Commuter misery deepens as TfL website crashes on first day of tube strikes; China’s exports hit by US tariff tensions– business live

Table of Contents

Commuter misery: Tube strikes and website issues

Commuter misery deepened this morning as the Transport for London website crashed, on the first day of a week of tube strikes.

People clicking on specific lines to find out more about the impact of a five-day strike by the RMT union were greeted with an “internal service error” message earlier this morning.

This appears to be fixed now, but the journey planner section on the TfL website is still not working.

The series of strikes will mean almost no tube trains running until Friday, with other transport in the capital likely to be affected by crowding and congestion.

The RMT union has batted back pleas to call off the industrial action, involving about 10,000 workers, as it attempts to secure a shorter working week as part of pay negotiations.

London’s other rail services – the Elizabeth line, London Overground and National Rail services – will continue to run, as will buses. Some central rail stations with tube interchanges will be closed.

Shelly Asquith, health & safety policy officer at Trades Union Congress, said on X:

A very good morning to all London Underground workers on strike today

Fatigue from long hours and extremely early or late shift work takes a major toll on the body, increasing likelihood physical and mental health conditions

You deserve better! #tubestrike @TfL @RMTunion

— Shelly Asquith (@ShellyAsquith) September 8, 2025

Economist Ben Ramanauskas, a former government adviser, said:

The @RMTunion shouldn’t be able to hold Londoners to ransom and stifle the UK’s economic growth. As much of TFL as possible needs to be automated ASAP. In the meantime the Tube should be declared an essential service and its workers banned from striking.

— Ben Ramanauskas (@BenRamanauskas) September 8, 2025

Updated at 09.46 CEST

Key events

Show key events only

Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature

New housing secretary Steve Reed vows to ‘build baby build!’ ahead of meeting with developers

The new housing secretary Steve Reed, who has replaced Angela Rayner, is due to meet the bosses of Britain’s biggest developers and housebuilders this week.

He told senior civil servants over the weekend that his mantra is “Build Baby Build!”, adding that he intends to

move on to the next stage in unleashing one of the biggest eras of building in our country’s history.

Reed, previously the environment secretary, will meet with sector bosses this week to discuss the next phase of planning reform and ways of speeding up housebuilding in the months ahead. He is expected to tell them

I will leave no stone unturned to build the homes Britain desperately needs.

According to sources, up to 1.4m homes have been granted planning permission but have not yet been built.

New housing secretary Steve Reed. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty ImagesShare

Vistry Group and Homes England form long-term venture

Shares in Vistry Group have risen by nearly 4% after the housebuilder, formerly known as Bovis Homes, formed a long-term joint venture with the government’s housing agency.

Homes England and the company have created a new vehicle, called Hestia, backed by a combined £150m of capital investment. It is part of the government’s pledge to build 1.5m homes in this parliament, over five years. Homes England said:

Hestia’s investment strategy will focus on identifying sites to bring forward vital new infrastructure and manage the construction of new communities of between 400 and 3,000 homes each.

This investment comes after the December 2024 announcement of a £700m extension to the Home Building Fund, and ahead of the launch of the £16bn National Housing Bank, which the government hopes will unlock a further £59bn of private sector investment in UK housing.

Matthew Pennycook, housing and planning minister, said:

Rapidly growing the pipeline of large mixed tenure sites across the country, making more use of Modern Methods of Construction, and backing SME housebuilders are all essential to achieving our Plan for Change target of building 1.5m homes in this Parliament.

By mobilising private capital alongside government investment, this significant new joint-venture will bring forward more high-quality, mixed-tenure developments and deliver thousands of new homes to buy and rent.

Share your experience: We would like to hear from people about how their commute has been affected by the tube strike.

Have you been able to find an alternative route to work?

Spurs say they have rejected two takeover approaches and club ‘not for sale’

Tottenham Hotspur has insisted that it is not of sale, after its majority shareholder Enic turned down two takeover approaches, including from dealmaker and former Newcastle United shareholder Amanda Staveley.

The Tottenham board says it has “unequivocally rejected” two expressions of interest in acquiring the club and that the Premier League club is “not for sale”.

Daniel Levy stepped down from his role as Spurs chair last Thursday, after being invited to leave the position he had held since 2001 by its owner, Enic, which is owned by the Lewis family trust. Family members of the billionaire Joe Lewis own more than 70% of Enic through a trust, with the rest held by trusts on behalf of Levy and his family.

Bosses at Tottenham Hotspur have said the football club is “not for sale”, as Amanda Staveley’s firm pulled out of a potential takeover move. Photograph: Bradley Collyer/PA

Spurs said one of the approaches had been from PCP International Finance, the investment vehicle led by Staveley, and on Monday PCP confirmed it had been interested in a potential move but said “it does not intend to make an offer for Tottenham”.

The Spurs board said in a statement that it had

received, and unequivocally rejected, separate preliminary expressions of interest in relation to proposals to acquire the entire issued, and to be issued, share capital of Enic from (i) PCP International Finance … and (ii) a consortium of investors led by Dr Roger Kennedy and Wing-Fai Ng through Firehawk Holdings Limited.

Staveley has sold her minority stake in rival English Premier League club Newcastle United, which is controlled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.

Updated at 10.53 CEST

Here’s our full story on the tube strikes and TfL website issues.

The ride hailing app Uber warned users of higher fares because of increased demand. Rides were quoted at multiples of normal levels, with some journeys costing about £50 for a five-mile trip in the capital.

Labour must improve workers’ rights to fulfil promise to voters, says Unite’s Sharon Graham

Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, has urged the government not to water down the employment rights bill, saying it had “made a promise to the British people,” while serial entrepreneur Luke Johnson warned that the bill will increase the burden on employers.

In a heated clash on BBC radio 4’s Today programme, Graham said:

What I hope is not going on is that the government are looking to water down the Employment Rights bill. They made a promise to the British people. This was a central part of what they promised that they would make work pay. And already, prior to this [government] reshuffle, we were already seeing fire and rehire watered down; a zero hour contracts ban, watered down; councils being allowed to fire and rehire added and so therefore the mood music wasn’t looking too good. And what I do hope is that they don’t intend on now slowing this down, or indeed, scrapping some parts of it altogether.

Her comments came as the Trades Union Congress (TUC), of which Unite is a member, is holding its annual congress in Brighton, which started on Sunday and lasts until Wednesday.

General Secretary of the Unite the Union, Sharon Graham, speaks at a Lindsey oil refinery workers rally outside the Houses of Parliament in London on 3 September. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Johnson, the former chairman of Pizza Express, Channel 4 and the bust cafe chain Patisserie Valerie, who now sits on the board of Brompton Cycles, said:

Labour’s paymasters, the unions, want to see more rights, and the fact is.. unemployment is rising. Business sentiment is very weak, and every single major business or employer organisation opposes this bill. It is going to place much higher burdens on employers of day one rights, for example.

He was referring to giving workers full rights from the first day of employment, rather than putting people on probation for the first two years. This is about to change under the legislation.

That means it’s much more dangerous to take someone on. And I am quite sure, having talked to lots of employers and people thinking of starting a business, that all this extra red tape will just discourage people from investing, from taking on new workers and from creating jobs.

Turning to Graham, Johnson said:

Sharon is so ignorant about the reality of business. She’s never run, she’s never created a job. She doesn’t understand how hard it is actually out there. We’re on the cusp of a recession. The idea that all these extra costs and bureaucracy should be layered on employers is nuts.

Graham responded:

We have done a very detailed survey of 17,000 companies. I’ll send it to you, if you like, across Britain, that shows since before the pandemic, profit margins have gone up, on average, by 30%.

Updated at 10.36 CEST

Buses, Elizabeth line take the strain as tube network shut

Gwyn Topham

Buses and the Elizabeth Line were taking the strain with queues to board other modes of transport around London, as strikes by Tube train and station staff left virtually the entire Underground network suspended, our transport correspondent Gwyn Topham reports.

Monday morning marked the first of four days of expected total Tube shutdown closure through the strikes, which started in places on Friday with minimal disruption.

Very limited Tube services on the outer, above ground stretches of the Central and Metropolitan line started running later in the morning.

The London Overground and most national rail services also continued to operate, although some major rail interchanges such as Farringdon were closed due to the RMT action.

TfL’s online journey planner and its TfL Go app appeared to be struggling under the weight of searches, failing to load, returning error messages or no results on early Monday morning.

The worst impact for congestion and transport is expected on Tuesday, with more Londoners still typically working from home on Mondays and Fridays.

Docklands Light Railway trains will also not run on Tuesday or Thursday because of strikes arising in a separate dispute.

AroundAbout 10,000 member of the RMT are taking industrial action in the Tube row, as the union attempts to secure a shorter working week as part of pay negotiations.

TfL has made a pay offer of 3.4%, which it urged the union to put to its members in a fresh ballot. It has said it cannot not meet demands to cut hours below the current 36 per week.

An RMT spokesperson said:

We are not going on strike to disrupt small businesses or the public.

This strike is going ahead because of the intransigent approach of TfL management and their refusal to even consider a small reduction in the working week in order to help reduce fatigue and the ill-health effects of long-term shift work on our members.

Nick Dent, London Underground’s director of customer operations, said the demands were “simply unaffordable” and called on the union to end its action, warning:

It will be very damaging for us.

Support for the union came from the 4 Day Week Foundation. Joe Ryle, campaign director, said:

It’s a bold and necessary stand, and these workers deserve widespread support. The five-day week is a century-old model that no longer reflects how we live and work today.