Morning Briefing: Thursday 1 October 2026
- Your energy bill: The cap rose 4% this morning to £1,723 a year for a typical household, about £5 a month, and VAT on electricity is now zero until 31 March, worth roughly £45. Forecasters expect £1,999 by January.
- Your mortgage: The thirty-year gilt yield reached 6% for the first time since 1998 and the ten-year went through 5.5%. Gilt yields set the benchmark for fixed-rate pricing, and the Budget is on 28 October.
- Fuel and heating: Oil rose nearly 2% this morning, and high wholesale gas is the reason bills are climbing. The headline Brent price looks about $3.70 lower than last night only because the futures contract rolled from November to December.
Tehran Studies Washington's Reply as Its Delegation Is Expelled
Iran is weighing the American response to its proposal for ending the war, presented to the president at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting; officials will not say what it contains. Overnight it emerged that Marco Rubio had ordered the Iranian de…
Netanyahu Says It Is Too Early to Link Iran to Flight Attack
Passengers and crew overpowered the co-pilot who stabbed the captain of a Dubai to Tel Aviv flight and tried to bring the aircraft down, and it landed safely in Saudi Arabia after plunging more than 17,000 feet. Asked whether Iran was invo…
Pakistani Air Strikes Kill Nine in Afghanistan, Kabul Says
Pakistan’s information ministry said it had hit “camps and hideouts” used by armed groups in two Afghan provinces and killed an estimated 22 fighters. Kabul gave an entirely different account, saying the strikes on Kunar and Helmand late o…
Poland Loosens Its Shoot-Down Rules as Moscow's Nuclear Memo Lands
From the start of October Polish pilots no longer need to identify an airborne threat visually before engaging it, a change the defence minister said is intended to speed up decisions. It follows a written Russian warning to NATO that Mosc…
Tennessee Inmate Survives an Execution by Two Lethal Injections
Christa Pike, 50, was taken to hospital and given life-saving treatment after an attempt to execute her with two syringes of pentobarbital failed, her lawyers said. Her legal team filed an emergency motion while it was under way, stating t…
Around 700 Prisoners Released Early as Jails Hit 98% Capacity
The first tranche of the expanded early release scheme began this morning, with about 700 offenders leaving prison in England and Wales and a further 3,800 scheduled over the next year. Those serving up to nineteen months now go after a th…
Thirty-Year Gilt Yield Hits 6%, a Twenty-Eight-Year High
The yield on Britain’s thirty-year bonds reached 6% this morning for the first time since 1998, as a global bond sell-off intensified on fears that the American deficit is becoming unsustainable. The ten-year gilt went through 5.5%. London…
Energy Price Cap Rises to £1,723 as Electricity VAT Goes to Zero
The cap rose 4% this morning, about £60 a year or £5 a month, taking a typical dual-fuel bill to £1,723 for roughly 20 million households. Gas does the damage, up 8%, while electricity holds broadly stable only because VAT on it falls from…
Badenoch Would Bar Most Jobless Under-25s From Universal Credit
Eighteen to 24-year-olds who have not previously worked six continuous months would be moved off universal credit and onto a conditional “Get to Work Allowance”, requiring daily job centre attendance, training or community work. Those stil…
Orange Order Rejects Drumcree Deal Days Before Sunday's Parade
Talks to settle the Drumcree dispute are on a knife-edge after the Orange Order rejected a resolution document drawn up by the Northern Ireland Secretary. The Garvaghy Road residents indicated they would accept it if the Order did. The DUP…