Afternoon.

It’s Wednesday 23rd September: Britain’s economy is doing slightly better than expected, the RAF is heading into space and £233m of farming money has disappeared in six hours.

Kettle on.

📅 On this day: In 1889, Nintendo was founded in Kyoto, Japan. It originally made handmade playing cards, which is quite a long way from plumbers racing each other around a rainbow.

Britain’s economy is expected to grow more than previously thought this year, although the outlook for 2027 has gone the other way. The OECD, a group of mostly wealthy countries that monitors the global economy, now expects UK GDP to grow by 1.1% in 2026, up from the 0.9% it predicted in June. It has also cut its inflation forecast for this year from 3.7% to 3.1%, after prices rose less sharply than expected.

Next year looks less encouraging. Growth is expected to slow to 1%, slightly below the OECD’s previous forecast of 1.1%. The organisation also warned that another jump in oil and gas prices could push inflation higher and growth lower.

So, a slightly brighter picture for this year, but not the beginning of an economic boom. The OECD thinks recent government measures should help household spending in the short term, while expensive energy and borrowing remain fairly sizeable obstacles.

Britain now has its first military unit dedicated specifically to protecting UK satellites from hostile attacks. The RAF’s new squadron will be tasked with disrupting threats to satellites used for everything from mobile communications and navigation to warning Britain about incoming missiles.

That does not mean RAF pilots are being issued spacesuits. The squadron will initially focus on electronic warfare, which can interfere with an adversary’s ability to communicate with or use satellites.

Satellites have become increasingly important to both civilian life and modern warfare, making them potential targets during a conflict. The government says the new unit will eventually be able to operate both defensive and offensive systems from the ground.

The government is creating a new centre to tackle disinformation and deepfakes produced by hostile states. The National Centre for Information Defence, announced by Prime Minister Andy Burnham at the UN, will bring together security agencies, police and technology companies to detect, identify and disrupt foreign information attacks.

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said this morning that it would focus on hostile states rather than policing “domestic political dissent”. Details of exactly how the centre will operate are still to come.

The UK is joining OceanEye, a new €92m EU ocean-science programme, as part of a wider international push to improve monitoring of the world’s seas. The idea is to gather and share more information about what is happening beneath the waves, improving weather forecasts, climate research and coastal planning.

Britain joining the project is another small step towards closer scientific cooperation with the EU, and comes as the current El Niño weather pattern puts rather more attention than usual on what the oceans are up to.

A £233m fund paying English farmers to produce food more sustainably was fully allocated just six hours after applications opened. The Sustainable Farming Incentive pays farmers for things such as maintaining hedgerows, protecting soil and reducing fertiliser use. Demand was so high that thousands of farmers are thought to have missed out.

The rush was partly because this was the first application window open to all English farmers this year. An earlier window was restricted mainly to smaller farms and those without an existing environmental agreement. Farming groups are now asking what happens to those who missed out.

A simple new test could eventually spare thousands of women from undergoing more invasive checks for womb cancer. Researchers at the University of Manchester have developed a test using urine and vaginal samples for women experiencing bleeding after menopause. At the moment, those symptoms can lead to internal scans, biopsies and hysteroscopies, even though most women referred do not have cancer.

Researchers say it could help doctors work out which women need further investigation and which could safely avoid some invasive procedures. It still needs further testing before becoming part of routine NHS care.

Some genuine NHS patients are being removed from GP lists by a system designed to weed out people who have moved away or died, doctors say. NHS England shortened the period for some inactive patients to respond to checks from six months to three. GPs say that has resulted in vulnerable and elderly patients being removed by mistake, sometimes interrupting access to prescriptions.

NHS England says there are robust safeguards and patients are contacted through several channels before being removed.

Archaeologists have discovered evidence that Roman Bath stretched further than previously known. Work beneath the city’s Georgian Assembly Rooms has uncovered Roman ditches containing coins, pottery, glass, roof tiles and even part of a military helmet.

The finds suggest ordinary Romans were living and working in what was effectively a suburb beyond the better-known baths complex, possibly running small shops and businesses.

And because digging beneath Bath’s protected Georgian streets isn’t exactly an everyday occurrence, archaeologists reckon there could be plenty more Roman Bath beneath the modern city.

Have a great day.

See you tomorrow.

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