Marc Filippino

Keir Starmer tried hard to save his position after disastrous results in last week's local elections.

Starmer took responsibility for his Labour Party losing hundreds of seats, but despite growing calls from within his own party to resign, Starmer said he's not going anywhere.

Three parliamentary private secretaries resigned shortly after his speech.

All of them publicly demanded Starmer step down.

UK government bonds also weakened yesterday.

The yield on the 10-year gilt rose and hit 5%, underperforming other bond markets in Europe.

A lot of dealmaking in the Gulf has come to a standstill, just as banks in Dubai and Doha were ready to hit the big time.

The region was on track to make more than a billion dollars in deal fees this year for the first time in two decades.

But instead, the war in Iran has put mergers on ice and lowered companies' valuations.

The FT's Nico Perazzi covers business in the Gulf for the FT from Dubai.

He's here to talk us through what's been going on there.

Hey, Nico.

Hi, Mark.

So set the scene for us, if you don't mind.

What's been going on where you are and what kind of deals were people expecting this year?

And then the war in Iran happened.

How is that disrupting these plans?

But even still, there are still some deals that are going ahead, right?

Nico, what's the best case and worst case scenario for these financial centers?

Nico Perazzi is the FT's Gulf business correspondent.