Evening Briefing: Monday 12 October 2026
- If you run a diesel vehicle: Brent closed 1.87% higher at $106.68 after Iran said it was striking tankers moving oil past the Strait of Hormuz. This morning it was down. Diesel passed £2 a litre this month and the deferred fuel duty rise adds 3p from 1 January.
- If you shop for food: the prime minister told MPs that a deal with the European Union on food and drink standards would “ease the pressure on prices in the supermarket”, and put the package at more than £10bn a year by 2040. He meets EU leaders in Brussels on 20 November.
- If you bank or shop online: the artificial intelligence minister says it is “likely, if not inevitable” that British cyber defences will be breached, on a day when hackers forced the fridges in hundreds of French supermarkets to 50C overnight.
Zelensky Threatens to Respond as Six Energy Sites Are Hit
Six Ukrainian energy facilities were bombed on Monday and thirty-three people injured, the president said, two days after Donald Trump announced an energy ceasefire. “If Russia does not agree to an energy ceasefire this winter, we will res…
Saudi Energy Minister Vows an Equally Serious Response
“The events of recent weeks are serious. Our response must be equally serious,” Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman told an energy congress in Riyadh, about ten kilometres from an airport struck four times in a week. He said energy security “cann…
Iran Says It Is Hitting the Oil Route Around Hormuz
Tehran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei says Iranian forces have been striking five or six vessels a night for weeks, targeting an American-assisted operation that transfers crude to larger tankers beyond the strait. “You are smuggling, but…
Hackers Heat Supermarket Fridges Across France to 50C
Attackers took control of refrigeration software in several hundred French stores overnight, forcing units to 50C and holding them there. Some caught fire. The chief executive of one chain called it “of extreme gravity and unprecedented”.…
Federal Agents Search the Home of a Trump Critic
Homeland Security investigators executed what the justice department called a judicially authorised search warrant at the Washington home of Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota congresswoman, as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. Age…
Britain Sanctions Iran Over the RAF Fairford Incident
The prime minister told MPs the incident at the Gloucestershire base was “highly likely to have been coordinated in Iran, almost certainly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard”. Two Iranians face asset freezes and travel bans, th…
Drumcree Appeal Fails as Stormont Debates Confidence
The Court of Appeal refused Garvaghy Road residents permission to challenge the determination allowing the Drumcree parade, saying the application had “no reasonable prospect of success”. It changes nothing on the ground: the march was ban…
Burnham Sets a Brussels Date and Puts a Price on It
The prime minister told the Commons that sticking with the status quo “would be a major dereliction of duty to turn away” from, and confirmed he meets European leaders in Brussels on 20 November. He put the package at more than £10bn a yea…
Farage Pollster Had Unpublicised Role at Polling Firm
Chris Bruni-Lowe, Nigel Farage’s private pollster and a member of his inner circle, played a significant part in running Redfield and Wilton Strategies while not publicly associated with it, according to several former employees. Induction…
Minister Says a Cyber Breach Is Near Inevitable
“It seems likely, if not inevitable, that our own cyber defences will be breached,” the artificial intelligence minister Kanishka Narayan said in London. He pointed to an incident in June in which an automated agent reached into Australia’…