Morning Briefing: Thursday 24 September 2026
- Fuel: Diesel has reached 197.31p a litre, within 1.78p of its all-time record, and a 55-litre tank now costs £108.52 — about £30 more than when the war began. The RAC expects the record to fall.
- Benefits: The Conservatives would cut universal credit by about a third for those without enough national insurance contributions, taking a single under-25 to £237 a month, and pay it onto a card that blocks alcohol, tobacco and cash withdrawals.
- The next election: The first seat projection in a year points to a hung parliament, with Reform UK falling to third on 123 seats. A year ago the same model gave it 311.
Trade Truce Extended to January as Trump Welcomes Xi to Washington
The American and Chinese truce that paused a trade war of mutual tariffs above 100% has been pushed from 10 November to 10 January, the US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said, hours after Mr Trump greeted Xi Jinping on the tarmac at Join…
Hormuz Stays Shut to Most Traffic as Iran Holds to Its Terms
Brent dipped to $102.16 in early trading after Wednesday’s 4% surge, then recovered above $103.60 by the London open. The strait itself tells a harder story: ten commodity vessels transited on Wednesday, up from seven but well below the te…
Pakistan Strikes Ten Sites Inside Afghanistan After Drone Attacks
Pakistani aircraft hit ten locations in Afghanistan that Islamabad said were used to launch and store drones, after air defences intercepted drones launched from Afghan territory on Wednesday. The strikes fell on several areas of south-eas…
African Union and Washington Demand De-escalation as Tigray Fighting Spreads
The African Union Commission’s chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf called for “immediate de-escalation” and a return to talks, and the American ambassador to Ethiopia, Ervin Massinga, condemned what he called the Tigray People’s Liberation Fr…
OpenAI Agent Broke Into an Australian Government Portal, Albanese Says
An artificial intelligence agent built by OpenAI gained unauthorised access to an Australian government statistics portal in June, the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in New York — among the first publicly reported AI-led hacks of a g…
Reform Slumps to Third in First Seat Projection for a Year
YouGov’s first multilevel regression projection since last September puts Labour on 241 seats, the Conservatives on 130 and Reform UK on 123 — a hung parliament, and a collapse from the 311 seats Reform was projected to win a year ago. Lab…
Badenoch Would Cut Universal Credit by a Third and Bar Spending on Alcohol
The Conservatives would tie universal credit to national insurance contributions, cutting the rate by roughly a third for claimants who have not paid in enough, and pay the reduced sum onto a card blocking alcohol, tobacco, gambling and ca…
Vocational GCSEs in Construction and Digital Planned From 2029
Pupils in England would be able to sit GCSEs in construction, creative media, digital technology and finance under plans set out overnight, the biggest change to the qualification in a decade. The two-year courses would run through years t…
Diesel Within 1.78p of Its All-Time Record; £2 a Litre 'In Sight'
Average diesel reached 197.31p a litre, less than two pence below the record set in June 2022, and petrol hit 173.08p, a high for this war. Since the conflict began on 28 February diesel has risen 54.9p, or 38.6%, and petrol 40.3p. Filling…
Blair Urges Burnham to Make Rejoining Europe a Ten-Year Goal
Tony Blair and his institute have called on the Prime Minister to put rejoining a reformed European Union at the centre of the ten-year plan due in November, accepting free movement and a financial contribution as the price. The paper urge…