Among the gorse bushes, close to the beaches where surfers catch their morning wave, lie a series of undersea cables critical to British daily life, and on Vladimir Putin’s target list for sabotage.
Running directly into Cornwall’s picturesque coastline, these cables are on the front line to protect Britain’s communications infrastructure, and any breakages – or destruction – risk crippling key services like hospitals, banks and mobile telecoms.
These cables are resilient, and built to sustain damage, accidental or otherwise. But fears of sabotage to these cables – and on the soil where their unassuming landing stations are located – have heightened as Russia wages its “grey-zone” war against Britain, with potential attacks ranging from cyber warfare to firebombings.
Five key takeaways from the Mercury Prize 2026
Raye has won the 2026 Mercury Prize for her second album This Music May Contain Hope, featuring the global hit song “Where Is My Husband?”
The pop record, on which Hanz Zimmer was a collaborator, beat the likes of Sir Paul McCartney, Olivia Dean and Ex-Little Mix star Jade to scoop the £25,000 prize.
First pop album to win
It is the first pop record to win the prize – which has recognised the best British or Irish album of the last 12 months since 1994.
Speaking to the BBC afterwards, Raye said she’d “poured everything I had” into the record – which was delayed by almost a year after all of her songwriting books and demos were stolen.
Straying from the norm
- Of the last 35 winners, 20 have been debut albums – from artists including Arctic Monkeys, Suede and Franz Ferdinand.
- Many people have mistakenly assumed the Mercury Price is dedicated to first albums – but this year’s shortlist included only two: Dove Ellis’s , and Jade’s .
A blow to record company execs
Raye’s win acts as a symbolic blow to mainstream music executives.
In 2021, the singer publicly cut ties with her former record label after accusing them of withholding her debut album for years.
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Rewarding the gritty long-form
Across 17 tracks and 73 minutes, Raye’s record tells a cinematic story about the end of a relationship where she emerges stronger and more resilient.
This year’s awards appeared to celebrate that gritty, long-form format over bubbly singles or TikTok-trending tracks.
Florence + The Machine now joint highest nominee with no wins
Florence + The Machine are now the Mercury’s joint highest nominee without winning, tying with Radiohead on five unconverted nominations.
Paul McCartney also missed out, alongside Britpop band Suede, rapper Dave, Knats, and debut star Dove Ellis.
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Crystal Palace urged to retire bald eagle mascot – what we know
An animal rights group is urging Crystal Palace to retire their live bald eagle mascot with immediate effect.
The group, Peta, has argued that a “bright stadium filled with boisterous fans is no place for animals”.
What you need to know
- Peta asked the Premier League club to stop using the eagle, named Phoenix, in pre-match displays at Selhurst Park and to never use live animal mascots again.
- The London team, known as the Eagles since 1973, introduced a live eagle to matchdays in 2010.
- Kayla, who died in 2020, performed the role for 10 years and her replacement, Phoenix, made her debut against West Ham in 2024.
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The impact on birds
- Peta says birds can become “frightened, disoriented and panicked” in stadium environments, putting themselves and fans at risk.
- Using them for entertainment means the animals cannot engage with their natural instincts, leading to “stress”, Peta added.
The organisation has “detailed records” of incidents involving live mascots being injured in these kinds of environments.
The UK is braced for “damaging” winds and heavy downpours with two named storms expected to wreak disruption on Friday and over the weekend.
Storm Austen, the first named storm of the season, could bring gusts of up to 80mph to parts of south-west England, with 60-70mph winds expected widely in the region.
Where will be worst-hit?
The Met Office has issued an amber warning for wind, covering , and the Isles of Scilly, coming into effect from 1am and remaining in place until 10am.
- Strong winds will be combined with spells of heavy rain, though gusts will gradually ease over Friday.
- The forecaster said Storm Austen is “likely to bring some disruption and possible damaging winds” and warned of disruption on the roads.
- Flying debris is “likely”, and the storm will “probably” bring some damage to buildings.
- In coastal areas, large waves could pose a danger to life.
The story so far in pictures
The impact of the storm
Power cuts have affected more than 9,000 homes in Cornwall and Devon.
Flights to and from Exeter airport have been cancelled.
Great Western Railway (GWR) has imposed speed limits on routes between Devon and Cornwall.
Network Rail Scotland also said its trains will also be slowed down in areas with heavy rain.
The expert view
This is the first stormy weather in the south of the UK this season and we expect some disruption as it moves through. With trees in leaf, it is likely fallen branches and trees could obstruct roads and railways so take extra care on the Friday morning commute.
Neil Armstrong, Chief met office forecaster
The autumn jobs gardeners are getting wrong – and the easy fixes
Advice changes over time
Digging over the soil
Standard advice has been to dig soil every autumn. But according to organic gardener Charles Dowding, soil should be disturbed as little as possible.
Clearing dead leaves
Raking fallen leaves can be counterproductive. Leaves on flower beds are a useful source of organic matter.
Bird feeding
While new studies suggest bird feeders can spread disease.
Save birdseed for colder months
A disease called trichomonosis can spread to greenfinches and chaffinches via birdfeeders. Greenfinch numbers have dropped by 60 per cent in the UK since the 1990s, mainly due to this disease.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said this year people should only offer birdseed and peanuts from November to April, when the cold kills off the parasite.
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A more laissez-faire approach
Leave the mess
Once flower beds have died back, it is tempting to neaten things up. But seed heads are a food source for birds, while leaves can become shelters for insects that are fodder for robins, wrens and goldcrests.
No crocks in pots
Standard advice is to put a layer of coarse material at the bottom of every pot to improve drainage. But this can actually saturate the compost even more – which we don’t want.
Europe’s record-breaking summer killed 50,000 people
More than 50,000 people are estimated to have died across Europe as a result of this summer’s record-breaking heatwaves, according to a new study.
Researchers estimate there were 4,354 excess deaths in the UK alone this summer.
Excess deaths have doubled
The number of excess deaths across Europe doubled in 2026, in comparison with last year – far surpassing the previous record of 29,000 deaths.
This was recorded in 2022 when the continent again endured exceptionally high temperatures, and the UK experienced 40°C for the first time.
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Heat worsens underlying conditions
What are excess deaths?
Excess deaths are those that occur outside of the number that would occur under normal conditions. Heat is often dubbed a “silent killer” that can worsen underlying health conditions, resulting in more deaths.
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Death toll may be higher in reality
30°C
According to the Met Office, the UK saw its hottest ever summer this year with five widespread heatwaves, and 40 days where the temperature was above 30°C.
Mainland Europe experienced its third hottest summer.
40%
Researchers looked at 854 urban areas in 30 European countries.
Because the study only looked at urban areas –roughly 40 per cent of each country’s population– researchers believe the death toll could be an underestimate.
Countries hardest hit by heat
According to the study, published in , southern and western Europe were hardest hit.
There were an estimated 22,000 deaths among those aged 85 and over. However, researchers noted that an estimated 6,000 people under the age of 65 are also likely to have died as a result of heat.
Around a third of the deaths took place in late June – before people had a chance to acclimatise to the weather, and when average temperatures across Europe were more than 5°C above normal levels.
- Italy experienced the highest number of excess deaths (13,303)
- Followed by France (7,268)
- And then the UK (4,354)
The expert view
It is yet another reminder both of the imperative of rolling out targeted interventions to protect those who are most vulnerable to this increasingly extreme heat, and of the growing need to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels.
Dr Clair Barnes, extreme weather and climate change researcher at Imperial College
NHS Mounjaro roll-out plan deemed ‘unambitious’ by MPs
Current plans for rolling out weight-loss drug Mounjaro on the NHS “are unambitious” and reach a “woefully small number of people”, MPs have said.
What you need to know
6%
Only around 6 per cent of eligible people will get or currently receive Mounjaro on the NHS in its first three years, with millions more turning to private firms, according to the Commons Health and Social Care Committee.
MPs also used their report to call for obesity to be treated as a long-term condition like diabetes, and said people suffer relapses.
- They pointed to the “two-tier system” that has developed for access to drugs, adding: “The Government must urgently reassess the pace of roll out of Mounjaro.”
As a first step, the department should hold a summit on GLP-1 access with a range of providers and healthcare professionals to open a dialogue on how best to improve the roll out.
A closer look at the detail
- In June 2024, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) recommended Mounjaro as an option for managing overweight and obesity.
- The NHS has also approved semaglutide (Wegovy) for obese people, though many get their prescriptions privately due to a lack of access on the NHS.
- With Mounjaro, the NHS estimated 2.8 million patients would be eligible and, if all presented within the first year of availability, the cost would be £15.2bn over five years.
The gradual roll out of Mounjaro
As a result, Nice agreed to NHS England’s request that the roll out of Mounjaro should be done gradually, MPs said.
The NHS has been giving access to 220,000 people over three years, with the Health Foundation saying this makes up only around 6 per cent of those who would be eligible based on Nice’s recommendation.
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- In their report on obesity, MPs said a new framework is needed to “include ambitious targets for the proportion of a local population that should be able to access GLP-1s”.
- Data suggests more than 2.37 million packs of GLP-1s are being prescribed every month in the UK, “with the vast majority of these being accessed privately”, the study said.
to give NHS doctors ‘second pair of eyes’ on MRI scans
A number of AI programmes are set to be used by the NHS in England to help doctors spot prostate cancer on MRI scans.
The technologies would act like a “second pair of eyes” for medics, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) said.
What you need to know
The NHS spending watchdog has recommended five tools in new draft guidance, which will be used on the health service for two years while evidence is gathered on how they work.
The technologies are designed to help radiologists by highlighting areas on prostate scans where cancer may be present.
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Pressure on radiologists
- According to Nice, demand for prostate MRI has increased, as pre-biopsy scans are now included to confirm or rule out the disease.
- This has put pressure on radiology teams, which are already stretched because of workforce pressures.
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The expert view
These AI technologies have the potential to act like a second pair of eyes, helping radiologists review prostate MRI scans. They have the potential to make MRI reporting more accurate and could help identify people whose scans need priority review.
Dr Anastasia Chalkidou, programme director for HealthTech at Nice
All the options for lower energy bills that could be in the Budget
Energy bills remain a major concern for families across the UK. The PM has asked ministers “to look at whether we can remove standing charges from gas bills” and has already cut VAT from electricity bills. However, experts argue that’s not enough.
So, what measures could Chancellor John Healey announce at the Budget to make energy more affordable?
Abolish the standing charge
- Andy Burnham has asked the Chancellor and Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh to remove standing charges from energy bills.
- This would remove the component of households’ dual fuel bills which is charged regardless of how much energy is being used.
- According to energy research centre Nesta, the typical household would save £27 a year under this system.
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VAT removed from energy bills
VAT on household electricity was cut from 5 per cent to zero from 1 October, but only until the end of the 2026-27 financial year on 31 March.
It is saving the typical household £45 a year on their bills.
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Targeted support
- Some experts have called for the Government to deliver targeted support above the current Warm Home Discount which provides a one-off £150 rebate on energy bills for low-income or pensioner households.
- Energy UK said this could come in the form of an increased amount for those eligible or as a debt relief scheme for billpayers – not penalising those who fall behind on bills.
Expand support to people on benefits
Citizens Advice has called for expanded support for people in receipt of child benefit and personal independence payments (PIP).
This, the charity says, will protect households with children and disabled households who need help over the coldest months of the year, but currently fall outside the means-tested benefits criteria.
General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, the Royal Navy’s chief, warned earlier this year that Russia could attack the UK’s underwater cables during day one of any conflict with Nato. And reported this week that Russia has been deploying fishing trawlers to spy on key sea cables around the British Isles.
“They will definitely be interested in the cables landing in Cornwall or Suffolk, and, in addition to exploiting land-based vulnerabilities, are likely looking for weak spots much further ashore as well,” said Katja Bego, author of Deep Connections: The Hidden Battles to Control Subsea Cables.
The seaside spots ‘especially vulnerable’ to sabotage
Despite worrying signs that Moscow is monitoring cable routes out at sea, the biggest threat of sabotage may lie at remote spots along Britain’s coastline. A parliamentary report published last September warned that the landing stations where the cables reach shore may be “the most vulnerable part of the system”.
The UK has around 60 civilian cables connecting to the outside world, carrying 99 per cent of our data, according to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS). As an island nation, they are vital for connecting Britons to the global internet.
While military cables are a carefully-guarded secret, civilian cables are operated by private companies and the landing stations housing them are not concealed.
In its September report, the JCNSS said security risks were intensified by the fact that many landing stations house multiple cables, with the sleepy Cornish town of Bude housing nine alone. The i Paper understands there are several landing stations in the Bude area connecting these cables with data centres elsewhere in the country, though the exact number is unknown.
Lowestoft in Suffolk is also an area of concern, with five cables running into it, according to the report. Blackpool in Lancashire, Highbridge in Somerset and the coastal stretch near Ramsgate and Broadstairs in Kent also host multiple cables.
The committee warned of “worrying levels” of concentration. “Some could be rendered inoperable by sabotage,” the report stated. “Cyber attacks are a further worry.”
Bego, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, and Alasdair Wilkie of the Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair Agreement told The i Paper large numbers of cables had been laid close together in certain seaside locations for practicality and cost reasons – not designed with an attack in mind.
“It makes it especially vulnerable to the targeting of clusters of cables or sabotage on land – if someone wanted to target landing stations,” Bego said.
The system is resilient enough to reroute data if one cable is attacked, she said. But a large number of cables being cut at the same time could be “quite catastrophic” to Britain’s digital communications, she added.
Wilkie said there was enough “redundancy” within the network that data could be re-routed if one cable was damaged.
“The most potentially vulnerable points are on land. It is potentially easier to disrupt there,” he said. “The industry needs to look at the Russian threat, and threat from other bad actors – it’s something we’re monitoring. But the Russians need the cables too – they need them for their own propaganda. So they may be keen to know where they all are, but I think they understand that damaging them could hurt them too.”
As the JCNSS report said: “We agree that severe disruption risks are low… But given the deteriorating security environment and the UK’s growing military role in Europe, we can no longer rule out the possibility of UK infrastructure being targeted in a crisis. We are also not confident that the UK could prevent such attacks or recover within an acceptable time period.”
Putin ‘definitely interested’ in cable stations
So far, sabotage has mainly been done at sea – including a Russian “shadow fleet” tanker that dragged its anchor along the seabed between Finland and Estonia for almost 60 miles in December 2024.
Some £65bn of UK economic activity relies on the subsea cables, including fibre optic cables, according to the government.
The found more than 500 incidents in which Russia-linked fishing vessels hovered above sections of cables. One of the vessels reportedly crossed back and forth over two cables that run from Bude: Google’s transatlantic Grace Hopper cable, and Amitie, which links Britain with Europe.
Any attack on subsea infrastructure would require the exact position of cables on the seabed, say experts. Russian fishing vessels may be spying to give Moscow “even more granular detail” on precise cable routes, Bego said.
Surfers and anglers at Bude would be unlikely to see Putin’s spy boats from the beach, she added. The Russians will probably want to exploit any vulnerabilities on land or are “likely looking for weak spots much further ashore” – rather than in harbour bays or surfing waters.
‘We do feel quite vulnerable’
Google’s Grace Hopper data cable was pictured being laid at Crooklets Beach in Bude in 2021. Several of the area’s cables converge inland at a terminal building at Skewjack, the site of a historic RAF base, further south in Cornwall.
The county is also home to a GCHQ monitoring base near Bude and to HMNB Devonport, the biggest naval base in Western Europe, adding to the risk of “hybrid” Russian sabotage in the region.
Recent months have seen an increase in “grey-zone” warfare that several European governments have attributed to Russia – including arson attacks and infrastructure sabotage.
“It means we have to focus our efforts on where they are most needed – on the most important cables, and in the areas of greatest vulnerability.”
“I suppose we do feel quite vulnerable here,” he said. “It’s partly because of the GCHQ station in the area too. I guess you hope security is in place.”
He added: “The sea cables – it may be a threat, but it’s such an abstract thing. Everyone is too busy getting on with their lives. There’s an element of wilful, blissful ignorance about it.”
Mike Cohen, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, felt similarly. “It should be relatively easy to work out which fishing vessels are not actually fishing, looking at satellite data and speeds,” he told The i Paper. “That’s not something that’s our responsibility. I would have thought it’s the military’s responsibility.”
Last year’s JCNSS report recommended that security should be strengthened at sea cable landing stations. The government should also encourage cable providers to connect to land away from “high-concentration” points, it said.
Bego echoed the concern, saying: “There’s not quite enough diversity of locations.”
On Thursday, the Government unveiled plans for new legislation that will increase prison sentences for intentional damage to undersea infrastructure from five to 14 years. Telecoms minister Ian Murray said he hoped it would “deter some of those commercial proxies that might be doing the work for hostile state actors”.
The Government has been contacted for further comment. The Russian embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.