The Daily Brief — UK & World News, Curated Morning and Evening

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Evening Briefing

Tuesday 27 October 2026 — 17:56 GMT

What It Means For You

If you are 18 to 20 and on the minimum wage: tomorrow’s Budget is expected to raise your rate by the same 3.9% as everyone over 21, rather than by more. The gap therefore stops closing, and the promise to abolish age bands slips. The figures are reported, not yet announced.
If you are thinking about a heat pump or solar panels: a government-backed loan scheme opened today, with no money upfront and up to thirty years to repay in some cases — up to £15,000 for solar, £20,000 for the common air-to-water heat pump and £35,000 for a ground-source system, stackable with the existing grant.
If you are waiting to see what the Budget actually does: very little is confirmed. What is on the record is modest — tariffs off 100 food items worth up to £21 a year, fuel duty frozen again, and a carer’s allowance taper that does not arrive until 2030. Almost everything else remains briefing.

GEO Geopolitical

Record Israeli Turnout, and a Fight Over Closing Time

Two-thirds of Israel’s electorate had voted by six o’clock this evening, 66.7%, the highest since such things were first measured in the early 1970s. The prime minister’s party and its coalition partners have asked the electoral authorities to keep polls open past ten; the opposition says that is groundwork for challenging the result.

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Polls close at eight this evening by our clock, so nothing here is a result and no projection appears in this edition. The electoral committee’s own figure was almost 45% by two in the afternoon, six points above the same hour in 2022; official hourly updates put it at 66.7% by six, a nine-point increase. In Nazareth, the largest Palestinian-majority town in Israel, turnout passed 32% by two o’clock against 28% four years ago, still below the national Jewish average but rising; the prime minister spent the day posting about high Arab turnout. The extension request is the live dispute, with the committee convening to rule on it and several complaints already filed by parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc, though the committee says there is no evidence of systematic tampering with ballot slips. The echo is uncomfortable and worth naming: in Brazil on Sunday the losing candidate’s stated ground for seeking annulment was a judge’s decision to extend voting by two hours. Broadcasters publish exit polls when voting ends, and those can move a long way before a count settles.

Bolsonaro’s Passports Cancelled, His Whereabouts Unknown

Brazilian police have cancelled the passports of the defeated candidate after he missed the 24 hours the Supreme Court gave him to surrender them, in a money-laundering investigation he denies. He has not been seen since Monday and officers are checking border crossings. Argentine authorities say they have no record of him entering their country.

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What is reported tonight is far less solid than the headlines suggest, so here is the line between them. Established: the court order from a named justice, the missed deadline, the cancellation, a second investigation opened today into his campaign over alleged foreign funding, and his own words on Monday — “I never thought about leaving the country.” Not established: where he is. Three Brazilian news organisations report he is airborne to Florida with his family and may seek asylum; two Argentine ones report that he crossed into Argentina but that the aircraft never took off. They cannot all be right, none is on our approved list, and Argentina has told an approved outlet on the record that there is no entry record for him. So no flight is asserted here. Meanwhile his demand has shifted from annulling the result to disqualifying his opponent over alleged abuse of power, without evidence offered; his own party has accepted the result; and the voting extension he calls a dirty trick was requested by his own campaign as well as his rival’s.

Emergency Agency Puts Taraba Death Toll at Sixty-Two

At least 62 people were killed and 52 wounded when gunmen attacked the Binnari community in Taraba state, north-eastern Nigeria, on Friday, according to the state head of the national emergency agency. Thousands have been displaced. Fifty-two bodies have been recovered so far, fifteen of them from the Benue River.

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We declined this story on Sunday, and the reason is worth revisiting now that it has resolved. Two days ago the figures in circulation were irreconcilable — police had recovered at least ten bodies, survivors told a news agency at least twenty, and a human rights organisation’s country director said up to fifty — and publishing any of them would have meant choosing one. The official count has now settled above all three. It is still not final: a state police spokesman says the figure is not definite because bodies are being recovered, which is also why the toll of at least 62 sits above the 52 bodies so far accounted for. The attack is attributed to the armed groups locally called bandits, and a rights organisation’s Nigeria director notes the gunmen used the river to their advantage, which explains the recoveries from the water. The lesson we take from the delay is that waiting cost us two days and bought an official figure.

Nordic Leaders Hold a Rare Joint Call With Putin

The president of Finland and the prime minister of Norway spoke to President Putin for ninety minutes from Helsinki, in a call they initiated to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. Norway’s leader said it showed “big differences in views”. Afterwards Putin blamed “confrontational” European and Nato policies for prolonging the war.

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What makes this notable is who placed the call. Finland and Norway both border Russia, both joined Nato since the invasion, and direct contact between European leaders and the Kremlin has been close to frozen; their offices say the purpose was to look at “future negotiations to help to end the war” and the diplomatic effort to “promote peace and stability in Europe”. The careful wording on both sides tells you how little was agreed: “big differences in views” from Oslo, and from Moscow a statement blaming the other party’s posture for the war continuing. Ukraine’s president spoke to both leaders afterwards and thanked them for their “active support”, which is the detail that matters most — this was not negotiation over Kyiv’s head. It lands the same day as a local truce holding in the south, brokered through an unusual channel, and a week after Kyiv said a three-way meeting with Washington and Moscow would happen in November, now reported for Abu Dhabi. Denmark’s prime minister called the Nordic initiative one she was “very sceptical” of, and said it “was not agreed with any of us”.

Turkish Committee Clears the Mecca Pact for a Full Vote

Turkey’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee has approved the mutual defence agreement with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, carried by the governing party and its allies over opposition objections. It now goes to the full assembly for debate and a vote. The published text binds the parties for ten years.

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This completes a thread we have followed for a week. When the pact was signed in August it committed each party to treat an armed attack on one as an attack on all, using “all necessary means”; Pakistan ratified it, and Turkey began and had not finished. A committee is not the chamber, so ratification is still incomplete, but the direction is now clear and the ten-year term is on the record. The committee’s chairman, from the governing party, made the case in terms designed to reassure rather than deter: the agreement “aims to increase deterrence and cooperation, does not target other countries and is likely to contribute to peace and stability”. That last clause is doing a lot of work in a week when the three signatories’ defence and intelligence chiefs sat in Tehran pressing Iran to rein in the Houthis, and when attacks on Saudi Arabia have continued. Watch the full assembly vote, and whether Iran reads a ten-year commitment as reassurance or as encirclement.

UK Domestic

Minimum Wage to Rise, but the Age Gap Stops Closing

Tomorrow’s Budget is expected to raise the minimum wage by 3.9% for every adult band. That is the point of contention: because younger workers get the same percentage rather than a larger one, the gap between them and older workers stops narrowing, and a manifesto promise to abolish age bands altogether recedes.

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The 2024 manifesto promised to remove “discriminatory age bands” so that all adults were entitled to the same minimum wage, and for two years the government delivered on it by raising the youth rate faster — 26% since 2024. An equal percentage rise does the opposite: in cash terms the gap widens. The business secretary’s defence is that timing was never promised: “The manifesto pledge on equalisation still applies but we were always clear it could happen over time.” A union leader called it “deeply unfair” to keep paying different rates for the same job. Two cautions belong with this. The specific rates in circulation — the 18-to-20 band going from £10.85 to about £11.27, and the rate for those 21 and over from £12.71 to £13.20 — originate with a newspaper that is not on our approved list and reach us only second-hand, so they are reported rather than confirmed. And the whole package remains a Budget expectation until the chancellor stands up tomorrow.

Warm Home Loans Open for Heat Pumps and Solar Panels

A government-backed loan scheme opened today offering households interest-free or low-interest borrowing from £7,500 to £35,000 to fit heat pumps, batteries and solar panels with no money upfront. The government says the full combination can cut a bill by up to £550 a year, and by a further £300 on a time-of-use tariff.

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This one is already live rather than trailed, which separates it from most of what is circulating this week. The borrowing is offered through commercial lenders at a discount to high-street rates: up to £10,000 for an air-source heat pump and up to £35,000 for a ground-source system, and it can be stacked on top of the existing grant of up to £9,000 towards replacing a fossil-fuel boiler. The case for it rests on bills rather than carbon, and there is a trial behind the claim — fuel-poor households in Coventry saved more than £250 a year on average by pairing a home battery with a tariff that charges less outside peak hours. The obvious caveat is that a loan is a debt: the saving has to outrun the repayment, and the published figures are the government’s own. Set it against gas at a four-year high and a forecast 16% rise in bills in January, and the arithmetic matters more than usual.

Minister and Spokesman Give Different Answers on Free Movement

The business secretary says officials will begin discussing the range of future options for the relationship with the European Union, free movement among them, before the summit in Brussels on 20 November. A government spokesman, the same day, said there are no current discussions on free movement. Both are on the record.

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That contradiction is tonight’s story and it is not a matter of emphasis. Pressed on whether officials are talking to Brussels about free movement, the business secretary said “they will be talking to them about what the future options for our relationship might be”, while insisting “here and now, the focus should be on the summit”. The spokesman’s formulation was that the government is working “on the areas set out and agreed ahead of the UK-EU Summit and within the manifesto red lines” — the summit agenda being food, youth mobility, electricity and emissions trading. A second ambiguity needs owning, because it touches what we published last night. Accounts of the prime minister’s own position differ: he answered “no” when a broadcaster asked whether he could bring in free movement without a referendum, which is what we reported, but a fuller account of his weekend interview has him saying a referendum would be needed only to rejoin the Union outright. Both renderings are in approved sources and we are not choosing between them. One hard thing did happen: ministers confirmed to the Commons that Britain rejoins the Erasmus exchange scheme in January.

Two Charged Over Alleged Iran-Linked Plot at RAF Fairford

Two British nationals, both 24 and from London, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today over an alleged plot at the American-operated airbase in Gloucestershire. One is charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service, which police have said they believe to be Iran; the other with entering a prohibited place for a purpose prejudicial to the United Kingdom.

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Both charges are brought under the National Security Act of 2023, the legislation that replaced the old official secrets regime, and the case will next be heard at the Old Bailey on 20 November. Nothing is proven and neither man has entered a plea. The background is a major incident declared on 27 September after three suspicious vans were seen near the base, which led to dozens of residents being evacuated behind a large cordon; the second charge relates to an earlier occasion, and no explosive material was found in the vans. The wider context is a run of incidents in Britain that police have attributed to Iranian direction, and the timing sits oddly alongside this week’s diplomacy, with Gulf states in Tehran pressing for a deal between Iran and Washington. A third man arrested in October, a dual national, was released without charge. Because these are live proceedings we are reporting the charges, the court dates and nothing more.

Two MPs and an MSP Detained and Turned Back by Israel

An SNP member of parliament, a Labour member and a Scottish Greens member of the Scottish Parliament say they were held for eight hours at the crossing from Jordan and refused entry to the West Bank. Israel’s embassy says the group gave false information about the purpose of its visit.

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The three travelled as part of a 23-strong delegation and say they intended to “stand alongside Palestinians being attacked for harvesting olives on their own land”. By their account their passports were seized at the King Hussein Bridge, they were interviewed one by one, and were eventually put on a bus back to the Jordanian border; one said she was told there was “evidence that I hate Israel” and that this was among the reasons for refusing her. The embassy’s account is squarely opposed: the group “failed to cooperate with border officials” and provided “false information about the purpose of their visit”. Both versions are given here because neither can be checked. The foreign secretary told the Commons the government was “deeply concerned”, had raised it with Israeli authorities, and that it was “very, very important” that members of the House have free access internationally to do their duties. One caution: this rests on a single approved outlet, with no second source and nothing published by the Foreign Office.

One To Read

Weeds, and Then a Ceasefire

BBC News · Oleshky has been occupied and blockaded since the first days of the invasion. Of 24,000 people before the war, about 1,700 are thought to remain in the city. A truce began at three this morning and both sides say it is holding.

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Morning Briefing

Tuesday 27 October 2026 — 08:02 GMT

What It Means For You

If you do the weekly shop: import tariffs come off more than 100 products, from baked beans and chocolate to marmalade. Combined with June’s cuts on pasta, fruit juice and tuna, the government puts the saving at up to £21 a household a year — modest, and dependent on retailers passing it on.
If you are an unpaid carer who works: earning a penny over the weekly limit will no longer cost you the whole week’s carer’s allowance. Instead £1 tapers away for every £1 earned above it, to be confirmed in Wednesday’s Budget.
If you drive for work: the 55p-a-mile tax-free rate for the first 10,000 business miles becomes permanent, and the rate above that rises from 25p to 35p. The Treasury says about three million people benefit; fuel duty is also expected to be frozen again.

GEO Geopolitical

Israel Votes With Netanyahu and Eisenkot Neck and Neck

Polls opened this morning in Israel’s first general election since the 7 October attacks, with Benjamin Netanyahu in a near neck-and-neck race against the former military chief Gadi Eisenkot. Neither bloc is projected to reach the 61 seats needed for a majority, so weeks or months of coalition bargaining may follow.

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Voters choose parties for the 120-seat Knesset, not a prime minister, which is why a clear result tonight is unlikely. Eisenkot leads Yashar, a new centre-right party, at the head of a “change bloc” that includes Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and Yair Golan; Mr Netanyahu needs the far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties again. Security dominated the campaign, and in its final days he was reported to have pressed for action against Iran, which he denies. One analyst expects a change of tone rather than direction: “A new prime minister is likely to calm things down,” said Ahron Bregman of King’s College London, adding that “any new government will reflect and mirror this reality” of a sharp turn to the right.

Tehran Talks End in Pledge as Houthis Fire at Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan agreed with Iran late on Monday “to continue the dialogue” on regional security, after their defence and intelligence chiefs met Iran’s president in Tehran. Within hours the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted three Houthi ballistic missiles aimed at the Eastern Province and four drones. Brent eased to about $115 on the diplomacy.

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Riyadh sent its defence minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman; Pakistan its army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir; Turkey its intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin. Saudi Arabia said the aim was to “prevent the return of military escalation”. The difficulty is plain: the Houthis struck Riyadh’s airport this month, killing at least 13, and on Monday claimed attacks on oil pumping stations, while Egypt’s parliament authorised its military to help defend the kingdom. Pakistan and Qatar brokered June’s interim deal between Washington and Tehran, which collapsed. Oil reflects both pulls: Brent touched $117 on Monday, its highest since April, before slipping 0.57% to $115.15 in early Asian trade, and October has been the worst month for attacks on shipping around Hormuz.

Melania Trump’s One-City Truce Takes Effect in Occupied Oleshky

A local ceasefire began overnight in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, on the Dnipro in Kherson region, a week after it was announced by the US First Lady. Both Kyiv and Moscow say it is holding. It is meant to let aid in and allow civilians out, with an evacuation planned for Friday.

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Russia’s defence ministry said it stopped firing at 01:00 GMT. Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, confirmed it: “As head of the Ukrainian negotiating team, I confirm that the Ukrainian side is honouring its commitments.” Oleshky had 24,000 people before the war; Ukrainian estimates of those left vary, from about 1,700 in the town to 6,000 including surrounding areas, and residents describe cooking garden weeds. There has been no electricity, gas or water for three years. Some fear Russia will not let evacuees reach Ukraine, or will search their phones. The truce is narrow: the same day Russia struck Kyiv, killing a woman of 46, and claimed 222 Ukrainian drones downed.

Western Powers Warn of Famine in Sudan as Nyala Is Struck

The United States, the European Union and 30 countries, Britain among them, warned of an “alarming deterioration” in Sudan’s food security and urged both sides to lift impediments to aid. Hours later a drone strike on a market in Nyala, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces’ de facto capital, killed at least 21 people.

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The joint statement, released by the State Department, warns that without immediate action the number of children with severe acute malnutrition “could exceed the projected 825,000”, and asks for access across front lines and by air into Darfur. The UN-backed hunger monitor said in June that 5.1 million Sudanese faced severe hunger, with an El Niño drought driving up prices. A medic at Nyala Hospital said 21 were killed and more than 40 injured on Monday evening; residents said the market was frequented by RSF fighters. The army regularly strikes the city, where the RSF has declared a rival administration. Washington said last month that neither side represents legitimate government.

Jordan Strikes Syria After Karak Church Attack; Border Shut

Jordanian jets struck what Amman called “terrorist organisations” in Syria’s Daraa province, retaliating for Friday’s shooting at a Christian funeral in Karak that killed nine. Syrian health officials said five people, including women and children, died. Damascus says it was not notified and has closed Nassib, the only passenger and commercial crossing between the two countries.

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The two accounts diverge on the essentials. Jordan says it coordinated with the Syrian government and killed and wounded “several terrorists”; Syria says it was not told and that civilians, including an elderly man, were among the dead. Damascus said the closure means “the complete suspension of passenger and commercial traffic in both directions” while it investigates. Complicating Amman’s case, its interior minister, Mazen al-Faraya, said the three men arrested over the church attack — two brothers and their brother-in-law — were all Jordanian, found hiding in a village near the scene. Thirty-four were injured in the attack on the Greek Orthodox funeral.

UK UK Domestic Politics

Healey Cuts Food Tariffs and Freezes Fuel Duty Before Budget

The chancellor, John Healey, has unveiled five “everyday fixes” ahead of Wednesday’s Budget, removing import tariffs on more than 100 food products and making the 55p-a-mile business mileage rate permanent. Fuel duty is expected to be frozen again. “We can’t control global events, but we can act where we can make a difference,” he said.

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The measures are deliberately small, and the Treasury frames them that way: Mr Healey calls them “just a small part” of giving families breathing space, blaming conflict in the Middle East and Europe for higher everyday costs. The tariff package is the second this year; with June’s, the government expects consumer savings of roughly £245m to £595m a year. Other fixes extend two weeks’ paternity pay, worth up to £194 a week, to self-employed fathers, and add Post Office drop boxes. Treasury insiders warn the Budget itself will be low-key, with hard tax and spending choices deferred to next year’s spending review — a source of unease among Labour MPs who expected bigger change from Andy Burnham.

Carer’s Allowance Cliff Edge to Be Scrapped

The rule that strips unpaid carers of their whole weekly carer’s allowance for earning a penny over the limit is to be replaced by a taper, with £1 withdrawn for every £1 earned above it. The change follows years of reporting on carers left with debts running into thousands of pounds.

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The arithmetic of the old rule was brutal. The earnings limit is £204 a week and the allowance £86.45; a carer a penny over for a year would breach it by 52p yet owe £4,495.40. Overpayment debts typically ran to £2,000–£5,000 and in some cases £20,000, and some carers were convicted of fraud. An independent review by Liz Sayce, published last year, found hardship on a huge scale. The taper removes the penalty for working an extra shift or taking a pay rise It does not, however, raise the limit itself.

Alex Chalk to Lead Independent Review Into Henry Nowak Murder

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has ordered an independent review into the murder of Henry Nowak, the 18-year-old student stabbed in Southampton last December, to be led by the former lord chancellor Alex Chalk KC. “We must get to truth of what happened before, during and after that awful night,” she told the Commons.

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The case drew national scrutiny after police bodycam footage showed the teenager handcuffed as he lay dying, having told officers he was injured. The review runs in two phases. The first examines police, health services, councils, schools and faith organisations for missed chances to intervene; Mr Chalk said it would ask whether reports were held back out of a “misplaced sense of cultural sensitivity”. The second waits for the police watchdog’s own investigation and will examine its conduct too. Initial findings are due within five months. The family welcomed it, saying they had “fought tirelessly for answers to questions no family should ever have to ask”.

Be Ready Call Drives Surge in Radio and Tinned Food Sales

Retailers report sharp rises in emergency purchases since the government urged households to prepare for crises. Iceland saw a 40% jump in tinned goods over the weekend; Robert Dyas a 160% rise in radio sales; Maplin a near-fourfold increase in torches. The defence secretary called it “encouraging that people are taking practical steps to be ready”.

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The campaign began on 22 October, when Wes Streeting advised three litres of water per person per day, tinned food, baby food, battery torches and power banks, citing threats from cyber attack to extreme weather. Iceland says its supplies remain healthy. Mr Streeting stresses the mundane: essentials help “whether that’s flooding, power cuts or burst pipes”. The timing lent it weight. Storm Boelo has left about 22,600 properties without power, two men were killed by falling trees, and the Met Office has urged people to keep torches and batteries ready.

Second DUP Figure Calls for O’Neill’s Removal as First Minister

The DUP assembly member Diane Forsythe has joined the MP Carla Lockhart in calling for Michelle O’Neill to be removed as Stormont’s first minister over her part in protests that blocked an Orange Order parade at Drumcree. “It is my view that Michelle O’Neill should be removed from office,” she wrote.

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The row is now inside the DUP as much as between parties. Ms Lockhart stepped down from the party’s officer board last week after its leader, Gavin Robinson, declined to withdraw the deputy first minister — the only route by which unionists could force Ms O’Neill from the joint office, since the posts stand or fall together. Ms Forsythe, also an officer, says “profound consequences” were promised and “must be honoured”. Ms O’Neill and other senior Sinn Féin figures have been interviewed by police over the Garvaghy Road protests; she says she will “continue to stand with the Garvaghy Road residents”.

One To Read

The Election That Cannot Change Course

Al Jazeera · Why even a Netanyahu defeat may alter Israel’s tone more than its direction: a long view of the rightward drift that shaped today’s vote, from the Nation-State Law to the judicial overhaul.

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Evening Briefing

Monday 26 October 2026 — 17:51 GMT

What It Means For You

If you are on a western coast tonight: a yellow wind warning runs from six this evening until three tomorrow morning, with gusts to 65mph, and a second warning covers much of Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland through Tuesday. Further power cuts are thought likely; keep a torch to hand.
If you are worried about winter bills: European wholesale gas has hit a four-year high and the British month-ahead contract its highest since December 2022, on cold weather, thin storage and Gulf supply fears. A 16% rise in a typical annual bill in January, to about £2,000, is a forecast rather than an announced cap.
If you have a hospital appointment in late November: senior doctors in England will strike on the 25th and 26th, staffing emergency care only. Routine and planned work is the part that gets postponed, against a backlog of more than six million patients.

GEO Geopolitical

Gulf Chiefs Meet Iran’s President and Agree to Keep Talking

Saudi Arabia’s defence minister, Pakistan’s army chief and Turkey’s intelligence chief met President Pezeshkian and the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council in Tehran today. Iranian state television says the four agreed to continue talks after what it called a first meeting. No communique has been issued and the talks were still under way this evening.

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This is the meeting we reported this morning as a journey; it has now happened, and what it was for is clearer than what it achieved. The three visitors represent a mutual defence pact signed in August, and the agenda was twofold: how Iran might persuade the Houthis to stop striking Saudi infrastructure, and whether a deal between Tehran and Washington can be reached before fighting resumes. Riyadh’s statement put the aim as finding “ways to de-escalate tensions, enhance regional security and promote its stability”. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said the past two years had shown that “sustainable and reliable security in our region will only be possible by building trust and cooperation among the countries of the region”. A former foreign minister put it more sharply: “Regional security is not imported, it must be created by the people of this very region together.” One analyst called it an eleventh-hour attempt to tip the balance towards compromise, warning that without a formula to bridge the American-Iranian divide the visitors may leave with “little more than goodwill in a race against the clock”. Iran’s president was due in Moscow next for a gas exporters’ summit.

Trump Says He Is Choosing Between a Deal and Finishing It

Asked about Iran in a television interview on Sunday, the American president said he was weighing whether to make a deal or, in his words, “finish them off”. No date is attached to any of it. He has previously said strikes would not resume until after the midterm elections on 3 November, and Tehran responded by saying its policies are unchanged.

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We declined a version of this story this morning because two outlets had converted a refusal to answer into a date, and the caution holds up: both approved outlets carrying today’s remarks state plainly that he has said any strikes would wait until after 3 November, and the last confirmed American strikes on Iran were on 1 September. There is a second reason for care. Three outlets render the same sentence three different ways — “finish it off”, “finish them off” and “finish the job” — and two of them reverse the order of its clauses, so only the short common phrase is quoted here and no full sentence is presented as verbatim. Iran’s foreign minister answered on the record: “Recently, there has been talk of a new war, but I am already thinking about the post-war period. Whether there is war or not, our policies remain the same.” His spokesman, asked about tomorrow’s Israeli election, said it made no difference who takes the helm. Watch 3 November, not this week.

UN-Mandated Inquiry Finds Crimes Against Humanity in West Bank

A three-member commission of inquiry established by the UN Human Rights Council has reported that Israeli authorities and forces have committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence in the occupied West Bank. Israel’s mission in Geneva rejects the findings and demands the commission’s dissolution.

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Two points of precision matter here. The commission does not speak for the United Nations itself — it was mandated by the Human Rights Council in 2021 — and its remit covers harm caused by both Israeli and Palestinian security forces since October 2023, so this is not a one-sided inquiry. Its finding is that military operations, reinforced by sustained settler violence, amount to a “widespread and systematic attack” against civilians, with persecution “based on intersecting discriminatory grounds, with nationality, race and ethnicity at its core”, and that the authorities intended to collectively punish West Bank civilians. The report lands the day before Israel votes. Israel’s mission calls it part of a “misinformation campaign to demonise the State of Israel and portray its very existence as criminal”. The same commission found genocide in Gaza in September last year, a finding Israel also rejects. For scale, UN humanitarian figures record 1,143 Palestinians killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the three years to 9 October, at least 250 of them children.

Church Says More Than Sixty Christians Killed in Oromia

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church says more than sixty people have been killed in a series of attacks on Christians across three areas of the Shirka district in Ethiopia’s Oromia region. A church official called it a massacre and said security forces arrived but could not stop the assault. The regional government says it will act.

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This rests on one approved outlet and one institutional claimant, which is said plainly rather than smoothed over: no second approved source carries it and no official death toll has been published, so the figure is the Church’s. What gives it weight is that the outlet has its own eyewitness reporting in Amharic, including a resident whose 75-year-old father was killed: “We were completely unprepared and had no prior knowledge. They surrounded us from all four directions.” Eyewitnesses say five of the dead were children, and a statement from the Holy Synod says twenty houses were burnt to the ground. That statement names no perpetrator. A local official blamed a newly formed rebel coalition that includes the Oromo Liberation Army, which has not commented on this attack and has denied carrying out previous ones — so the attribution is a single official’s, not a finding. The Church says attacks on Christians have been increasing and that it has raised concerns with government repeatedly, with “no solution”. A rights body counted 458 killed in the same area over four years.

Algeria Approves Its First Such Foreign Deployment Since 1973

Both chambers of Algeria’s parliament have approved sending troops to Niger to protect energy installations in the north, near the Libyan border. It would be the country’s first such deployment since it sent forces to Egypt during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Neither the timing nor the number of soldiers has been announced.

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For a state whose foreign policy has rested for half a century on not sending soldiers anywhere, this is the interesting part: the mission is explicitly commercial. A senator told reporters after the vote that “we are not sending our soldiers to wage war in Niger, but for a mission to secure economic infrastructure”, calling it an adaptation of doctrine to the Sahel. The infrastructure is Algeria’s own — its state energy company has signed an exploration agreement with Niger’s petroleum ministry, and a long-planned pipeline would carry Nigerian gas north through Niger. The upper house sat in emergency session on Sunday, where 148 of 174 senators voted in favour; one account calls the vote unanimous, which that figure contradicts, so the count is given instead. The deployment follows a visit to Algiers by Niger’s defence minister and a thaw after a rift that saw Niger recall its ambassador, and it comes after Algeria sent fighter jets to help put down a coup attempt against the general who took power in 2023. Algeria is Africa’s largest military spender.

UK Domestic

No 10 Pulls Back From the Prime Minister’s Referendum Answer

Asked by broadcasters whether he could introduce freedom of movement without a referendum, the prime minister answered “no”. Downing Street spent the afternoon qualifying it, saying he “isn’t proposing a return to freedom of movement or any option” and is “crucially not leaning either way”. Sources say no decision on a referendum has been taken.

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This morning we recorded that no Downing Street clarification existed; one now does, and it is worth reading closely because it narrows the question without closing it. A Downing Street spokesperson said the government would not “get ahead” of how to consult the public on major changes to the relationship with the European Union, that “the prime minister thinks the Brexit deal is not good enough”, and that any decision “will be for the British public to decide… What he wants to do first is have a conversation with the public. The process will follow.” The distinction being lost is this: he already accepts a referendum would be needed to rejoin the European Union in full, and the open question is whether the single market alone would need one. On that, officials say no decision exists. The constraints are real: he says he is committed to the 2024 manifesto, which ruled out free movement, single market membership and a customs union, and any change would need a mandate at a general election, due by 2029. What is new today is not a policy but the discovery that the mechanism itself is undecided.

Low-Income Pensioners to Be Shielded From Income Tax

The chancellor will use Wednesday’s Budget to protect pensioners on low incomes from income tax through a new allowance, honouring an existing pledge not to tax people whose only income is the state pension. From April 2027 the full new state pension reaches £13,036, above the £12,570 personal allowance frozen since 2021.

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This is the same story we carried this morning as reporting, and it has hardened, though not into an announcement: the Treasury has still not confirmed the mechanism’s details, and crucially it has not confirmed how many pensioners are affected, so the figure of about a million that circulated this morning remains unverified and is not repeated here. The arithmetic driving it is simple and was always going to arrive. The triple lock lifts the new state pension by the highest of inflation, earnings or 2.5%, giving 3.9% from April 2027, while the personal allowance has been frozen in cash terms for six years. The two lines were always going to cross, and they now have. The chancellor’s allies argue the point is administrative as much as financial: pensioners should not face a tax return to hand over a few pounds. Note also what Treasury sources concede — that this Budget will not involve the scale of tax and spending announcements seen from governments of either party in recent years. Two days to go.

Consultants in England to Strike for Two Days in November

Senior hospital doctors in England will walk out on 25 and 26 November, staffing emergency care only, in a dispute over pay and hours. Seventy-six per cent of those voting backed action on a turnout of just over half. The health secretary calls the strike irresponsible; hospital leaders warn patients face pain and inconvenience.

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The mandate is the contested ground. Seventy-six per cent of consultants who voted were in favour, but only just over half of eligible union members took part, and because nearly half of consultants are not members the government calculates that roughly one in five of all consultants employed in England voted to strike. The union’s case is that pay has fallen about a quarter in real terms since 2009-10, and that last week’s offer of 2.4% for next year was the last straw after a 5% rise this year. Its co-chairs said ministers had “time-and-time again kicked the can down the road” and that “that road has now run out”. The health secretary said discussions had been “constructive”, so the announcement was “disappointing”, and that striking would “place the health service under even greater pressure”. Pay figures differ by measure rather than by dispute: basic pay runs from £113,500 to £150,500, with an average of about £152,000 once extra payments are counted. Consultants last struck in 2023, for nine days. This time it falls as winter pressures build.

Two More Wind Warnings, and a Correction to This Morning

About 22,600 properties were still without power on Monday afternoon, down from 90,000 in the morning. Two further yellow wind warnings follow: one from six this evening until three tomorrow morning on western coasts, and a second across much of Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland through Tuesday. This morning we called the coming storm Chloe. It has no name, and we were wrong to give it one.

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The correction first, because a named storm is the kind of thing readers act on. Boelo was the second named storm of the season, after Austen, and the forecaster has not named a third. The warnings now in force are unnamed. The warning we described this morning was real and its timing and area were right — much of Scotland, parts of northern England and Northern Ireland, from three on Tuesday morning — but the name attached to it was not in any source, and it should never have reached print. We are not giving an end time for it tonight: our two sources differ, one saying just before midnight and one nine in the evening. Gusts are forecast to reach 65mph on exposed coasts overnight and up to 70mph in the far north on Tuesday, with further power cuts thought likely and advice to keep torches and batteries to hand. Both power figures come from the Energy Networks Association a few hours apart, so the fall is repair work, not a revision; about 700,000 customers were reconnected across the weekend.

Britain Sanctions Fifteen Sudanese Commanders Over El Fasher

The government has imposed travel bans and asset freezes on fifteen commanders from both sides of Sudan’s war, suspected of sexual violence during the siege of El Fasher. It falls on the first anniversary of the city’s fall. The Foreign Office says it hopes the action will ensure the horrors there “will be known to the world”.

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Sanctioning both sides is the notable choice: the fifteen are drawn from the Rapid Support Forces and from the Sudanese Armed Forces, which makes this a statement about conduct rather than about which side Britain prefers. The scale of what happened at El Fasher is hard to hold. Up to 10,000 men, women and children are believed to have been killed over two days as the Rapid Support Forces took the city, ending an eighteen-month starvation siege. Fewer than 70,000 people are thought to remain, against a pre-war population of more than a million. One account opens with tens of thousands killed and later says up to 10,000; the lower, specific figure is used. The foreign secretary put it on the record: “A year on from the atrocities in El Fasher, UK-funded investigations have shown that rape and starvation are still being weaponised against the people of Sudan. These are crimes against our humanity.” Alongside the designations — a sixth round — come £5m for survivors of sexual violence and £10m for the wider humanitarian response. The paramilitaries were allegedly backed by the United Arab Emirates, which denies it.

One To Read

Sixty Million Shekels of Rubble

Al Jazeera · A ceramics factory of fifty years, a marble works and seventy jobs, counted up by the man who owned them. Hebron is about 42% of Palestinian output, and an economist puts the week's losses at up to 80 million shekels.

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Morning Briefing

Monday 26 October 2026 — 08:42 GMT

What It Means For You

If you are in Scotland, northern England or Northern Ireland: a yellow wind warning for Storm Chloe runs from three tomorrow morning until just before midnight. About 33,500 Scottish properties are still off supply from the last storm, and the larger network says it cannot guarantee everyone is reconnected before Chloe arrives.
If you are waiting on Wednesday’s Budget: reporting says about a million pensioners will be taken out of income tax by a new allowance, and that the tax-free pension lump sum survives. None of it is confirmed, and published estimates of the chancellor’s headroom range from £12bn to £23.6bn.
If you are at risk of homelessness or work with people who are: a further £432m takes the rough sleeping commitment to about £874m, extended to the end of this Parliament. It buys an offer of accommodation or support rather than a guaranteed home, and it is the only Budget measure so far published rather than briefed.

GEO Geopolitical

Vucic Concedes to a Student Movement Without a Final Count

Aleksandar Vucic has conceded Serbia’s parliamentary election to the leaderless student list that grew out of two years of protest, telling supporters: “We still do not have final results… it is clear that we have lost these elections.” The electoral commission put turnout at 64.9% two hours before polls closed, the highest in decades.

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He conceded before the count finished, and that matters: the electoral commission has published no seat figures at all, so every number in circulation — projections of 134 to 141 seats for the students against 103 to 106 for his party, on a threshold of 126 — is a projection rather than a result. He conceded on his own party’s sample. The turnout figure is the commission’s preliminary count to six o’clock local time; one monitor put it at 67.6% an hour later. A high turnout was expected to favour the students, and did. The movement has no leader by design: its 250 candidates were chosen by university faculty assemblies and none had held office, so the question is whether a structure built to protest can form a government. The name circulating for prime minister is Dejan Soskic, a former governor of the national bank, who stood twenty-seventh on the list. He called the snap election himself, after two years of protest triggered by the collapse of a railway station canopy at Novi Sad which killed sixteen. Barred from a third presidential term, he had stood down to run for prime minister. Celebrations erupted in Belgrade as he conceded.

Lula Wins a Fourth Term but Bolsonaro Demands Annulment

With every vote counted Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took 51.79% to Flávio Bolsonaro’s 48.21%, a margin of 4.4 million, having narrowly lost the first round three weeks ago. His opponent has refused to concede and asked for the result to be annulled.

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The two results of the weekend sit oddly together and the contrast is the point. In Belgrade a long-serving leader conceded before the count had finished; in Brasília a candidate refused to accept a completed count and asked for it to be voided. Brazil’s electoral authority had confirmed the outcome before that demand was made. His stated ground is a judge’s decision, taken three minutes before polls were due to shut, to extend voting by two hours — a decision his own campaign had also requested, citing heavy rain in the south where he was favoured. The history makes the margin remarkable: never before in Brazil’s democratic era has the runner-up of a first round gone on to win the presidency. Lula had trailed 47% to 45% three weeks ago. He turns eighty-one tomorrow, serving a fourth non-consecutive term; his opponent is forty-five, and his father is serving twenty-seven years over a coup plot. Addressing supporters in a São Paulo conference hall he framed it as a verdict rather than a victory: “We are going to change the way that this country is governed… This election was a defeat for denialism… it was democracy that made this happen.”

Hebron Mayor Calls Mass Displacement Collective Punishment

Nearly 2,000 Palestinians — 370 families by the municipality’s count — have been driven from the Ein Deir Baha district of Hebron after two Israeli soldiers were killed at a checkpoint on Friday. The city’s mayor, Yousef al-Jabari, calls it “collective punishment”. The army says those who wished to evacuate were permitted to leave temporarily; residents say they were ordered out.

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Israel votes tomorrow, and the connection is not incidental: the prime minister’s coalition is narrowly trailing with two days of campaigning left, and he has warned of operations in the West Bank on a scale not seen in nearly sixty years of occupation. The strongest evidence against the voluntary framing comes from Israel’s own defence minister, who put the number forcibly displaced at “about 2,000” and said they “will not be allowed to return to their neighbourhood until we’ve finished dealing with all the Hamas issues in Hebron”. The industrial district nearest Friday’s attack has been flattened — car workshops, a ceramics plant, nothing left but rubble. An imam woken at midnight by loudspeakers moved thirty relatives out and was telephoned by a neighbour telling him not to come back; a man of seventy-seven was given ten minutes, and his villa now flies Israeli flags as an army headquarters. The army says the two thousand belong to a clan it associates with Hamas; residents number that clan at 150 at most. All West Bank crossings shut to Palestinians tomorrow. They have no vote in it.

Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani Chiefs Fly to Tehran Today

Defence and intelligence chiefs from the three Mecca pact states travel to Tehran today for a joint meeting, confirmed by both Saudi and Iranian officials. It is the first high-level contact between Iran and all three members since the Houthis escalated attacks on Saudi Arabia last month. Riyadh frames the visit as de-escalation and support for mediation.

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The named travellers give the measure of it: Saudi Arabia’s defence minister, Pakistan’s military chief and Turkey’s intelligence chief, meeting an Iranian delegation led by the secretary of the supreme national security council. The pact they represent was signed in August and treats an armed attack on one member as an attack on all, its first article committing the parties to “all necessary means”; Pakistan ratified it last week and Turkey’s parliament has begun and not finished doing so. Two things make the trip awkward. Pakistan’s military chief was in Tehran only last week and was told there would be no talks with Washington until Iran’s demands were met — and Pakistan has been the main channel between the two since February, having brokered a June agreement that collapsed within weeks. Meanwhile the alliance is arming against Iran’s closest regional ally: an emergency meeting in Riyadh this month agreed the “rapid deployment” of forces to Saudi Arabia, and Saudi air defences intercepted another wave of missiles and drones on Sunday. Watch whether anything is published afterwards, or whether the meeting is the message.

Zelensky Says Three-Way Talks Will Happen in November

President Zelensky says a trilateral meeting with Washington and Moscow will take place in November to restart stalled peace talks, speaking in a Sunday interview. Ukraine will not discuss limits on its armed forces or enforced postwar neutrality there, he says. He renewed his call for a direct meeting with President Putin.

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Neither Washington nor Moscow has confirmed the meeting, so it rests on the president’s word rather than on any announcement by the other two parties. His division of the agenda is the substantive part: territory belongs at leadership level, everything else to technical groups, which is why he keeps pressing for Mr Putin in the room on the grounds that nobody else in Russia can settle it. Two American levers moved in his favour over the weekend. Warnings of incoming ballistic strikes, which feed directly into air defence, have been fully restored, and the Starshield satellite service throttled earlier this month is working again since Saturday, after he met the American special envoy in Oslo. Washington wants Ukraine to stop striking Russian refineries because it lifts energy prices; he will stop if Moscow spares the power grid, or if he may use Starshield over Russia to find launch sites, or if Patriots arrive. He counted about 1,600 guided bombs and almost 2,300 strike drones against Ukraine in a week. Bulgaria’s presidential election, meanwhile, went to a run-off on 1 November between a pro-Western reformist and the incumbent, who opposes military aid to Ukraine.

UK Domestic

Two Dead in Boelo as Storm Chloe Arrives Tomorrow

A second man has died in Storm Boelo: a driver in his twenties killed when a tree fell on his car in north London at twenty to one on Sunday, two hours after a 60-year-old was struck near Castle Douglas. About 33,500 Scottish properties are still without power, and a third named storm arrives tomorrow.

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Storm Chloe brings a yellow wind warning running from three tomorrow morning until just before midnight — twenty-one hours covering much of Scotland, parts of northern England and Northern Ireland. It lands before the repairs are finished, and the head of customer operations at the larger Scottish network said he could not guarantee reconnections would be complete before it arrives. The outstanding figure splits as roughly 29,000 in the north of Scotland and 4,500 in the south and centre; Northern Ireland is down to fewer than a thousand from a peak of 12,500. Almost 100,000 Scottish properties were restored over the weekend. Two women remain in hospital after a tree fell at Aberfeldy. Five Aberdeenshire primary schools closed today for want of power and a secondary for damage, two Highland rail lines remain shut, a care home was evacuated at Saltcoats and fifteen people were helped from a flooded caravan park at Ballantrae. England has ten flood warnings and 65 alerts this morning, Scotland ten and eleven, Wales nine alerts. Police Scotland say disruption is likely to run well beyond the expired amber warning.

Rough Sleeping Fund Doubles to £874m With a Summit Today

The government will put a further £432m into ending rough sleeping, confirmed at Wednesday’s Budget and roughly doubling the £442m already committed. Support extends beyond March 2027 to the end of this Parliament. The first Downing Street summit on rough sleeping is held today.

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This is the one new Budget measure actually published rather than briefed, and the prime minister framed it as a choice rather than a target: “Rough sleeping isn’t a fact of life. It’s a thing governments either choose to accept or don’t. Well I don’t accept it.” The housing secretary conceded the scale of the ambition — “This is a big ambition — we know that. But we will not back down” — and a housing federation is to identify at least 2,000 homes and bedspaces, with more than thirty organisations signing pledges. Three caveats belong with it. The commitment is an offer of accommodation and or support rather than a guarantee of housing, and it is not yet clear how many of those 2,000 are self-contained homes. “Doubling” is approximate, since £432m is marginally less than the £442m it follows. And the backdrop is 4,793 people recorded sleeping rough on a single night in England last autumn, the highest since the count began in 2010. The shadow housing secretary noted the prime minister missed his own pledge to end rough sleeping in Greater Manchester by 2020.

Pensioners Reported Shielded From Tax as Budget Nears

Reporting two days before the Budget says about a million pensioners will be shielded from income tax by a new personal allowance, because the full state pension is set to rise above the £12,570 threshold. The chancellor is also said to have rejected cutting the tax-free pension lump sum. None of it is confirmed.

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A former pensions minister calls the shape of it “decidedly pensioner-friendly”, and two outlets carry it consistently, which is as strong as briefing gets without becoming announcement. Also reported ruled out: any rise in capital gains tax, and extending the mansion tax to properties worth £1.5m, which stays at £2m from April 2028. Reported in: making online marketplaces responsible for collecting their traders’ tax, funding a business rates cut that would lift the small-company threshold from £12,000 to £18,000, and raising the income limits on the new first-time buyer scheme to £110,000, or £140,000 in London. The number to watch on Wednesday is the headroom, and the published estimates diverge sharply: the official forecaster had £23.6bn in March, one accountancy firm now says £12bn and a think tank £20bn. The government’s own publication service carries none of this. What the chancellor has said on the record is narrow: that he and the prime minister are “in lockstep in our determination to meet the fiscal rules with a buffer”.

Cabinet Reported Split Over the Rosebank Oil Decision

The chancellor is reported to favour approving the Rosebank oil field and the energy secretary to oppose it, with the prime minister deciding if they cannot agree. She holds the decision. Nothing has been published, and her department still says no decision has been taken.

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We have now reported this four times without a decision, and the sourcing deserves stating plainly rather than smoothing: the chancellor’s position is unnamed and inferred, resting on “it is understood”, though it is consistent with his on-record remarks about North Sea revenues feeding the new energy wealth fund. The energy secretary’s position is the only one on the record, and it is a distinction rather than a refusal: “One is a gasfield that caters for the domestic market, while the other is an oilfield that is mainly for export.” Officials say she has not decided. Downing Street declined to comment. The scale is what makes it hard: Rosebank would emit roughly seven times the carbon of Jackdaw, which was approved last Wednesday, and its consent was ruled unlawful by the Court of Session last year for failing to account for the emissions of burning the fuel. A second approved outlet carries the same split with the same alignment, also on unnamed sourcing for the chancellor’s side.

Board of Deputies Declares the Greens a Racist Party

The Board of Deputies of British Jews has voted by 118 to one to declare that the Green Party has “by adopting an antisemitic platform, become a racist party”, and urged other parties not to make deals with it. The Green leader says he will not overturn the policy.

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The Board’s president put the objection in terms of identity rather than policy: “No political party has the right to tell Jews that a central part of our identity, rooted in thousands of years of history, faith and peoplehood, is racist… It gives prejudice against Jews a political licence.” Its motion says that parties entering coalition with the Greens would be failing to take antisemitism “with the requisite seriousness”, which raises the stakes under the ultimatum Labour issued to nine councils where the Greens are partners. The Green response rejects the characterisation, denies discriminating against people who hold Zionist views, and says the decision “will not stop us from speaking out against the genocide in Gaza” — a description Israel denies. Zack Polanski, who leads the party and is himself Jewish, did not vote on the original motion and has said he will not overturn it; it stands as party policy until 2028. Labour’s national executive has not met, and no council group is reported to have answered the deadline that fell yesterday.

One To Read

Ten Minutes to Leave

The Guardian · Three reporters in Hebron find the imam woken at midnight and telephoned by a neighbour telling him not to come back, and the man of 77 given ten minutes to go from a villa that now flies Israeli flags. The army says those who wanted to leave were permitted to.

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Evening Briefing

Sunday 25 October 2026 — 18:08 GMT

What It Means For You

If you are travelling in Scotland, Northern Ireland or northern England: the amber wind warning ends at nine tonight, but CalMac has cancelled 24 of its 30 services, some until Monday. A yellow wind warning has already been issued for Tuesday, from 03:00 until midnight.
If you owe HMRC money: existing powers already let it take debts of more than £1,000 directly from your bank account, provided at least £5,000 is left. Reports say Wednesday’s Budget will widen that sharply; the Treasury has not confirmed it.
If you are bracing for tax rises on Wednesday: the chancellor and the prime minister have insisted they will keep the manifesto promise not to raise income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. A higher levy on bank profits is expected but not confirmed.

GEO Geopolitical

Trump Rules Out a Strike on Iran “Today” as Netanyahu Warns Tehran

Donald Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews this afternoon: “The answer is no. There will not be a strike today.” Hours earlier he had asked in a television interview, “do I make a deal with them, or do I finish them off?” Benjamin Netanyahu, two days before Israel votes, warned Iran: “Don’t test us. You will suffer disproportionate blows.”

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The two leaders pulled in opposite directions on the same afternoon. Mr Netanyahu, speaking at an Arrow anti-missile battery, said Israel had “intelligence signs that Iran and its proxies could challenge us with attacks in order to disrupt the elections”; he published no evidence. The Times of Israel reports that the military’s chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, recently saw no operational need to strike Iran before the vote. Tehran’s line was flat: the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said “Whether there is war or not, our policies remain the same.” Qatari mediators are reported to be in Tehran, though no official has been named. The president’s pledge covered today only.

Houthi Missiles Intercepted Over Mecca Province as Gulf States Protest

Saudi Civil Defence says shrapnel from two intercepted ballistic missiles, suspected to have been fired by Yemen’s Houthis, fell in Jeddah, Taif and Rabigh in Mecca province. A drone and a missile were also downed over Riyadh, where international flights resumed today from Terminal 2. The Houthis deny targeting Muslim holy sites.

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The Gulf Cooperation Council’s secretary-general, Jasem AlBudaiwi, called the strikes “a grave violation of the sanctity of the Holy Sites and a provocation to the sentiments of Muslims worldwide”. The coalition separately reports ten ballistic missiles intercepted over the south and a cruise missile aimed at Khamis Mushait. Every figure is one side’s claim: the Riyadh interceptions are corroborated by two outlets, the Mecca ones by only one. The Houthi military spokesman claims seven operations against Saudi oil facilities and bases. Britain committed RAF Typhoons to defensive counter-air missions over the kingdom on Tuesday, with the defence secretary, Wes Streeting, calling the Houthi attacks “absolutely despicable”.

Machado Returns to Venezuela After Months in Exile

María Corina Machado, the Nobel peace laureate and Venezuelan opposition leader, has returned home after more than ten months abroad and appeared at a church in Lara state this afternoon, surrounded by supporters. No arrest or security response has been reported. How she entered the country is not known.

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Her ally Edmundo González said: “Today is a very important day for Venezuelans. Our sovereign voice returns with her to lead and guide this process!” The return is awkward for Washington, which the Guardian reports had opposed it as a complication in its relationship with the interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, installed after the United States seized Nicolás Maduro in January. Donald Trump said: “I don’t know anything about it, but I think she’s a very nice woman. She gave me her Nobel prize, so how can I say anything else?” Neither Ms Rodríguez nor her government has responded. Ms Machado has said she would run for president if an election were held.

Serbia Reports Record Early Turnout in Student Challenge to Vučić

Early reports put Serbian turnout at 46% by 13:00 GMT, nearly a million votes ahead of the same point in 2023, in a contest between Aleksandar Vučić’s governing party and a leaderless student list. Polls close at 19:00 GMT, with first indications about two hours later. Bulgaria’s presidential polls closed at 18:00 GMT.

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The 46% figure comes from preliminary reports that name no electoral body as their source. Commentators suggest a final turnout of 65% or more would favour the students; a Thursday poll had the governing party ahead by 47% to 40%, though others have put the students in front. Zarko Korac, a former deputy prime minister, warned: “if Vučić declares victory this evening, probably late in the evening, I don’t think the students will accept that.” In Bulgaria, among 27 candidates, the incumbent Iliana Iotova led the pro-Western Andrey Gyurov by 41% to 28% in pre-election polling; turnout below 40% was expected, which would force a run-off on 1 November.

Brazil Votes in a Run-off Between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro

Brazilians are voting in a presidential run-off between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 80, who lost the first round, and the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, 45. Polls close at 20:00 GMT and results are expected within hours. The first-round gap was the narrowest ever recorded, at less than 2% of the vote.

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After voting in Rio de Janeiro, Mr Bolsonaro said: “I think the time has come for real change. Brazil can’t take another four years the way things are.” Mr Lula, voting in São Bernardo do Campo, said of the rallies that swept the country in his support: “What the people have done for me in these past few days is something I can never repay.” The challenger is the eldest son of Jair Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest serving 27 years for attempting a coup, and has promised to pardon him. Abstention reached a record in the first round, so Lula’s campaign has concentrated on turnout among an electorate of about 159 million.

UK UK Domestic Politics

Storm Boelo Kills a Man as 82,600 Properties Lose Power

A 60-year-old man was killed by a falling tree on a minor road near Castle Douglas in Dumfries and Galloway at about 10:30 this morning, Police Scotland said. The Energy Networks Association put 82,600 properties without power today, with 344,900 reconnected. Gusts reached 85mph at Machrihanish. The amber warning for Scotland and northern England runs until 21:00.

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Police Scotland said there were “no suspicious circumstances and a report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal in due course”. Two women were taken to hospital after a tree fell in Aberfeldy. By 17:00 about 53,000 homes in Scotland remained cut off, according to the two Scottish distributors. Ferries took the brunt of the travel disruption: CalMac cancelled 24 of its 30 services, some until Monday. There is little respite. Another deep low is forecast for Monday and Tuesday, and a yellow wind warning has already been issued for Scotland, parts of Northern Ireland and northern England from 03:00 on Tuesday until midnight. Whether it will be named is undecided.

Rayner Backs Burnham’s Call for a Debate on EU Free Movement

Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, has defended the prime minister’s call for an honest discussion about free movement as “just pragmatism”, saying “you can’t take anything off the table when you’re having a conversation”. She said any change would be put to the public at a general election. Kemi Badenoch called it “another example of Burnham’s foot-in-mouth syndrome”.

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Ms Rayner’s case was economic rather than ideological: “We haven’t got the best deal at the moment because we’ve seen exports reduced by 20 per cent.” She was careful to add that the prime minister “is not saying we’re going back to where we were in 2016”. The risk lies on Labour’s red-wall benches, where Jonathan Hinder, the MP for Pendle, recently pressed the prime minister to rule a return out. Nigel Farage called it a “total betrayal of Brexit Britain”. The prime minister meets EU leaders, including Ursula von der Leyen, in Brussels on 20 November.

Ipsos Puts Labour on 32% With Reform Slipping to Third

An Ipsos poll puts Labour on 32%, its highest rating since the 2024 election, with the Conservatives on 24% and Reform UK on 20%. That is the Conservatives’ biggest lead over Reform since the election. A year ago Reform was polling above 30% and Nigel Farage was favourite to become prime minister.

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Keiran Pedley, research director at Ipsos, said “The Labour Party under Andy Burnham is resurgent, consolidating voters on the left behind them”, and that on the right “the tectonic plates have been shifting”. He cautioned that “we should be mindful against overreacting to one poll.” Electoral Calculus projects a Labour majority of 134 on these figures. Reform’s slide follows a run of inquiries, including a standards investigation into a £5m donation to Mr Farage and police investigations into Richard Tice and Robert Jenrick. The poll lands three days before a Budget Mr Pedley calls challenging.

Budget Trail Would Let HMRC Take Unpaid Tax From Bank Accounts

HMRC would be allowed to take money directly from the current and savings accounts of people who fail to pay their tax, under plans The Times reports are due in Wednesday’s Budget. The shadow chancellor, Andrew Griffith, called the move “absurd”. The Treasury declined to confirm, saying tax decisions are for the chancellor at fiscal events.

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The power exists already, but narrowly: since 2015 HMRC has been able to recover debts of more than £1,000, provided at least £5,000 is left, and the threshold could reportedly fall to a few pounds for repeat non-payers. Britain’s tax debt stands at £60bn. The Association of Taxation Technicians wants safeguards first. The wider trail — a higher bank levy, VAT collected by online marketplaces — is reporting, not announcement. James Smith of ING says an early election is “under priced”, calling the eye-catching pledges “the sort of thing you do if you’re going to do an early election”.

Suspended Former Tory Candidate Worked in Badenoch’s Office

Jack Ross, the former Conservative candidate suspended after being filmed discussing the cost of hiring contract killers, worked as a consultant in Kemi Badenoch’s office as recently as 2025. Sources close to the Conservative leader say he was a junior external social media consultant. The party says his membership is suspended pending an investigation.

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The office of the leader of the opposition can draw on taxpayer funds to pay staff, which is why the detail matters. A Tory staffer said: “He would have been in the same room as Kemi and she would have been aware of him.” Accounts of his role differ: the BBC was told on Saturday that he did paid social media work for the party until earlier this year and was never an employee. Police in Scotland say they will review the documentary in which he was filmed; no one has been charged. Mr Ross, chief executive of Turning Point UK, has not responded to requests for comment.

One To Read

A Unique Experiment in European History

BBC News · Serbia’s students are trying to unseat a government with 250 candidates, no leader and no political experience. What happens if they win — and what happens if they are told they have lost.

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Morning Briefing

Sunday 25 October 2026 — 08:22 GMT

What It Means For You

If you are in Scotland or northern England: an amber wind warning runs until nine tonight, and Northern Ireland’s expires at ten this morning. Five Scottish A-roads are closed, almost all island ferry sailings are cancelled, and one operator reports disruption on 21 of its 39 routes.
If you are waiting for social housing: the Treasury has trailed more than £1bn for social and affordable homes in England at Wednesday’s Budget, taking its ten-year programme past £40bn. It is on the record from the chancellor but is not yet a published government document.
If you claim benefits or draw a pension: April’s uprating is already fixed by September’s inflation figure. The single person’s universal credit allowance rises 4.3% to £102.28 a week, the new state pension 3.9% to £250.70, and most working-age benefits 3.5%. Local housing allowance stays frozen in cash terms.

GEO Geopolitical

Musk Says SpaceX Throttled Starlink Over Ukrainian Drone Strikes

Elon Musk has said his company restricted Starlink in Ukraine because its military “violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people”, adding that the loophole “was closed last week”. It is the first acceptance of responsibility after a week of denials. President Zelensky says speeds are now restored.

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The admission is narrower than it first appears, and the distinction is the story. Mr Musk owns the restriction on Starlink, the commercial service, and justifies it: “Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be.” But he continues to disclaim the military network: “Starshield, a different system, is controlled by the US government. What they decide to do is up to them.” So responsibility for one network is now claimed and for the other still is not. Until yesterday the denials formed a closed circle, with the American president saying it was not him and that he did not think it was Mr Musk, the secretary of state saying the administration cannot direct a private company, and Mr Musk saying any limits were decided by the military “and ultimately” the president. Ukraine’s own account was that SpaceX acted on a “message from the American government”. While the cap held for more than a week, Kyiv says combat missions failed, drone interception was degraded and Russian missiles arrived without warning. Mr Musk also claimed SpaceX “has done more to defend Ukraine than any private company on Earth”.

Israel to Seal All West Bank Crossings on Election Day

The Israeli military will close every land crossing in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, when Israel votes, and bar Palestinian workers from entering settlements from today. Hebron remains under blockade. The defence minister says about 2,000 displaced residents will not return until the operation ends.

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Israel Katz made the displacement open-ended by ministerial decision rather than court order: “They will not be allowed to return to their neighbourhood until we’ve finished dealing with all the Hamas issues in Hebron.” How many people that covers is disputed. He says about 2,000; the mayor of Hebron says 2,200; an Israeli rights group counts around 240 families cleared from two neighbourhoods, which is broadly compatible with both. The mayor’s reading of the timing is blunt: the city faces “a complete blockade” and the operation is “driven by the elections”, with ministers “attempting to secure the votes of the far right and the settlers”. One thread we have now followed for three editions remains loose. A narrow court order halting demolitions, obtained on Friday by two factory owners, has still not been reported as upheld, lifted or ruled upon by any source we can read. The only new material is one resident’s allegation that it was disregarded — “A court decree was in place that should have prevented any demolition… They demolished and took me out by force” — which is his account and not a finding. More than 100,000 Palestinians held work permits before October 2023.

Saudi Defences Down a Missile Over Riyadh as Its Airport Reopens

The Saudi-led coalition says air defences intercepted a ballistic missile fired at Riyadh overnight. The capital’s international airport is reopening today after a fortnight closed, and a flight left early this morning. A Houthi spokesman immediately warned that the airport remains “unsafe” and a “military target”.

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That sequence — an interception, a reopening and a threat within hours — is the state of this war in miniature. Everything in it is one party’s claim: the interception is the coalition’s, unverified independently, and the threat is the Houthis’ own. The confusion over Saturday’s missiles is worth recording rather than smoothing, because three accounts disagree about what was aimed at what. The coalition said two missiles were fired at Taif and Yanbu, which is what we published last night. Saudi civil defence said Mecca and Medina. The Houthis called that a “huge lie” and said their targets were three airports, oil infrastructure and an airbase. No independent account resolves it. What is not in dispute is the pattern: Yanbu is the Red Sea terminal through which Riyadh routes crude around the Strait of Hormuz, and the airport closure that has just ended lasted two weeks. Separately, two senior Iranian officials, one of them from the Revolutionary Guards, have told an American newspaper that Tehran is preparing to target United States diplomats and personnel, describing them as fair game.

Serbia Votes Today, With Brazil Choosing a President Tonight

Polls opened in Serbia at six this morning and close at seven tonight, with first indications about two hours later. A student movement born of two years of protest is level with the party that has governed since 2012. Brazil votes later today in a run-off that polling has tied.

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Serbian queues formed before polls opened in Belgrade and Novi Sad. One poll on Thursday put the governing party at 47% against the student list’s 40%, though others have had the students ahead; there is no turnout figure yet. The list has 250 candidates chosen by university faculty assemblies, none with political experience, and no leader, so the cardiologist at its head would not automatically become prime minister. Aleksandar Vucic gave up the presidency, being barred from a third term, to stand for prime minister. In Brazil the run-off follows a first round on 4 October in which Flavio Bolsonaro led Lula da Silva by 47% to 45%. Two polls published since disagree: one on Saturday had Bolsonaro ahead by 46.3% to 45%, another on Thursday had them level on 50% each. Nearly 159 million are registered. Lula drew very large crowds on Saturday at two separate rallies, in Rio and in São Paulo, though no police or independent estimate of either exists. Results should follow within hours of polls closing.

Obama Says the Iran War Handed Tehran Veto Power Over Hormuz

Campaigning in Ohio and Michigan nine days before the midterm elections, Barack Obama said the conflict with Iran had given Tehran “veto power” over the Strait of Hormuz. He called the election “our last best chance to at least rein in some of the foolishness of this administration”.

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The charge is more pointed than the usual campaign fare, because it is a former president arguing that the sitting administration has handed a hostile state leverage over a chokepoint through which a large share of the world’s seaborne oil passes — and it lands while Brent sits at a six-month high and Washington draws down embassy staff across the region. In Cleveland he reached for a longer indictment: after “two years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence”, voters should decide that “enough is enough”. He also found room for ridicule, asking of the refurbished White House: “What’s with all the gold?” President Trump was in Georgia the same day, telling supporters that “we’re in the golden age of America”, describing oil prices as temporarily high and pledging a payment of $5,000; he voted in West Palm Beach. The midterms fall on 3 November, which is also the date after which reported American and Israeli plans for renewed strikes on Iran are said to begin — reporting that rests on unnamed officials.

UK Domestic

Boelo Peaked at 85mph With Scotland’s Amber Warning Until Tonight

Storm Boelo peaked at 85mph overnight, recorded at Machrihanish in Argyll and at The Needles on the Isle of Wight. An amber wind warning covers most of Scotland and parts of northern England until nine tonight. Fourteen flood warnings are active in England, and five Scottish A-roads remain shut.

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The warning that expires first is Northern Ireland’s, at ten this morning. The Scottish one runs from nine last night to nine tonight — which, because the clocks went back, is 25 hours rather than the 24 being widely reported. Capel Curig in Conwy recorded 84mph, the second-highest gust in the country, and it sits in a yellow area rather than an amber one. On power, the clearest figure is that supply had been restored to 131,225 properties by seven o’clock last night; a separate count of 10,860 still disconnected this morning covers one distributor’s network in England and is not a United Kingdom total, since Scottish and Northern Irish supply is handled by other companies and no Scottish figure has been published. More than a thousand homes are off near Springfield in Fermanagh and more than a thousand near Bushmills. Rainfall reached 69mm at Liscombe in Somerset. One train operator reports disruption on 21 of its 39 routes, almost all ferry sailings to the Scottish islands are cancelled, and the forecast is for winds to ease in the south this afternoon and the north overnight.

Treasury Trails £1bn for Housing and New Borrowing for Mayors

Three days before the Budget the Treasury has trailed more than £1bn for social and affordable housing in England, taking its ten-year programme past £40bn, alongside £285m of transitional funding for local leaders and a £1.5bn borrowing facility from 2028. The chancellor says he is ending “fragmented bidding pots”.

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This arrived overnight as one briefing and was filleted into two stories by different desks, which is worth knowing because the housing money and the devolution package are the same announcement rather than two. It is on the record, with quotations from both the chancellor and the prime minister, but it is not yet a published government document. Andy Burnham’s framing was characteristically blunt: “I’m calling time on local leaders going cap in hand to Westminster. That is no way to run a country.” Also in the package: £150m to build capacity in strategic authorities, councils able to borrow from government at preferential rates for housebuilding, and from 2028 a share of income tax revenue handed directly to local areas. The Mayor of London says the borrowing could unlock the West London Orbital and extensions to the Bakerloo line. One awkwardness sits inside the same story: the Treasury’s own entrepreneurship adviser is resigning the day after the Budget, having told a newspaper that start-ups are treated as a “sideshow” at the “margins of economic policy”.

Burnham Wants an “Honest Discussion” on EU Free Movement

The prime minister has told a newspaper that Britain needs “a very factual, quite evidence-based debate” about free movement, saying the balance of migration has changed. He is declining to rule it out rather than proposing it: the manifesto red lines stand and he says fundamental change would need an election mandate.

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What he actually said is narrower than the headlines it has produced. Free movement “had very significant challenges associated with it”, but was “a type of immigration that perhaps wasn’t as difficult” as now — “revolving door migration where people would come and then go back is different”, mostly younger people going home after a few years. He set one hard limit: “I can’t see myself ever recommending anything that would involve joining the euro or Schengen.” His wider argument is about what was lost beyond movement, including access to European migration databases, which Britain’s own border security commander told members of parliament this week he would like to rejoin. The attack writes itself and both opposition parties have made it: the Conservatives say the public “voted to end free movement, and there can be no return to it”, while Reform calls it “a total betrayal”. The sharpest fact is biographical. Mr Burnham won Makerfield at a by-election in June, a seat that voted to leave in 2016, having promised not to re-run the argument. No figure in his own party has responded on the record.

Drumcree Rally Splits the DUP as Lockhart Demands O’Neill Go

Thousands gathered in Portadown in support of Orangemen banned from parading along the Garvaghy Road, in the first major rally since protesters blocked the route last month. The only politician to take the stage demanded the first minister’s removal — which would also remove her own party’s deputy first minister.

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Carla Lockhart stood down as a Democratic Unionist Party officer on Thursday and told the crowd that the party has it within its gift to remove Michelle O’Neill: “Profound consequences must mean profound consequences. Michelle O’Neill must go. That’s where I stand, and this lady is not for turning.” The constitutional catch is that the first and deputy first ministers cannot function independently of one another, so collapsing one post collapses both — including the office held by her own party colleague. The first minister took part in the Garvaghy Road protests and attended police interviews this week over her involvement. The parade was banned by the Northern Ireland secretary on security advice after a stand-off lasting nearly a fortnight. Speakers criticised the chief constable, the secretary of state and the first minister by name, and the unionist leaderships by implication; the loudest cheers went to the Order’s legal adviser and to Ms Lockhart. No attendance figure has been published by police or organisers, and the broadcaster covering it noted the crowd appeared to surprise even the organisers.

No Rosebank Decision as a Reporter Reaches the Field at Last

No decision on the Rosebank oil field has been published, and nothing on the government’s own service post-dates July. The energy secretary holds the call, which is larger than the Jackdaw approval granted on Wednesday, would emit more and could earn more. A journalist has now visited the vessel for the first time.

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We have now reported this story three times without a decision, which is itself the fact: the field was consented under the previous government in 2023, that consent was ruled unlawful by the Court of Session last year for failing to account for the emissions from burning the fuel, and work short of production has continued while fuller assessments are prepared. The vessel sits 80 miles north-west of Shetland with 122 people aboard, in waters its operator’s chief executive calls “as harsh as you get anywhere in the world”; a technician described a 30-metre heave passing through last week. Estimates put the field at 300 to 500 million barrels, perhaps 25 years of production. The arguments are unchanged and both are sincere. A production supervisor said approval “would see us out to retirement… We need to see this approved.” The director of the campaign group that won the court case says Rosebank “would be a disastrous decision and a terrible deal for ordinary people”. Polling published this week found Jackdaw’s approval supported by 52% to 15%.

One To Read

Eighty Miles Past Shetland

BBC News · The first reporter to reach the Rosebank vessel finds 122 people, a 30-metre swell and a decision nobody has taken. Both sides of the argument, from the deck rather than the press release.

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Evening Briefing

Saturday 24 October 2026 — 19:55 BST

What It Means For You

If you are in Scotland, northern England or Northern Ireland: amber wind warnings take effect at nine tonight and run through tomorrow. Widespread gusts of 60 to 70mph are forecast, 80mph on exposed coasts. All 30 west coast ferry services are cancelled for the weekend and several Scottish rail lines close from nine.
If you are travelling tomorrow: one operator advises against travel north of Preston and another against the Edinburgh to Aberdeen line. A third storm may follow late Monday into Tuesday on a similar track, though forecasters say it is too early to know whether it will be named.
If you bank or hold bank shares: the industry is lobbying hard against a Budget levy, and unions estimate that raising the surcharge from 3% to 8% would yield £2.25bn a year. Four days out, nothing has been published officially and every figure in circulation is a briefing.

GEO Geopolitical

Hebron Sealed and Razed as Israel Votes on Tuesday

Israeli forces demolished homes in two Hebron districts today and sealed every entrance to the city, which Palestinian officials say has left residents unable to enter or leave. Estimates of those displaced range from 300 families to 2,200 people. Around 70 people were arrested across the West Bank.

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The displacement figures do not agree and should not be averaged: the municipality puts it at about 300 families, some 1,500 people, with 35 hectares destroyed or marked for destruction, while the mayor is quoted by one outlet at more than a thousand displaced and by another at 2,200. He also says the plan is to clear 2,500 people from about a third of a square kilometre. Today’s demolitions were in Ein Deir Baha and Farsh al-Hawa, different districts from the one cleared overnight. One thing we reported this morning cannot yet be resolved: a temporary court order halting demolitions, obtained on Friday by two factory owners, has not been mentioned since by any outlet we can read, so whether it was lifted, narrowed or simply bypassed in a different district is unknown. Soldiers have been marking houses with sprayed black crosses, and residents say a prominent family’s home has been commandeered and hung with flags. The mayor says the operation is “driven by the elections”.

400,000 March in France With Almost 1,000 Arrested

The interior ministry counted 410,000 demonstrators across France, where unions claim about 800,000. Almost a thousand people were arrested nationally. The Paris march was moved at the last minute from Bastille to the city’s southern and eastern rim, and organisers complied rather than defy the ban.

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That compliance is the correction to this morning’s framing: the route was relocated, not fought over. In Paris the official count was 110,000 against the unions’ 250,000, and the prosecutor reports 64 arrests including six minors, with more than 3,000 people stopped and searched. The interior minister said the marches themselves “passed off well” before police met “an extremely elevated level of violence” from several thousand radical activists at the rear, among them about 500 he identified as rioters; clashes ran roughly two hours. Looting happened but on a far smaller scale than last weekend. Two people were badly hurt, one in Clermont-Ferrand and a twenty-year-old in Toulouse who lost fingers. Something new was recorded too: in Cannes and Montpellier the authorities saw far-right activists claiming to protect businesses or seeking confrontation, which the minister said had not been witnessed before. The movement began with schoolchildren demanding teachers and repairs to leaking buildings, and has widened to the cost of living and the banning of protests.

Ukraine Says Starlink Speeds Are Back to Pre-Restriction Levels

President Zelensky said Starlink and Starshield have “resumed operations at their pre-restriction speeds”, and his defence minister said equipment moving faster than 400km/h now works again. Nobody has said the restrictions were formally lifted, and nobody has yet accepted responsibility for imposing them.

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The distinction matters. Both men describe performance recovering, not an order being rescinded, and the recovery reportedly began overnight. While the cap was in place — about 100mph, for roughly ten days — Ukraine says combat missions failed, drone interception was degraded, strikes behind Russian lines were cancelled and ballistic missiles arrived without American warning. Responsibility remains unclaimed and the denials now form a circle. The American president says “it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was Elon”; the secretary of state says the administration cannot direct a private company; Elon Musk says the systems are “owned and controlled by the US government” and any limits are decided by the military “and ultimately Potus”. Mr Zelensky blames both, noting that no equivalent limit applied to terminals in European Union countries, only to Ukraine: “In other words, this is a planned operation.” Negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States are expected in Abu Dhabi in the first half of November.

Saudi Arabia Intercepts Missiles Aimed at Its Red Sea Oil Hub

The Saudi-led coalition says it shot down two Houthi missiles heading for Taif and Yanbu, and civil defence briefly warned four western regions including Mecca to seek shelter before rescinding the alerts. Yanbu is the Red Sea terminal through which Riyadh bypasses the Strait of Hormuz.

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That is what gives the attempt its significance: with Hormuz effectively closed to much Saudi crude, the east-west pipeline to Yanbu has become the workaround, and the company’s chief executive says its capacity has been raised from two million barrels a day to seven. A missile aimed at Yanbu is aimed at the detour. Everything here is one party’s account, and the claims run both ways. The interception is the coalition’s own, unverified independently. The Houthis separately claim to have struck a naval base and a camp at Aden, and their health ministry claims nine people were killed in Yemen over two days, which it blames on Saudi Arabia; Riyadh did not respond and the figures could not be verified. Iran’s president, meanwhile, spoke unusually plainly about the cost at home: “There are many people in this society who are struggling to put food on the table because of the war.” He called for an end to a state of “neither war nor peace” without saying how.

Serbia and Brazil Both Vote Tomorrow in Tight Contests

Two consequential elections fall on Sunday. In Serbia a leaderless student movement is level with the party that has governed since 2012; in Brazil nearly 159 million voters decide a presidential run-off that polls have tied. Neither result will be known before Sunday night.

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Serbia’s student list grew out of almost two years of protest after a railway station canopy collapsed at Novi Sad, killing sixteen. Its 250 candidates were chosen by university assemblies, none has held office, and it has deliberately refused a leader, so the cardiologist at the top of the list would not automatically become prime minister. Aleksandar Vucic resigned the presidency, being barred from a third term, to stand for prime minister instead. In Brazil the run-off follows a first round on 4 October in which Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of the former president, led Lula da Silva by 47% to 45%. Lula is eighty and seeking a fourth non-consecutive term; most analysts make his opponent a narrow favourite, and since democracy returned in the 1980s no candidate who lost the first round has come back to win. Tens of thousands of his supporters filled Copacabana beach today. Both counts should report on Sunday evening.

UK Domestic

Amber Warnings Bite at Nine as Boelo’s Worst Arrives

Two amber wind warnings take effect at nine tonight, covering Scotland, northern England and parts of Northern Ireland. The strongest gust recorded so far is 76mph at South Uist. All 30 ferry services on Scotland’s west coast are cancelled for the weekend, and Scottish rail lines close from nine.

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One detail is being reported wrongly almost everywhere, including by outlets we rely on: the Scottish amber warning is described as lasting 24 hours, but it runs from nine tonight to nine tomorrow evening across the night the clocks go back, which makes it 25. Widespread gusts of 60 to 70mph are forecast, with 80mph only on exposed coasts. The practical toll so far is disruption rather than danger: no injuries or deaths have been reported. The Foyle Bridge at Londonderry is shut, Liverpool’s river festival is off for a second night, and castles, parks and Halloween events have closed from Edinburgh to Pitlochry. On power, National Grid said more than 124,000 properties had been reconnected by late afternoon with hundreds still off — and the honest picture is that the outage count rose before it fell, from 5,774 this morning to 6,075 in mid-afternoon. The forward watchpoint is a third system: a deep area of low pressure may arrive late Monday into Tuesday on a similar track, though forecasters say it is too early to know whether it will be named.

Banks Lobby Against a Budget Levy With Nothing Yet Official

With the Budget four days away, the banking industry has written to the chancellor warning that higher taxes could push business abroad, citing a ranking that puts London’s total tax rate at 46.2% against 29% in Dublin. Unions say the comparison is cherry-picked. Nothing has been published officially.

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The omission doing the work in that ranking is Paris, which the industry body says it could not model on a like-for-like basis. One newspaper’s own calculation, reviewed by an accountancy firm, puts a Paris bank at between 51.6% and 57.3%, which would be up to eleven points above London. The Trades Union Congress put it more bluntly: “It’s little surprise that some in the finance lobby are cherrypicking jurisdictions to aid their argument… it tells us nothing about the actual taxes paid by Britain’s big banks.” It estimates that raising the bank surcharge from 3% to 8% would yield £2.25bn a year, and the chief executive of one large bank said on Thursday that a rise would be “bearable”. Separately the chancellor is reported to be planning a £20bn lending boost for two state banks, which would require flexing his fiscal rules, with the extra borrowing starting in 2028. The Treasury will not comment on “rumour, speculation or proposals”, and four days out nothing about the Budget has appeared on the government’s own publication service.

Police Hunt Prisoner Who Forced His Way Out of Lewisham Unit

The Metropolitan Police are searching for Anthony Lloyd, 38, who forced his way out of a health unit in Lewisham on Friday afternoon and was last seen heading towards Catford. He was serving twelve months for assaulting three emergency workers. The force says he should not be approached.

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Detective Superintendent Melanie Pressley, who is leading the search, said officers were “conducting various significant inquiries to find Lloyd and return him to custody”, adding: “We are concerned he poses a risk both to himself and the public, and would urge anyone who sees him to call 999 immediately. Do not approach him.” He was jailed last year over an incident in Nottinghamshire and transferred from prison to the Lewisham facility in September; police list links to seven counties. Two things are worth saying about what this is and is not. The three accounts of it differ in their verbs — one says absconded, another escaped — while all three bodies say he forced his way out, which is the formulation used here. And although a prisoner leaving custody from a medical facility invites the question of whether such failures are becoming common, no outlet reports it as part of a pattern, no source prison is identified, and neither the Ministry of Justice nor the prison service appears in any account. On the evidence available tonight this is an incident, not yet a trend.

315 Datacentres Wait for the Grid as Objections Mount

Some 315 hyperscale datacentres are queuing to connect to the national grid, and more than a hundred other planned sites intend to burn gas instead rather than wait. One contested Welsh scheme would draw up to 150MW, more than triple the demand of a city the size of Cardiff, and employ up to 125 people.

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That scheme has drawn more than 1,200 planning objections, and last month the Welsh government ordered Cardiff council to pause the application while it considers taking the decision away from councillors altogether. Five of the largest new and proposed Welsh datacentres would between them consume more electricity than every home in Wales; Scotland has imposed a moratorium on new ones. The scale is visible on the ground in Newport, where a 23-metre building carries 36 air blast coolers and 60 back-up diesel generators. The politics cut across parties rather than along them: a Plaid Cymru member of the Senedd suspects the developer “could be a front for someone else: Google, Microsoft, whoever” and calls the implications for the 2040 net-zero target “massively problematic”, while a Labour councillor backing the scheme says “some of the information being spread is scaremongering”. The communities secretary has separately overturned a council decision blocking a datacentre in east London. This is the other half of the artificial intelligence package the chancellor announced this morning: the compute has to be built somewhere.

Green Councillors’ Deadline Falls Tomorrow With Nothing on Record

The deadline for Green council groups to disown their party’s policy that Zionism is a form of racism falls tomorrow, after which Labour’s national executive decides whether power-sharing deals continue. Nothing has moved today: no group, no councillor and no party figure has said anything new on the record.

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That silence is itself worth recording rather than filling. Nine councils have Greens as power-sharing partners, three of them in direct coalition, and the consequences have already begun landing: Green councillors have left the ruling alliance at Runnymede, and the Labour group leader on Lewes District Council has resigned from his own party to sit as an independent cabinet member. In Stafford, where a Green holds the climate portfolio, Labour has confirmed a process would be triggered to remove him if the policy stands. The Stafford group leader said on Friday that his members were “formulating a response” they would want to put to the membership first, and that remains the most recent thing anyone in the party has said. Four of the Greens’ five members of parliament have criticised the motion, which was passed by members at conference last month and backs a single state in all of historic Palestine. One distinction worth keeping clear: the Scottish Greens are a separate party with their own leadership, and held their own conference today.

One To Read

The Datacentre Next Door

The Guardian · 315 hyperscale datacentres are queuing for the grid and more than a hundred plan to burn gas instead of waiting. A report from the Welsh streets where the compute behind the AI boom actually has to be built.

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Morning Briefing

Saturday 24 October 2026 — 11:33 BST

What It Means For You

If you are following the Budget on Wednesday: the only substantial measure announced on the record so far is £100m for an AI biosecurity laboratory, within a £165m initiative. Everything else being reported — energy support, a bank levy, the size of the headroom — rests on unnamed sources and is not confirmed.
If your area won levelling up money: an analysis of data released under freedom of information law finds 821 of 1,347 funded projects were still incomplete in May, and that in 73 council areas with accepted bids not one project has been finished. The money was allocated between 2018 and 2021.
If you drive: Brent settled on Friday at its highest since April after Iran threatened oil facilities across the Gulf. Pump prices follow crude with a lag of a week or two, and motor fuel was the largest single driver of September’s inflation figure.

GEO Geopolitical

Israel Seals Hebron as 200 Families Are Displaced Overnight

Israeli forces have raided at least 15 towns across the northern West Bank and sealed Hebron, closing seven of its entrances. The city’s municipality says up to 200 families were forced from one neighbourhood overnight. The army says the operation will last several days. Israel votes on Tuesday.

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Friday was the announcement; overnight it became execution. Bulldozers wrecked a three-storey building, hundreds more families were ordered out of a second area, and a correspondent on the ground reports the army using emptied homes as temporary outposts and raising the Israeli flag over them. Israel’s high court has issued a temporary order halting the demolitions after an urgent petition by a human rights lawyer, who said: “What we saw today was an attempt to copy the illegal practices used in Gaza, in the heart of the West Bank.” The defence minister, Israel Katz, was explicit about the model: “The Jenin refugee camp model arrives in Hebron. Every clan neighbourhood in Hebron from which the terrorists emerged today will be evacuated of its residents.” The Israeli rights group B’Tselem says the offensive amounts to “collective punishment and acts that could constitute war crimes”. Two cautions belong here. The 200-family figure is the municipality’s own and one Israeli outlet reports only dozens of evacuations. And a closure of the territory had already been planned for Tuesday’s election, so this is not purely a response to Friday’s attack.

US Spy Chief Says Iranian Plots to Kill Americans Are Advanced

America’s director of national intelligence told the secretary of state, in a dated unclassified memo, that Iran has substantially increased efforts to target American personnel and that lethal plotting has “reached advanced stages”. The memo names no targets, no countries and gives no indication of timing. Four more embassies are cutting staff.

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What makes this reportable is that it is a written, dated document from a named official rather than an anonymous briefing, and that two outlets have obtained it and quote the same sentence. What it does not contain is any evidence a reader can inspect, and it remains one government’s assessment of an adversary at a moment when that government is weighing whether to resume strikes. It also sits awkwardly beside the president, who days earlier accused Iran of “making up fake hits, mines, and everything else” in the Gulf — so the same administration is asserting that Iranian plots are real and advanced while calling Iranian claims of Gulf attacks fabrications. The staff reductions cover Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, all already on restricted operations; only Saudi Arabia is under an ordered departure. Brent settled on Friday at $116.72, up 3.1% and the highest settlement since 29 April, after Tehran threatened oil facilities, undersea cables and datacentres across the Gulf if a new offensive begins. At least 21 people have been killed in attacks on Saudi airports this month.

France Deploys 70,000 Officers as a Fourth Protest Weekend Begins

Some 70,000 police and soldiers have been mobilised across France, a fifth more than last weekend, and 24 Paris metro stations are closed. Police banned the planned march from Bastille to Nation and the organisers’ legal appeal failed. Courts have overturned bans in Marseille and Limoges.

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The Paris march has been confined to a route between two outer gates, from one until seven, though groups are preparing a two o’clock start instead; bans on unauthorised demonstrations remain in force in Lille, Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Grenoble, Toulouse and Amiens. The reason given for the Bastille ban was the “high density of businesses similar to those targeted” the weekend before, when hundreds of shops were smashed and looted in Paris over two nights and thousands more across the country. Shopkeepers boarded up overnight — opticians, supermarkets, pharmacies. Meanwhile the National Rally is holding its congress in Orléans, with about 5,000 members today and ten thousand expected at a campaign launch tomorrow, against twenty to thirty thousand counter-demonstrators. The general secretary of the CGT union placed the blame squarely: this violence “comes from speeches that convey racism, anti-Semitism, violence, which essentially come from the speeches of the far right”. Parallel protests are planned today in Italy, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Albania and Ireland.

Russia and Ukraine Agree a Local Truce for a Starving City

Both Moscow and Kyiv have confirmed a localised ceasefire in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, to evacuate residents and bring in aid. Each says its forces will stop firing at two in the morning on 27 October. The White House, which announced it, gave a later date.

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This began as a White House claim and has become a story because both belligerents have now confirmed the same thing, which is rare. The American first lady said she had “successfully secured” the truce in a city “on the brink of disaster”, and that residents who wish to leave “will receive co-ordinated support and transportation to their preferred destination. I anticipate some will want to go to Russia, and some to Ukraine.” About 6,000 people are thought to remain of the 24,000 who lived there before the invasion, among them 200 children. There has been no gas or electricity since 2023, residents have resorted to eating garden weeds, and a single hospital opens a few days a week for critical amputations. The head of President Zelensky’s party in parliament confirmed that an operation to unblock the settlement would begin shortly. Two limits worth stating: the White House put the start at 29 October where both Moscow and Kyiv said the 27th, and nobody has said how long the ceasefire will hold.

Serbia Votes Tomorrow With a Student List Level Against Vucic

Serbia holds parliamentary elections on Sunday, with a movement grown out of almost two years of anti-corruption protests mounting the most serious challenge to the governing party since it took office in 2012. Its 250 candidates have no political background, and the list has no leader.

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The protests began after 16 people died when a railway station canopy collapsed at Novi Sad, and the candidates were chosen by university faculty assemblies rather than by a party. The list is headed by a cardiologist who would not necessarily become prime minister, since the movement has deliberately refused a hierarchy. A reported 150,000 supporters attended its final rally in Belgrade on Thursday night. Aleksandar Vucic stood down as president in order to run again as prime minister, and has cast the movement as foreign-backed and bent on bringing down the state. The candidate at the top of the student list framed it as restoration rather than rupture: “We offer to our citizens the core values of civilised society, which this previous regime has taken away from our citizens.” Reliable polling is scarce and analysts expect an extremely tight result. The thing to watch is whether a movement with no leader and no machine can convert street numbers into seats — and whether the governing party accepts the count if it cannot.

UK Domestic

Treasury to Fund World-First AI Biosecurity Lab With £100m

The chancellor will put £100m into a new AI Biosecurity Lab, within a £165m biosecurity initiative, alongside up to £200m of model credits and computing power pledged by OpenAI and Anthropic. It is the first substantial Budget announcement to be made on the record. The Budget is on Wednesday.

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The distinction between those two sums matters and is easily garbled: £100m is government cash, while the £200m is in-kind credits from two private companies, so the “up to £300m” figure in circulation is arithmetically right but blurs the two. The laboratory will be an independent non-profit modelled on the AI Security Institute, working with the health and animal health agencies, the defence laboratory and the medicines regulator, with Google DeepMind and Basecamp Research as partners. No location and no timetable have been published. Around it sits a wider package: another £120m for the AI Security Institute, a £60m national cyber shield including a £25m challenge fund, a £70m vulnerability centre, £60m more for the sovereign AI fund, chip design capability in Edinburgh and two centres of excellence in Manchester. John Healey said he was setting out “a distinctively British approach to AI — one that doesn’t leave workers behind and defends our national interest”, and the AI minister, Kanishka Narayan, was blunter about the reasoning: “We cannot afford to rely entirely on technology built overseas.”

Six Warnings as Boelo Arrives, With Amber Wind From Tonight

Six weather warnings now cover the United Kingdom as Storm Boelo arrives, including two amber wind warnings that begin at nine tonight across mainland Scotland, the Western Isles, northern England, northern Wales and north-west Northern Ireland. Gusts could reach 80mph on exposed coasts. The warnings in force this morning are yellow.

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The disruption has started well ahead of the amber period. Fourteen Caledonian MacBrayne sailings have been cancelled, along with Irish Sea crossings between Belfast and Liverpool, Belfast and Cairnryan, and Dublin and Holyhead. England has three flood warnings and fourteen alerts, with flooding expected at Scarborough and in Staffordshire; Scotland has warnings across ten areas including Aberdeenshire, Fife and the Lothians. Rail operators are closing lines rather than slowing them: the Ayr line goes from nine tonight, Oban and Mallaig from about ten, and three Highland routes from the start of service tomorrow. One operator is advising against all but essential travel across the north today and tomorrow, another against travelling north of Preston on Sunday. Supt Andy Barclay of Police Scotland asked drivers to “consider if your journey is really necessary”, noting that stopping distances “can be at least double on wet roads”. Storm Austen has not finished either: 5,774 properties in England and Wales were still without power at a quarter to ten this morning, most of them in the south-west. The clocks go back at two tomorrow morning.

Most Levelling Up Projects Still Unfinished Years After Funding

Of 1,347 projects funded under three levelling up programmes, 821 were not complete as of May this year, according to an analysis of data released under freedom of information laws. In 73 council areas that won money, not a single project has been finished. The money was allocated between 2018 and 2021.

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The three funds had their own deadlines and all have slipped: the high streets money was due to be spent by March 2024 and the town and levelling up funds by March 2026. Those commitments have since been folded into a single regeneration fund with a deadline of March 2028, and the present government’s own replacement, worth £5.8bn, pays out at £2m a year over ten years for each place. Completion has been slowest in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and low in north-west England and Yorkshire; Blackburn with Darwen has eight projects and none complete, Leeds eight and none closed. Andy Haldane, the former Bank of England chief economist, was scathing about the design rather than the delivery: it was “better than nothing”, but “in some ways the kind of worst of Whitehall. Because all the decisions were centralised. There looked to be degrees of pork barrel politics rolled into which places got it.” Two honest limits: this is one newspaper’s analysis rather than official statistics, and it identified 59 completions since the data was collected.

Tories’ Former Campaign Chief Sentenced Over Election Betting

Anthony Lee, the Conservatives’ former director of campaigning, has been given ten months and two weeks suspended for cheating at gambling, having bet on the date of the 2024 election using information from a private meeting called by the then prime minister. He and his wife stood to win more than £23,000.

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His wife, Laura Lee, received four months and two weeks suspended for a year, and Amy Hind, a former party employee then working as an NHS business support manager, six months suspended. All three admitted the offence at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday, having been charged by the Gambling Commission. Sentencing them, Judge Tony Baumgartner said their conduct “risked undermining” public confidence in the Conservative Party “as an institution”, as well as trust in the democratic process and the integrity of the gambling system. The case is not over: other defendants are due to be tried next year and in 2028, and the former Conservative member of parliament Craig Williams, who was the then prime minister’s closest parliamentary aide when the election date was chosen, pleaded guilty in June and will be sentenced later. The sums involved are small against the damage; what the prosecutions establish is that the date of a general election was treated by people inside the governing party as a tradeable piece of information.

Green Councillors Face a Labour Deadline Over Zionism Policy

Green council groups have until Sunday to disown their party’s policy that Zionism is a form of racism, after which Labour’s national executive will decide whether local power-sharing arrangements continue. Nine authorities are exposed, three of them direct coalitions. Two alliances have already broken.

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The motion, passed by members at the Green conference in Brighton last month, describes Zionism as an ideology supporting an “ethnonationalist Jewish state” that has led to the “disenfranchisement and destruction” of Palestinians, and backs “a single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine” — which includes present-day Israel. Four of the Greens’ five members of parliament have criticised it, and the party leader, who did not vote, has called it “imperfect” and wants it amended. The consequences are already landing locally: Green councillors have left the ruling alliance at Runnymede, and the Labour group leader on Lewes District Council has resigned from his own party to sit as an independent cabinet member. In Stafford, where a Green cabinet member holds the climate portfolio, Labour has confirmed a process would be triggered to remove him if the group refuses. The Stafford Green leader said they were “formulating a response” they would like to put to members first. A Green spokesperson called it “disappointing and wrong” to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

One To Read

The Slick You Can See From Orbit

BBC News · Satellite imagery matched to a damaged Panama-flagged tanker traces an oil slick spreading more than 35km off the United Arab Emirates. Amid competing claims about who is hitting ships in the Gulf, this is the part that can be verified.

🌙

Evening Briefing

Friday 23 October 2026 — 16:17 BST

What It Means For You

If you want to be better prepared for disruption: the government is asking households to keep enough tinned food and bottled water for three days. The free first step it recommends is the priority services register, which obliges energy and water suppliers to give extra help to people who need it.
If you pay a water bill in England or Wales: the environment secretary has told regulators that affordability must come first in the price review running to 2029. Nothing has been cut yet — on the last review, average bills are still set to rise 36% across the second half of the decade.
If you are saving for a first home: earnings limits for the new government-backed equity loan are reported at £110,000, or £140,000 in London, and are expected to be confirmed at the Budget on Wednesday. No department has confirmed those figures yet.

GEO Geopolitical

Netanyahu Orders Extensive West Bank Operation After Soldiers Killed

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and three others wounded in a gun attack at a checkpoint outside Hebron, and both Palestinian assailants were shot dead. The prime minister has ordered an operation he says will involve evacuating residents and going house to house. Israel votes on Tuesday.

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The gunfight lasted more than twenty minutes, and accounts of how badly the survivors were hurt differ between outlets. Hebron, a city of more than 200,000, has been cordoned off, and this is the fourth West Bank-wide closure in a month — roads remain open to Israeli drivers, settlers included. Benjamin Netanyahu’s description of what follows was unusually explicit: “We will evacuate the residents, we will go from house to house, we will also seize the weapons there, and all the terrorist infrastructure will be dealt with and destroyed.” His finance minister went further, calling for “a comprehensive military campaign to dismantle the Palestinian Authority… Exactly like in Gaza and Lebanon”. Two cautions belong with this. Mr Netanyahu’s assertion that the gunmen were Hamas members planning a larger attack is his own, offered without evidence. And the stated precedent is not reassuring: the operation he invoked, launched in January 2025, displaced tens of thousands of people from northern refugee camps according to the United Nations, which also counts at least 96 Palestinians killed in the West Bank since the start of this year.

One Killed as Paris Drive-By Shooting Investigated as Terrorism

A gunman killed one person and wounded five, three of them seriously, in drive-by shootings in two towns south-west of Paris. A twelve-year-old girl was shot eight times and is in a stable condition. A 39-year-old man known to police, but not to the intelligence services, has been arrested.

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The rampage ran through Trappes and then La Verrière in the Yvelines, taking in a petrol station, a medical centre and a playground, and lasted just under a quarter of an hour before five officers from the anti-crime brigade stopped it. The national anti-terrorist prosecutor has taken the case, opening it for murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise — but has also, pointedly, urged caution about the identity of the victims, and the interior minister says the motive remains unclear. The mayor of Trappes has gone much further, calling it “probably one of the first attempted mass killings motivated by Islamophobia and racism”; that is his characterisation and not a finding of the investigation. Even the weapon is disputed, described by one police account as an older semi-automatic and by the interior minister as “a military-grade weapon, or at least an automatic weapon”. Separately, and not connected to this attack, France is bracing for a fourth weekend of protest: some 70,000 officers are being deployed, Paris’s curfew runs to Monday, and the Louvre will close on Saturday.

Brent Tops $116 at a Six-Month High on Expected Iran Strikes

Brent crude rose 2.7% to above $116 a barrel, its highest since 30 April, as investors priced in renewed American strikes on Iran. It is on course for a weekly gain of nearly 6%, a third consecutive week of rises. Oil traded at about $72 before the war began in February.

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The trigger is reporting that American and Israeli forces have plans for fresh strikes after the midterm elections on 3 November, which rests on unnamed United States officials and should be read as such. Around it sit three harder facts: Tehran has threatened to attack oil facilities, undersea cables and datacentres across the Gulf if a new offensive begins; Saudi Aramco has told staff to evacuate its headquarters at Dhahran; and Ukraine’s continuing strikes on Russian diesel refineries are tightening refined supply at the same time. Richard Hunter of the broker Interactive Investor put the repricing plainly: the reports were “enough for the price to pop, after what many had considered would be a brief conflict is now in its eighth month”. For scale, Brent peaked at about $126 at the end of April before falling back, so this is a return towards the war’s highs rather than a new extreme. Iran’s army chief said his forces are “fully prepared” for asymmetric warfare, a claim carried by Iranian state media and close to one we reported on Wednesday.

Gunmen Kill Six at a Church Funeral in Southern Jordan

Six people were killed and 28 wounded when gunmen opened fire on mourners at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak governorate, south of Amman. The attackers fled and a manhunt is under way. No group has claimed responsibility, and the death toll was revised down from an initial seven.

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Between 150 and 200 people were in and around the church, and most of those killed were aged between fifty and seventy; the firing went on for about five minutes. How many attackers there were is not settled. Jordan’s public security directorate says two, and a mourner who was there described one man with a rifle and one with a pistol — but closed-circuit footage verified by one broadcaster appears to show three men approaching the church, all of them carrying handguns. A government spokesman called the attack “heinous” and the prime minister is to chair a meeting of the security council attended by every minister. The context that makes this land hard in Jordan is Karak itself: a governorate where, as one Middle East correspondent put it, Christians and Muslims “have lived side by side for generations… This community prides themselves on its interfaith solidarity and coexistence.” Christians number about 300,000 in a population of roughly 11.5 million. An attack in Karak in 2016, claimed by Islamic State, killed ten people.

Ukraine Says Starlink Is Still Throttled Despite Trump’s Claim

Ukraine’s defence ministry says there is no confirmation that restrictions on Starlink have been lifted, after President Trump said Elon Musk had “put it back”. Speeds remain capped so that drones moving faster than about 100mph lose their connection. Kyiv is now moving to build a satellite network it controls.

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Serhii Beskrestnov, a military expert who advises President Zelensky, was precise about why isolated improvements prove nothing: there have been “cases in which Starlink has operated at speeds slightly above the imposed limits, but this is likely due to SpaceX’s algorithms or specific conditions of use, rather than any lifting of the restrictions”. One soldier reported losing connection at 50mph in a car. Who imposed the cap is still unowned. The claim that Mr Musk ordered it comes from a single newspaper we cannot read directly; he denies it and has pointed at the Pentagon, which controls the military network, while the White House denies deliberately limiting anything. Mr Trump’s own account was airy: “Whether I called or whether somebody else called, doesn’t make any difference… The bottom line, he put it back.” A senior Democratic senator has opened an inquiry, warning that the episode “raises serious questions about who controls critical capabilities the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars to procure”. Kyiv’s answer is to stop depending on it: Nokia and the Finnish firm ICEYE have signed a letter of intent with its defence ministry.

UK Domestic

Storm Austen Cuts Power to 18,000 Homes as Brighton Pier Collapses

More than 18,000 homes across parts of England and Wales were without power this afternoon as Storm Austen crossed the country, with a gust of 84mph recorded at Jersey Airport. Part of Brighton’s derelict West Pier collapsed into the sea. No casualties have been reported.

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Cornwall Council dealt with about 250 emergencies, 150 of them fallen trees, though most major roads have reopened. In Wales almost 2,000 properties lost supply between Milford Haven and Usk, the worst of it in Cardigan with more than 500 homes off. The amber warning for Cornwall, Devon and the Isles of Scilly expired at ten this morning and yellow warnings run into this evening. The forward-looking point matters more: a fresh amber warning for wind takes effect at nine tomorrow night and runs for 24 hours, covering Scotland, the north coast of Northern Ireland, Cumbria and Northumberland, with gusts to 80mph on exposed coasts, a danger to life from flying debris and what forecasters call a good chance of power cuts. One practical consequence is already visible in the Channel Islands, where the chief executive of the islands’ Co-op warned of fresh food shortages from a ferry backlog, with essential medication being prioritised: “It’s rare we get this level of disruption to storms backing up so quickly.” Transport Scotland’s advice for tomorrow was blunter — “only go out if it’s necessary”. The West Pier opened in 1866, closed in 1975 and had already been declared beyond repair.

Burnham Urges Households to Keep Three Days of Food and Water

The prime minister has encouraged people to keep tinned food and bottled water sufficient for three days of disruption, as a government preparedness campaign launched this week. He said it was “not about panic buying”. The official guidance is framed entirely on severe weather and names no other threat.

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It is worth being precise about what this is, because the framing has run ahead of the document. The campaign is the first stage of a three-year programme, it rebrands advice the government has published since May 2024, much of which has not changed, and its headline step is free: signing up to the priority services register. It matches the three-day standard used in France, Ireland and the Netherlands, and more than 500 organisations have agreed to repeat the message. The security minister’s stated rationale is that households who prepare “reduce pressure on emergency services, helping them prioritise people who need more support”. Asked whether this amounted to scaremongering, the defence secretary said the government wanted people “alert but not alarmed” and that there was no “specific thing we’ve got in mind”. The Conservative leader’s objection was about priorities rather than the advice: “Families can stock up but what’s going on with defence, the cyber attacks, the hybrid warfare?” A disaster-planning academic who says she has lobbied for such a campaign for sixteen years called Britain “light years” behind Scandinavia, while suspecting the advice was hurried out ahead of the storm.

Healey Promises to Cut £800m a Year of Business Paperwork

The chancellor has promised savings of almost £800m a year in administrative and tariff costs, five days before the Budget, saying firms are “fed up with form-filling and pointless paperwork”. More than £600m of that is regulatory reporting, with up to £155m from extending tariff suspensions on over 250 products.

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The itemised components are a simplification of company reporting worth up to £290m a year, the removal of duplicative reporting for asset managers at £105m, and £116m from streamlining house buying and selling. Those published figures come to roughly £755m, so “almost £800m” is the government’s own rounding of a total whose parts fall a little short. The requirement for the smallest firms to file profit and loss accounts at Companies House is paused until April 2028, which the Federation of Small Businesses welcomed as “averting a huge new weight of red tape on the very businesses with the fewest resources to deal with it”. The wider target is to cut the administrative burden of regulation by a quarter by the end of this Parliament, which the Treasury puts at 280 million hours a year. The business secretary supplied the line of the day — “a baker should be filling pasties, not forms” — while the CBI’s chief executive was cooler: “The test now is delivery.” One caveat readers should hold: this is a claimed saving to business, not a tax cut and not a saving to the Exchequer. The individual measures are published on Budget day.

Retail Sales Fell 0.4% in September as Warm Weather Hit Clothing

Retail sales volumes fell 0.4% in September, after a 0.7% rise in August, though they remain 0.8% higher than a year earlier. Non-food stores drove the decline, with clothing, footwear and sports equipment down on lower footfall. It is the last reading on household spending before the Budget.

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The statisticians’ own explanation for the clothing weakness is the weather rather than the consumer: autumn and winter ranges did not perform in what was the joint-fourth warmest September on record. Household goods fell too, on hardware. Set against the month, the quarter looks steadier — sales across the three months to September were still 0.7% up on the previous quarter and 1.5% up on a year earlier — so this interrupts a recovery rather than reversing it. One line is worth pausing on: volumes of fuel sold rose on the month even as pump prices continued to climb, which is an unusual pairing and sits oddly beside the motor-fuel inflation that drove September’s price figures. Online sales values fell 0.4% after a 3% rise in August but are 6.8% above a year earlier, and the online share of all spending slipped only fractionally, from 28.9% to 28.8%. The response rate to the survey was 59.1%, covering 92.4% of turnover. The next reading comes on 20 November, which is to say after the Budget rather than before it.

Environment Secretary Intervenes in Water Price Review for First Time

Dame Angela Eagle has written to regulators and to water company chief executives in England and Wales setting conditions for the next five-year price review, which concludes in 2029. She told them affordability must come first. The intervention stops short of demanding that bills be cut.

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The letter’s central demand is that “affordability means a laser focus on value for money for customers”, and it warns company bosses that this will “not be a business-as-usual price review… it is the beginning of a long-term transition to a different model for the water sector”. Alongside affordability it requires investment in new technology and in early intervention on leaks and sewage, and more decision-making power for local communities and leaders. The reason it matters is the last review. In 2024 the regulator authorised a £104bn modernisation programme and set average bills on course to rise 36% across the second half of the decade; the largest single allowance went to Southern Water, whose customers face paying 53% more by 2030, an average of £642 a year. Thames Water, separately, has recently asked its creditors for a further £2.4bn. A ten-year plan due after the Budget is expected to hand ministers firmer powers to lower bills and direct investment. Two honest limits: this rests on a single outlet, and the letter itself has not been published.

One To Read

A Vaccine Made for One Patient

BBC News · In a trial of 1,137 melanoma patients, adding a personalised mRNA vaccine to immunotherapy cut the risk of dying or the cancer returning by 42%. Full results are presented in Madrid tomorrow and are not yet peer-reviewed.

☀️

Morning Briefing

Thursday 22 October 2026 — 11:25 BST

What It Means For You

If you are on a means-tested benefit: letters confirming £150 off your energy bill this winter start arriving today, going to around six million households. Every billpayer on a means-tested benefit now qualifies, and the government says the scheme is funded to 2030-31.
If you heat your home with gas: the prime minister has asked the chancellor and the energy secretary to examine removing standing charges from gas bills and report back. Nothing is decided, the average gas charge is about 30p a day, and prices are forecast to rise 16% in January.
If you bank or shop online: fraud rose 11% to 4.5 million incidents in the year to June and computer misuse 23%. Separately, some council and NHS websites went offline this week over a software flaw, and six Scottish councils still report problems with payments.

GEO Geopolitical

Russia Fires 21 Missiles at Kyiv Hours After Agreeing Talks

Three waves of ballistic missiles struck Kyiv from Wednesday evening, 21 in all, hours after the Kremlin said President Putin had agreed in principle to resume three-way talks. President Zelensky said at least two people were killed and 34 injured, five of them children. Twelve regions were attacked overnight.

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What Russia agreed to is narrower than it sounds. A Kremlin foreign-policy aide said after Wednesday’s St Petersburg meeting that talks could resume only after 10 November — a week after the American midterms — possibly in Abu Dhabi, and at technical level only. The same aide dismissed the proposals the American envoy had brought from Oslo: “there wasn’t much there that was useful”. Mr Putin has not agreed to meet Mr Zelensky at all. Then came the missiles. Residential blocks, energy sites, a railway station, the metro, shopping centres and a monastery were hit; metro infrastructure was damaged near the Pivdenny bridge over the Dnipro. In Kharkiv region a woman was killed and four injured. The toll is still rising: Ukraine’s emergency service had earlier put it at one dead and 22 injured. Mr Zelensky’s own framing was mordant — the missiles came from Russian “humanitarians” — and his foreign minister was blunter: “Appeasement, servility, and flattery will not stop this war. Only strength will.” Moscow’s mayor separately claimed Ukraine sent 630 drones at the Moscow region, a Russian figure that nobody independent has confirmed.

AI-Found PHP Flaw Forces Governments to Pull Websites Offline

Two critical flaws in the PHP programming language, uncovered with the help of artificial intelligence, allow an attacker to run commands on a web server without any password. America’s National Security Agency told organisations to patch at once or take systems offline. Britain’s budget watchdog took its own website down.

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The flaws, together dubbed PHP2Shell, had sat in the code for more than a decade and were found by two security firms using large language models. The response has been precautionary and very wide: the National Cyber Security Centre told British organisations to consider taking systems offline and to check for “backdoors installed by an attacker”, and the Office for Budget Responsibility pulled its website down — a week before it publishes its forecast alongside the Budget. NHS Scotland went dark; at one point seven of Scotland’s 32 councils and six of its 14 health boards were offline, and six councils still report problems with payments. Edinburgh, Bristol and Oxford councils, the Paris police prefecture and the Dutch national digital identity service all went down. Amazon found an exploit attempt against a decoy server on 17 October, four days before public disclosure. But the distinction that matters has been drawn by the people best placed to overstate it. The researcher who found the flaw called it the most serious he had ever seen, then added: “it doesn’t look like exploitation has taken off or been widespread.” Attempts are not breaches.

Two Killed at Dammam Airport as US Orders Diplomats Out

Saudi Arabia’s aviation regulator says two people were killed and eight injured in an attack on King Fahd International Airport on Wednesday evening. Washington has ordered non-emergency staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia. Brent crude rose about 3% to around $112 a barrel.

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An ordered departure is mandatory rather than advisory, and its scope is narrower than first reported: a State Department spokesman said it covers Saudi Arabia only, and called reports of similar withdrawals from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain “inaccurate”. His stated reason was that Houthi attacks on civilian airports and infrastructure “have the potential to escalate rapidly”. The dead at Dammam were a Saudi citizen and an Indian resident; the toll rose from one overnight. Notably, the regulator did not say what kind of attack it was and the Houthis have not claimed it. Saudi authorities put the death toll from attacks on the kingdom’s airports since the start of October at 21, and said four more drones were intercepted on Wednesday night. A drone at the Shaybah oilfield killed two contractors, from the Philippines and Nepal. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed their navy struck four vessels over alleged illegal oil transfers and that three more hit mines west of Hormuz; no vessels were named and nobody independent has verified it. They also warned that if the trend continues “the conflict will extend to” American bases in the region.

France Now Borrows More Dearly Than America as Protests Loom

French ten-year borrowing costs rose about nine basis points to just over 5.08%, moving above the equivalent American yield for the first time since 2013. The premium over German debt is the widest in almost fifteen years. Protests are banned across central Paris today and in Lyon on Saturday.

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France crossed 5% on Wednesday for the first time since 2002, and the move is now spilling outwards: Italy’s spread over German debt widened by almost four basis points and Spain’s is the widest since June last year. The cause is a budget nobody can pass sitting on top of a weekend of rioting, with the deficit at 5.1% of national income and debt at 115.6%. Carsten Brzeski of ING drew the uncomfortable conclusion for Frankfurt: the European Central Bank will “very likely stay on hold next week”, and “without any solution, bond markets have taken over the ECB’s role, making rate hikes less likely”. The policing is on the same scale as the borrowing. Today’s ban covers the Elysée, both chambers of parliament, the Louvre, the Champs-Élysées, Bastille and République from eight in the morning until eight at night; a junior interior minister said the weekend police presence would be 20% larger than last. In Lyon, where the mayor says between 150 and 200 shops were looted, all protests are banned on Saturday. Thailand, Malaysia and China have issued travel advisories.

Judge Fines Meta $25bn Over Eleven Years of Privacy Lies

A judge in New Mexico has ordered Meta to pay $25bn, the largest fine in the company’s history, finding it wilfully misled users about who controlled their data between 2010 and 2021. The state’s attorney general called it a warning to Silicon Valley. Meta says the ruling makes it all but impossible to do business there.

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The judgment followed a two-week trial in Santa Fe, and the finding is about honesty rather than any single breach: “Facebook promised users that they controlled their data. This was false,” the judge wrote, adding that the deception went to “the heart of Facebook’s core business practices”. The scale is worth putting in proportion. The sum is roughly a quarter’s profits for a company that reported revenue up 26% to $64.5bn last quarter, with profits tripling to $9.8bn; one account has the full calculated penalty at $219bn before the judge reduced it. The number of violations is given as more than 40 million by one outlet and more than 43 million by two others. Forty-eight other states settled similar claims; New Mexico, with a population of about two million, went to trial alone and will put the money into its education fund. Meta’s chief legal officer said the case amounted to “a tax on speech to enforce new rules for what people can say online”. The attorney general’s reply was that a small state’s judgment “should be a clear warning to everyone in big tech”.

UK Domestic

Barclays to Cut 5,000 Jobs as Profits Rise Before the Budget

Barclays will shed about 5,000 roles, some 5% of its global workforce, after pre-tax profits rose 12% to £2.3bn in the third quarter. Its chief executive said an expected Budget tax rise on banks would be “bearable” but questioned the signal it sends. Roughly a thousand of the cuts have already been made.

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Two things are being conflated in the coverage and both are worth straightening. The first is geography: the 5,000 is a global figure against a workforce of about 93,000, the cost-cutting is focused on the British retail bank, but a significant proportion of the actual job losses is expected to fall in India, where back-office functions are performed. These are not 5,000 British jobs. The second is artificial intelligence. The finance director tied about 60% of the reductions to support functions, “including fewer developers, as AI makes our people more productive”. But asked how many cuts were attributable to AI, the chief executive declined to give a number and put the bulk of the gains down to years of technology investment: “it is the icing on the cake — it’s not the cake”. On the Budget, six days away, his position was unusually candid: the bank makes about half its money outside Britain, so “this is not a question of a financial hit to us. It’s bearable. It is a question of proportion and it’s a question of market signaling.” Profits matched forecasts; group income of £7.4bn fell short of the £7.61bn expected.

Fraud and Computer Misuse Rise as Knife and Gun Crime Fall

Fraud rose 11% to 4.5 million incidents in the year to June and computer misuse 23% to 817,000, according to official figures published this morning. Over the same period knife offences fell 6% to 48,615, firearms offences 8% and homicides 1%. Overall crime showed no significant change.

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The statisticians’ own summary is that crime against individuals and households has generally fallen over a decade “with some notable exceptions, such as fraud” — and the exceptions are where the growth is. Bank and credit account fraud alone rose 13% to 2.8 million incidents. Computer misuse is up sharply year on year yet remains 54% below its 2017 level, so the rise is a rebound rather than a record. Two figures in the release need handling with care. Recorded robbery appears to have risen 10%, but that is mainly an artefact of better recording of robbery from businesses; robbery of personal property actually fell 7%. And a reported jump in domestic abuse, to 9.6% of adults from 7.8%, comes with an explicit warning from the statisticians that changes to their own questionnaire have “likely affected the domestic abuse estimates and scale of the increase” and that it is too early to say whether it represents a new trend. Shoplifting, which has driven much retail commentary, was down 2% at 519,516 offences.

Judges Get Power to Confine Killers Who Skip Sentencing

Under rules laid before Parliament today, Crown Court judges in England and Wales will be able to order offenders who refuse to attend their sentencing to be confined to a cell for 21 days, stripped of privileges for 84 and barred from social visits for 27. Visits from their children are exempt.

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The reasoning is that existing sanctions do not bite. Refusing to attend is already contempt of court, carrying a fine or up to two years’ additional imprisonment, but for a murderer serving decades the department concedes that extra time “can offer little deterrent”. Social visits can also be restricted to one every four weeks for 84 days, and the powers extend to offenders removed from court for disruption, not only those who refuse to appear. For 18- to 20-year-olds the maximum periods are shorter. Catherine McKinnell, the prisons minister, said criminals “should not be able to pick and choose when they face justice”. Claire Waxman, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, said refusal “compounds trauma and robs families of one of the very few moments of accountability”, adding that it is “now essential that these powers are used consistently”. The aunt of Zara Aleena, murdered in 2022, said removing privileges “would rebalance the power in the justice system from offender to victim”. The Prison Reform Trust asked for evidence that sanctions actually increase attendance. The rules take effect next year.

Rosebank Decision Pending as Department Dismisses Reports as Speculation

Reports that the energy secretary is minded to refuse the Rosebank oil field have been met with an on-the-record denial: her department says “this is speculation” and that each project will be assessed on its merits. A decision is expected before the end of the year. The reports rest on unnamed sources.

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What Miatta Fahnbulleh has actually said on the record is narrower than the reporting but points in the same direction. Drawing the distinction with Jackdaw, approved on Wednesday, she said: “One is a gasfield that caters for the domestic market, while the other is an oilfield that is mainly for export. It is right that we judge each application in its own right, and it is absolutely critical that the decision is consistent with our climate obligations, our carbon budgets and the end destination we need to get to.” There is nothing on the government’s own publication service beyond the live case file, which does record one fact nobody has written up: the developer changed from Equinor UK to Adura Operations in February. Both fields are applications under existing licences, so neither touches the manifesto commitment to issue no new ones. The chair of the all-party group on climate change, the Labour MP Afzal Khan, said approving Rosebank on top of Jackdaw “cannot be justified”. Jackdaw alone is estimated to add 36 million tonnes of carbon emissions; the reported estimate that Rosebank would emit roughly seven times as much is a newspaper calculation, not an official one.

Six Million Households to Get £150 Energy Rebate Letters

Letters confirming £150 off energy bills this winter begin arriving from today, going to around six million households across Britain. Every billpayer on a means-tested benefit now qualifies, after an expansion that added nearly 2.3 million families last year. Separately, the prime minister has ordered a review of gas standing charges.

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The letters will go out between now and January, and anyone who needs to telephone their supplier about eligibility must do so before late February. The government says the scheme is funded through to 2030-31, and the minister for energy consumers, Polly Billington, urged people who think they qualify to “keep an eye out for a letter” — while warning recipients to contact suppliers only by their usual route and not to follow suspicious links, which is a sensible caution given what fraud figures published the same morning show. The standing-charges question is at an earlier stage than the headlines suggest. At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Andy Burnham said he had asked the chancellor and the energy secretary “to look at whether we can remove standing charges from gas bills and to report back to this house at the earliest opportunity”. No mechanism and no timetable have been given, the review covers gas only, and the regulator has consulted for nearly two years without reaching firm conclusions. The averages are about 55p a day for electricity and 30p for gas. Energy prices are forecast to rise 16% in January to a four-year high.

One To Read

The Vanishing Voters

NPR · India’s electoral rolls once held 980 million names. A revision has struck off an estimated 130 million, which critics call the largest disenfranchisement in history and the government calls a clean-up.

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Evening Briefing

Wednesday 21 October 2026 — 17:55 BST

What It Means For You

If you drive or heat your home: Brent crude held near $108 a barrel on Wednesday as attacks on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz and on Saudi energy sites kept markets on edge. Goldman Sachs puts crude freight costs at roughly seven times their level a year ago, a pressure that feeds through to refined fuels.
If a civil servant in your family has died: more than 1,600 bereaved families have waited over 100 days for death-in-benefit claims under the Capita-run pension scheme. Lump sums paid more than two years after notification lose their tax-free status, and the Pensions Ombudsman estimates an 18-month wait for complaints.
If you hold savings or a pension in European bonds: France’s ten-year borrowing cost briefly crossed 5% for the first time since 2002, as Paris struggles to pass a budget through a divided parliament after a weekend of riots.

GEO Geopolitical

Putin Ready to Resume Trilateral Talks After 10 November

President Putin told the American envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg that he would be ready to resume trilateral talks on Ukraine after 10 November, according to his aide Yury Ushakov. Mr Witkoff, thanking Mr Putin for freeing Stephen Hubbard, told him: “You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that.”

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Mr Ushakov said the Kremlin wants to discuss a “security framework” for both Russia and Ukraine once the fighting ends, without saying what Moscow would demand. Kremlin officials, quoted by TASS, said progress was “theoretically possible” but required Kyiv to make “necessary decisions”; Dmitry Peskov said the talks would take a long time. Mr Zelensky has insisted that any settlement is acceptable “only when we are at the table of negotiations”. The gap between a Russian “framework” and Ukrainian guarantees is where the next round will be won or lost.

Iran Says It Is “Fully Prepared” to Defend Itself

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Tehran is “firmly committed to seeking a dignified peaceful resolution” but is “also fully prepared to defend ourselves”, adding that Washington had shown no willingness to reach an understanding. President Pezeshkian said the US could not expect dialogue while blockading Iran. Brent was little changed at about $108.

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The Revolutionary Guards said on Tuesday that naval mines had halted tankers using routes Tehran deems unauthorised, claiming two “violating oil tankers were set ablaze”. Houthi strikes on Saudi Aramco facilities at Yanbu and Shaybah have added to supply worries. In London, the son of Lindsay and Craig Foreman, the British couple held in Evin Prison for 656 days, handed the government a petition of more than 100,000 signatures; the Foreign Office said their “health and welfare is a top priority”. With diplomacy stalled on both sides’ public account, oil is pricing a long disruption rather than a settlement.

French Borrowing Costs Cross 5% for First Time Since 2002

The yield on France’s ten-year government bond briefly rose above 5% on Wednesday morning, the first time since 2002, before settling near 4.98%. Investors doubt a fractured parliament can pass the 2027 budget after weekend riots; the finance minister, Roland Lescure, said the government was willing to bypass parliament again if necessary.

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Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is targeting €54 billion of spending cuts. France remains under the EU’s excessive deficit procedure, with a deficit of 5.1% of GDP at the end of last year against a 3% reference. This year’s budget was forced through without a vote in February using emergency powers; repeating the manoeuvre would deepen the street anger already visible. For Britain, the read-across is uncomfortable: gilt yields remain above 5.3%, and the Budget is a week away.

Houthis Fire Ballistic Missiles at Aden and Mukalla

Yemen’s armed forces said the Houthis fired one ballistic missile at Aden International Airport and three at al-Rayyan Airport in Mukalla. The Houthis said they targeted a military camp in Aden, the seat of the internationally recognised government. Smoke was seen rising near Aden’s airport.

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“Whenever it is broken on the battlefield, it pours its terrorism and aggression onto the lives of citizens,” said the military spokesman Colonel Majed Abdullah al-Nazili. The strikes come days after the Houthis claimed attacks on Saudi energy facilities and airports. The group is widening its target set inside Yemen as well as across the Red Sea and the Gulf, stretching the government’s air defences and the Saudi-led coalition’s patience alike.

Drone Strike on Abyei Market Kills More Than 150

South Sudanese officials said Sudan’s military carried out drone strikes on a market in the disputed Abyei region, killing more than 150 people — one of the deadliest attacks of a war that has spilled across Sudan’s borders. Médecins Sans Frontières treated the injured.

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Sudan’s war between the armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces erupted in April 2023, triggering one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises and drawing in local militias and foreign powers. Abyei, claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan, has long been a flashpoint. A strike of this scale on a civilian market across a border marks a dangerous widening of the conflict’s reach.

UK UK Domestic Politics

Burnham Emerges Unscathed From PMQs Over Jackdaw

Andy Burnham came through Prime Minister’s Questions untroubled as Kemi Badenoch struggled to attack the decision to approve the Jackdaw gas field, a move the Conservatives support. She blamed Labour for rerunning the application rather than fighting the legal challenge. Sir Ed Davey warned: “I feel that next week’s budget will not be the growth budget our country needs.”

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Jackdaw is expected to supply about 2% of Britain’s gas for a decade and create 27 jobs; President Trump welcomed the approval. The energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, delivered her statement on the decision from Aberdeen rather than the Commons. Downing Street rejected suggestions that Ms Fahnbulleh was undermining Shabana Mahmood after the energy secretary withheld support for the home secretary’s original proposals on indefinite leave to remain.

Burnham Says Reform Must Act Over “Politics of Poison”

The prime minister told MPs to “root out the politics of poison which has seeped far too far into our politics” after an ITV News exposé of racism in Reform UK, saying he was “still waiting to see the right level of action” from the party. Separately, the Electoral Commission fined Reform £2,187 over missing imprints on campaign material.

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Reform was due to pay £1,750 by 23 September; the fine rose by a quarter when it missed the deadline, and was paid on Tuesday. The breaches covered Reform’s X, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts and a February newspaper advertisement promoting Robert Jenrick. “We take proportionate action based on the facts and circumstances of each case,” said Jackie Killeen of the commission. The sums are small; the cumulative reputational cost for a party leading the polls is not.

Streeting Delays Defence Jobs Plan After Union Pushback

Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, has delayed a plan to bring more young people into defence industry jobs after trade unions objected at the eleventh hour. The MoD confirmed the delay but said the plan would be published “in due course”. It was due on Thursday as part of a week of youth jobs announcements.

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The plan promised at least 14,000 defence apprenticeships a year by 2035. Unions, shown it just before publication, called it weak and said it ignored their role in “build British” defence policy. Mr Streeting is still expected in Telford on Thursday to open a Rheinmetall gun production facility. The episode exposes the friction between Labour’s rearmament drive and its union base just as the government seeks to show momentum on youth unemployment.

Bereaved Civil Service Families Face Tax Bills Over Pension Delays

The Commons public accounts committee has warned that delays at the Capita-run civil service pension scheme could leave bereaved families with tax bills, because lump sums are tax-free only if paid within two years. More than 1,600 families have waited over 100 days for death-in-benefit claims.

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“It is unconscionable that the families of loyal and dedicated civil servants… could potentially face such an unjust financial penalty,” said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the committee’s chairman. The Cabinet Office says it cannot stop HMRC taxing late claims; families must instead go to the Pensions Ombudsman, which estimates an 18-month wait. The committee wants the law changed so relatives do not pay for administrative failure.

Burnham Backs a Mayor for Wessex by 2028

Asked by the Liberal Democrat MP Edward Morello whether he would commit to a mayor of Wessex by 2028, the prime minister said he would, adding that he was “always happy to create more mayors”. He said he wanted full devolution for the south-west of England.

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Mr Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, has made devolution a signature theme. He told MPs that Cornish MPs had visited No 10 this week to discuss a devolution deal. James Cleverly used his question to contrast police numbers in Manchester and London; Mr Burnham replied that Sadiq Khan had been constrained by a lack of support under the Conservatives. A Wessex mayoralty would extend combined-authority government deep into traditionally Conservative and Liberal Democrat territory.

PMQs — The Key Exchanges 3 exchanges · Wednesday 21 October

Badenoch on Jackdaw: Attack Lines That Did Not Land

Badenoch argued that Labour was to blame for rerunning the Jackdaw application instead of fighting the legal challenge. Agreeing with the decision itself, she found little purchase, and Burnham emerged unscathed.

Davey: “Not the Growth Budget Our Country Needs”

Davey pressed the prime minister on Europe ahead of next month’s UK–EU summit and raised US restrictions on Ukraine’s Starlink access. Burnham said he would seek a better deal on food, energy and immigration at the summit.

Ahmed: Condemn Racism in Reform

Asked by Zubir Ahmed (Labour) to condemn the ITV exposé, Burnham paid tribute to migrant care workers and said “the firmest of action” should follow.

One To Read

When Is a Licence Not a Licence?

The Guardian · John Crace on Jackdaw, the energy secretary’s trip to Aberdeen, and a Westminster day of contortions over the North Sea.

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Morning Briefing

Wednesday 21 October 2026 — 12:18 BST

What It Means For You

If you receive benefits: working-age benefits including the personal independence payment and carer’s allowance will rise 3.5% in April, because the law ties them to this month’s inflation figure. The state pension is set separately and rises 3.9%, under the triple lock, on earnings growth between May and July.
If you drive: petrol rose 8.2p in a single month to 169.5p a litre, the highest since August 2022, and diesel rose 10.7p to 192.5p, the highest since July 2022. Fuel was the single largest contributor to the rise in inflation.
If you have a mortgage: Bank Rate is 3.75% and markets now put a quarter-point rise to 4% on 5 November at close to a certainty. The Budget comes first, a week today, and nothing is decided until the Bank meets.

GEO Geopolitical

Putin Frees American as Witkoff Opens Talks in St Petersburg

President Putin announced the release of Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old American held since shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, during talks with the United States envoy Steve Witkoff at a palace outside St Petersburg. Witkoff said there is “a foundation in place to move toward a ceasefire”. No ceasefire and no territorial agreement emerged.

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Mr Hubbard is a retired schoolteacher from Michigan who had served in the National Guard and the Air Force. He was captured in Ukraine in 2022 and convicted at a closed trial in 2024 of fighting for Ukraine as a mercenary, for which he was sentenced to nearly seven years in a penal colony; he was the last American in Russia formally designated wrongfully detained, is in poor health, and is expected to be flown to a military hospital in Texas. Witkoff, filmed in the room, told Mr Putin: “Because of you, he’s going home to his family.” President Trump said he had pressed the Russian president repeatedly over many months. What Washington gave in return, if anything, has not been disclosed, and no quid pro quo should be inferred. Witkoff separately thanked Mr Putin for lifting export controls on Russian diesel, and the Kremlin’s own account has the first cargo leaving within two to three days. The other thread closed today too: President Zelensky confirmed American warning intelligence is reaching Ukraine again, saying simply, “Now it works. It’s great.”

RAF Typhoons to Defend Saudi Skies as the Gulf War Widens

Britain will fly Typhoon fighters on defensive missions over Saudi cities and infrastructure, and has extended an existing refuelling mission for Saudi jets by 90 days. Egypt’s president is seeking parliamentary authority for a defensive mission of his own, with the vote now delayed to Monday. Brent crude rose above $110.

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Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, was explicit that the aircraft “will operate in a defensive role and will not conduct offensive strikes against the Houthis”. The provocation is not in doubt: a missile on Riyadh’s international airport this month killed 13 and injured 308, the deadliest attack in the kingdom in over a decade, and on Monday three ballistic missiles killed 73 police and security recruits, all aged between 18 and 20, at a camp in Shabwa. Britain has sold Saudi Arabia 72 of these aircraft in a deal originally worth £4.4bn and is negotiating 48 more, so it is now defending its own customer. HA Hellyer of the Royal United Services Institute put the obvious question: “What does defensive mean? The UK might say it was defensive but the Houthis would see it as offensive.” On Egypt, one regional official says the contribution would be air defence and aircraft rather than ground troops. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards meanwhile claimed mines had halted three tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, naming no vessel or operator, two months after President Trump declared the strait “totally cleared” of mines.

France’s Borrowing Cost Tops 5% as Europe’s Riots Spread to Italy

French ten-year borrowing costs briefly rose above 5% this morning for the first time since July 2002, before easing back just below. The premium over Germany is near 160 basis points, and France now pays more to borrow than Italy. Italy has sent 500 soldiers to Milan after two nights of disorder.

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France’s debt is around €3.6 trillion, or 119% of national income, up from 98% in 2019 and the highest since shortly after the Second World War. The prime minister is seeking €54bn of savings, and his finance minister, Roland Lescure, was asked how he would force a budget through a hostile parliament: “I’m convinced of this because we have no choice. We have the tools to get it passed.” Nearly 2,400 people were arrested in France at the weekend. In Milan, where 271 young people were detained, Giorgia Meloni said “destroying and stealing is not protest, it is crime, and the state’s response must be firm”; her government plans penalties of up to five years and €20,000, and powers to detain 14- to 17-year-olds on evidence of danger before any crime is committed. President Macron, in Doha, attacked commentary he called “unacceptable and stupid from many quarters, including from foreign leaders” who were “campaigning at our expense”. The read-across for Britain is uncomfortable rather than identical: the ten-year gilt is steady today but sits at about 5.4%, close to its own highs, a week before the Budget.

Drone Strike on Abyei Market Kills 153, South Sudan Protests

The toll from a drone strike on a fuel depot at a market in the disputed Abyei region has been revised up from 73 to at least 153, and officials say it is still rising. South Sudan has summoned Sudan’s ambassador in protest. A military source said the Sudanese army carried out the attack.

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The strike hit Amiet Market, about ten kilometres from Abyei town, at around half past eleven on Monday morning, and the fire was still burning the following day. Yohanna Akol Ngor, the Abyei administration’s caretaker information minister, called it “a horrible and shocking situation” and said some bodies had been burned to ashes. Christian Lindauer, who manages an operation for Doctors Without Borders at a nearby hospital, reported more than 20 patients including several critical cases and burns. Satellite imagery has independently confirmed extensive burnt buildings at the market. Against that, a senior Sudanese officer said anonymously that those killed “were RSF members and fuel smugglers” and that the military does not target civilians; the Rapid Support Forces have not commented, and both are interested parties. The United Nations condemned the drone strikes without attributing blame. Abyei is oil-rich, claimed by both Sudans, and has hosted more than 2,800 United Nations peacekeepers since 2011 — one trader noted it is “a weapons-free zone under United Nations protection, yet it was targeted by drones”. Twenty million Sudanese now face acute hunger.

Nigeria Confirms First Ebola Case as Outbreak Reaches West Africa

A woman who arrived from Uganda has tested positive in Abuja, Nigeria’s first case of this outbreak, and 44 contacts are being traced. She developed symptoms on 7 October and was admitted to a private hospital four days later. The strain involved has no approved vaccine or treatment.

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That last point deserves emphasis because it is easily got wrong. This is the Bundibugyo species, which kills close to half of those it infects and for which there is no licensed vaccine or treatment, only trials; the vaccine seen being administered in the region is licensed against a different species of the virus. Jean Kaseya, who runs the Africa Centres for Disease Control, said “we are facing an extremely serious threat” and that this outbreak “has already become the most geographically extensive in history, affecting several countries spread across three regions of Africa”. Nigeria’s health minister, Muhammad Pate, said the government was “doing everything possible to contain this case by tracing all the contacts the individual may have had”. Kenya has nine confirmed cases, all traced to one man who died, with 134 of 135 listed contacts in quarantine. Uganda disputes that the woman was infected on its territory, insisting it has no active cases and that “the location of exposure remains under investigation”. More than 4,000 people have died since the outbreak was confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo in May. Nigeria contained an outbreak in 2014 at 20 cases.

UK Domestic

Inflation Climbs to 3.5% as Fuel Prices Jump Before the Budget

Prices rose 3.5% in the year to September, up from 3.1% in August and above the 3.4% forecasters expected. Motor fuel made the largest contribution: petrol rose 8.2p in a single month to 169.5p a litre and diesel 10.7p to 192.5p. By law this figure sets April’s rise in working-age benefits.

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Two cautions on the detail. The 3.5% is the consumer prices index; the measure that includes housing costs rose 3.6%, and division figures differ between the two, so neither should be quoted without saying which. And these fuel prices are not records, as has been reported in places — petrol is the highest since August 2022 and diesel since July 2022. Underneath the headline, core inflation rose to 2.8% and services to 3.7%, while food was unchanged at 1.3% and actually fell on the month. That split is why economists read the same release in opposite directions. One at J.P. Morgan Personal Investing warned that accelerating services inflation “will create concern that we are starting to see second round inflationary effects beyond energy prices”. One at ING looked at the identical numbers and said there is “zero sign that the UK’s inflation shock is broadening out beyond energy. Second round effects are so far non-existent.” Grant Fitzner, the chief economist at the Office for National Statistics, called the increase “notable”. Markets now price a rise in Bank Rate from 3.75% to 4% on 5 November at close to a certainty.

Borrowing Hits £24.5bn and Debt Passes £3 Trillion

The government borrowed £24.5bn in September, £1.9bn above the official forecast and the most in any single month since March 2021. Debt interest alone came to £10.9bn, the highest September figure since records began in 1997. Public sector net debt is provisionally estimated to have passed £3 trillion for the first time.

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The figures cut both ways and the choice of half decides the story. Against the government: September overshot the forecast by £1.9bn, debt interest overshot by £2bn, and the financial year so far has run £6bn above forecast. In its favour: borrowing of £97.8bn since April is £4.4bn lower than at the same point last year, and debt as a share of the economy — the measure the fiscal rules are judged against — fell to 94.0%, seven tenths of a point down on the year, even as the cash total crossed £3 trillion. That total is a provisional estimate and may be revised. The mechanism connecting this to the Gulf is worth stating plainly: war-driven fuel prices feed the retail prices index, which sets the capital uplift on index-linked gilts, and a 0.6% rise in that index between June and July added £4bn to September’s interest bill on its own. Ruth Gregory of Capital Economics said the numbers “painted a dismal picture” and expects a cautious Budget that leaves “the toughest fiscal choices for next year”.

Jackdaw Gas Field Approved With New Energy Wealth Fund

Ministers have cleared the Jackdaw field in the North Sea, with the regulator granting consent this morning and gas expected to flow from the end of this month. The government simultaneously announced an Energy Wealth Fund, opening with £2bn of North Sea tax revenues. The field creates 27 jobs and safeguards 273.

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The scale claims need care because three different figures are circulating on three different denominators. The official release says Jackdaw will raise domestic gas production by about 6% at peak; because Britain produces roughly 42% of the gas it burns, that is nearer 2% of demand, which is the figure campaigners use. Its life is put at up to 11 years. The fund is not a £2bn fund either: £2bn is an opening payment, with future North Sea revenues flowing in over time. Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, said the decision “is compatible with our legally binding climate commitments” and that the government remains “resolute in ending new licences for oil and gas”, but conceded the gas “won’t lower our energy bills this winter”, and on jobs: “It will create 27 jobs. It will secure 273 jobs. But, look, that was not the primary consideration.” Tessa Khan of Uplift called the project “oversold”. The operator is Adura, owned half each by Equinor and Shell. Consent had to be reconsidered because a 2024 Supreme Court ruling requires the emissions from burning extracted fuel to be assessed. Rosebank is still pending.

Minister Declines to Back Fifteen-Year Wait for Settlement

The energy secretary repeatedly declined in a broadcast interview this morning to say she supports extending the wait for permanent residency from five years to fifteen, a proposal of the home secretary’s now out for consultation. Asked directly, she said: “Don’t put words in my mouth.” Dozens of Labour backbenchers oppose the plan.

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Miatta Fahnbulleh’s formulation was careful rather than hostile. She said reform must rest on “the principle of compassion, contribution”, that the home secretary “has been consulting on this” and would decide, and — speaking, as she noted, “as someone that came to this country as a refugee” — that nobody could look at the system “and not believe that it’s broken”. She also said she backed Shabana Mahmood “100%” in “everything she is trying to do”, which is support for a colleague rather than for a policy. A post on her own constituency website warning that prolonging the wait for settlement could “prolong the process of building cohesion” was subsequently removed. The proposal would raise the qualifying period to fifteen years and apply it retrospectively to 2021. Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, has criticised it publicly and then played down talk of a rift. The prime minister is said to be weighing an exemption for care work, which the Home Office resists on the grounds that it would loosen the visa tie and empty the sector.

High-Risk Cosmetic Procedures Would Be Restricted to Doctors

Under plans put out for consultation this morning, fillers injected anywhere other than the face, including liquid Brazilian butt lifts, would be legally classed as surgery and could be performed only by doctors. Cosmetic surgery would be banned for under-18s. Breaches would carry unlimited fines or penalties of up to £4,000.

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The target is a specific regulatory gap: procedures that are medical in everything but name have been performed by people with no clinical training, sometimes in hotel rooms, because the law did not define them as surgery. Deep chemical peels, so-called vampire facials, dermal micro-coring and some laser treatments would also be restricted to doctors, dentists and certain nurses, midwives and pharmacists. Karin Smyth, the health minister, said anyone undergoing a major procedure “deserve[s] to know you’re in safe hands — not risking your life with a rogue operator”, and that the aim is to “drive cosmetic cowboys out of the market”. Ashton Collins, who directs the register Save Face, was blunter about what the gap has cost: non-healthcare practitioners have “exploited a regulatory loophole” to perform high-risk procedures, leading to “serious and life-threatening complications, including the death of Alice Webb, and victims have been left without justice”. The British Beauty Council’s Victoria Brownlie said the line between a beauty treatment and a medical procedure had blurred in a booming and unregulated market. This is a consultation, not law, and nothing changes yet.

One To Read

Life Beside the Shipping Lane

The Guardian · Twenty-three photographs from the Iranian shore of the Strait of Hormuz: fishermen, ferry crews and port towns living alongside the sea lane the war is being fought over.

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Morning Briefing

Tuesday 20 October 2026 — 07:31 BST

What It Means For You

If you are looking for work or asking for a rise: there are now 691,000 vacancies, the fewest outside the pandemic since 2014, and 2.4 unemployed people for every one of them. Regular pay is growing 3.7% a year, which is 0.6% after inflation on the measure that includes housing costs.
If you park in a private car park: a new code laid in Parliament today guarantees five minutes to decide whether to park and ten to leave afterwards, caps the maximum charge at £100, limits minor slips such as a mistyped registration to £20, and requires charges to be cancelled on appeal for breakdowns, medical emergencies and broken ticket machines. It applies in England, Scotland and Wales.
If you own shares or a second property: the chancellor is reported to have decided against raising capital gains tax at the Budget in eight days. The rate is 18% for basic-rate taxpayers and 24% for higher and additional-rate. Note this rests on unnamed Treasury sources, not an announcement.

GEO Geopolitical

Alberta Rejects the Path to Separation by Three to One

Albertans have voted against beginning a legal process towards leaving Canada by about 76% to 23%, on a projection by the national broadcaster with more than a million votes counted. It was the first of ten questions on the ballot and the electoral commission says the rest may take days. Results were delayed after more than a hundred polling stations extended their hours.

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This is a projection rather than a final count, and roughly a third of ballots were in when it was made, so the margin may move even if the outcome does not. The turnout picture was unusual: 1.35 million Albertans, about 43% of those eligible, had already voted by advance or special ballot before polling day. Thomas Lukaszuk, the former deputy premier who led the campaign to remain, framed it as settled — “we are a solid country that’s united from coast to coast to coast” — and Jeromy Farkas, the mayor of Calgary and an opponent of independence, was careful not to treat it as closed: “no result will permanently put this to bed… The separatist movement sees this as a long-term project.” The more interesting consequence is internal. Jeff Rath, who campaigned for separation, had said he would be “thrilled” with 30%, wants the premier removed and predicts her party could splinter into a new pro-independence one. Danielle Smith called the referendum under pressure from separatists in her own party while opposing independence herself, which is the position she now has to defend from both directions.

Curfews Imposed in Central Paris and Seven Other Cities

After Monday’s crisis meeting the prime minister gave mayors the power to impose curfews where they judged them necessary. Paris police then set one from 23:00 to 06:00 covering the Place de la République and Les Halles, with gatherings banned elsewhere in the centre. Partial curfews followed in Marseille, Bordeaux, Nice, Lyon, Lille and other northern towns.

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The interior minister has survived, but only just and not quietly. Laurent Nuñez tried to resign on Sunday and the president refused, the Élysée citing “the need for continued command of law enforcement” while saying he should be transparent about what it called “intelligence and foresight failings”. Mr Nuñez has admitted police “lost control” in some cities and says two hundred investigators are reviewing footage to identify ringleaders. Sébastien Lecornu has not ruled out a state of emergency and promises a law to make those who caused damage pay for it, alongside a partial unemployment fund. The official figures now stand at more than 2,500 arrested, about a thousand police injured and more than 2,000 shops and businesses affected; the head of the chambers of commerce puts the damage in the hundreds of millions of euros, which is his own estimate rather than an insurer’s. Italy is following the same course: Matteo Salvini is sending five hundred troops to Milan after luxury stores were ransacked, with a security package before cabinet today. No fresh disorder was reported overnight under the curfew.

Saudi Arabia Postpones Its Flagship Investment Conference

The Future Investment Initiative, due in Riyadh from 26 October and marking its tenth year, has been put back to 2027. Expected speakers included the heads of BlackRock and Goldman Sachs and the president of Alphabet. Government staff have been told to work from home until Thursday, and the tower housing the International Monetary Fund’s regional office has asked workers to stay away.

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The organisers’ statement does not mention the attacks at all, citing a wish to deliver “the full scale, extraordinary quality, and unforgettable impact that our community has come to expect”; the connection is the obvious one rather than one they have drawn. What is not in doubt is how Riyadh is now being run. Residents received civil defence alerts of “a hostile aerial threat” on Monday, and firms in the main financial district have also sent staff home. A Houthi military spokesman claims six operations inside Saudi Arabia in forty-eight hours, naming Riyadh’s main airport, oil facilities at Yanbu, the Shaybah field and two air bases, and describing it as retaliation for more than two hundred Saudi strikes; there has been no Saudi comment and none of it is independently verified. Separately a missile strike on a security training camp in Shabwa province killed fifty-three people and injured more than two hundred on the provincial media office’s preliminary count, the only count available. Brent has climbed again this morning to just under $110, reversing most of yesterday's two per cent fall, and no approved source attributes the swing in either direction to a named cause.

Adviser Says Ukrainians Have Died for Want of American Warnings

Serhii Beskrestnov, who advises the Ukrainian president on military technology, says American intelligence has become “incomplete and inconsistent” and that “people [have] already died” as a result. The White House says there has been no change to intelligence sharing. The secretary of state said there had been no pause: “I don’t know where he’s getting these things.”

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His complaint is narrower than it first sounds, and that makes it more checkable: “intelligence data keeps flowing, and the issue is solely with the air raid alert component”. Sometimes warnings arrive before an attack, he says, and sometimes one minute before. He believes the simultaneous satellite and intelligence problems are “probably” American pressure to negotiate, which is his inference rather than anything established. He is also not quite saying what his own president says: Volodymyr Zelensky told American television that sharing had been restored after a three-day pause and that he was “very thankful”, while posting on Monday that of two overnight attacks on Kyiv, one came “without warning, the second with only minimal time to take shelter”. The satellite dispute this column has carried for four editions is now at least clear in its mechanics, if not its blame: the military service restricts units moving faster than 100mph, which is what disables interception. Elon Musk says the American government controls access because the system was built for the Pentagon; the president denies involvement. Kyiv says it is looking for an alternative.

Kenyan Preacher Convicted of 191 Murders, Nearly All Children

Paul Mackenzie, who led a church in the south-east of the country, has been convicted in Mombasa of murdering 191 people, all but one of them children. Twenty-eight other leaders were convicted alongside him. All had pleaded not guilty, insisting nobody was forced to die. More than 400 bodies have been recovered in total and only 26 identified.

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Justice Diana Kavedza Mochache delivered an eight-hour judgment finding that followers believed Mackenzie was “Jesus’s mouthpiece”. His teaching forbade education and described modern medicine as evil. One co-accused said he had told followers that anyone who “resisted the directive to fast must be forced to go to heaven through kicks and blows”. Burials in the forest were called weddings, and the dead “were celebrated as having wedded with Jesus”. A witness described a pregnant woman forbidden to nurse her newborn, who died twelve days later; she was then “instructed to fast to death and follow her children”. The scale is still not established. Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after a police tip-off and bodies were exhumed from shallow graves in the Shakahola forest near the coast; Monday’s judgment covers 191 of them and investigations into the rest continue. No sentencing date has been given. The identification problem is the part that will outlast the trial: four hundred bodies, twenty-six names.

UK Domestic

Vacancies Fall Below 700,000 for the First Time Since the Pandemic

There were 691,000 vacancies in the three months to September, down 21,000 on the quarter and the fewest outside the pandemic since 2014. Unemployment fell 0.1 percentage points to 4.7% and employment rose to 75.3%. Regular pay grew 3.7%, or 0.6% after inflation. The statisticians attribute the vacancy fall mainly to smaller firms citing higher labour costs.

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One caveat belongs at the top: the 21,000 fall sits inside the statisticians’ own confidence interval of plus or minus 32,000, so the direction is clearer than the magnitude. What is harder is the breadth. Vacancies fell in fourteen of eighteen industry sectors and in four of five size bands, with the largest single fall — 21,000 — among firms employing between one and nine people, which is precisely where the complaint about employment costs has been loudest. Construction lost 7,000. There are now 2.4 unemployed people for every vacancy, up from 2.5 a quarter ago, and payrolled employees are 111,000 lower than a year ago. Two further figures deserve attention. Total pay growth, which includes bonuses, has slipped to 3.7% from 3.9% — the statisticians note it was last lower in the autumn of 2020, when it was 2.8%. And public sector regular pay is growing at 6.3% against 3.0% in the private sector, which they attribute to the timing of pay awards rather than any underlying divergence. No Treasury or Bank of England response had been issued when this was published.

Healey Said to Have Decided Against Raising Capital Gains Tax

Treasury sources say the chancellor is minded not to increase capital gains tax at the Budget on 28 October, a broader position than the decision reported last week against equalising it with income tax. There is no named source and no Treasury statement. Lord O’Neill, a former adviser to the prime minister, said a rise would send “the wrong message to business”.

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It is worth being precise about what this is: a briefing to a newspaper, relayed, with no minister, spokesman or denial attached. The only words the chancellor is quoted saying are from a speech last month and are not about this tax at all — that he wants “this country as a country of wealth creation” and wants policy to raise “confidence, and investment, and profit in British business”. The direction of travel is nonetheless consistent, and the politics of it are awkward for him. Wes Streeting, now defence secretary, called in May for “a wealth tax that works”; Louise Haigh, now first secretary of state, had argued for moving capital gains closer to income tax. Both were before the change of prime minister in July. Meanwhile senior banking executives have told the BBC they expect taxes on banks to rise instead, which is the revenue the chancellor appears to be substituting. Kemi Badenoch gives a pre-Budget speech today in which she is expected to press him to abandon spending plans and cut borrowing.

Serious Offenders in Secure Hospitals to Lose Universal Credit

Regulations laid today will stop universal credit payments of up to £800 a month to offenders detained in psychiatric hospitals, where the health service already funds their bed and board. About 2,500 people are affected now and roughly 200 a year in future. The government expects to save tens of millions of pounds a year.

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The measure covers hospital orders made under the Mental Health Act in England and Wales and the equivalent Scottish provision, for offences including manslaughter, attempted murder, wounding with intent, rape and rape of a child under thirteen. Murder is not on the list, for the technical reason that a hospital order is not available for it. Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, framed it as a promise kept: “for too long these violent criminals have had their living costs paid by the taxpayer twice over, while their victims and families paid the price.” The families who pressed for it were measured rather than triumphant. Emma Webber, whose son Barnaby was killed in Nottingham in 2023, called it “long overdue, and simply the right thing to do”, adding that “a hospital bed does not erase the egregious crimes committed”. Dr Sanjoy Kumar, whose daughter Grace was killed in the same attack, said that “on the principle of fairness alone, we do not see why taxpayers should fund benefits while they are incarcerated”. The full financial effect is due with the Budget.

Parking Charges Capped at £100 and Car Clocking Banned

A statutory code for private car parks has been laid in Parliament, freezing the maximum charge at £100, guaranteeing five minutes to decide whether to park and ten to leave, and capping minor errors such as a mistyped registration at £20. Operators who do not comply lose access to driver records. Winding back an odometer also becomes a banned practice.

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The enforcement mechanism is the interesting part, because the sanction is commercial rather than criminal: an operator that breaches the code loses access to vehicle-keeper data, without which it cannot pursue anybody. There will also be a first independent scrutiny and oversight board, and charges must be cancelled on appeal where there was a breakdown, a medical emergency, a broken ticket machine or an honest mistake. Just under seventeen million charges were issued last year on the government’s own figure; a higher figure and a daily total circulating this morning come from a motoring organisation’s analysis rather than official statistics. The prime minister put it in household terms: “being a few minutes late back to your car or typing one digit of your numberplate wrong shouldn’t end with a hefty fine landing on your doormat.” The industry body notes that many of the principles “are already reflected in the existing voluntary code”. The RAC says it is not the leap it campaigned for and wants debt recovery fees banned outright; a consultation on those, currently capped at £70, follows next year.

Trust Prosecuted Over Two Children’s Deaths From Sepsis

The care regulator has brought three charges against Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust alleging care was “not provided in a safe way”. Two concern a three-year-old who died within ten hours of arriving at hospital with a temperature of 40C, having waited more than seven hours for intravenous antibiotics. The trust’s local sepsis guidance had not been updated since 2017.

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The third charge concerns a two-year-old discharged in April 2024 who died two days later. At her inquest the assistant coroner Stephen Simblet KC found that a doctor of appropriate seniority had been unavailable for two and a half hours and that she was sent home by a “very junior doctor”. The trust’s chief executive Adam Sewell-Jones says it is “working closely” with the regulator and that with a legal process under way “it would be inappropriate to comment further”. Two things make this worth a column slot rather than a court listing. The first is that prosecuting a hospital trust over the care of individual patients remains unusual, and the charges are brought under the legislation governing safe care rather than through a coroner or a negligence claim. The second is the 2017 date: guidance nine years out of date at the time of a death is a systems finding, not an individual one. Pleas are expected at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court on 3 December. This rests on one outlet’s reporting, which says it learned of the charges rather than citing a published listing.

One To Read

The Families Asking Who Bombed Them

Al Jazeera · American air strikes in Somalia have risen sharply and are barely reported. This follows families trying to establish who killed their relatives and on what grounds — the other half of a story this column covered from the shipping lanes yesterday.

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