The peace is real now. The strait is still a trickle.

Today the thing we have doubted for four mornings finally happened: the interim peace between the United States and Iran took effect, and oil fell on the news. Brent slipped toward $78 a barrel, US pump prices dropped below $4 a gallon for the first time in months, and the war that began with American and Israeli strikes on 28 February has, for now, stopped. The two presidents have signed a memorandum of understanding; the International Atomic Energy Agency says it is ready to verify Iran's pledge to dilute its enriched uranium. After four months, this is real.

For the British reader the relief is showing, slowly, at the forecourt. Petrol averaged 155.54p a litre in the week to 15 June, down more than 2p on the week; diesel fell over 5p to 176.71p. That is the war leaving a British number — though both are still around 24p a litre dearer than a year ago. The Bank of England's rate-setters announce at noon today, and the Middle-East energy shock is the cloud they have spent the spring deciding under.

Now the part the victory lap skips. The threat board in the Gulf has been downgraded, but only from "severe" to "substantial" — not to clear. On Tuesday, six tankers were among just thirteen commercial ships to cross Hormuz; before the war, more than a hundred passed daily. A US-led naval coalition told shippers the danger had lessened, not lifted. Iran's first crude in two months has sailed and three Saudi supertankers have gone through, but a trade analyst at Kpler put it flatly: the reopening "tells you almost nothing" yet. Demining runs on a thirty-day clock; insurers, exhausted crews and cautious owners each move on their own.

So the gap we have tracked all week — between "open" on paper and "flowing" in fact — has narrowed, not closed. The deal is signed; the water is inching. That distance is exactly why the barrel reprices in a morning while your energy bill answers over months, and only if the calm holds.

Britain, again, watched this settled over its head — brokered by Washington with Tehran, on a G7 sideline, with a French offer of jets and a carrier to help patrol the strait waved away. A country that buys its energy at world prices and writes none of the terms is left to do what it has done for four months: wait for the tankers, and pay whatever the water decides.