Morning Briefing: Monday 12 October 2026
- If you are bracing for the Budget: the Institute for Fiscal Studies says honouring the government’s stated spending pledges in real terms would cost about £35bn, and that pencilling in cuts no one intends to deliver would make the Budget “a work of fiction”. That points to tax rises or departmental squeezes on 28 October.
- If you are thinking about a heat pump: the £2.7bn boiler upgrade scheme, which pays grants of up to £9,000, is reported to be facing cuts of hundreds of millions as the energy department looks for more than £2bn towards defence. No new grant figure has been set and the scheme is not being scrapped, but waiting may cost you.
- If you run a diesel car or van: average diesel passed £2 a litre for the first time this month and is up more than 40% since late February. The postponed fuel duty rise adds 3p a litre from 1 January and a further 2p from 1 March.
Power Plants Struck Hours After the Ceasefire Was Announced
Volodymyr Zelensky says a drone hit a power plant in Kyiv, causing outages in the capital, and that a strike on the CHP-5 plant in Kharkiv followed. “All of this happened after the president of the United States made his statement about an…
Britons Told to Leave Saudi Arabia Overland as Airports Shut
The Foreign Office now advises against all but essential travel to Riyadh province, four southern regions and the cities of Taif, Jeddah and Dammam, and to every Saudi airport except Medina. It suggests British nationals leave by road for…
At Least Seventy-Two Gold Miners Killed in Strike on Sudan
A monitoring group says an air raid on a gold mine near the disputed Sudan–Egypt border killed at least seventy-two civilian miners on Saturday. Emergency Lawyers, which documents atrocities in Sudan’s war, accuses Egyptian fighter jets of…
North Korea Fires Missiles, One Possibly Hypersonic, Over 900km
Multiple ballistic missiles were launched from the Pyongyang area towards the sea off the east coast on Monday. South Korea’s joint chiefs say one flew more than 900km. Japan’s deputy defence minister Takashi Koyari says at least two were…
Republican Senators Join Democrats to Call Diesel Deal Unlawful
Four Republicans — Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis and John Curtis — have joined Democrats Jeanne Shaheen, Richard Blumenthal and Ron Wyden in saying the plan to import Russian diesel breaks American law. “The United States shou…
Budget a Work of Fiction Without a Plan for £35bn
The Institute for Fiscal Studies says honouring the government’s spending pledges in real terms — defence at 3% of national income by 2030 and a health uplift without squeezing other departments — would cost about £35bn. Its director Helen…
Papers Suggest Deloitte Helped Falsify Abramovich Tax Records
Leaked documents indicate that backdated paperwork moved Roman Abramovich’s assets beyond the reach of Cypriot tax, and that his accountants reviewed and signed off records the leak suggests they knew to be misleading. In one 2006 case, $6…
Burnham to Tell MPs to Embrace Closer Ties With the EU
The prime minister is expected to tell the Commons today that it is time to “face up to the reality that Brexit has done more harm than good” and that “the status quo is not good enough for Britain”. A Downing Street source said failing to…
Heat Pump Grants to Be Cut to Help Fund Defence Spending
Hundreds of millions of pounds are expected to come off the boiler upgrade scheme, which offers grants of up to £9,000 from a £2.7bn budget, as the energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh looks for more than £2bn towards the defence investment…
Reform Would Suspend the Asylum System for a Full Parliament
Reform UK says that in government it would reject all new asylum applications, void existing ones and mark claimants for deportation, scrapping the asylum tribunal and deporting more than 90,000 outstanding appeals. It would leave the Euro…