An Army veteran who crashed a tanker laden with 2,000 litres of fuel into his estranged wife's home in an attempt to destroy it has been jailed for seven years.

A strike by fuel tankers looked increasingly likely last night after union officials voted against a proposed deal and urged their members to do the same.

David Cameron conceded today that his Government must “raise our game” as he sought to fight back after a “difficult” month of intense criticism of key policies and its handling of a series of controversial situations.

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British voters are yearning for old fashioned values like solidarity, Ed Miliband said today.

In a letter to Energy Secretary Ed Davey, Brian Madderson of the Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI) predicted that fuel shortages caused by last week's panic buying could continue until at least the Easter weekend and possibly beyond as petrol stations struggle to restock.

A man has admitted a string of offences after driving a fuel tanker into the front of his family's bungalow.

Now that it has got the nation's motorists queuing in the forecourts, it is important for the Government that other actors in the drama play their allotted roles. The head of the Unite trade union, Len McCluskey, has been cast as the Arthur Scargill of our day, Ed Miliband as the weak leader who takes Unite's money but cannot stop it causing mayhem, and the Daily Mail has added in the "embarrassing" fact that the union official who is handling the tanker drivers' grievances is Diana Holland, the treasurer of the Labour Party.

Union says it wants to focus on peace talks to resolve the ongoing dispute.

Downing Street urged unions and oil companies today to get round the table for talks to prevent a tanker drivers' strike, as senior ministers met to draw up contingency plans to keep vital services moving.

The Royal Navy's next generation of support tankers is to be built in South Korea, it was announced today.

Trafigura, the oil trader, said that a tanker carrying disputed Sudanese oil has received permission from an English court to deliver the contents to its destination and that proceeds will be held by the court until ownership is established.

Pirates have killed the captain and chief engineer of a cargo ship they attacked off the coast of Nigeria.

The pace of life is always slow on Norfolk Island, a scenic speck of land in the Pacific Ocean settled by descendants of the Bounty mutineers.