The Untold Battles

Representative image: a petrol station forecourt in the UK. (Gordon Griffiths, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons/Geograph) The leaders of the world’s biggest western economies have agreed to flood the market with 100 million barrels of oil and diesel from emergency reserves, after Donald Trump threatened to ban American diesel exports. Key facts G7 leaders agreed a coordinated release of 100 million barrels through the International Energy Agency over four months, starting immediately. A substantial release of diesel will be front-loaded into the first 20 days. The G7 pledged to refrain from energy export restrictions between members and urged all producers to do the same. Donald Trump had threatened a US diesel export ban and claimed credit on Truth Social, saying the release would “begin immediately”. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband represented Britain because Prime Minister Andy Burnham was attending his father’s funeral. UK diesel hit £2 a litre for the first time, but tran...

The newly replaced headstone for Serjeant Frederick Albert Harrison, 1st Battalion The Dorsetshire Regiment, at Hottot-les-Bagues War Cemetery. (Photograph: MOD / Crown Copyright, via GOV.UK). Five British soldiers who went missing during the Battle of Normandy have finally been named, after the Ministry of Defence confirmed their graves and held rededication services in France this week. Private George Chapman, Private Vincent Coia, Lance Corporal Reginald Cyril Dewey, Serjeant Frederick Albert Harrison and Corporal Henry Thomas Read were all lost in the fighting that followed D-Day in the summer of 1944. For more than 80 years their graves were marked as unknown. This week, named headstones were unveiled at four Commonwealth war cemeteries across Normandy, and a service was held for all five men at the British Normandy Memorial. Key facts Five soldiers missing since the Battle of Normandy have been identified; their graves were rededicated this week Rededication services took ...

The Northern Ireland Assembly has voted to hand control of the region's welfare reforms to Westminster, passing a motion by 70 Parliament Buildings at Stormont in Belfast. MLAs have voted 70-22 to let Westminster apply its welfare reforms in Northern Ireland. (Photograph: Wknight94, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0). votes to 22 that lets the UK government roll out its benefit changes across Northern Ireland. The vote on Wednesday follows a political agreement struck the day before between the DUP, Sinn Fein and the British and Irish governments, which settled a series of issues that had been threatening the future of devolution itself, including the welfare budget. Opponents of the motion criticised the two largest parties for passing Stormont's powers back to London, according to BBC News Northern Ireland's political correspondent Chris Page. Key facts MLAs voted 70 to 22 on Wednesday (1 October) to allow Westminster to apply its welfare reforms in Northern Irela...

The City of London skyline. Britain's biggest banks lost more than £18bn in market value on Thursday after investors learned the Chancellor had summoned their chief executives to talks. Photo: David Iliff / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Representative image. £18bn Wiped Off UK Banks as Chancellor Summons Bosses to Pre-Budget Talks The City suffered its worst day in months on Thursday as more than £18bn was wiped off the value of Britain's biggest banks, after investors learned that the Chancellor has summoned the bosses of the country's leading lenders to a meeting at the Treasury next week. The sell-off began in early trading as bank investors worried about surging government bond yields, then accelerated through the afternoon once it emerged that John Healey had called the chief executives of Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and NatWest to talks on Tuesday. It is the first such in-person meeting the Chancellor has held with the banks' chiefs since taking office, and it ...

Ary Scheffer, The Battle of Tolbiac (1836): a 19th-century imagining of Clovis's victory. Public domain. The most famous prayer in Frankish history was uttered by a losing king. Around the year 496, somewhere near the Rhine, the Franks were being beaten. Their king, Clovis, watched his warriors die and, in desperation, called on the God his Christian wife had been preaching to him for years. If this account is true, and it may partly be legend, the prayer changed the course of European history. Key facts Battle: Tolbiac (Tolbiacum), between the Franks and the Alamanni, traditionally dated to c.496. The date is disputed by scholars. Site: usually identified as Zülpich in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, about 60 km east of today's German-Belgian frontier. Commanders: Clovis I and his ally Sigobert the Lame for the Franks; the Alamanni leader's name is not certainly known. Result: decisive Frankish victory. The Alamanni lost their autonomy and their hold on the Lower Rhin...

Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, whose defence of the pensions triple lock has split his party. (Photo: UK Parliament, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons) Sir Ed Davey is facing an open revolt from his own MPs over the pensions triple lock, after a leaked internal party briefing handed rebels the very arguments they need to challenge his position. An internal Liberal Democrat memo seen by Sky News sets out the pros and cons of the triple lock and proposes a series of cheaper alternatives, the broadcaster reported on Friday morning. MPs opposed to Davey's defence of the policy have seized on the document, deepening one of the most serious internal splits of his leadership. Key facts Sky News has obtained an internal Liberal Democrat memo, prepared for MPs in September, that neutrally sets out the cases for and against the pensions triple lock and proposes money-saving alternatives. The analysis finds that none of the alternatives, including a double lock, would ha...

A Royal Marine of Zulu Company, 45 Commando during an amphibious landing from landing craft in Norway. File photo: LA(Phot) Nick Tryon / MOD. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0. Britain is leading its largest Joint Expeditionary Force exercise of the year as defence ministers from ten allied nations gather in Iceland, with Royal Marines carrying out the first British military exercise on the Faroe Islands since the Second World War. Key facts Exercise Lion Protector 26 has seen hundreds of British personnel train with nine allied nations across the North Atlantic, the High North and the Baltic Sea. Royal Marines from the UK's Special Operations Maritime Task Group trained on the Faroe Islands alongside Danish forces, the first exercise there since the war years. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting is meeting his JEF counterparts in Keflavik, Iceland, with Canadian and Ukrainian ministers also attending. Ministers are discussing Ca...