‘These obscene profits are a slap in the face to workers whose jobs and futures have not been adequately planned for’
Lloyds nearly doubled third-quarter profits to £2.3bn and Shell’s leapt to £8.12bn in the same week the Chancellor gave banks a lighter tax hit than expected — prompting calls for levies to redirect “obscene” gains into household support
“SICKENING” super-profits by banks and fossil-fuel giants are windfalls from the same crises driving a cost-of-living crisis for ordinary people, MPs and campaigners warned today.
Just a day after Chancellor John Healey’s light-touch Budget appeased banks with a lower than expected corporation tax surcharge, Lloyds Banking Group revealed a near-doubling of profits in the third quarter — to £2.3 billion from £1.2bn in the same period last year.
And oil giant Shell reported a similarly dramatic rise, its third-quarter earnings leaping to £8.12bn from £4.08bn a year ago.
Their surging fortunes reflect a boom time for banks and Big Oil alike. Barclays was the first of the British “big four” banks to post third-quarter profits at the start of the week, giving a figure of £2.3bn — a 12 per cent rise that hasn’t stopped it announcing 5,000 job cuts. HSBC followed with $9.6bn (£7.2bn), a 32 per cent increase. NatWest is due to announce its figure tomorrow.
And the five largest Western oil companies, BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell and TotalEnergies, are expected to report combined third-quarter profits of $53bn (£40bn), more than twice the same figure last year.
“The banks and energy firms are cashing in on the very same soaring prices that are hammering households,” Leeds East MP Richard Burgon told the Morning Star.
“Their super-profits aren’t the result of great investments or innovation. They’re windfalls from the economic turmoil caused by the wars on Ukraine and Iran.
“Windfall taxes should be used to redirect these excess profits into where they’d be really useful — giving cost-of-living support to ordinary people.”
A report published this week shows that AI lobbyists have had an huge and unequal access to government over the last two years compared to any others. 84% of ministerial stakeholder meetings on data centres were with business or private-sector trade associations whereas ministers met with no environmental NGOs and not a single community group prior to designation of an AI Growth Zone.
The report comes as questions remain about the protections for water, energy and climate impacts contained in Chancellor John Healey’s announcement of a data centre covenant which was broadly welcomed by the AI industry in a context of escalating opposition to data centres across the UK.
Rachel MiIlward, deputy leader of the Green Party of England and Wales. CC image.
Rachel Millward, Green Party Deputy Leader said:
“Labour is diving headfirst into AI without a roadmap, charmed by corporate lobbyists while community and green voices are shut out. We need to slam the brakes on new data centres before they drain our water supplies and wreck the UK’s carbon budget.
“When policy is written by corporations, decisions benefit shareholder profits rather than the public good. It’s a dangerous lack of oversight, proven by a recent FOI showing the government doesn’t even know what current data centres are being used for.”
Report authors Spotlight on Corruption also highlight that not a single environmental group sits on the government’s AI Energy Council even though the group has a mandate “to support the use of sustainable energy to power AI” and that the group met only once in the 17 months from its establishment in January 2025 to July 2026.
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Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar Party and former IDF Chief of General Staff, delivers a speech at the party headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel, on October 28, 2026. [Nir Keidar – Anadolu Agency]
Israeli opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot on Thursday [accused] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of seeking to delay the announcement of election results and undermine the legitimacy of the incoming Knesset, as complaints of foreign interference in the vote triggered a political dispute, Anadolu reports.
In a statement, Eisenkot accused Netanyahu and his allies of carrying out an “improper influence operation” aimed at delaying the results beyond their scheduled announcement and creating pretexts to delegate the work of the incoming Knesset.
He also called for a “comprehensive, immediate and impartial investigation” into suspected “foreign interference.”
The dispute followed a letter sent Thursday by Judge Noam Sohlberg, the chair of Israel’s election committee, to Shin Bet security agency chief David Zini asking him to investigate “serious suspicions” of “hostile” foreign influence on the election in favor of Arab parties, Haaretz daily reported.
Netanyahu’s Likud party seized on the request, saying no Zionist party should cooperate with the United Arab List or the Joint List, the two Arab parties.
“Following the exposure of attempts by foreign entities to take over the Knesset, no Zionist party may cooperate with the United Arab List or the Joint List,” the party said in a statement.
Likud also said Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, a member of the party, should not be replaced by votes “bought with money,” and that no government posing a danger to Israel should be formed.
Eisenkot said foreign interference was “unacceptable and extremely serious,” particularly when it involves a country that “funds and supports Hamas,” echoing complaints concerning Qatar.
Doha has repeatedly said its aid is directed to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and is provided with the knowledge of Israel and the UN.
Eisenkot also accused Netanyahu of responding to political developments with “lies, manipulation of public opinion, and the spread of chaos.”
With all regular ballots counted, Netanyahu’s bloc had secured 53 seats, compared to 48 for the opposition bloc led by Eisenkot, while Arab parties won a combined 19 seats.
Neither main bloc reached the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-member Knesset, leaving Arab judges potentially pivotal in efforts to form a government.
The new Knesset is expected to be sworn in on Nov. 10, while the official election results are due to be announced next Wednesday.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister. He asks who could possibly object to the IDF starving people to death, conducting forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing all Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He says they’ve got a genocide to do for Israel and to stop objectingEd Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.
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President of Iran Masoud Pezeshkian at the plenary session of the 8th Summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Moscow, Russia on October 27, 2026. [Kirill Zykov / 8th GECF summit – Anadolu Agency]
Countries in the region are capable of ensuring their own security through cooperation without US involvement, said Iran’s president on Thursday, Anadolu reports.
Speaking at an event marking a local holiday, Masoud Pezeshkian addressed regional issues and called for closer cooperation among neighboring countries, according to a statement from the Iranian presidency.
“We are brothers with all the countries around us, and we are all Muslims. Therefore, we can help one another and ensure the security of our region,” he said.
“Regional countries do not need the US to come from the other side of the world under the pretext of providing security,” Pezeshkian said.
He also criticized Washington’s military spending and accused the US of committing violations while presenting its presence as necessary for regional security.
The remarks come amid continued tensions between Tehran and Washington following the start of the current conflict on Feb. 28, when the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran and Tehran responded by targeting Israel and what it said were US positions in Arab countries.
Washington and Tehran on June 18 signed a framework agreement and subsequently began negotiations, but the talks later collapsed over differences concerning freedom and security of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global energy and goods shipments.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister. He asks who could possibly object to the IDF starving people to death, conducting forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing all Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He says they’ve got a genocide to do for Israel and to stop objectingEd Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.
Former Chief of General Staff and leader of the Yashar party, Gadi Eisenkot holds an election rally ahead of Israeli parliamentary (Knesset) elections in Tel Aviv, Israel, on October 25, 2026. [Saeed Qaq – Anadolu Agency]
In the past, many Palestinians and Arabs followed Israeli elections closely. They did so not because they entertained illusions that a Zionist leader would deliver peace and justice, dismantle the occupation or remove illegal settlements. Rather, they feared that some Israeli leaders were worse than others. They hoped to avert the worst-case scenario.
Over time, however, that distinction gave way to the belief that all Israeli leaders were essentially the same. This is not pessimism. It is experience.
Consider, for example, the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements during the Oslo peace process under Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Between 1992 and 1995, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, increased from 111,673 to 140,235 – a rise of more than 25 per cent, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), drawing on Israeli statistical records.
The same pattern continued under the Labour government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Within his first six months, Barak’s government issued tenders for 3,196 settlement housing units, exceeding the annual average under his right-wing predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu.
When Naftali Bennett formed a coalition government in June 2021 that included the Arab party Ra’am, settlement expansion continued unabated.
According to the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, the Bennett–Lapid government advanced plans for 7,292 settlement housing units during its first year, a 26 per cent increase over the annual average recorded under previous Netanyahu governments.
The settlements are themselves a driving force behind the occupation. They require land, and therefore land confiscation; protection, and therefore an expanded military presence; water, roads and infrastructure, and therefore the appropriation of Palestinian resources. Together, these elements deepen dispossession and generate further Israeli violence.
According to the PCBS, the West Bank contained 645 Israeli settlement sites, outposts and other occupation installations by the end of 2025, including 350 settlement outposts.
The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, a Palestinian Authority body, reported that Israeli authorities targeted approximately 29,335 dunums of Palestinian land through declarations of so-called “state land” between October 2023 and August 2026 – one of the largest waves of such land appropriation since Oslo.
By September 2026, the Commission had also documented the advancement or consideration of plans for more than 18,000 additional settlement housing units across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
By the end of 2023, the West Bank had experienced its deadliest year for Palestinians since the UN began systematically recording casualties in 2005.
The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission documented 23,827 attacks by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinians and their property during 2025 alone. In the first seven months of 2026, settler attacks increased by 63 per cent compared with the corresponding period of the previous year.
Typically, this violence, carried out by the Israeli occupation army and armed illegal settlers, is contextualised within the ongoing genocide in Gaza. But violence in the West Bank also serves another purpose beyond collective punishment: the confiscation of Palestinian orchards, the annexation of land, the expansion of settlements and the crushing of Palestinian resistance, including non-violent opposition to this colonial enterprise.
Any Israeli candidate in the 27 October elections who supports settlement expansion does so with full knowledge of its consequences: further dispossession, military occupation, annexation and violence.
The difference between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and politicians presented as less extreme, is often one of language, strategy and timing.
Former Israeli military chief and Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot, for example, openly supports the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite his reputation as a more “moderate” alternative to Netanyahu.
Who among Israel’s leading political figures is promising to end the genocide, lift the siege, ensure unrestricted humanitarian aid, restrain the army or investigate violations of international law? None.
Israeli media have spent the past three years reporting on major disagreements between the government, military establishment, intelligence agencies and political opposition over what should happen in Gaza.
Yet Eisenkot has pledged to end Hamas’s rule in Gaza within 18 months of taking office, whether through US President Donald Trump’s framework or through continued war.
For his part, Yesh Atid leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid has proposed placing Gaza under Egyptian administration for up to 15 years, effectively shifting responsibility for Israel’s actions onto Arab states.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, meanwhile, supports continued Israeli military control until Palestinian groups are disarmed.
The disagreement, therefore, is often over how Israel should achieve its objectives, rather than whether those objectives should change.
Other major disagreements primarily concern Israeli society: the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews, judicial reform and accountability for the failures of 7 October.
But these disputes should not be confused with the questions that matter most to Palestinians.
If Netanyahu succeeds in forming another right-wing coalition, the policies of occupation, settlement expansion and military confrontation will continue, potentially with renewed momentum.
If Israel produces a broader coalition, its members may reach compromises over judicial reform, conscription and other domestic disputes. The occupation, however, is unlikely to become the central point of disagreement.
More troubling still, even a government leaning towards the centre-left might succeed in presenting Israel to the international community as a country ready to move beyond the image it acquired during three years of genocide, without fundamentally changing its conduct on the ground.
The international community must therefore remain vigilant. It cannot allow a future Israeli government to present itself as a peacemaker, or sell the illusion of a newly reformed Israel, while continuing to invest in settlements, occupation, war and genocide.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister. He asks who could possibly object to the IDF starving people to death, conducting forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing all Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He says they’ve got a genocide to do for Israel and to stop objectingEd Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.
‘These obscene profits are a slap in the face to workers whose jobs and futures have not been adequately planned for’
