The Hammersmith and Fulham council tax story is worth flagging. The Labour-run borough is warning it may need to raise council tax by 150% — an extra £29 a week for Band D households — to maintain current services after what it describes as the sharpest funding squeeze it has faced. The cabinet report goes public on Monday. This is the first major London authority to put a specific number on the pressure from Burnham’s spending settlement, and it will be uncomfortable reading for No 10 given the optics of a flagship Labour council making the case against its own government’s fiscal choices.

On the EU question, a megapoll by the Messina Group finds that just under half of UK voters now support rejoining, and that offering a fresh referendum on re-entry could add as much as seven points to Labour’s vote share. Andy Burnham is said to personally favour rejoining after the next election. Cabinet ministers are urging caution, worried about reopening Brexit divides. For now this is a polling story rather than a policy one, but the numbers are large enough that it will sharpen the internal debate.

Russia struck a second major bridge in Kyiv overnight, following repeat attacks on another crossing in recent days. The targeting of urban infrastructure rather than frontline positions is a notable tactical shift and will feed into European discussions about the pace and scale of further military support.

The G7 is moving to release 100 million barrels of oil and diesel in response to price spikes following the US-Israel conflict with Iran and Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. The scale of the release is significant — comparable to the coordinated IEA releases seen after the 2022 invasion — though Al Jazeera’s framing raises questions about whether it will be sufficient to meaningfully cap prices given the underlying supply disruption.

On the Flydubai cockpit attack: the co-pilot, named as Hamam al-Hammami, reportedly used an axe in what UAE officials are calling a terrorist act on a Tel Aviv-bound flight. He had previously been barred from flying in Oman over concerns about extremist views. The FT notes this will intensify scrutiny of airline background-check and psychological screening processes — relevant for anyone with aviation exposure.

Apple has tightened full-disk access permissions specifically to limit what AI agents can read on-device. The immediate trigger appears to be a dispute with Meta over whether FDA-level access is sufficient for its Muse platform. Apple’s position is that it is. This is an early but concrete instance of platform-level pushback against the reach of third-party AI agents — expect it to become a recurring friction point as agentic tools embed more deeply into enterprise workflows.

Monday morning brings the Hammersmith and Fulham cabinet report on council finances, which is likely to generate significant political coverage and may prompt responses from other local authorities in similar positions.

Sources

BBC News, Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Economist, FT, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Politico — 2026-10-03