Is Boris Johnson heading for a winter of discontent?

The Shakespearean phrase is suddenly in vogue again as the U.K. prime minister juggles a toxic mix of surging energy prices, supply-chain disruptions, tax rises and the unwinding of pandemic support.

The winter in question was 1978-1979, when James Callaghan’s Labour government was beset by strikes causing power blackouts and garbage to pile in the streets. It’s been used as a stick by Conservatives to beat Labour with ever since.

Now, as the days draw in, Johnson’s Tories face their own set of challenges.

A U.S. trade deal that was billed as a key Brexit dividend looks a distant prospect after President Joe Biden downplayed its chances during a meeting with Johnson at the White House yesterday.

Domestically, soaring gas prices mean U.K. consumers will be hit by a 12% rise in bills next month at a time broader inflation is on the up. A dearth of truck drivers — worsened by a post-Brexit clampdown on immigration — is emptying shelves in supermarkets and bringing warnings of Christmas shortages.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is stuck with a record peacetime budget deficit, and his flagship furlough program and a temporary increase in social benefits that helped struggling Britons through the pandemic will end soon.

Still, Johnson was buoyed by a submarine deal with Australia and the U.S., and will host the COP26 climate summit in under six weeks. Even a high Covid caseload appears manageable, for now. He told Sky News yesterday that “Christmas is on.”

The question is whether any of this matters to an electorate seemingly in thrall to Johnson’s charms.

This winter will test if voter tolerance turns to anger.  — Alex Morales

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Global Headlines

Alarm bells | The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies pledged to address climate change as the environment and the Covid-19 pandemic dominated the first day of the annual United Nations General Assembly. Biden said the U.S. would double aid to developing nations to deal with global warming, while Xi Jinping announced a halt to China building coal-fired power plants abroad.

• President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey is preparing to seek parliamentary approval for the Paris Agreement next month, which would make it the last Group of 20 country to ratify the accord.

Debt showdown | The Democratic-controlled House passed a bill last night that would suspend the U.S. debt ceiling into December 2022. Republicans have vowed to block it in the Senate, raising the chances of a government shutdown and a default, and potentially forcing the Democrats to resort to a fast-track process that will remove the need for GOP votes.

The Wait For Chips Grows

Gap between ordering a chip and delivery is still growing

Source: Susquehanna Financial Group

The time it takes for chip-starved companies to get orders filled stretched to 21 weeks in August, indicating the shortfalls that have crippled auto production and held back growth in the electronics industry are getting worse. Semiconductor shortages have hampered the recovery from the pandemic, with consulting firm AlixPartners estimating the global automotive industry will lose about $110 billion in sales.

Best of Bloomberg Opinion

• Xi’s Coal Pledge Is Followership, Not Leadership: David Fickling
• The Navy Gets Its Drone Fleet Into the Water: James Stavridis
• Biden’s Relentless UN Diplomacy Has a Major Downside: Eli Lake

Secret plan | Australia’s sudden move to drop a multibillion-dollar submarine contract with France as part of a new deal with the U.K. and U.S. continues to reverberate, with officials in Paris still pondering potential retaliation. Flavia Krause-Jackson, Ania Nussbaum and Kitty Donaldson report on how the plot was hatched that cuts France out of the push to develop more nuclear-powered submarines in the Pacific.

• Read about the ways Beijing could hit back at Australia over the deal, which is aimed at countering China’s increased clout in the region.
• China’s military influence and unilateral changing of the status quo could present a risk to Japan, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said in an interview ahead of the first summit of a group known as the Quad.

Horse race | Germany’s Social Democrats are building bridges with the Greens in the final days of the election campaign as polls show the parties are likely to be at the center of the next coalition. They last governed together under SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder from 1998 to 2005 but, as Patrick Donahue and Laura Millan Lombrana write, the power dynamics this time could be different.

• Read how Chancellor Angela Merkel has sought to give conservative heir apparent Armin Laschet’s faltering campaign a last-minute boost.

Crypto fight | Cryptocurrency companies are scrambling to hire lobbyists as they face lawsuits or cease-and-desist orders from U.S. authorities. Joe Light outlines what’s shaping up as an existential fight over how the multitrillion-dollar industry should be regulated.

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What to Watch

• Biden hosts a virtual summit today on the shortage of vaccines needed to fight the pandemic in poor countries, while among those speaking at the General Assembly are the leaders of the U.K., Spain, Kenya and Indonesia.

• Top diplomats from Iran, Saudi Arabia and the European Union met for the second time in less than a month, an effort to reduce tensions in the Middle East as Tehran prepares to resume talks on the 2015 nuclear deal.

• Brazilian Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tested positive for coronavirus in New York where he was part of President Jair Bolsonaro’s team attending the General Assembly.

• Hong Kong quietly broadened the language it uses to describe national security violations, a shift lawyers said could expand the reach of a crackdown on dissent.

• The U.K. is exploring joining an existing free-trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, a source says, recognition the Biden administration won’t start negotiations on a bilateral deal any time soon.

And finally ... Turkey has sent more troops to northwestern Syria to continue blocking an assault on one of the civil war’s last front lines. Erdogan has long feared that an attempt by Russian-backed Syrian forces to move on the rebel bastion of Idlib would send refugees streaming toward the Turkish border. Selcan Hacaoglu and Firat Kozok report that Erdogan’s expected to raise the Idlib escalation when he meets next week with President Vladimir Putin.

Zones of Control

Sources: Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency; Jane’s Conflict Monitor, areas of control as of Sept. 6, 2021

 

— With assistance by Karl Maier, and Muneeza Naqvi