Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Daybreak EUROP podcast. Good morning, It's Friday, the fourteenth of August.
Speaker 1: I'm Stephen Caroll in London. Coming up today, Nigel Farage
Speaker 1: wins the UK by election that he triggered, but skips
Speaker 1: the declaration as joke candidate count Binface steals much of
Speaker 1: the limelight. US long term borrowing costs return to levels
Speaker 1: last scene in two thousand and one in a debt
Speaker 1: auction that sends a warning to the White House. Plus
Speaker 1: from war zones to weather zones, we look at how
Speaker 1: the drone technology honed on the battlefield is finding a
Speaker 1: new role in forecasting. Let's start with the roundup of
Speaker 1: our top stories. Nigel Farage has won his by election
Speaker 1: in the East of England nearly sixty three percent of
Speaker 1: the vote, with none of the other leading parties fielding candidates.
Speaker 1: The Reform UK leader triggered the election after quitting his
Speaker 1: seat last month amid an investigation into whether he failed
Speaker 1: to declare a five million pounds gift from an overseas
Speaker 1: crypto billionaire for as got more than twenty two thousand votes,
Speaker 1: while joke candidate count Binface came second with close to
Speaker 1: nine thousand, five hundred, taking more than a quarter of
Speaker 1: all votes cast, but for As wasn't there to hear
Speaker 1: the result declared. Instead, he declared victory himself at a
Speaker 1: Reform UK event before the official announcement, claiming he'd beaten
Speaker 1: the establishment.
Speaker 2: I regret it so, but I'm damned if I'm going
Speaker 2: to stand on the stage having won a resounding victory,
Speaker 2: a ringing endorsement of all that I've tried to fight for,
Speaker 2: and you try to fight for and be demeaned and
Speaker 2: humiliated by nobody's.
Speaker 1: Nige Farar, speaking before the result was declared, and count Binface,
Speaker 1: who did attend the account, challenged the Reform UK leaders,
Speaker 1: claimed that he'd beaten the establishment.
Speaker 3: Well that's interesting, isn't it, Because one of the candidates
Speaker 3: is was a sitting MP, formerly an MEP, architecture of Brexit,
Speaker 3: one of the most significant British politicians the last twenty years,
Speaker 3: and reputedly a member of the East India Gentlemen's Club,
Speaker 3: which to this day does not admit women. Now that's
Speaker 3: not the establishment. I'd like to know it is because
Speaker 3: I'm a lone wolf.
Speaker 1: Space for you count Binface, the creation of satirist Jonathan
Speaker 1: Harvey became Farag's main challenger after the main party's declined
Speaker 1: to stand dismissing the election as a political stunt. With
Speaker 1: Farage back in Parliament, the investigation into his finances will
Speaker 1: now resume, with the results of that probe possibly triggering
Speaker 1: a second by election for the Reform UK leader. The
Speaker 1: by election comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham's economic agenda
Speaker 1: is starting to take shape. Bloomberg understands his government's first
Speaker 1: budget in October will focus on cutting business rates for
Speaker 1: smaller companies. Burnham has publicly suggested that could be funded
Speaker 1: by higher taxes on larger firms, but retailers warrant that
Speaker 1: could backfire by pushing up prices. The United States has
Speaker 1: sold thirty year government debt at the highest interest rate
Speaker 1: in a quarter of a century. There was decent demand
Speaker 1: from buyers, but the Treasury had to offer a yield
Speaker 1: to above five point two percent to sell twenty five
Speaker 1: billion dollars worth of bonds. That's the highest rate since
Speaker 1: two thousand and one. As years of elevated inflation and
Speaker 1: deficit field spending add to the strain on US government finances.
Speaker 1: BIM Big Intelligence is chief US interest rates strategist. To
Speaker 1: Ira Jersey says, it's part of a broader picture.
Speaker 4: The US Treasury now is competing with other countries worldwide.
Speaker 4: Whereas for the better part of two decades we were
Speaker 4: the highest yielding developed market liquid bomb market in the world.
Speaker 4: That's just not the case anymore. There is competition on
Speaker 4: the net debt issue. So far, I don't think that
Speaker 4: people are so worried about it when it comes to
Speaker 4: whether or not the US will pay its pay its
Speaker 4: bills and pay its debt. But as debt to GDP
Speaker 4: continues to get bigger and bigger, you will hear more
Speaker 4: of those types of questions.
Speaker 1: Ira Jersey was referring to US spending close to one
Speaker 1: point two trillion dollars on debt interests so far this
Speaker 1: fiscal year. That's up from fifteen percent from a year ago,
Speaker 1: as higher yields make the federal governments thirty four point
Speaker 1: six trillion dollar debt pile more expensive to finance. Let's
Speaker 1: return to the UK and breaking news from the election
Speaker 1: in Clacton. Nigel Farag has won reelection in that by
Speaker 1: election vote with some sixty two percent of the vote
Speaker 1: this morning, so count Binface, the opposition candidate winning twenty
Speaker 1: six point seven percent of the vote as well, so
Speaker 1: more than a quarter of the overall vote of thirty
Speaker 1: five thousand votes going to that joke candidate. Count Binface,
Speaker 1: but Nigel Farag winning re election in his seat in
Speaker 1: Clacton in the east of England. The United States is
Speaker 1: preparing to announce economic measures against Iran next week as
Speaker 1: the Trump administration intensifies its effort to squeeze Tehran's finances.
Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen says the steps will work alongside
Speaker 1: the continued blockade of Iranian ports. Here's what he tells
Speaker 1: the conservative leaning Newsmax network.
Speaker 5: The kinetic war ended after several weeks, and we went
Speaker 5: from epic fury to economic fury, and at the President's orders,
Speaker 5: we have raised the level even again and watch the
Speaker 5: space for more announcements coming next week, because we are
Speaker 5: going to apply measures like have never been seen in
Speaker 5: the history of economic isolation on a country.
Speaker 1: Scott Besson's comments on Newsmax comm As the US faces
Speaker 1: growing pressure on its weapons stockpiles after nearly six months
Speaker 1: of war, Bloomberg Economics says it supplies of key air
Speaker 1: defense interceptors are critically low, while long range missile stocks
Speaker 1: are under pressure, potentially limiting Washington's options if it chooses
Speaker 1: to escalate the conflict. Sources tell Bloomberg that open ai
Speaker 1: is on track to generate more than forty billion dollars
Speaker 1: in annualized revenue that would roughly double its run rate
Speaker 1: from the end of twenty twenty five. The growth is
Speaker 1: being driven by AI coding tools, subscriptions, and a small
Speaker 1: but growing advertising business. The momentum strengthens OpenAI's case for
Speaker 1: a future at Wall Street debut as competition with Anthropic intensifies.
Speaker 1: Both firms have filed confidential paperwork to go public, with
Speaker 1: the Anthropic IPO expected as soon as this autumn. Poland
Speaker 1: says its security services have thwarted a Russian plot to
Speaker 1: kill a Ukrainian US citizen. Prime Minister Donald Tusk says
Speaker 1: that the country's internal security agency and police attained a
Speaker 1: Russian national last week had been recruited to carry out
Speaker 1: the assassination. Tusk went on to point the finger at
Speaker 1: Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 6: Unfortunately, we must accept the assumption that the Putin regime
Speaker 6: will seek to eliminate inconvenient individuals in various parts of
Speaker 6: the world. Therefore, our actions in this matter will be
Speaker 6: extremely intensive to prevent any further attempts against citizens of
Speaker 6: Poland or other countries.
Speaker 1: Published Prime Minister Donald Tusk speaking at a press conference
Speaker 1: in Warsaw. The news comes as European officials war in
Speaker 1: Russia may escalate sabotage and covert attacks across the continent
Speaker 1: as its war in Ukraine enters a fifth year. Russia
Speaker 1: has previously denied responsibility for incidents in Europe, and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six is projected to become the world's hottest year ever.
Speaker 1: According to nonprofit Berkeley Earth, an unusually paraphul al Nino
Speaker 1: weather phase is raising the odds that this year will
Speaker 1: surpass twenty twenty four before twenty twenty seven. So that's
Speaker 1: a new high Archie. If your correspondent Oliver Crook says,
Speaker 1: falling water levels in some of Europe's most important waterways
Speaker 1: could cause significant disruption.
Speaker 7: So if this goes on for another month, two months,
Speaker 7: three months, it's going to have a fairly substantial impact
Speaker 7: on the economy. How big, I think it's very hard
Speaker 7: to say. We have some smisus from some of the houses.
Speaker 7: IG says that it could cause German growth zero point
Speaker 7: three percentage points of growth, which is close to half
Speaker 7: of what we're estimating here in Germany for the full year.
Speaker 1: It's Bloomberg's Oliver Krook. This summer's multiple European heat waves
Speaker 1: have already abended harvests and disrupted critic produce transport routes.
Speaker 1: Wheat futures in Paris and Chicago have gained nineteen percent
Speaker 1: and twelve percent, respectively over the last two months, while
Speaker 1: corn prices in both markets have soared as well, and
Speaker 1: those are some of our top stories on the program.
Speaker 1: On the markets, the stock Sison is up by three
Speaker 1: tenths of one percent, the Mscish Pacific Index just slightly
Speaker 1: higher on the day. The Costpian sold up by one
Speaker 1: point four percent, the HANKSNG Tech index so down by
Speaker 1: two percent. Oil prices holding pretty steady for Brent crewed
Speaker 1: eighty seven dollars and twelve cents this morning. The Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Dollar Spot index is a tenth weeker. The Japanese yen
Speaker 1: a touch stronger at one fifty nine thirty three against
Speaker 1: the dollar, when in a moment we'll bring you more
Speaker 1: on Nigel Farage's winning in that by election vote that
Speaker 1: he triggered, plus how drones are providing crucial new insights
Speaker 1: into weather forecasting. But first to another story that we've
Speaker 1: been reading this morning on the lens that some pet
Speaker 1: owners are going to to try and prolong the life
Speaker 1: of their animals, and Etne and anake in Ampudi have
Speaker 1: been meeting pet owners that are giving their animals peptide injections,
Speaker 1: red light treatments, and pills that they believe will help
Speaker 1: their dogs and cats, mainly to live longer. It's a
Speaker 1: world that's based on minimal science, but advice instead coming
Speaker 1: from social media influencers and AI chatbots. Vets say that
Speaker 1: cobbling together these treatments can be risky and worn against
Speaker 1: giving unproven medication to aging animals. In fact, many find
Speaker 1: that the supplements themselves that can make pets sick, and
Speaker 1: it can be difficult to get owners to stop taking
Speaker 1: them or to stop giving them rather to the animals.
Speaker 1: Spending in this area though pet supplements, according to one
Speaker 1: estimate Topple, topped two point nine billion dollars in the
Speaker 1: US last year. About ten percent of owners buying their
Speaker 1: animals anti aging supplements. Perhaps the most interesting part of this, though,
Speaker 1: is why pet owners are doing this, sometimes even sharing
Speaker 1: their own medication with their animals. Most of them say
Speaker 1: that if it's good enough for them, in many cases
Speaker 1: of no evidence for that either, why isn't it good
Speaker 1: enough for their pets. On the more serious side, though,
Speaker 1: there are universities and pet drug companies doing research into
Speaker 1: t treatmos for older petss. Paper in area that we'll
Speaker 1: be hearing a lot more about in the future, but
Speaker 1: a fascinating read from our colleagues. We'll put a link
Speaker 1: to us in our podcast show notes. Let's bring you
Speaker 1: the latest then on that by election in England triggered
Speaker 1: by Reform UK leader at Nigel at Farage just stepping
Speaker 1: down so he could run for reelection, which he has
Speaker 1: now won. That vote the process put us up to
Speaker 1: a parliamentary investigation into his finances. Our UK politics reporter
Speaker 1: James Wilcock joins us now for more on this story. James,
Speaker 1: we had the results just after six am here in London.
Speaker 1: Took us through what they show.
Speaker 8: Well, he has one decisively Stephen, but that was almost
Speaker 8: never in doubt really, Nigel farrag won twenty nine votes,
Speaker 8: which is sixty two percent of the vote there with
Speaker 8: his main opponent, the comedian count Binface, winning twenty six
Speaker 8: percent of the vote with nine four hundred and fifty
Speaker 8: five votes. What's interesting to me it jumps out is
Speaker 8: that for a by election, a turnout of just over
Speaker 8: forty forty four percent is really quite high. If you
Speaker 8: go back to twenty twenty four in that seat in Clacton,
Speaker 8: there was a fifty eight eight percent turnout. As a
Speaker 8: rough yard sick, you expect how to drop to about
Speaker 8: two thirds, which would be thirty five percent. So a
Speaker 8: lot of people came out for reform, so much in fact,
Speaker 8: that Nigel's vote count has gone up since twenty twenty
Speaker 8: four and twenty twenty four it was twenty one thousand,
Speaker 8: it's now twenty two thousand. So the other sort of
Speaker 8: surprising thing here is there aren't many good markers to
Speaker 8: measure count Binface's performance. He's a comedian, he's a satirist.
Speaker 8: But if you took together all of the opposition parties
Speaker 8: in twenty twenty four, you have about twenty thousand votes,
Speaker 8: and so Binface is nine thousand, and I need to
Speaker 8: add in here when bin Face ran its Andy Burnham
Speaker 8: in Makerfield he got ninety one, Yeah, ninety one full
Speaker 8: stops vote. You can see that there was a clear
Speaker 8: coming together to try and have an anti reform vote.
Speaker 8: But Clacton is a remarkable seat. It has voted Reform,
Speaker 8: it has voted UKIP for more than a decade now.
Speaker 8: It was never in doubt for idred Win this but
Speaker 8: it is notable how much support there is for him
Speaker 8: in this seat.
Speaker 1: I mean, the other very curious factor about this by
Speaker 1: election is that the other main parties didn't rrect candidates.
Speaker 1: So I suppose is there a broader implication actually for
Speaker 1: British politics from the outcome of this vote.
Speaker 8: This is a moment where Reform are struggling to become
Speaker 8: the main party of the right. Nigel Ferrag has become
Speaker 8: the highest polling party in the UK at the start
Speaker 8: of this year. He's now neck and neck with Labor
Speaker 8: in the Reform UK and that has come as they
Speaker 8: have run into scandals around funding. There have been issues
Speaker 8: around the language they use, migration in race and in
Speaker 8: many ways the shine around Farag has come off as
Speaker 8: a Canadate and that is what led him to call
Speaker 8: this by election. But at its core, Reform can turn
Speaker 8: out in any constituency a roughly twenty five percent of
Speaker 8: the national vote. That is a remarkable number, but it's
Speaker 8: not quite big enough to take over the mainstream mantle
Speaker 8: of being the Conservative party. He still also exists in
Speaker 8: twenty percent. So we are in this moment now where
Speaker 8: Labor have picked a new prime Minister, Andy Burnham. They
Speaker 8: are seeing a boun from the pole. They in the
Speaker 8: Manchester Maryor election recently have shown they can unite some
Speaker 8: of the left wing vote, the Green votes, and in
Speaker 8: many ways Count Binfow shows this too can unite an
Speaker 8: anti reform vote. But on the right wing of politics,
Speaker 8: Nigel Farrage has not yet demonstrated the ability to unite
Speaker 8: the mainstream right and the far right together. That's what
Speaker 8: this shows, and in many ways him calling this election
Speaker 8: shows that the struggle to sort of take over that
Speaker 8: media narrative.
Speaker 1: There was a particular reason why Niger Farras called this
Speaker 1: by election as well, which was to do with this
Speaker 1: parliamentary investigation into his finances. What do we know about
Speaker 1: what happens to that investigation now?
Speaker 8: Well, now that he is regaining his seat as an MP.
Speaker 8: That investigation will resume because the reason this investigation happened
Speaker 8: is Nigel Farrage before he said he was running for
Speaker 8: an MP to be an MP in twenty twenty four
Speaker 8: except a donation of five million pounds from a crypto billionaire.
Speaker 8: Now the rule state if you're not working political life,
Speaker 8: you don't have to declare your donations. Farage says that
Speaker 8: he wasn't thinking about politics at the time, therefore he
Speaker 8: can have to donate it. The Parliamentary Stands inquiry is
Speaker 8: looking into if Farad was politically motivated at that time
Speaker 8: and if therefore this was an omission. Obviously if he
Speaker 8: was not an MP, so when you step down to
Speaker 8: the BNP they don't have to look into that anymore.
Speaker 8: Now he's back in being an MP again, there will
Speaker 8: resume that. So this story will run and run and run,
Speaker 8: as will journal that's looking into it, and so by
Speaker 8: no means is the media difficulties reform face on this
Speaker 8: issue over.
Speaker 1: Okay, James, thank you very much for bringing us the
Speaker 1: d just on that breaking news this morning, our UK
Speaker 1: politics reporter James Wilcock, stay with us more from Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Daybreak Europe coming up after this. The heat wave warnings
Speaker 1: are still in place in much of Europe today, although
Speaker 1: the peak and temperatures has now passed in France and
Speaker 1: in the UK. More frequent extreme weather events, though, are
Speaker 1: pushing forecasters into using new technologies. Drones are now a
Speaker 1: key tool and gathering weather data. And our weather and
Speaker 1: climate reporter Joe where it joins us now for more
Speaker 1: on this to or a joke, good morning and more.
Speaker 1: How can drones help in collecting data for weather forecasting?
Speaker 9: So, one big thing is what's known as the boundary layer.
Speaker 9: This is the layer of atmosphere that's closest to the ground.
Speaker 9: And uh, you know, this is a poorly observed layer
Speaker 9: of the atmosphere. And you know, uh, these commercial weather
Speaker 9: firms say that collecting more data and in this layer
Speaker 9: of atmosphere can tell them all sorts of of of
Speaker 9: of interesting things about how clouds form, how fog forms,
Speaker 9: how wind patterns shift. And they're they're using drones to
Speaker 9: record these measurements, and that these are these automated drones
Speaker 9: and and and they just go up and they go
Speaker 9: down and they fly out of these little bases, these uh,
Speaker 9: little like base stations and collecting this data and then
Speaker 9: goes into these weather models and and it it feeds,
Speaker 9: uh this this better understanding of this data gap that
Speaker 9: is sort of plagued weather researchers for a long time.
Speaker 9: And and and uh uh you know, turning over a
Speaker 9: much better modeling of that layer of atmosphere, and and
Speaker 9: it's it's delivering real, real results for things that are
Speaker 9: increasingly important like renewable solar and and and wind forecasts,
Speaker 9: which are becoming a bigger and bigger deal in our
Speaker 9: in our electricity grids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, indeed, I mean how widespread is is this method
Speaker 1: when it comes to collecting this data given that it's
Speaker 1: it's important.
Speaker 9: You know, this is still pretty cutting edge stuff, but
Speaker 9: it is, you know, getting close to where it's operationalized.
Speaker 9: These companies that are doing this really see a future
Speaker 9: where this type of weather data collecting is really part
Speaker 9: of like weather infrastructure if if you can imagine it
Speaker 9: that way, that these drones would be part of these
Speaker 9: automated systems and they could collect a lot more data
Speaker 9: in this automated fashion.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 9: You know, a lot of weather data is still collected
Speaker 9: in a very very manual way, with things like weather balloons,
Speaker 9: those are launched twice a day at hundreds of places
Speaker 9: around the world. And it's very much somebody walks out
Speaker 9: with a balloon filled with helium and uh and a
Speaker 9: very big balloon and and and and launches it and uh.
Speaker 9: These uh, these researchers and UH firms say, uh, look
Speaker 9: we should we can, we can, we can automate this,
Speaker 9: we can use technology, we can take more measurements, more
Speaker 9: frequently from more locations and and and uh and do
Speaker 9: more here. And the testing is starting to to really
Speaker 9: ramp up in places like Norway, where they're already successfully
Speaker 9: using this and the weather modeling that comes from this
Speaker 9: for defense, uh, for flying military drones. So we've got
Speaker 9: drones helping military drones, uh in this case weather drones
Speaker 9: helping military drones and and and other places are trying
Speaker 9: this to Germany, Switzerland and in the US.
Speaker 1: What does it mean then for the future of forecasting?
Speaker 1: What will we be able to tell now that perhaps
Speaker 1: we couldn't before.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So with these drums in particular, what they're really
Speaker 9: looking at is, uh, you know, the two days ahead
Speaker 9: to three days ahead forecast, that is, the data collected
Speaker 9: in this layer of atmosphere can and really have the
Speaker 9: biggest gains. And that's you know, sort of a few
Speaker 9: days ahead type of weather, and that is particularly interesting
Speaker 9: for energy traders because that is the sort of, you know,
Speaker 9: one of the ranges that they closely watch because it
Speaker 9: changes so much, and it changes in subtle ways and
Speaker 9: can change quickly, but it has a big downstream effect
Speaker 9: on the amount of sun that's shining on solar panels,
Speaker 9: the amount of wind that's blowing in wind parks, and
Speaker 9: that has you know, big effects on the amount of
Speaker 9: power that's on the grid and the amount of demand
Speaker 9: for that power from from from from customers. So a
Speaker 9: lot of interest from energy firms and traders there. You know,
Speaker 9: it's some case just to cut down on any of
Speaker 9: the errors that come in with that type of forecasting,
Speaker 9: but hey, they're also looking for profitable advantages if you're
Speaker 9: an energy firm.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Daybreak Europe.
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