In your briefing today:

📣 Iran’s “unrelenting” attacks on oil infrastructure around the Middle East have driven the global oil price back beyond $100 a barrel overnight, with no end in sight for the US/Israeli barrage of the Islamic Republic.

Iran hit a container ship off the coast of Dubai, sparked a fire near Bahrain’s airport, targeted a Saudi oil field with a drone and forced Iraq to halt operations at all of its oil terminals after attacking the port of Basra. (AP)

📣 More of the fire-ravaged Union Corner building near Glasgow Central has collapsed - the southern gable, one of the few parts left standing after the blaze earlier this week. What is left is “seriously compromised”, according to city officials. (STV)

Low-level trains are now stopping at Glasgow Central, but the main line station remains closed. (Daily Record)

📣 The Edinburgh International Festival has announced its programme for this August, and says it’s “back to full strength” after funding uncertainties curtailed the 2025 lineup.

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by legendary trumpeter Wynton Marsalis - who is married to EIF director Nicola Benedetti - will take up a residence for the duration of the festival, the theme of which is “all rise.” (Scotsman)

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📣 The mooted strikes at schools in six council areas over teacher workloads could be avoided, after a deal was struck between the EIS and the Scottish government. It still needs to be ratified by the local government body, Cosla. (BBC)

📣 Police Scotland has been fined £66,000 after officers extracted the entire contents of a person’s mobile phone after they had reported an alleged crime. (Daily Record)

📣 Scotland’s proposed assisted suicide law is full of “gaping holes”, a cross-party group of MSPs has warned, and they say Holyrood would be taking an “unprecedented risk” to pass the legislation. (Mail)

📣 Prime Minister Keir Starmer was given clear warnings that Peter Mandelson's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein posed a "reputational risk" before he was confirmed as US ambassador. Documents released by the government show that advice warned the pair's relationship continued after the financier's conviction in 2008. (BBC)

📣 Hundreds of GPs say they have never refused a sick note on mental health grounds. (BBC)

📣 Lisa Tarbuck says she’s going to leave her popular Saturday night show on BBC Radio 2, after 14 years. (Sun)

⚽️ It was a bad night for English clubs in the first legs of their last 16 Champions League matches…

⚽️ St Mirren manager Stephen Robertson is quitting Paisley for the vacant manager’s job at Aberdeen, a move which has left some Aberdeen fans nonplussed. But a St Mirren legend, Tony Fitzpatrick, thinks they’re mad to question the appointment of the league cup-winning manager. (Daily Record)

⚽️ The Old Firm clubs might be entirely silent after Sunday’s trouble at Ibrox, but they have got to deciding how many Rangers fans will be allowed into Ibrox for their final meeting of the season. Perhaps surprisingly, there will be some. (Daily Record)

🗣️ This looks to be the moment the US/Israel war on Iran starts to really have a material impact on the world outside the Gulf region. The cause will be the price of oil and gas, and the vital products made from the same.

The problem is less one of production - getting the stuff out of the ground is a business that is widely distributed across the region. It’s harder (although not impossible) for Iran to hit oil wells - smaller targets - in neighbouring countries. We’re not seeing a repeat of the scenes as Iraq withdrew from Kuwait after its invasion of 1990, where troops blew wells up as they withdrew.

No - this is largely a problem of refining, storage and shipping: all tasks carried out by assets - vast refinery complexes, oil storage farms, export terminals, supertankers - which present much bigger targets for the Iranian military. Those are targets that are now being hit.

It’s obvious what that is going to do to oil and gas supplies. But, even if you find a captain and crew feeling brave - or foolhardy - enough to transit the Straits of Hormuz in a giant vessel packed with flammable goods, the truth is you’ve still got a problem.

As we’ve covered in the Early Line previously, even most brave, or foolhardy, captains and shipping companies are going to struggle to find insurance to make the trip. That’s why the US is launching a $20 billion reinsurance facility (Lloyds List) to unlock shipping in the Gulf.

Markets aren’t yet convinced this, or vague promises for military escorts for tankers, will be effective. Thus, oil and gas prices go up.

What’s the impact? It’s been clear and swift: if you have a fossil-fuel-powered car, you’re already paying more - around 6-12 pence per litre - to fill your vehicle up. It’s the steepest rise in prices since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. And we all know those prices are swift to go up, and much slower to come down.

Rachel Reeves has a plan for a fuel duty increase in September: should prices remain high, you could imagine her choosing not to push that through. There were hints, yesterday, that this might happen.

Elsewhere, airlines are feeling an immediate chill, because they sell tickets directly to travellers: they have to either eat the increased price of their main cost, jet fuel, or pass it on. Given jet fuel prices have shot up even faster than crude oil, they’re passing it on - through higher ticket prices and surcharges. You’ll see services cut, too.

There are more unexpected impacts from the disruption of shipping in the Gulf.

Natural gas is a vital component of artificial fertilisers: countries around the world rely on sulphur, urea and ammonia produced in the Middle East to help grow food. Without it global crop production would fall by a third. Natural gas is not getting out of the Gulf either, which starts to raise concerns about global food security.

There’s no suggestion that we’re in crisis yet - there are stocks scattered around the world - but they are not being replenished. If the conflict were to continue for long, the crop sowing season in the southern hemisphere, which begins in June, would be disrupted. The subsequent reduction in food supplies would harm poorer nations first, but the interlinked nature of global food supplies means the West would feel the chill - even if it was only through reduced or more expensive supplies.

Forbes does a good job of explaining how the interlinked nature of the global economy, leads to secondary and tertiary effects. The good news, explains Michael Lynch, is that not all the arrows point up - yes, higher fuel prices will fuel inflation. But a corresponding fall in consumption will also reduce inflation, so some factors will cancel each other out. But all that uncertainty will affect economies, heightening uncertainty and encouraging investors to be more conservative.

The shots might be getting fired far, far away. Donald Trump might even be hinting the end of those shots - at least from the US - soon. But we’ll be hearing them, and their echo, loud and clear on our garage forecourts, supermarket aisles and in our savings, for months to come.

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