A couple of items saw earlier n the day, just passing them along

Via Bloomberg:

  • Avoiding a hard border in Ireland is one of three key issues requiring "sufficient progress" before the European Union will allow efforts to move on to Britain's future relationship with the bloc.
  • the Irish government wants a written commitment from the U.K. on the border question, a demand Britain is reluctant to concede.
  • Instead, the U.K. raised the possibility of a so-called "process veto" for Ireland, a stipulation that when it comes to a withdrawal agreement, nothing will be agreed until everything is agreed, according to European officials, who declined to be named because negotiations are ongoing.

Earlier on Ireland: More Europe politics - now the Irish government looks wobbly

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Via Reuters on a consumer confidence index produced by polling firm YouGov and the Centre for Economics and Business Research

  • to 106.6 in November, down from 109.3 in October.
  • It was the first fall since June
  • remained above the 100 level above which consumers are considered to be feeling confident
  • All eight of the index's underlying measures weakened
  • Christian Jaccarini, an economist at Cebr cited the first interest rate hike by the Bank of England in over a decade and a slowdown in the housing market