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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Business bosses welcomed an upbeat tone from UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves as they sought to rebuild momentum behind the government’s agenda to boost economic growth at Labour’s annual conference.  

In a speech on Monday, Reeves promised the government would unveil a new industrial strategy and highlighted steps ministers had already taken to try to boost growth, including plans to streamline the planning system and remove a ban on new onshore wind farms. 

Her speech came after grumbling from some executives that ministers had been too negative about the UK’s economic and fiscal position, and too slow to unveil detailed policies ranging from an industrial strategy to the finer points of the government’s worker rights reform. 

Shevaun Haviland, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said Reeves’s speech “was a vital moment to lift the tone and for the chancellor to champion the critical importance of economic growth, increased exports and investment”.

“Businesses will be keen to get more detail,” she added, including on potential tax rises.  

Rain Newton-Smith, boss of the CBI business lobby group, said companies would be “reassured to hear that while the government won’t duck difficult decisions, they will be taken in the context of a return to long-term sustainable growth”.  

A record 500 business people attended a sold-out “business day” at Labour’s conference on Monday.

Attendees paid £3,000 per ticket, and some said the event had a significantly less “VIP” feel than last year. 

Last year 200 attendees sat at round tables with shadow ministers but at Monday’s event, the furniture was removed to make space for more seats. 

Reeves’s speech in the main conference hall was live streamed into the business day venue, and the chancellor and Starmer subsequently participated in question and answer sessions with executives and company advisers, moderated by WPP’s former UK president Karen Blackett and Google’s UK boss Debbie Weinstein. 

Several attendees said they learned little from the discussions and noted that in a break from last year, there were no private sessions with Labour’s top team. Most acknowledged that it was difficult for ministers to give any details on tax or spending plans ahead of Reeves’s Budget on October 30. 

But business people welcomed the government’s positive tone towards private enterprise.

“Wealth creation is the number one mission,” said Starmer, as he reiterated his call for business to “partner” with the government to remove economy-wide barriers to growth such as skills development as well as sector-specific challenges.

He told executives that if they were struggling to get a response from the government or find the right person to talk to they should contact his office directly.  

Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds continued Labour’s enthusiastic wooing of business, which the party courted extensively before the July 4 general election.  

“I want you to invest in the UK and make a profit,” said Reynolds after taking questions from executives.

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, whose trade union ties are a cause of concern for some executives, also spoke briefly at the business day. 

Business applauded Reeves’s pledge to publish a detailed industrial strategy.

It was vital that ministers move “without delay” to confirm the details of the strategy, said Stephen Phipson, chief executive of the manufacturers’ lobby group Make UK. 

Labour’s pitch to business has centred around nurturing economic and political stability as a foundation for growth, but some executives have become impatient at the lack of progress in implementing the government’s plans since July 4.

“We need to see some detail,” said one industry leader at the business day. Others complained about the government’s warnings of a tough Budget involving potential tax rises. 

Some attendees noted wryly the background music in the venue where the business day was held included Adele’s “Water under the bridge”, which contains the lyrics: “If you’re gonna let me down, let me down gently; don’t pretend that you don’t want me.” 

But other attendees said that while they wanted to see rapid progress on Labour’s agenda to boost growth, it was too early to judge the government.

One said ministers were “damned if they do and damned if they don’t”, because businesses favour the government taking time to consult on any reforms, but also want policies to be implemented rapidly. 

Business & Finance

Market Impact

Copper miners have been under stress as a tepid demand in China and macro-economic uncertainty has put the commodity price under pressure, with the industry anticipating possible production cuts. Analysts are expecting that the low price could force copper miners to cut costs and even consider M&A deals. 

Commodities

Market Impact

The stoppage has potential to have a lasting impact, reminiscent of the last major Escondida walkout in 2017, which hit BHP’s copper production and pushed up global prices of the metal, used to make wiring and nearly every single electronic device.

Business & FinanceDeals

Market Impact

Whirlpool’s shares rose 12.7% in early trading after the Reuters report.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Israel launched a relentless wave of air strikes against what it said were Hizbollah targets on Monday, killing almost 300 people in Lebanon’s deadliest day for decades and pushing the region closer to all-out war.

Israeli warplanes struck hundreds of targets across the country, including Beirut’s southern suburbs, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government ramped up its assault on Hizbollah in a “new phase” to the war.

The bombardment heightened concerns about full-scale hostilities in the Middle East and spread panic across Lebanon, sending tens of thousands fleeing targeted areas.

Monday’s death toll was the highest since Israel launched a ground offensive against Hizbollah in 2006, and came despite the US warning Israel not to escalate its military campaign against the Iranian-backed militant group.

Israel’s army said it had hit some 800 Hizbollah targets and would continue to strike buildings where it believed the militant group was storing weapons, warning civilians to evacuate.

“We are not waiting for the threat, we are pre-empting it,” Netanyahu said in a video statement, as the Israeli premier warned of “complex days” ahead.

“We are eliminating senior figures, terrorists and missiles . . . I promised that we would change the security balance, the balance of power in the north — that is exactly what we are doing.”

The Israeli cabinet late on Monday approved a “special [emergency] situation” across the country that allows the military more latitude to restrict civilian life and activities due to the war in anticipation of a fierce Hizbollah response.

Lebanon’s health ministry said 39 women and 21 children were among the almost 300 dead, with at least 1,024 people injured. Roads in southern Lebanon were packed with cars as civilians fled north towards Beirut and schools across the country were turned into emergency shelters for the displaced.

Israel issued several warnings throughout the course of the day, urging civilians to leave any buildings where Hizbollah stored weapons, first in southern Lebanon and then in the Bekaa Valley in the country’s east. Both are areas where Hizbollah has long had a major presence.

Beirut residents told the Financial Times they received warning calls on their landlines from the Israeli military ordering inhabitants of villages in targeted areas to leave.

In its statements, the Israel Defense Forces said people had two hours to leave any potential targets and advised them to move at least 1km away.

In response to the IDF strikes, Hizbollah said it had fired dozens of missiles at multiple targets in northern Israel including a site owned by the Rafael defence company north of Haifa. It stressed the attacks “in defence of Lebanon and its people” were focused on military targets.

Sirens sounded multiple times in northern Israel throughout the day. But fewer rockets hit population centres in Israel than on Sunday, when the militant group hit the suburbs of Haifa.

One strike on Monday hit a private home in the village of Givat Avni in the Galilee, Israeli media reported. Rockets were also intercepted over the occupied West Bank, a regional council for Israeli settlements in the area said.

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant told citizens to prepare for a more intense response. “We are deepening our attacks in Lebanon, the sequence of operations continues,” he said. “Ahead of us are days when the public will have to show composure, discipline.”

The escalation has stoked fears that a full-blown land war could be imminent.

Asked about the possibility of a land incursion into southern Lebanon, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, said the country would continue to “do whatever is needed” to prevent Hizbollah from being able to strike northern Israel and to allow local residents to return to their homes.

Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian said that Israel was seeking to “trap” his country in a wider war. “They are dragging us to a point where we do not wish to go,” he told reporters on Monday.

Ziad al-Makary, Lebanon’s information minister, said on social media that a large number of residents in Beirut and other areas received “random” phone messages via their landlines telling them to evacuate their locations.

His office in Beirut received one of the calls, which he said were part of Israel’s policy of “psychological warfare”, adding that “work at the Ministry of Information continues as usual”.

The strikes prompted chaotic scenes across the country. Videos in Lebanese media showed explosions rocking villages in the Bekaa Valley, and paramedics and residents picking their way through rubble following an air strike. Schools closed across Lebanon’s southern and Bekaa regions as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The health ministry asked all hospitals in the country’s south and east to halt non-urgent surgeries to make room for those injured in the Israeli strikes. Hospitals in the north of Israel also began relocating operations further south away from the fighting.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said during a cabinet meeting that the Israeli attacks were a “war of extermination”. Citing UN secretary-general António Guterres, who warned on Sunday that southern Lebanon could turn into “another Gaza”, Mikati called on the international community “to pressure Israel to end its aggression”.

The hostilities follow the mass detonations of Hizbollah’s communications devices that killed 37 people and injured more than 3,000 across Lebanon, and which the militant group blamed on Israel. Israel has not directly confirmed or denied responsibility.

Energy

Market Impact

Sigma Lithium (SGML.V) Chief Operating Officer Brian Talbot left the company at the end of last month, he told Reuters on Thursday, sending shares of the Vancouver-based miner tumbling.