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The UK’s largest alternative 10Gbps capable full fibre (FTTP) broadband operator, CityFibre, has today published their latest trading update to the end of 2025 and revealed that their network now covers 4.7 million premises (4.5m RFS). Customer take-up has also grown rapidly to total 848,000 (up by 64% from 518,000 at the same time last year).

The network operator has long aspired to reach up to 8 million UK premises – representing c.30% of the UK, but their original target of hitting that by the end of 2025 has been missed. Instead, they’ve more recently been looking to boost coverage via greater consolidation of rival networks (here and here) and coverage expansion under c.£860m worth of Project Gigabit contracts (public subsidy), while also having to deal with some of the same pressures as many other networks (e.g. high interest rates, rising build costs and competition).

Despite those challenges, the operator secured a crucial UK funding agreement worth £2.3bn in July 2025 (here) and also saw major ISP Sky Broadband begin to offer services over their network to consumers at speeds of up to 5Gbps (here). The latter has been helping to give CityFibre a strong boost in customer growth over the past few months.

For example, Q4 saw an average of more than 50,000 new customers installed each month, a 112% increase year-on-year. CityFibre says they’ve now exceeded 20% penetration across its consumer footprint and is on track to exceed 30% by the end of 2026. “In recent months, around 70% of households who were switching broadband provider were moved onto the CityFibre network where available,” said the operator.

On the financial front, company revenues reached £170 million in 2025 (up 27% year-on-year), with consumer revenue growth of 50%. Adjusted EBITDA also surged 480% to £29 million. CityFibre thus said they “exited 2025 strongly“, with annualised run rates over Q4 of £200m revenue and over £50m adjusted EBITDA. But we don’t get any updated figures on their losses and employee count.

Simon Holden, Chief Executive Officer at CityFibre, said:

“CityFibre’s wholesale business model has always set us apart and, as our network fills up with customers, we have the momentum to bring about a long-term, competitive alternative to BT Openreach and deliver significant benefits for the UK.

Looking ahead, our nationwide 10Gb XGS-PON network will enable our ISP partners to unlock all the power of Multi-Gig as we deliver future-proofed digital infrastructure for businesses, mobile operators and public sector partners throughout the UK. Following a landmark 2025, CityFibre is proving to be the network of choice and we enter 2026 with ever greater ambition.”

The big focus on CityFibre through 2026 is likely to be on their ambitions in the field of wider network consolidation, which has already seen them being linked to talk of a possible deal with Netomnia, Gigaclear and other alternative networks. But the company only has so much funding to throw around and may need to keep their powder dry for the deals that truly make sense. The decisions made in 2026 may well shape CityFibre’s future, as well as that of the entire UK market.

Breaking news.. more to follow..

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Broadband and mobile operator EE (BT) has this morning launched its new refurbished smartphone range with airtime, featuring iPhone and Samsung smartphones – priced from £31 per month – and claiming to offer customers a “high-quality, more sustainable and cost-effective way to upgrade“.

The range comes with extended warranty included for peace of mind, as well as using manufacturer approved parts, and a 40% discount on airtime plans for students. The devices are all available on “up to” 36 month Flex Pay agreements to spread the cost of the handset over a prolonged period. Every phone is also said to be “rigorously checked” and “tested” before being sent out.

The device inspection is said to include a 53-point quality check, which verifies everything from battery health and camera precision to ports and speakers. Every phone also arrives in recycled EE-branded packaging with a genuine charging cable.

Sharon Meadows, MD Marketing & Commercial, EE said:

“Our new range of refurbished smartphone Flex Pay plans makes great technology accessible to more people, in a way that helps both budgets and the planet. Refurbished is no longer a second choice, it’s now mainstream, with younger customers leading the way when it comes to thrifty, sustainable choices. Our launch will give them and consumers across the UK, total confidence they’re getting a high-quality device, backed by EE’s extended warranty and award-winning support, along with access to the UK’s best network.”

At the time of writing the page for the new service wasn’t yet live, but it should go live on their website sometime this morning.

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Communications platform provider SONIQ Labs has launched a new “AI-powered digital landline service” called ScamBlocker Home, which connects via your existing broadband router and promises to protect UK households from telephone fraud by screening unknown callers before the phone rings.

The service is said to be a direct-to-consumer product, which has been built on the company’s “enterprise-grade communications infrastructure” and seems to combine their VoIP (Voice-over-Internet-Protocol) service with a Fanvil GA11 Analogue Terminal Adapter (ATA) for plugging into your existing broadband router.

According to the announcement, the systems uses pre-call screening (i.e. AI answers and asks the caller to identify themselves, while checking for scam patterns like impersonators for HMRC, bank and utility firms etc.). Calls deemed suspicious are then blocked, while legitimate callers are put through. The system also builds contextual profiles of legitimate callers over time, making it more effective at verifying legitimate calls.

On top of that there’s the usual ability to whitelist friends, family and other contacts, which can also harness AI to automatically identify known individuals via behaviour patterns, regardless of where they might be calling from. Finally, the system can be set to prevent any payment processing over the phone without approval from an appointed contact, which could be handy if you’re worried about a vulnerable relative being manipulated.

Philippa Highfield, Director at We Are One 1 Limited (SONIQ Labs’ parent), said:

“When elderly parents lose thousands to phone scammers, they often don’t tell family until it’s too late. Traditional call blockers react after damage is done. We prevent the call from ever connecting.”

However, it’s worth remembering that several VoIP providers and broadband ISPs now leverage AI to block and proactively filter scam calls, such as Virgin Media / O2 and EE (BT). A number of Apps and other services, such as Truecaller and Apate.ai, also claim to have at least some similar features to ScamBlocker, although they don’t offer it as a digital landline product for the UK.

The service itself costs £14.99 per month for the first 6 months (£24.99 thereafter) on a 12-month term, so it’s not exactly cheap. But for that you do get the GA11 ATA adapter (used with your existing handset), can keep your existing home phone number, and it also includes 2,000 minutes to UK landlines & mobiles (monthly). This includes all 5 AI protection layers, the payment blocker feature and family dashboard & alerts.

The product is also advertised as being able to port your existing phone for “free“, but we’d take that with a pinch of salt because they do charge a general £29 one-time setup for the whole service. In addition, there’s also a ScamBlocker Mobile service for £9.99 per month on a monthly term (no setup fee), which claims to bring similar benefits to mobile users and harnesses eSIM technology to work alongside your existing operator.

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A new report from Plum Consulting and the Digital Connectivity Forum (DCF), an industry think-tank, has today been published that attempts to identify what UK mobile operators can learn from the switch-off of legacy 2G networks in other countries. Needless to say, there are a few recommendations.

The government has already agreed with EE, O2 and VodafoneThree (Vodafone and Three UK) to phase-out existing 2G and 3G signals by 2033 (here), which will free up radio spectrum bands so that they can be used to further improve the network coverage and mobile broadband speeds of more modern networks (4G, 5G and eventually 6G). The switch-off will also reduce the operators’ costs and power consumption.

Mobile operators have already switched off their 3G networks and are now beginning preparations for 2G to be shut down too. The situation around 2G tends to be more complicated, not least because its signals remain useful as a low-power fallback when 4G/5G isn’t present and are still necessary for some rural areas, as well as for particular applications (e.g. certain IoT / M2M services, lift alarms, telecare systems, energy smart meters etc.). The degree to which these issues exist does, however, tend to vary between operators.

The 78-page report – ‘A Generational Shift: international lessons from 2G network sunsetting‘ – echoes many of the above points, but it also finds that while there is no single international model for sunsetting 2G networks, successful approaches tend to share common features, including early engagement with affected sectors, clear communication with customers, coordination between operators, and proportionate involvement from government and regulators. It also warns that “delaying action once 2G traffic has fallen to low levels can increase costs and risks, rather than reducing them“.

Lindsey Fussell, Chair of the DCF, said:

“The UK’s 2G switch-off is both necessary and achievable, but international experience shows it needs to be handled carefully. This report highlights that the biggest risks are not technical, but relate to visibility of remaining 2G use, coordination across sectors, and protecting vulnerable users. By learning from other countries’ experience now, the UK has an opportunity to manage this transition in a way that supports network modernisation while maintaining trust and continuity for consumers and businesses.”

Some mobile operators have technically already begun the process of switching-off their 2G networks, which typically starts with a customer engagement exercise to help migrate users that remain on 2G devices over to modern 4G or better handsets. Due to some of the complications mentioned above, the actual physical network switch-off won’t occur until a few years later.

For example, EE will “begin closing the 2G network from May 2029“, while Vodafone plan to switch off their 2G network during 2030 (after a phased shutdown) and O2 may need to take a little longer than those two due to their adoption inside Energy Smart Meters (those are being upgraded to 4G modems, but it’ll take a long time to execute that across millions of homes).

The report itself then concludes by making a series of recommendations to the government and industry, which are mostly fairly logical and likely to already be part of the plan. But some suggestions, such as the idea of a single wholesale network for “small areas“, could be more contentious for competition.

DCF Recommendations for the 2G Switch-Off

Recommendations for Ofcom, DSIT and Government

➤ Ofcom and DSIT should help operators understand the scale of potential issues. Other regulators and government should inform their industries and consumers of potential impacts.

➤ Ofcom should also continue to participate in extensive engagement with stakeholders to examine whether there are uses or requirements which are unfulfilled by the planned network upgrades.

➤ There may be a need for investigation whether funds are needed to assist with migration, and if so how these can be absorbed without impacting consumers.

➤ There may be a role for Ofcom to consider consumer contractual rights and ensure that service quality is not adversely affected.

Recommendations for operators

➤ Communication with all stakeholders is vital, and timetables should be set well in advance.

➤ The industry should look at international standardisation and harmonisation activities which may replace existing 2G uses, such as NG eCall.

➤ Operators should consider whether there is a need for a single wholesale network, or assistance with providing private networks if users are all located in small areas.

➤ Operators should work with charities and consumer groups to identify and contact the most vulnerable users who will be affected by network switch-off.

➤ Once it has been identified that 2G traffic has dropped to a suitable level, operators should not delay in switching off the 2G network.

Recommendations for service providers and users

➤ Service providers must stop providing devices which rely on 2G networks, and move to other connectivity options.

➤ Service providers and users should liaise with network operators to identify areas with no LTE or 5G coverage in which 2G connections are currently used.

➤ Service providers should examine all supply chains and connectivity services to identify current 2G use cases, and start to migrate these.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

BARCELONA, Spain – January 20, 2026 – iQmetrix, the only global provider of Interconnected Commerce solutions for telecom retail, today announced its return to Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona with the first-ever Telecom Retail Summit.

The exclusive half-day summit designed to spark an overdue conversation: telecom sells the most advanced technology on earth, yet delivers one of the least inspiring retail experiences in modern commerce.

Bringing together telecom industry leaders, futurists, and retail innovators, the Telecom Retail Summit challenges the industry to rethink the role of the store and redefine how customer experience, technology, and operations come together in the Store of the Future.

From Transactions to Experiences

A true evolution in telecom retail requires more than new technology. It requires a shift in mindset.

As the industry enters what MWC has defined as the ​“IQ Era,” a new age of intelligence shaped by human ideas and smarter connections, customer expectations are rising across every touchpoint. While network and digital channels continue to accelerate, physical retail remains of telecom’s most powerful brand moments. The opportunity now is to ensure the store evolves with the same intent and intelligence as the network behind it.

“The store is no longer just where transactions happen. It is where the brand comes to life,” said Christopher Krywulak, Chief Executive Officer at iQmetrix. ​“Customers expect the same level of intelligence and thoughtfulness in-store that they experience everywhere else. We are bringing the industry’s together in Barcelona to discuss how human ideas, enabled by the right technology, can create retail experiences that truly move the brand forward.”

The Agenda: Fixing the Retail Disconnect

The Telecom Retail Summit moves beyond high-level theory into the operational realities of retail transformation. The agenda challenges legacy assumptions with sessions including:

• We Sell the Most Advanced Technology on Earth. So Why Does the Store Feel Stuck in 2009? A candid panel digging into why the telco in-store experience lags behind other sectors. We explore what leading retailers get right and what brands must do to close the gap in customer experience (CX).
• Inside the Store of the Future: Why Apple Gets It and Most of Us Don’t Modern retail leaders aren’t asking for more tools. They are asking for better outcomes. This session examines how agentic AI and intelligent automation allow stores to adapt in real-time. We break down the principles top retail brands apply to create a vision where technology supports the experience rather than dominating it.
• Your Network Is Intelligent. Your Store Is Not. That’s the Problem. Great retail experiences don’t happen on top of broken systems. This session exposes the ​“spaghetti bowl” tech stack holding retailers back and focuses on how ensuring operational excellence behind the scenes creates a frictionless experience online, in-store, and the hybrid in between.

Experience the Store of the Future, Live

The summit concludes with a transition from vision to reality. Attendees are invited to a live Store of the Future demonstration. Here, they will witness how new flows, agentic AI, and smarter experiences come together to create a retail space where customers genuinely want to be.

Registration and Availability

Registration for the Telecom Retail Summit is by application only via the MWC Partner Programmes. We invite industry leaders to secure their place or schedule a private meeting with the iQmetrix executive team using the options below.

https://www.mwcbarcelona.com/agenda/sessions/6105-the-telecom-retail-summit

The post iQmetrix challenges industry disconnect between telecom innovation and the store experience appeared first on Total Telecom.

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Some 2,500 properties around the village of Moulton Chapel in Lincolnshire (England) are suffering “significant disruption” to their broadband and phone connectivity, which occurred after criminals cut and then stole an unspecified amount of Openreach’s copper telecoms cable in the area.

According to the Lincolnshire Police, the incident appears to have occurred along Roman Road at about 8:50am in the morning on Monday (19th Jan 2026), which is an unusually busy time of day for a gang to strike such infrastructure; it’s almost always a gang as it usually takes more than one person to successfully rip such heavy cable out of the ground, before police can respond.

At present it’s not known when the service will be fully reconnected, which isn’t surprising as metal theft crimes like this often cause extensive damage and may require a fair bit of civil engineering to resolve. The BBC News has some feedback from locals in the area.

We should point out that it’s not uncommon for criminal gangs to strike around the same area more than once, so this may not be the first or last such incident in the region. Such criminals have no regard for the disruption they cause, which for some vulnerable individuals (e.g. telecare users) could be particularly serious.

A spokesperson for Openreach said:

“We’re disappointed that residents in Moulton Chapel have borne the brunt of malicious damage and theft of cables from our phone and broadband network. This causes significant disruption to everyday lives and puts vulnerable people at risk.”

Crimes like this have become increasingly common in recent years, driven in part by the high price of copper and the rising cost of living. But the criminals are also coming under pressure from a rise in the number of UK-wide arrests (examples here and here), which are often followed by some convictions. Openreach also reported a 30% reduction in cable theft during 2023/24 after introducing a new forensic liquid marker (SelectaDNA) to help track and protect their network (here), although it doesn’t cover older cables that are already in the ground.

The ongoing deployment of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband lines should, eventually, help to reduce such thefts as fibre has no value to thieves. But this won’t completely stop the problem from occurring for a while because fibre and copper cables often share some of the same ducts (i.e. damaging one also damages the other), and thieves sometimes confuse the two. Completely removing core copper cables will take quite a few years.

Finally, Openreach has a partnership with Crimestoppers, which sometimes offers rewards for information given anonymously to the charity about cable thefts, if it leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible – you can contact them 100% anonymously on 0800 555 111 or use their anonymous online form. You can also contact Openreach’s security team direct or report via the local police (101). But if you see a crime in progress, please call the police on 999.

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The UK Government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has issued a contract modification notice for Openreach’s £157m (public subsidy) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract in Scotland (Call off 6), which originally aimed to reach 65,070 premises in remote rural areas. But the change means it will now be expanded to tackle 77,639 premises.

The original contract was officially awarded back in May 2025 (here) and formed part of Openreach’s Single Supplier Framework agreement with the Builder Digital UK agency (here), which saw them being chosen to deliver all of Project Gigabit’s Cross-Regional (Type C) procurements. At the time this reflected “up to” £800m in total state aid to help upgrade c.312,000 premises in rural areas of England, Scotland and Wales to full fibre (FTTP) connectivity (the previous Type A [local] and Type B [regional] contracts have all gone to smaller providers).

However, back in August 2025 we reported that the government had boosted the value of the Single Supplier Framework to around £1.2bn (here), which meant that it was likely to be used to reach even more premises in Type C areas in the future.

Just for context, Type C reflects remote areas where no or no appropriate market interest had previously been expressed before to BDUK, or areas that have been descoped or terminated from a prior procurement. Such areas are often skipped due to being too expensive (difficult) for smaller suppliers to tackle.

The contract that Openreach secured for Scotland under this scheme was focused on upgrading remote rural parts of the Scottish Highlands (Applecross and Durness etc.), as well as several remote islands off the west coast of Scotland, including thousands of premises across the Outer Hebrides – a chain of over 100 islands where currently just 7% of premises can access gigabit broadband – as well as the isles of Skye, Islay and Tiree etc.

The Contract Modification

According to the latest contract modification notice for Call off 6 (Rest of Scotland): “The awarded contract value has increased by £18,456,308 to £175,561,598 from the original value of £157,105,290. The awarded premises have increased (rescoped) by 12,569 to a total of 77,639 from the original 65,070.” The notice confirms that this is as a result of “additional scope” being added to the contract, following an agreement between BDUK and Openreach (note: the roll-out phase for call off 6 only began recently).

At the time of writing the government have yet to update their public contract details page with the latest changes (here), thus we’re unsure precisely where the extra 12,569 premises of gigabit broadband coverage will be delivered. But given the scale of this modification, we’d expect an announcement about it to surface in the not too distant future (smaller modifications happen all the time to other contracts and thus rarely warrant a mention).

The work is designed to complement the Scottish Government’s own £600m R100 programme, which is separately working with Openreach to reach another 113,000 premises in hard-to-reach rural locations by 2028 (the vast majority of this will get FTTP) and they’ve technically already done 96,347 premises (here). On top of that GoFibre also hold a couple of Project Gigabit contracts for different parts of Scotland (here and here).

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News

Ooredoo Group has confirmed that its data centre subsidiary, Syntys, has successfully acquired Q Data QFZ LLC from Doha Venture Capital. The transaction incorporates two Tier III-certified, carrier-neutral facilities located within the Qatar Free Zones into the Syntys portfolio. This move adds 12.5MW of total hyperscale capacity to the platform, consisting of 5MW currently live and an additional 7.5MW under active development, bringing the provider’s total operational IT capacity in Qatar to 26MW.

The acquisition is a strategic response to the surging demand for mission-critical infrastructure from global cloud providers and AI platform operators within the Gulf region. By securing these revenue-generating assets, Syntys addresses the current capacity constraints in the Middle East while anchoring essential digital infrastructure within a Qatar-headquartered entity. The deal follows the 2025 launch of Ooredoo’s sovereign AI cloud, further consolidating the group’s influence over the regional digital economy and its ability to host advanced compute services locally.

This expansion marks a significant milestone in Syntys’ broader roadmap to achieve over 120MW of installed capacity across the MENA region by 2030. Leadership at both Ooredoo and Syntys emphasized that the integration of Q Data’s facilities strengthens their ability to serve the world’s largest hyperscalers through high-specification, disciplined infrastructure investment. As a carved-out entity specializing in neutral infrastructure, Syntys continues to position itself as the primary gateway for international tech firms seeking scalable, sovereign-compliant data solutions in the Middle East.

If this story interests you, maybe you need to be at Hyperscale Live – Europe’s most important AI infrastructure event. 21-22 October 2026, Lisbon

The post Syntys expands Qatar hyperscale footprint through Q Data acquisition appeared first on Total Telecom.

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News

Local authorities and critical infrastructure operators are being warned to update their cyber defences to fend off Russian hacktivists

This week, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is warning that Russian-state backed hackers are consistently targeting the UK public sector and critical infrastructure with dedicated denial of service (DDoS) attacks to disrupt and disable services.

DDoS attacks involve flooring target websites with illegitimate website traffic, rendering them unusable for genuine customers. While unsophisticated in cyberattack terms, these attacks can still cause enormous disruption to critical services, impacting thousands of people.

The NCSC is calling on at-risk organisations to review and improve their DDoS defences. This includes identifying potential vulnerabilities upstream and working more closely with ISPs to clarify when and how they can throttle traffic to limit impact to existing users.

The document provides advice on how to respond once an attack has taken place.

“We continue to see Russian-aligned hacktivist groups targeting UK organisations and although denial-of-service attacks may be technically simple, their impact can be significant. By overwhelming important websites and online systems, these attacks can prevent people from accessing the essential services they depend on every day,” said Jonathon Ellison, Director of National Resilience the NCSC. “All organisations, especially those identified in today’s alert, are urged to act now by reviewing and implementing the NCSC’s freely available guidance to protect against DoS attacks and other cyber threats.”

Pro-Russian hactivism is on the rise, not just against the UK but against the West at large. In December last year the NCSC joined numerous international cybersecurity agencies in releasing a new advisory on the scale of international cyber attacks, as well as providing security recommendations to reduce their likelihood and impact.

The piece names various pro-Russia hacktivist groups, including Cyber Army of Russia Reborn (CARR), Z-Pentest, NoName057(16), and Sector16 as key culprits.

Keep up to date with all the latest telecoms news with the Total Telecom newsletter

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Industry trade body Mobile UK, which represents EE, O2 and VodafoneThree (Vodafone and Three UK), has warned that the UK’s ambition to become an “AI superpower” will struggle without “high quality 5G Standalone (5GSA) networks acting as the ‘nervous system’“. But it warns that we “lag behind other leading nations” in this area and must reform the planning system.

Regular readers will know that both mobile and broadband operators frequently push for improvements in the planning system (example here), which would make it quicker and easier for them to upgrade existing networks or deploy new masts, small cells and other infrastructure.

However, despite their lobbying, the government’s Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 largely seemed to ignore mobile networks, preferring instead to focus on other sectors, such as energy, housing and transport. But the recent 10-Year UK Infrastructure Strategy (10YIS) did signal a change by pledging to “remove barriers to digital infrastructure deployment“.

The government then followed up their 10YIS commitment by publishing a related consultation (here), which proposed a variety of possible changes to the planning system. Suffice to say that mobile operators have been quick to set out some of the areas that they think may need improvement.

Mobile UK Statement

To unlock this potential, the UK must overhaul a planning system that is currently a “digital brake” on progress, one that otherwise risks a £230bn economic windfall made possible by 5GSA deployment. (BT, 2025). Just as the Government prioritised a National Planning Policy Statement for datacentres it must in tandem focus its efforts on mobile infrastructure.

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), that sets out the Government’s planning policies, requires modernisation to prioritise the economic and social necessity of mobile infrastructure. Current decision making at a local level can often feel like digital rollout is being treated as a secondary consideration behind other factors. It is time now to shift to a bolder philosophy where the NPPF gives substantial weight to the benefits of and needs for mobile infrastructure, recognising that connectivity is essential to daily life, not just a “nicety.”

Alongside this, the Government must reform Permitted Development Rights (PDR) to reflect the refocussed NPPF and allow for rapid network evolution. Speeding up the planning process by just three months could result in the deployment of 1,600 additional 5G cells being deployed by 2030.(Digital Communities APPG, 2026).  This is important to allow operators to upgrade existing sites, such as increasing mast heights for better signal delivery or adding equipment to rooftops, without long delays caused by the planning process, ensuring our networks can meet the requirements of the AI era.  

The current system often says “no” by default or delays “yes” until it is too late. The ambition for all populated areas to have access to 5G standalone by 2030 is only achievable if we clear these bottlenecks today. Reform of planning regulations to improve mobile deployment removes a key area of friction, to the benefit of every community and business in Britain.  

The UK cannot afford further delay. By embracing planning reform now, we will unlock the full potential of 5G, drive productivity, and secure our position as a global leader in digital connectivity.

The catch is that the Government won’t only be listening to mobile operators and must also consider the views of landowners and the electorate, which can be quite vocal in their objections to the deployment of new infrastructure and upgrades to existing sites. The concerns in this area often stem from complex disputes over rental payments for land access to complaints about the visual impact of new sites, among other things.

The irony is that those who complain about such things are often also some of the same people who will remark that local mobile signals are of a poor quality. As ever, the big difficulty is in finding the right balance, which tends to suggest that mobile operators probably won’t get everything on their wish list. But even just getting some of the things they want would help.

Whatever the outcome, the government will need to run further consultations on their future proposals and after that they’ll then need to bring forward secondary legislation, where appropriate. In other words, it may be another couple of years before any changes can be formally introduced into law. By then we’ll be facing another General Election and the usual period of uncertainty that tends to follow.