Live, rolling coverage of business, economics and financial markets as policy rate left at 2%The FTSE 100 has gained 1% midway through the morning session, helped by bumper results from kitchen supplier Howden Joinery and Dettol-to-Durex manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser.They are up 10% and 9.3% respectively. Airtel Africa’s share price is now up 7.5%, while BT has gained 6.7%.Kitchen and interior fittings supplier Howden Joinery reported a rise in first-half profit on Thursday, helped by price hikes and market share gains in a challenging environment.The company’s pre-tax profit rose 4.4% to £117m for the six months through June 2025.Consumer-goods company Reckitt Benckiser reported market-beating adjusted profit as cost savings paid off and raised its full-year outlook. The UK company on Thursday said first-half adjusted operating profit, which strips out exceptional and other one-off items, rose 1.8% on year to £1.71bn.Reckitt said the rise reflects efficiency improvements and early delivery of costs savings.Particularly worrying is the sustained impact of the budget measures on employment. Higher staffing costs have exacerbated firms’ existing concerns over payroll numbers in the current environment of weak demand, resulting in another month of sharply reduced headcounts in July.The weak growth trajectory and sustained culling of jobs will add to pressure on the Bank of England to cut rates again at its next policy meeting in August. It seems likely that the disappointing growth and labour market trends will increasingly dominate the inflation forecasting narrative, encouraging policymakers to ‘look through’ the recent rise in price pressures and instead focus on h