Welcome U-turn. As Energy Secretary in 2023 I said we should max out the North Sea. Jackdaw's been sat there all but finished, waiting on a signature. It should already be producing. Now do Rosebank.

Russia doesn't need to invade Britain to threaten Britain. When I warned in 2024 that we had entered a pre-war world, it wasn't simply about the prospect of tanks crossing European borders. Russia has developed ways to threaten our security without triggering a conventional military response. Cyberattacks, sabotage, disruption to energy supplies and attacks on critical infrastructure can all cause enormous damage without a shot being fired. Look at the numbers. Russia is spending over 7% of its GDP on defence. Its military expenditure has effectively trebled since 2021. Meanwhile, the number of nationally significant cyber incidents handled by Britain's National Cyber Security Centre rose from 89 to 204 in just one year. Not all were Russian, but the figures illustrate our growing vulnerability. Lord Peter Ricketts, Britain's former National Security Adviser and former head of the Foreign Office, is right to warn about the threat to our essential services. But here's the fundamental question: we spend a great deal of time debating whether Britain has enough missiles, aircraft, warships and troops to defend itself. And rightly so, because there are serious concerns about our military readiness. Yet are we devoting anything like the same attention to defending our electricity supplies, hospitals, banking systems, water networks and communications? The next attack on Britain may not look like the start of a war. It may look like an ordinary Monday morning when everything suddenly stops working.

Russia’s advance in Ukraine has gone into reverse. Between March and September, Russia lost almost 300 km² more territory than it captured, according to the Institute for the Study of War. In September alone, Ukraine reported 46,320 Russian casualties. For that, Moscow gained, at best, no ground. Ukrainian courage and innovation, backed by allied weapons, are breaking the assumption that Putin can grind his way to victory. This is the moment to press the advantage. More weapons. Faster deliveries. Sustained pressure on Russia’s war economy. Putin is counting on Western fatigue to rescue him. We must not oblige.

Thirty-three people were killed on two buses in Kramatorsk. The weapon was a glide bomb: a Soviet-era bomb, decades old, with a guidance kit bolted on. The kit is put at around $20,000. Ukraine says Russia used nearly 9,000 of them in August alone. So why not shoot them down? Because there is no great missile answer. They are released 35 to 50km back, beyond the reach of most short-range defences, and NATO's own air power centre says using something like a Patriot against them is unsustainable on cost - a $4m missile against a $20,000 bomb. Things that do work include jamming the satellite signal they steer by or targeting the aircraft that carry them. None of these answers are simple. Which is exactly why we have to face Russia together, and not simply leave Ukraine alone to fight on the side of freedom for us all.

Time to end this socialist price cap nonsense!

Milei says he will take Britain to international arbitration over Sea Lion. Argentina's history with that mechanism is worth knowing. The UN's trade body keeps the register of these cases. It records 65 brought against Argentina by foreign investors. Its database holds around 1,440 such cases worldwide, across every country on earth. One in twenty-two of them has been against Argentina alone. Of the Argentine cases that reached a decision, around three-quarters went against the state. This is a country whose entire experience of international arbitration has been as the defendant, and usually the losing one. Now look at what he is threatening. Milei's own flagship investment law guarantees foreign investors thirty years of stable rules, and the right to take Argentina to arbitration if it breaks its word. That is the pitch: trust us, and you will have a remedy. In the same month, he has announced a bill to punish companies holding lawful licences off the Falklands, reaching their shareholders, directors and suppliers, and now threatens arbitration against Britain on top. The same mechanism, offered as a shield to the investors he wants and swung as a club at the investors he does not. Investors have already taken Argentina to arbitration sixty-five times. They will decide for themselves which of those two Mileis is the real one.

IRAN DOESN’T NEED TO SEND ASSASSINS TO BRITAIN. IT CAN HIRE THEM HERE. Five men arrested near RAF Fairford this weekend have now been released on police bail. Nothing is proven, no one has been charged, and they remain under investigation. So don’t speculate about Fairford. Look instead at what we already know. In July, a Norwegian teenager was convicted at the Old Bailey of agreeing to murder someone in Britain for €25,000. He did not even know who the intended target was. The Foxtrot network behind the plot advertises violent assignments through apps including Snapchat, Telegram and Signal, often recruiting very young people with no direct connection to the network or the target. The 17-year-old who recruited him is now serving 14 years. Foxtrot is a Swedish criminal network sanctioned by Britain for violence against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe on behalf of Iran. This is not a one-off. In March, a US jury convicted an Iranian intelligence operative who admitted the Revolutionary Guard had sent him to America to arrange political assassinations using hired killers. Australia has also said Iran directed attacks on Australian soil, including attacks targeting the Jewish community, and expelled the Iranian ambassador in response. And MI5 says that since January 2022 it and the police have responded to twenty Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents. In the following year alone, MI5 tracked more than twenty further potentially lethal Iran-backed plots. It says Iranian state actors make extensive use of criminals as proxies. That is the model: outsource the violence. Recruit disposable criminals. Keep them ignorant of the bigger picture. Put layers between Tehran and the person ultimately caught. Britain is getting better at catching the people who take the job. The harder task is stopping the people placing the orders.

HOMES FOR UKRAINE: HAVE THE GOVERNMENT GOT THEIR FIGURES RIGHT? Yesterday, it emerged that the Government had quietly slipped out major cuts to Homes for Ukraine in a written statement. If just one in seven of the remaining hosted Ukrainian households ended up in temporary accommodation, the entire saving would be wiped out. Have the Government done their maths? If so, they should publish their calculations. If not, here are mine. They are welcome to prove them wrong – because these cuts may not save the taxpayer a penny. More than 181,000 Ukrainians have passed through Homes for Ukraine. But most, like the family who lived with us, have long since moved into private accommodation. The latest payment figures suggest only around 13,000 Ukrainian families are still living with hosts – probably 20,000–25,000 people. From January, the Government is cutting: • Payments to hosts from £350 to £100 a month. • Council support for each new arrival from £5,900 to £3,300. On my calculations, the headline saving might be around £43m–£57m a year. But look more closely. The cut to existing hosts probably saves around £30m. Temporary accommodation now costs taxpayers roughly £22,000 per household each year. So if just 1,400 hosted Ukrainian households – roughly one in seven – ended up in temporary accommodation for a year, the entire £30m saving would be wiped out. Just one in seven. Saving to the taxpayer: zero. And that is before housing benefit, deposits, council casework and other support are included. Nor does it account for the Government simultaneously cutting the money councils use for rematching and homelessness prevention. I am not arguing that an emergency scheme should remain unchanged forever. But the war is still raging, and those Ukrainians still living with hosts nearly five years later are likely to include the people who will find it hardest to become independent. Perhaps the Government has modelled all this and reached a different conclusion. If so, it should publish the figures. Because, on the numbers currently available, this could easily become a false economy – while also sending entirely the wrong message about Britain’s continuing resolve. * Sources: MHCLG Homes for Ukraine quarterly funding data and 2025/26 temporary-accommodation expenditure.

What I’m about to say about AI may be controversial. I think Britain risks getting it wrong. Our first big intervention was to create the world’s first AI Safety Institute under Rishi Sunak. Safety matters. Of course it does. But somewhere along the way, Britain’s political conversation about AI has become far too dominated by the risks: guardrails, regulation, job losses, misinformation, what could go wrong. We hear much less about what could go right. AI could help scientists make extraordinary medical breakthroughs. It could detect disease earlier, accelerate drug discovery, transform education and public services, improve our quality of life and perhaps ultimately help us live longer, healthier lives. Even the original AI Safety Institute paper acknowledged the possibility of AI helping unlock a world without cancer. Yet if you were an entrepreneur or scientist deciding today where to build the next great AI company, what impression would Britain give you? A country excited to build the future? Or a country primarily worried about containing it? We absolutely need sensible safeguards. But government also has a responsibility not to frighten people so much about a new technology that we lose sight of the extraordinary benefits it could bring. There is a global race underway for AI talent, investment and innovation. Britain should not enter that race wearing the brakes out. We should be telling the world: if you want to invent the future of AI, build it here. Time to stop scaring the wits out of the population and start talking about the advantages too, in my view.

If the EU can invent “associate membership” for Canada, why not offer it to Ukraine too? Five reasons why it should: 1. Ukraine is European – geographically, historically and politically. Canada is a close ally, but Ukraine is part of Europe. 2. Ukraine is fighting for its European future – Russia’s full-scale invasion is now in its fifth year. 3. Ukraine is already on the path to EU membership – it is an official candidate and accession negotiations are under way. 4. Ukraine is central to Europe’s security – its defence is now inseparable from the wider question of European security. 5. Ukrainians have paid an extraordinary price for choosing Europe – few countries could have demonstrated their commitment more starkly. Canada can by all means be welcomed closer to Europe. But if Brussels can create a new flexible membership category for Canada, why should Ukraine be left out in the cold?

Yesterday a Russian drone destroyed a locomotive at Yahodyn, just two kilometres from the Polish border. Shortly beforehand, a train carrying Boris Johnson, Carl Bildt and European national security advisers had left the same station — deliberately ahead of schedule. Ukraine's railway operator says it is highly probable that their train was the intended target. But what happened at Yahodyn is just one incident. Look at what has been happening to Ukraine's railways more broadly and the picture is even more alarming. Russia attacked Ukraine's railway around 1,200 times in the whole of 2025. That was already more than in 2023 and 2024 combined. But by 23 August this year, Russia had attacked it another 1,534 times. So before the end of August, attacks on Ukraine's railway were already 28% higher than during the whole of last year, which was already a record high. 492 locomotives damaged. 249 railway carriages. 52 railway workers killed at their posts. And something else has changed. Russia is increasingly targeting the trains themselves. Like many western leaders, I travelled into Ukraine by rail during he war, because Ukrainian airspace is closed. Biden went that way. Starmer. Macron. Scholz. Meloni. Trudeau. Ukraine's railway isn't simply a way into Kyiv. It is the main way in. Which brings us back to Yahodyn. A train carrying some of Europe's most senior former political and security figures has its timetable changed most likely because of the Russian threat. It leaves. And then minutes later, a Russian drone destroys a locomotive on the same railway, just two kilometres from NATO territory. We call these increased incidents "near misses". But step back from the individual incident and something much bigger becomes visible. Europe's principal land corridor into the capital of a European democracy is now under sustained Russian attack — even while European leaders themselves are travelling on it. That isn't a near miss. That is Putin testing how much danger Europe is prepared to normalise. And that is the real danger.

Last week I set out every Russian attack on European soil proven in court or formally attributed by a government. Nine cases. Here's the surprising reason why that list may stop growing. NATO has reportedly foiled a Russian operation in the Arctic rehearsing a weapon designed to disable undersea cables without leaving any trace of who did it. Britain, Norway and the United States tracked the vessels and confronted them. Read that again. Designed to leave no fingerprints. Every case on my previous list turned on evidence. Arsonists caught on camera. Parcels traced to a post office in Vilnius. Six people convicted at the Old Bailey on hard evidence. In each case evidence is what made attribution possible. However, a weapon engineered for deniability breaks that chain deliberately. The campaign doesn't stop. It just becomes unprovable. The UK is unusually exposed. Sixty-four cables connect Britain to the world, carrying some £220 billion of financial transactions every day. But it is worse than the number suggests: just two of those cables carry three quarters of our transatlantic capacity. In January last year the Russian survey ship Yantar was found loitering over British cables. Parliament's national security committee has reported on this. It said it was not confident Britain could prevent an attack on these cables, or recover within an acceptable period. That was the warning. So whilst we have spent five years getting better at exposing what Russia is doing. Moscow has spent that time building approaches they believe we won't be able to prove at all.

The Chancellor made his first big speech today, and the diagnosis was right. He said the state needs to be active in removing the blockages that stop businesses investing. Good to hear a Chancellor say it. But that raises a question. If private capital is willing to back fast-growing firms - and pension funds, venture funds and family offices are all looking for somewhere to put money to work - why bother with using taxpayer money at all? Government should do the parts that ONLY government can do. And there are two things that spring to mind: Speed: If you want to build something in Britain that needs serious power, you join a queue for a grid connection that has left projects waiting years. Changes are underway and it's welcome, but power connections still kill investment. Same with planning. No amount of capital saves a project that can't get permission inside its own commercial lifetime. Certainty: The tax rules for people who start and back companies have changed repeatedly. The effect is that a business founder can't answer a simple question: what will the rules be in ten years, when this is finally worth something? A survey last week found a third of British founders looking at moving abroad, and another 13% already going. They aren't leaving because nobody offered them money. Both fixes are spending free. Cutting the time it takes to get permission costs the Treasury nothing. Committing to leave founder and investor tax rules alone for a parliament would encourage investment and make the Treasury money. The Budget on 28 October is the opportunity. Focus on these two things, and it will do more for growth than any relatively small fund using taxpayer cash.

The Falklands are British. The islanders settled that themselves. For two years Milei has promised investors Argentina won't change the rules on them. There's a bill before Argentina's Congress to guarantee it. There's another one punishing anyone who holds shares in a firm drilling lawfully off the Falklands. The second tells you what the first is worth. independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho…

Yesterday, Germany named Russia as responsible for the drone attack on Leipzig-Halle Airport. Berlin summoned the Russian ambassador, ordered the consulate in Bonn to close, shut the Russian House in Berlin, and raised its national threat level. So I went back through the record. Not the suspicions. Not the speculation. The cases that have been settled in court or formally attributed by a government. The scales below mark cases proven in court. The columns mark cases attributed by a government. ⚖️ March 2024, London. Warehouse holding Starlink terminals for Ukraine burned down. Five convicted, up to 17 years. Ordered by Wagner via Telegram. ⚖️ May 2024, Vilnius. IKEA store set alight. A Ukrainian, 17 at the time, jailed. He acted for Russian military and security structures. 🏛️ May 2024, Warsaw. Marywilska 44 shopping centre destroyed, 1,400 units lost. Poland's Prime Minister confirmed it was arson ordered by Russian services. ⚖️ January 2025, Estonia. A supermarket and a Ukrainian restaurant torched. Two convicted. The court found the principal was tasked by the GRU. ⚖️ March 2025, Cologne. GPS-tracked parcels used to map delivery routes. A Ukrainian convicted of acting as a sabotage agent; the court found a Russian state entity initiated it. ⚖️ May 2025, London. Six Bulgarians jailed for a combined 50 years for surveillance run from a Great Yarmouth guesthouse. Targets: journalists, dissidents, Ukrainian troops. ⚖️ October 2025, Poland. Three Ukrainians convicted over a sabotage network spanning Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and Russia. 🏛️ November 2025, Poland. Explosion on the Warsaw-Lublin railway, a route carrying aid to Ukraine. Two men working with Russian intelligence identified. Classed as terrorism. 🏛️ August 2026, Leipzig. Explosive drone found beside a Ukrainian cargo aircraft. Attributed to Russia yesterday. Nine established cases. Six proven in court, three formally attributed by governments. Five countries. Britain in two of them. There is also a case currently before the British courts, which I have deliberately excluded from the tally above. In July 2024 an incendiary device posted from Vilnius ignited at a DHL warehouse in Birmingham, one of four parcels sent across Europe. Fifteen people have been charged. Those proceedings are ongoing and the allegations have yet to be determined by the court. And these nine are only the cases that have been established. There are many more besides: the plots disrupted before they landed, the cases still under investigation, the incidents no government has yet felt able to name. This is not a series of unfortunate events. It is a campaign. Russia is at war with the West today. Not tomorrow, not in some future scenario we can plan for at leisure. Today. We need to respond as though we understand that, and defend ourselves and our democracies accordingly.

Zack Polanski wants Britain to slam the brakes on new data centres, warning about their impact on water supplies and the electricity grid. He is right about the pressure. Data centres already consume around 2% of Britain’s grid electricity, and demand will rise sharply as AI develops. Some proposed sites are in entirely the wrong places. Others may end up relying on gas-fired generation because the grid cannot connect them quickly enough. Water use is not yet measured or reported nearly well enough either. But identifying a real problem does not make a moratorium the right answer. Data centres are no longer simply warehouses for storing photographs and emails. They provide the computing power behind AI, financial services, medical research, defence systems and much of the modern economy. That is why they are now classified as critical national infrastructure. If Britain chooses not to build them, the demand will not disappear. The investment - and quite possibly the carbon emissions - will simply move overseas. We would then become more dependent on foreign computing capacity at precisely the moment when data, energy and technology are becoming inseparable from national security. That would be an extraordinary act of economic self-harm. The Government believes its AI Growth Zones could unlock as much as £100 billion of private investment and more than 10,000 jobs. Those figures matter. But the bigger prize is ensuring that British businesses, researchers and public services have access to the computing power on which the next generation of economic growth will depend. The answer is not to stop building. It is to build properly. New data centres should be directed towards places where power, water and network capacity can genuinely support them. Developers should be expected to invest in additional electricity generation and grid infrastructure. They should disclose their water consumption, use recycled or closed-loop cooling wherever possible and design facilities capable of reducing demand when the electricity system is under pressure. Speculative projects should not be allowed to clog up the grid connection queue ahead of developments that are financed and ready to proceed. That all needs sorting out. But none of it is an argument for Britain to step out of the global race for AI. One lesson I learnt from overseeing Britain’s energy security was very clear: when new industries need more power, government has a choice. It can build the capacity required to capture the investment, or ration growth and watch it go elsewhere. Polanski’s answer to scarcity is the familiar socialist one: stop, ban and ration. It is the politics of managed decline, dressed up as environmental virtue. Britain cannot afford it. A country that refuses to build the infrastructure of the future will inevitably become poorer, weaker and more dependent on those that do. That vision is not simply outdated. In the age of AI, it is dangerous.

Bills up 4% to £1,723. The price cap is socialist, communist nonsense we should never have supported: it strangles the market, kills competition and betrays the consumers it claims to protect. I began scrapping it as Energy Sec. Time to finish the job. reuters.com/business/energy/…

Andy Burnham's visit to Kyiv today is a powerful signal that Britain's support for Ukraine remains unwavering. When I visited Kyiv in 2023, Russia occupied around 18% of Ukraine. Nearly three years later, that figure is still only around 19–20%, despite the enormous cost Russia has paid. That tells you something about the extraordinary resilience of the Ukrainian people. Sharing the expertise to help Ukraine build its own long-range missiles is another important step towards giving them the means to defend themselves for the long term.