In your briefing today:

📣 A row is brewing over Royal homes after the National Audit Office revealed Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor sublet Royal Lodge cottages to supplement his income, while paying peppercorn rent himself. (Independent)

📣 Peter Murrell will offer to repay the full amount he admitted embezzling from the SNP when he faces sentencing later this month. That stolen amount - £400,310.55 - is less than his assets, which include that notorious £100,000 motorhome, more than £600,000 in pensions, and property - in his and Nicola Sturgeon’s name - of £88,632. (Herald)

📣 There’s growing anger at FIFA’s organisation of the World Cup, which starts in North America next week.

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📣 A leaked review of Labour’s election defeat in Scotland last month shows the party is reviewing its links to UK Labour, after Keir Starmer was blamed for its poor performance. (Daily Record has the exclusive)

📣 A new £56 million secondary school in Dumfries opens its doors to pupils today. (BBC)

📣 A Scottish gang boss has complained his deportation from Bali earlier this year was like a “kidnapping”, and is contesting his extradition from the Netherlands to Spain to face organised crime charges. (BBC)

📣 Former Manchester United striker Alan Brazil, now a fixture on TalkSport radio, has revealed he had a liver transplant “after years of all-day drinking sessions”. (Mail)

📣 Andy Burnham has confirmed he’ll look to enter any Labour leadership contest should he win the Makerfield by-election on 18 June. This… is not a surprise, but it’s the first time he’s confirmed his ambitions. (BBC)

📣 The threats to the UK are now greater than at any point since the Cold War, according to the head of the UK’s military. Sir Richard Knighton’s warning comes ahead of the expected publication of the Defence Investment Plan in the coming weeks, which is likely to be controversial. (BBC)

📣 Israel and Lebanon have agreed to renew their ceasefire: they plan to continue talks for a more comprehensive deal later this month. (AP)

📣 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for face-to-face negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a public letter. (Guardian)

⚽️ “Rusty” Ben Gannon-Doak could find himself losing out on a starting place for Scotland to on-fire Findlay Curtis after the latter’s fine performance last weekend against Curacao. Gannon-Doak may get a final chance to impress in a friendly against Bolivia tomorrow. (Daily Record)

⚽️ Sixty-seven Celtic supporters’ groups have signed a letter demanding Robbie Keane is not appointed as manager because of the time he spent at Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv during the conflict in Gaza. (Sun)

⚽️ Andoni Irala has been confirmed as the new Liverpool head coach, and says he understands “what is expected” in his new role. (BBC)

🗣️ The Economist spies a great threat to liberalism: what it calls “Gen-Z socialism”. It’s a new brand of leftism, “made for the TikTok era”, that’s what today’s young revolutionaries support, the newspaper says.

What is it? “Forget weighty collectivist ideals or seizing the means of production. Gen-Z socialism is a me-first doctrine,” it says. It offers a quote from Avi Lewis, the new leader of the New Democratic Party in Canada, by way of explaining the philosophy: “This country is away in wealth,” says Lewis. “We can have nice things”.

Those nice things for all are paid for by billionaires and corporations. “Saying that prices should be capped to keep your bills down while someone else pays for your public services is a seductive, shareable message,” the magazine notes in a leader.

It’s time for free market liberals to stop apologising and get evangelising, it concludes. “A punchier defence of capitalism would work better in the social-media age than hand-wringing by uncharismatic centrists like Sir Keir Starmer.” (The Economist (£))

🗣️The Spectator wonders if Nigel Farage, that perennial challenger, can see a challenge of his own: that of Restore Britain. The hard right group, which demands mass deportation and the banning of the burka, has a membership drawn from “the dejected and the rejected”, writes James Heale.

The party is led by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe, who fell out spectacularly with Farage last year. And, aside from his harder-right line on key policies, it has some other differences to Reform: it’s very online, largely thanks to key activists gaining their political spurs in online culture wars over the last decade.

Farage’s big problem: Restore is further splintering the right, which could hand Andy Burnham and Labour victory in the Mackerfield by-election, and cause problems in a later general election. That’s causing some schadenfreude among Conservatives.(Spectator (£))

🗣️ Speaking of that Mackerfield by-election: The New Statesman surveys the constituency to discover the issues and values which will decide the election.

Their experiment: create two focus groups of five people each, all of whom voted for Labour in 2024. In one group, everyone who plans to switch to Reform. In group two, those who are still undecided.

What did it uncover? In group one, a visceral hatred for Keir Starmer and the government they voted for only two years ago. Members of the cabinet other than Starmer were either unknown, or fared no better. They blamed immigration for problems in society, and didn’t trust claims immigration had fallen dramatically.

They had a far more positive view of Reform, although there was still hesitation - a fear they might be no different from Labour. A vote for Farage was a last roll of the dice, and there was fear about what would happen in the country if he did not deliver.

The second group had a darker view of Reform, and was motivated in keeping them out of power. But they shared a despair about politics, and their country, with the first group.

Against this bleak outlook, one thing the groups understood was the importance of the vote they take later this month. “It needs people like us to make that choice,” said one woman, who plans to vote for Reform. (New Statesman (£))

🗣️ How many men alive have scored in a World Cup final? It turns out there are only 34. It’s football’s most exclusive club: photographer Michael Donald set out to photograph them all, in a project that took him to 13 countries over four years. His feature in this week’s New World magazine is easily the most charming of the week.

One example: his meeting with Dick Nanninga, now a kitchen and bathroom salesman in a village in northern Belgium. Dick scored for Holland in their defeat to Argentina in 1978. He keeps a karaoke medal in his World Cup medal box - he doesn’t know where the runners-up medal is.

Later, in his local pub, “The landlady asked me who we were, why we were there. ‘We’re here because of Dick,’ I said.

“Rolling her eyes, she said: ‘Oh, what’s he done now?’ When I told her, she just smiled, clearly not believing me. In all the years he had been going there, he had never mentioned that he had scored a goal in the World Cup final.” (The New World)

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