard to save UK jobs.

If the pumps run dry in Britain, if the pumps run dry, the public will know who to blame,It will be the Scottish government and the UK government for allowing the sale of our jobs,If politicians do not act, we will,”More here,The latest polls of purchasing managers around the world have painted a worrying picture.

In the UK, companies are cutting their workforce levels at the fastest rate in over four years,In the US, private sector growth has slowed sharply as firms fear new tariffs,In the eurozone, there was very little growth at allThe latest UK public finances brought more bad news for chancellor Rachel Reeves – although January saw a record surplus, less money came into the government’s coffers than expected,Four banks have been fined more than £100m after their traders shared sensitive information with each other about UK government debt they were buying and selling,And…legal filings linked to the motor finance scandal have revealed that UK lenders paid “advance commissions” to car dealers that may have encouraged them to push costlier loans on to consumers.

The surprise drop in the US PMI this month (see last post) suggests that the flurry of tariffs announced, or threatened, by the new president has hit business confidence.Kyle Chapman, FX markets analyst at Ballinger Group, says the “Trump business honeymoon” is over.Chapman explains:“The US composite PMI fell to its lowest level since September 2023 (50.4) amid a shock contraction in the services sector that severely underperformed expectations at 49.7.

This offset an uptick in the manufacturing index to 51,6, which was boosted by tariff front-running,The Trump business honeymoon is over, it seems,The buoyed mood that followed the election has vanished, and instead they have now been spooked by the torrent of policy changes and the uncertainty around tariffs, government spending, and inflation,It is difficult to understate the impact: year-ahead optimism has slumped to the lowest since December 2022, around the peak of concern that rapid Fed rate hikes would trigger a recession.

The latest economic data from the US shows that business activity in the States nearly stalled in February amid mounting fears over tariffs on imports and deep cuts in federal government spending.The Flash US PMI composite output index, which tracks activity across the private sector, has fallen to a 17-month low of 50.4.That’s down from 52.7 in January, and not much higher than stagnation.

The report found that output growth is faltering, as company payrolls fall, with firms reporting weaker optimism and rising costs.Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, explains:“The upbeat mood seen among US businesses at the start of the year has evaporated, replaced with a darkening picture of heightened uncertainty, stalling business activity and rising prices.“Optimism about the year ahead has slumped from the near-three-year highs seen at the turn of the year to one of the gloomiest since the pandemic.Companies report widespread concerns about the impact of federal government policies, ranging from spending cuts to tariffs and geopolitical developments.Sales are reportedly being hit by the uncertainty caused by the changing political landscape, and prices are rising amid tariff-related price hikes from suppliers.

The future of Thames Water has taken another twist, with the Financial Times reporting that Hong Kong’s CK Infrastructure has made a preliminary £7bn bid to take a majority stake in the troubled company.CKI wants bondholders in Thames Water’s near-£20bn debt pile to take significant writedowns in return for a £7bn injection of equity, the FT reprots.The offer, which was made earlier this month, emerges just days after a London court approved £3bn in emergency debt that will allow Thames to keep operating and avoid collapse.CKI are one of several potential new owners rumoured to have bid for Thames, including hedge fund Covalis Capital, the Scottish supplier Castle Water, and private equity firm KKR – who have made a £4bn buyout bid.Thames, which is the UK’s largest water utility, is looking to raise billions of pounds in equity while negotiating a debt restructuring with its lenders in a bid to avoid insolvency, having run up debts of around £16bn.

Oil workers and tanker drivers could take strike action in an effort to force UK and Scottish ministers to protect jobs threatened by the green transition, Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary has predicted.Graham told trade union activists based at PetroIneos’s Grangemouth oil refinery near Edinburgh, which is set to close over the next 18 months with the loss of 400 jobs, that direct action was being considered.Speaking outside Scottish Labour’s annual conference in Glasgow, she suggested Unite members could target petrol and diesel production, throttling fuel supplies to forecourts, our Scotland editor Severin Carrell writes.Graham told the rally:“Puts these politicians on notice, we are not going to allow oil and gas workers to be the coal miners of our generation.I have already been meeting with refinery reps up and down the countries in Britain, and we will escalate this action if necessary.

“We will push back hard to save UK jobs,If the pumps run dry in Britain, if the pumps run dry, the public will know who to blame,It will be the Scottish government and the UK government for allowing the sale of our jobs,If politicians do not act, we will,”She told the Guardian industrial action “was on the table.

” Unite is pressuring UK and Scottish ministers to invest in low carbon aviation fuel, known as sustainable aviation fuel or SAF, production at Grangemouth.She said Sweden had spent the equivalent of £700m on converting an oil refinery there to produce green aviation fuel.Similar projects were underway in China and the US.Unite had told the UK government the UK would need 3,500 times more sustainable aviation fuel that was available now by 2030, to meet its emissions reductions targets.“We’ve had experts in, they now accepted - the governments - that green aviation could be produced in Grangemouth after months,” she said.

“And we’re saying, pause that.And let’s make this green aviation.If we’re not getting it from Britain, where’s it coming from?”In the currency markets, the euro is a little weaker today as traders brace for this weekend’s elections in Germany.The single currency is down a third of a cent at $1.046, having touched one-week highs yesterday.

Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index, says a surprise election result could move the euro next week:Sunday’s German election is likely to result in a conservative-led coalition government,Reviving the stagnant economy is what investors want to see to help the EUR/USD outlook, but there is a risk to block reform should populist parties do well,Germany could face months of uncertainty, if more than one partner is needed for the poll-leading conservative CDU/CSU party, led by Friedrich Merz,The key questions are how quickly a government could be formed and whether there will be a two-thirds majority of parties entering parliament that support fiscal reform,The UK’s motor finance scandal has taken another twist today, with the Guardian reporting that UK lenders paid “advance commissions” to car dealers that may have encouraged them to push costlier loans on to consumers.

Those advance commissions are outlined in legal filings linked to the scandal, which centres on the payments paid to auto dealers for arranging loans for customers to buy cars with,My colleague Kalyeena Makortoff explains:Court documents seen by the Guardian show that lenders, including Lloyds Banking Group, have paid commission to individual dealerships in lump sums upfront, which campaigners say total millions of pounds,The filings claim that the practice encouraged sales staff to funnel contracts to those specific loan providers, regardless of whether it resulted in more expensive payments for the buyer,These advance commission arrangements were not explicitly disclosed to borrowers and “created stark conflicts of interest” that stood to harm customers, the filings claim,Here’s the full story:Elon Musk has rebuffed the idea that Tesla could put money into the struggling carmaker Nissan, after a report that said a Japanese group was seeking its investment sent shares soaring.

Nissan’s stock market value jumped by 9.5% on Friday after claims that the former prime minister Yoshihide Suga was among those who want the US electric carmaker to become a strategic investor, possibly in exchange for Nissan’s American factories.Musk immediately appeared to reject the idea but Nissan’s Tokyo-listed share price still closed at 458.80, its highest since early January during short-lived merger talks with the larger Japanese rival Honda.Next week is the 30th anniversary of the collapse of Barings Bank, the City institution brought down by ‘rogue trader’ Nick Leeson.

Leeson broke Barings by hiding growing losses in a secret account; they eventually totalled £827m as he tried riskier trades to recover his losses, a strategy that blew up after an major earthquake in early 1995 drove markets down,Three decades later, Leeson is concerned that the push towards deregulation could create risks to financial stability,In an interview with Bloomberg Radio, he warns:“You’ve got to be very, very careful when people talk about deregulation,It’s going to open certain doors to allow things to go wrong again,”An official inquiry into the collapse of Barings found that “a serious failure of controls” had contributed to its failure to spot Leeson’s unauthorised and concealed trading.

Today, he says, City firms are in a much better position:“When I think back to my time at Barings, we had one compliance officer, and I think she was also the risk manager for 2,500 people.“You walk into most offices now in Canary Wharf or around this area, and there’s 3,000 people working in compliance.The quality of people are better, they’re better educated, they’re getting better training.”Here’s how we covered the 20th anniversary:It’s notable that recent UK PMI reports paint a more downbeat message on hiring than a separate survey of employers by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), which found that companies increased hiring in January.Today’s UK PMI report shows “a tale of two sectors”, says Thomas Pugh, economist at RSM UK:“The tick down in the flash S&P Global UK Composite PMI for February to 50.

5 suggests the economy continued to essentially flat line in Q1.However, beneath the headline it is painting a starkly different picture between the domestic economy and the external sector.“The services PMI, which is more reflective of conditions in the domestic economy, rose to 51.1 in February.However, the beleaguered manufacturing sector continued to come under pressure with the PMI falling to 46.

4, its lowest level since December 2023.No doubt weak economic growth in the UK’s major trading partners such as France, Germany and China is depressing demand, but the threat of significant US tariffs and a global trade war is probably more to blame for a sharp drop in sentiment.Pugh also points out that the official (but less timely) unemployment data has been more positive than the PMI reports:“Turning back to the composite PMI, the employment index dropped to just 43.5, its lowest level since the pandemic.Admittedly, the official employment data has held up much more strongly that the PMI would suggest.

But clearly hiring intentions are continuing to weaken in the aftermath of the budget.Just in: UK companies are cutting jobs at the fastest rate since the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, as the economy continues to stall, a new survey show.The latest poll of purchasing managers at British firms has found that staffing numbers are falling again this month, which it blames on “higher payroll costs and weak demand”.Data provider S&P Global reports that the fall in staffing this month is the sharpest since November 2020, with some companies blaming policies announced in last autumn’s budget (such as the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions from April).Companies say that new business fell so far this month, at the fastest rate in one and-a-half years.

Anecdotal evidence often cited a lack of new work to replace completed projects and cautious spending among clients in response to general concerns about UK economic prospects, S&P Global says,Firms also reported that costs rose at the fastest pace in 21 months, blamed on strong wage pressures,Overall, S&P’s flash UK PMI composite output index, which tracks activity in the economy, dipped to 50,5 from 50,6 in January