THE BIG STORIES
Carney is Canada’s next Prime Minister | Russia advances ahead of talks | Businesses torched

📣 Canada’s next Prime Minister will be a familiar face: Mark Carney, 59, will replace Justin Trudeau after a landslide win in the ruling Liberal Party’s leadership election, in which he secured 85.9% of the vote.

He’s a man for a crisis. Previously, he ran the Bank of England - the first noncitizen to do so in its history - through Brexit. Before that, he won plaudits for his leadership of Canada’s central bank through the financial crisis. Now he has to pilot his country through Donald Trump’s trade war, and continued talk of making the nation the “51st US state”.

“The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country,” he said in his victory speech. “If they succeed, they will destroy our way of life.” He’s expected to call an election soon. (AP)

• Mark Carney: the “boring guy” whose economic acumen could help Canada tackle Trump (Guardian)

• “The bookish Mr Carney has at times struck the pose of a defiant brawler during his campaign.” (Economist £)

📣 Russia has made advances in the Kursk region, the pocket of territory in Russia that Ukraine seized seven months ago. Their moves follow the US withdrawal of intelligence it was previously sharing with Ukraine, and come ahead of talks this week between the US and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia. (Guardian)

• Russian special forces walked for miles inside a gas pipeline to strike Ukrainian units from the rear, it is being claimed (Independent)

• The Kursk region is Ukraine’s only territorial bargaining counter (CNN)

📣 Several business units in Inverness were destroyed after a car was deliberately driven into them and set alight. A man wearing dark clothes and a balaclava was seen running from the scene. (BBC)

IDEAS
Catching up on the weekend

Just in case you were too busy enjoying the rugby / football / weather (good for you!)… a few reads that caught my eye from the weekend’s media

🗣️ Rishi Sunak has offered perhaps his highest-profile intervention since leaving Downing Street last summer, with a thread on X saying: “It’s time to make Putin pay”. Sunak, still an MP but also working at Stanford and Oxford Universities, says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused $524 billion of damage to cities, industry and lives. “The world must ensure that Russia, not Western taxpayers, foots the bill for Ukraine’s recovery,” he writes. There are £300 billion in Russian state assets frozen in Western financial systems. He says there are legal ways to seize that money, on the principle that “if you destroy another nation, you should pay for the damage”. He set out the full moral case for the action in the Sunday Times (although if you don’t have a subscription, you’ll get the thread from the thread). (The Sunday Times £)

🗣️Regular readers know I’ve done lots on Scottish University funding here in recent weeks, so I was interested in Scotland on Sunday’s splash: ministers are being urged to arrange a summit to discuss the issue “amid claims the current system is ‘all but dead’”, the paper reported. “The warning comes as recently published accounts show at least seven of 18 Scottish higher education institutions reported an operational deficit for 2023/24, up from four in the previous year.” (Scotland on Sunday)

🗣️It was the fifth anniversary of the Covid epidemic yesterday: most of us would, I suspect, prefer not to dwell on that time. But many have no choice, of course: they lost loved ones, suffer from long Covid, saw businesses ruined or - of course - are engaged in the inquiries underway to look at the nation’s response. The Observer has gone deep on data to examine the UK’s response, finding that the UK performed worse than most developed nations in its response. “The UK spent more money than most other countries on economic help,” the newspaper pointed out, “yet still ended up with larger drops in life expectancy, more people too sick to work, huge levels of homelessness and soaring mental health problems among young people.” (The Observer)

🗣️Kevin McKenna gave the SNP both barrels in the Herald on Sunday, taking aim at what he calls John Swinney’s “What’s Like Us” summit, called to unite against the far right in Scotland. “It’s when political chancers like Mr Swinney have started to channel ideas about exceptionalism and tribal superiority that history’s biggest problems have started,” he wrote. “Here’s the tragic irony, though. Many decent people have indicated support for Reform UK because the SNP has itself become a haven for frauds and extremists.” Moreover, “Every overpaid, non-achieving scoundrel and mountebank grifting and scavenging on the public purse will be at John Swinney’s worthless convocation,” he warned. (The Herald £)

🗣️Speaking of the right… Reform is being gripped by the sort of internal fighting that would make the nastiest golf club committee blush. The Sunday Telegraph had the detail, should you want to know what is going on inside Nigel Farage’s party. Farage claims it’s all about the behaviour of Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe, rather than the fact Lowe was tipped by Elon Musk - in what, in January, appeared a bizarre intervention - as a future leader of Reform. Lowe has now had the whip removed and a complaint made to police. (The Telegraph £)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Scrap working from home and ban school exclusions: that’s the call from a crime reduction expert who describes exclusion as “an infection” that breeds criminality, while WFH goes against a human need to connect. (The Times £)

📣 A boy aged 14 has been arrested and charged in connection with the death of schoolboy Amen Teklay in Glasgow last week. (STV)

📣 TV presenter Guy Greive has accused Peel Ports Clydeport of “staggering money-grubbing cynicism” over plans to charge small boats to sail on the Clyde. (Times)

AROUND THE UK

📣 More support for people in poor health to say in work could save the UK government more than £1 billion, according to the Commission for Healthier Working Lives. Separately, the TUC says the number of sick days in UK workplaces has soared by a third since 2010, costing the economy £400m a week. (Guardian)

📣 English councils say there has been no private school exodus after VAT was added to school fees. Their feedback echos similar claims of little impact in Scotland. (Guardian)

📣 The weekend was mild for many but we could be set for a very cold week ahead of a possible “polar vortex collapse” later in the month - one of those was responsible for the “beast from the east” of 2018. (Independent)

📣 A whippet won Crufts. (BBC)

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

💰 Donald Trump has refused to rule out a US recession, saying the economy will face a “transition” as it fights a trade war with its closest trading partners. (BBC)

📣 Hackers working for North Korea have successfully cashed out at least $300 million of their record-breaking $1.5 billion cryptocurrency heist. The company they successfully hacked is offering a bounty to members of the public who can help trace the funds. (BBC)

💰 Drivers are being “confused” by the transition to electric vehicles, the AA has warned, with a fifth saying they would never buy one. A third thought manual EVs exist - they don’t - and 7% thought the government was banning the sale of used petrol and diesel cars. (Sky News)

SPORT

⚽️ Celtic’s tilt at the treble is still on after they eased past Hibs at Parkhead yesterday in the Scottish Cup. Daizen Maeda got the opener - his 27th of the season - with Adam Idah adding one in stoppage time. Premier Sports offered up pitchside views of both goals on X. (Maeda’s) (Idah’s)

⚽️ They join Hearts and Aberdeen in the semi finals - Livingston play St Johnstone tonight to complete the set. That game is live on BBC Scotland and iPlayer (7.45pm).

⚽️ Arsenal could only manage a draw at Old Trafford yesterday, leaving them 15 points behind Liverpool, but Mikel Arteta has refused to concede the title race is over. (Guardian)

🏉 Scotland overcame Wales on Saturday, but only just, and after a second-half performance (and substitutions) that left many fans shaking their heads. The mission now is to be “party-poopers” on Saturday night when they take on title-chasing France in the final game of this season’s Six Nations. (The Scotsman)