Go for the council place.
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I wouldn't be happy for you to go for a global equities index fund. Sure they do OK over time, but if the stock market crashed, you could lose a lot.
If you buy Global you're mostly buying US stocks, and ~40% of US stocks are in 10 companies.
"Bonds" generally are things based on people/companies paying interest on loans, most at more than inflation, so they aren't dependent on whether AI turns out to be a disaster or Trump gets more senile.
There are different grades of bond, with government stock at the safe end, down to "Junk bonds", which pay more unless there are a lot of defaults. Since the '08 crash, lending rules have tightened up a hell of a lot, so they're much safer.
Sterling Extra Yield Bind Funds ,Corporate Bonds, High Yield bonds, Strategic bonds, - it's a word soup - are in that (sort of) category and usually beat inflation handily. They can dip, but nowhere near as much as equities (shares).
I've had a look, and tight now ( as in, in 2026) none of them are doing well enough. You can get about 6%, but there are fees to pay which swallow say 1%.
You could look at Royal London Sterling Extra Yield Bond Fund, which does quite well, (10% up last year) but the war did reverse it .
That beats the building societies, but maybe not by enough for the fuss.