Morning Briefing: Wednesday 7 October 2026
- Your energy bill: January’s price cap is forecast to rise by as much as £442, enough to wipe out the VAT cut. The Treasury is working on more than £1bn of help, most likely £100 added to the £150 warm homes discount — which only reaches households on certain benefits.
- Filling up: Brent is up 0.94% this morning to $101.53 after another tanker was attacked in the Strait of Hormuz. Middle East exports are back to pre-war volumes, so this is risk premium rather than shortage; pump prices follow the barrel by weeks either way.
- Your mortgage: The ten-year gilt has risen about six basis points to 5.43%, having pushed the average five-year fix through 6% on Monday. A 2028 gilt auction at 11:30 this morning is the next read on whether that holds.
A Tanker Is Attacked in Hormuz and Eleven Indians Hurt
Oman’s air force has evacuated ten crew from the Panamanian-flagged On Peace after a projectile struck it nine nautical miles off Limah on Tuesday, setting the vessel alight. India’s foreign ministry says at least twelve of the nineteen cr…
Three Years On From 7 October, With All Hostages Home
Memorials are being held at the Nova festival site near Kibbutz Reim and at intersections and bomb shelters across southern Israel, three years after the Hamas-led attack that killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostage. It is the first…
The Deadline to Shut Britain’s Jerusalem Consulate Falls Tomorrow
Thursday marks thirty days since Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of the British consulate general in East Jerusalem, in retaliation for Britain’s sanctions on illegal West Bank settlements. The national security a…
A Quarter of a Million March in France’s School Revolt
The interior ministry counted 266,000 demonstrators across France on Tuesday, 56,000 of them in Paris, in the largest day of student protest in decades. Nearly 500 people were detained, taking the total past 6,500 since the movement began,…
Puigdemont Can Go Home, and May Hold Spain’s Balance
Spain’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the amnesty law for Catalan separatists covers the embezzlement charges against Carles Puigdemont, and a Supreme Court judge lifted his arrest warrant on Tuesday. He fled to Belgium in 2017 after…
Badenoch Promises a Battle for the Soul of the Nation
In extracts released before her leader’s speech today, Kemi Badenoch casts the next election as “a battle for the soul of this nation” and accuses the government of believing “that your income, your pension and your savings are theirs to t…
Healey Lines Up Over £1bn Against January’s Energy Bills
The chancellor is preparing an intervention worth more than £1bn at the 28 October Budget, most of it a bigger discount for households on certain benefits, after forecasts that the war with Iran will push the January price cap up by as muc…
Holborn and St Pancras Votes Tomorrow With Labour Ahead
Zack Polanski, the Green leader, faces Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali in the seat Keir Starmer vacated on 1 September. Labour has held it since its creation in 1983 and is the favourite; Polanski calls the contest “really on a knife-edge” and th…
Ten Military Training Sites Face Their First Independent Inquiry
Polly Miller-Perkins, the new Armed Forces Commissioner and a former air commodore, has opened her first investigation: into ten training establishments in England, among them the Army Foundation College at Harrogate, Sandhurst and Britann…
Equinor Asks Whether Britain Is Still Worth Investing In
Anders Opedal, chief executive of the Norwegian state oil company, says that if drilling at Rosebank and Jackdaw is refused, “the question will be: is the UK investable in the future? I hope it will not come to that.” He expects approval,…