Afternoon.

It’s Thursday 3rd September: self-driving taxis have arrived in London, Britain and France are stepping up efforts to tackle Channel crossings, and thousands of workers have been getting less than the minimum wage.

Kettle on.

📅 On this day: In 1939, Britain declared war on Germany after Nazi Germany invaded Poland two days earlier, marking the beginning of the UK’s involvement in the Second World War.

London’s first bookable self-driving taxis have hit the streets. Uber has teamed up with British tech company Wayve to put a small fleet of self-driving Ford Mustang Mach-Es into normal service. If you order an Uber in London, you could now be matched with one for the same price as a regular ride, although you can opt out.

There is, however, a fairly important asterisk next to “self-driving”: there’s still a human sitting behind the wheel, ready to take over if necessary. Fully driverless taxis need further regulatory approval. For now, this is less the robots have taken over, and more the robots are having a supervised first day at work.

Self-driving taxis are already operating without drivers in parts of the US and China, but Europe has been much more cautious. London is also a particularly spicy driving test, with narrow roads, cyclists, pedestrians and streets that were very much not designed with robotaxis in mind.

Wayve’s technology is pretty nifty too. Rather than relying mainly on extremely detailed maps of every road, its AI learns how to drive from experience and is designed to adapt to unfamiliar places. So today’s tiny fleet is mostly a trial; but if it works, you may soon be a backseat driver, arguing with a front seat that's got nobody in it.

Britain and France are expanding their joint efforts to prevent small-boat crossings, as Prime Minister Andy Burnham meets French President Emmanuel Macron in Downing Street today.

France is deploying 45 additional officers to its western coastline, where some departure points have shifted as people-smuggling networks change their tactics. Larger boats capable of carrying more people are increasingly being used, with one recent vessel reportedly carrying 230 people.

A specialist French intelligence and judicial team is also being expanded from 18 to 30 officers, while a separate 75-person unit is now operating in northern France. In total, around 1,050 French officers are involved in efforts to prevent Channel crossings.

According to the UK government, the number of people arriving by small boat this summer was the lowest for the period since 2020. It also says more than 48,000 crossing attempts have been prevented. The Conservatives argue that poor weather has also played a significant part in the fall.

The extra officers are intended to respond to changes in how smuggling networks operate, including the use of larger boats and departure points further along the French coast.

A former defence minister says he unwittingly gave Parliament incorrect information about medical records belonging to British nuclear-test veterans.

Between 1952 and 1967, thousands of British servicemen took part in nuclear-weapons tests, including in Australia and the Pacific. Some veterans and their families have spent decades arguing that exposure to radiation damaged their health and seeking access to medical records that could support their cases.

In 2018, then-defence minister Tobias Ellwood told Parliament the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had been unable to find information showing that blood samples had been taken from servicemen for radiological monitoring. Ellwood now says that was wrong. He says he passed on information supplied to him by MoD officials and has accused the department of withholding information.

The MoD has previously rejected claims of a deliberate cover-up. A government review published in 2024 found that blood testing did take place but said there was no evidence records had intentionally been concealed.

Veterans say the records could help establish what happened to them and strengthen their case for compensation. Ellwood is now calling for an apology, an independent tribunal and compensation for affected veterans and their families.

Nearly 660 employers have been named for failing to pay workers the legal minimum wage, with around £4 million repaid to 27,000 people. The list includes some rather recognisable names. B&Q underpaid 4,530 workers by nearly £457,000, while Five Guys underpaid 3,699 workers by around £55,000. Serco, G4S and Tesco also appear. The employers were also hit with a combined £7 million in penalties.

This is the first naming round since the new Fair Work Agency was established in April. Its job is basically to put enforcement of workplace rights, including minimum wage rules, under one roof.

Water companies discharged sewage into English waters for more than 43,000 hours during July and August, according to analysis by campaign group Surfers Against Sewage. More than 2,000 of those hours were in designated bathing waters.

Storm overflows are designed to release excess sewage and rainwater when the sewer system risks being overwhelmed, rather than letting it back up into homes. The particularly awkward bit is that campaigners recorded almost 14,000 hours of discharges into bathing waters during this summer’s three heatwaves.

Remember yesterday’s unpleasant little tour of the bond market? There’s now a more everyday consequence. The rates banks use to price mortgages have climbed to their highest level in almost three years, raising the prospect of more expensive fixed-rate deals.

The five-year “swap rate” rose above 4.52% yesterday. In simple terms, swap rates help tell mortgage lenders roughly what funding will cost them in future, so when they rise, new fixed mortgage rates tend to follow.

The good news, relatively speaking, is that the bond-market sell-off eased today as oil prices fell back. This doesn't mean existing fixed mortgage payments suddenly change. But anyone coming to the end of a deal will be hoping markets keep calming down.

Britain’s services sector grew at its fastest pace since April, according to a closely watched survey of businesses. Services make up most of the UK economy, covering everything from restaurants and shops to banking and accountancy.

Businesses were also more optimistic, although they reported rising costs, partly because of higher energy prices. So, some encouraging signs for growth, with the familiar problem of inflation still hanging around.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski says he will stand in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election caused by former prime minister Keir Starmer leaving Parliament. Starmer held the north London constituency from 2015 and won it comfortably for Labour in 2024.

Polanski’s decision makes the contest rather more interesting. Labour won the seat comfortably in 2024, but putting the Green leader himself on the ballot gives the party a chance to test its recent growth against Labour directly.

Labour remains the obvious party to beat, but recent by-elections have shown that even seats with huge majorities can produce shock results.

The acoustic guitar George Michael used in the video for Faith is going under the hammer as part of a huge music-memorabilia auction. It's among millions of pounds' worth of items linked to some fairly sizeable names, including The Beatles, Queen and Michael Jackson.

And yes, before somebody points it out: the guitar is not the instrument doing most of the heavy lifting in Faith. But presumably auctioning George Michael's hips would present several legal and logistical difficulties.

Have a great day.

See you tomorrow.