Recent tensions involving missile incidents near NATO territory have raised a familiar but serious question. Why has NATO not invoked Article 5, the alliance's collective defence clause? At first glance, the situation may appear straightforward.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is one chokepoint, but there are several other critical locations globally where oil shipments are vulnerable to conflict, piracy, or political instability. Details of the main choke points for oil.
Russia's oil export system is often described as a network, but it is better understood as a geopolitical lifeline. One that connects fields in Siberia to consumers across Europe and Asia through a combination of pipelines and maritime routes.
Energy markets in 2026 are experiencing one of their sharpest shocks in recent years. While headlines often focus on surging gas prices in Europe—where wholesale prices have risen by as much as 80-100% in a matter of weeks.
The global surge in energy prices is now feeding directly into agriculture, with fertiliser costs rising sharply once again in 2026. For UK farmers, this is not a theoretical concern but an immediate economic pressure, arriving just as the spring planting season begins.
"Will you walk a little faster?" said the tanker to the well, "There's a market crash behind us, and the prices aren't so swell. See how traders chase the futures, and the pipelines twist and groan? They are waiting on production that we're struggling to own!".
Seven innovative projects to support small food and drink producers in parts of the Highlands and Islands have been awarded a total of £169,750 through the Small Producers Pilot Fund. Seven innovative projects to support small food and drink producers in parts of the Highlands and Islands have been awarded a total of £169,750 through the Small Producers Pilot Fund.
An estimated £547 million in business rates, generated through the Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport (ICFGF), will be reinvested in jobs, skills development and infrastructure improvements. On Thursday 26 March 2026 Highland councillors endorsed an Investment Plan, which sets out a framework for the management and spend of retained Non-Domestic Rates (rNDR) from the Green Freeport.
The UK will urgently commit an additional £100 million for air defence support to Ukraine, helping to defend the country from Russia's relentless attacks. New funding brings the total in air defence commitments made over the last two months by the UK to protect Ukraine to £600 million.
For most families, the weekly food shop has become a moment of quiet dread. Prices that once felt stable now seem to creep upward every month, and the familiar basket of basics costs noticeably more than it did even a year ago.
Good homes will be placed at the heart of UK military family life, as the first forces family homes built by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) in nearly a decade are set to begin construction - ensuring that British personnel working round the clock to defend the nation get the housing they deserve. 265 brand new forces homes, flats and bungalows to be built at RAF Brize Norton.
For years, households in rural Scotland have been treated as second‑class citizens when it comes to heating our homes. Most of us are off the gas grid.
If there is one theme that continues to define the global economic landscape, it is the uneasy relationship between inflation and interest rates. Despite shifting headlines from geopolitical tensions to energy shocks this underlying dynamic remains at the heart of today's economic challenges.
If there is one force quietly shaping the global economy right now, it is not technology, trade, or even interest rates—it is energy. From oil to natural gas and electricity, energy prices have once again taken centre stage, influencing everything from inflation and business costs to household budgets and economic growth.
For all the talk of renewal, the government's public service reform programme reads like a familiar British paradox. A promise of local empowerment delivered through the most centralising machinery Whitehall can muster.
In the world of economics, markets are often portrayed as rational, data-driven systems guided by interest rates, earnings reports, and growth forecasts. But every so often, a reminder cuts through this neat framework: markets are just as sensitive to politics, uncertainty, and fear as they are to numbers.
For months, economists have been asking a crucial question. Are households actually tightening their belts, or is talk of financial anxiety overstated? Recent data suggests that the answer is becoming increasingly clear.
Gender-based violence is often framed as a social crisis or a moral failing—and rightly so. But focusing only on its human toll risks overlooking another critical dimension: its profound and persistent economic consequences.
For years, ministers have insisted that outsourcing brings innovation, efficiency, and modernisation. Yet the lived experience of thousands of civil servants and pensioners tells a very different story.
The Chancellor and Economic Secretary brought together the six largest banks and building societies, alongside UK Finance, to take stock of the impact of the conflict in Iran on households and small businesses. The Chancellor secured a commitment from lenders present to proactively contact 1.6 million customers whose fixed-rate deals end between now and the end of the year.