Morning Briefing: Thursday 5 November 2026
- If you have a tracker mortgage, a quarter-point rise to 4% at noon would add about £31 a month to a typical loan, according to UK Finance; the 470,000 households on variable rates must wait for their lender’s response, and savers should see better returns.
- Sterling at its strongest since the 2016 referendum on the Bank’s trade-weighted index means more buying power on imports and foreign holidays, and helps hold down inflation at home.
- The Energy Independence Bill would formally scrap gas standing charges, as promised in the Budget, though the saving depends on the bill passing; the new £2bn energy wealth fund is to invest oil and gas tax revenue in renewables.
Vance blames Iran war for defeat as Brent sinks below $95
JD Vance has told Republicans that “the reason we lost is the war”, in a statement on X that the BBC describes as 600 words long and carefully calibrated. President Trump called the assessment “largely true” but said he would “do it again”…
Komyshuvakha toll reaches 40 as bodycam shows Russian double-tap strike
The death toll from Monday’s Russian attack on a school used as an aid point in Komyshuvakha, in the Zaporizhzhia region, has climbed to 40, Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday, with more than 30 people feared still under the rubble. Regi…
Joshua Wong jailed for ten years under Hong Kong security law
Joshua Wong, the face of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests, was sentenced on Thursday to ten years in prison for colluding with foreign forces under the national security law. Judge William Tam called him “a mastermind of the conspiracy”…
France braces for 700,000 protesters as five unions strike
France’s five main unions have called a national day of strikes on Thursday, with the authorities expecting between 500,000 and 700,000 demonstrators and more than 250 separate actions. The interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, has deployed 70…
Bomb hoaxes divert a dozen European flights for second time this week
An Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome was escorted by French fighter jets to the Evreux air base on Thursday after a bomb threat, one of at least a dozen aircraft targeted across Europe in a single morning. The French prime minister’s o…
Bank expected to raise rates to 4% as pound hits post-referendum high
The Bank of England announces its decision at 12:00 GMT, and most analysts expect the first rise since August 2023, from 3.75% to 4%, after inflation climbed to 3.5% in September. Sterling has reached its joint highest level since the June…
Ministers move to outlaw new North Sea oil and gas exploration
The government has introduced an Energy Independence Bill that would strip the North Sea Transition Authority of its power to grant new oil and gas licences, making Labour’s manifesto moratorium permanent and reversible only by a Commons m…
UK signs up to ‘time-bound’ dialogue on slavery as summit closes
Commonwealth leaders ended their Antigua summit with an 18-page communiqué welcoming Britain’s agreement to “a structured, time-bound, inclusive and good-faith dialogue” on the transatlantic slave trade and its historical harms. No deadlin…
Palestine Action ban caused ‘crisis in confidence’, Supreme Court told
Lawyers for Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, told five Supreme Court justices that proscribing the group last year had produced a “crisis in confidence” in anti-terrorism law and provoked unprecedented civil disobedience. Hom…
British health worker with Ebola flown home from DR Congo
A British healthcare worker who tested positive for Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo is being evacuated to the UK, the first British national infected in the current outbreak, which has killed more than 5,000 people. The patient i…