Morning Briefing: Tuesday 6 October 2026
- Filling up: Brent has fallen below $100 this morning, to $99.66, extending yesterday’s 2% drop as the G7 releases up to 100 million barrels of crude and diesel. Pump prices lag the barrel by weeks, so diesel is still at a record £2 a litre today.
- Your mortgage: The ten-year gilt has eased about four basis points to 5.38%, the first retreat after the run-up that pushed the average five-year fix through 6% yesterday. Fixed pricing follows swap rates with a lag, so that will not unwind today.
- Your children’s pension: A junior self-invested personal pension takes up to £2,880 a year, topped up by £720 of tax relief to £3,600. The money is locked until the child turns 57, which for a baby born today means the 2080s.
Trump Says Threats Pulled the Bombers Out of Fairford
Asked whether a specific threat prompted the withdrawal from RAF Fairford, Donald Trump said: “Yeah I think we can say that. They didn’t fly out by accident.” He added that “there were some threats”, that Washington knows who made them, an…
Yemen’s Claim to Have Taken Mocha Is Disputed by Its Own Officials
Yemen’s military says its forces captured Mocha on Monday afternoon with Saudi air support and have “secured” the Bab al-Mandab strait. Government and military sources told Reuters and AFP something narrower: that forces reached only the c…
Quebec Separatists Win, and Promise a Referendum After Trump
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon’s Parti Québécois has won the most seats in Quebec, returning to power for the first time since 2014 after taking just three seats in 2022. Canadian media project a minority; 64 of the 127 seats are needed for cont…
A Russian Drone Injures a Moldovan for the First Time
A drone struck the Palanca border crossing on Monday morning, damaging a passenger bus and injuring a Moldovan border police employee — the first confirmed Moldovan casualty of Russia’s drone campaign. Geolocated imagery indicates the dron…
France Faces a National Day of School Protests Today
Organisers have called nationwide action for Tuesday after rejecting the government’s concessions as “nothing concrete”. More than 190 students have been injured and over 5,000 people arrested in a week; more than 500 schools were closed b…
Tories Pledge a £10bn “Britannia Shield” Air Defence System
The Conservatives will promise a layered national air defence of radar, command and control, and interceptor missiles, at £10 billion over ten years. James Cartlidge sets it out today as “the most significant upgrade to UK air defence for…
Polanski Rejects “Exclusion” as Labour MPs Refer the Greens to the EHRC
Zack Polanski has said he will not accept “any exclusion, or refusal to engage with anyone, because of the religious or communal body they are part of”, in his first comments since Sunday’s vote. More than a dozen Labour MPs have referred…
The FCA Reviews Its Own Conduct After a Whistleblower’s Death
Simon Andriesz, a 57-year-old British banker who said the Financial Conduct Authority put him through “absolute hell”, took his own life in Thailand on 23 September. The regulator had wrongly told him he did not qualify for whistleblower p…
Jeffrey Archer Dies Aged 86
The novelist, former Conservative MP and former deputy chairman of the party has died at 86. He resigned his Commons seat in 1974 facing bankruptcy, rebuilt a fortune through bestselling fiction, returned to the top of his party, and was j…
Experts Warn of a Rise in Babies Entering Care Proceedings
The number of babies brought into care proceedings is rising, and specialists have warned that some may be adopted unnecessarily, according to evidence given to the BBC. The concern is that decisions taken at speed, and under pressure, are…