In your briefing today:

📣 UK Chancellor John Healey is set to raise bank taxes to fund cost-of-living measures and help offset a growing crisis in the country’s public finances.

One option is to reverse cuts to the bank surcharge, made by his Conservative predecessor Jeremy Hunt, which would raise £2 billion.

Healey hinted at a move during a visit to Bangkok yesterday, where he met with the IMF and World Bank.

“My observations on the banks are just that people too often see them as big distant financial institutions, when they are hard-wired into the economic fabric,” he said. “That said, I’ve got decisions to take in the Budget, and I’ll set those out in two weeks’ time.”

Unions and think-tanks have long urged the Labour government to tax banks more heavily, but Rachel Reeves resisted the calls for fear of deterring investment. (Guardian has the exclusive)

📣 Andy Burnham travels to Scotland today on his first trip as Prime Minister in what’s being seen as an attempt to upstage the SNP’s annual conference in Aberdeen: the PM is expected to urge John Swinney to work with him on devolution when he speaks at an event in North Lanarkshire. (BBC)

📣 Bad news for Scots waiting for hip and knee replacements on the NHS: planners are considering abandoning a statutory 12-week guarantee in favour of a maximum 26-week wait by 2031, because the shorter waiting time would cost £401 million. (The Herald has the exclusive)

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📣 A police officer has been found guilty of raping a woman and a teenage girl in Shetland. Carmichael John Williamson, an officer with more than 10 years’ experience, had denied four charges, but was found guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh. (STV)

📣 New facial recognition technology being rolled out from this week could speed things up at international arrivals at Edinburgh Airport. (Herald)

📣 You’ve maybe heard about saving someone having a heart attack by applying CPR to the beat of Bee Gees hit Stayin’ Alive: music journalist Laura Kelly did just that with her husband David, who was having a cardiac arrest: she is now talking about her experience in the hope others will be saved. (Daily Record)

📣 Three children and one teacher have been killed in a shooting at a school in Oregon in the United States, with the 16-year-old shooter also killed by a “community member”. (Washington Post)

📣 Schools in Paris are facing a sexual abuse crisis as a flurry of horrific allegations are raised against staff at three schools. (New York Times)

📣 The number of ships being attacked in the Strait of Hormuz has hit a record high, BBC analysis shows: the results matter because attacks drive up energy costs. (BBC)

📣 The BBC license fee could be extended to online services in what’s being dubbed the “YouTube tax” under new plans to be unveiled by the government. (Independent)

⚽️ It was another difficult night for a Celtic side racking them up: a fourth defeat in five outings, and another heavy loss, as they slumped 4-1 to Benfica in Lisbon. It was always going to be a tough assignment against this slick Portuguese side, and the visitors had their share of bad luck, but there will be concern at how the Glasgow side were picked apart, again and again. (BBC) (🎥 Highlights)

⚽️ It was a frustrating evening in Gorgie where Hearts were within minutes of a creditable start to their Conference League campaign, 1-0 up against Denmark’s Nordjylland and having squandered chances to score more, only to see a deflected Rojkjaer strike go in. (BBC) (🎥 Highlights)

⚽️ Lisandro Martínez has apologised for his outburst over the summer transfer work of Jason Wilcox, Manchester United’s director of football (Guardian)

⚽️ FIFA President Gianni Infantino has said he’s sorry too - for attempting to sell off the World Cup - but has still been told he’s not fit to lead. (BBC)

🗣️ Britain’s economy is “ready to blow”, writes Sky News economics editor Ed Conway in the New Statesman. It’s biggest problem? A “short-sighted pursuit of cheap goods over national security [that] has left us dangerously exposed”. Or, what he calls the MoneySavingExpert economy, where cheap prices for consumers rules above all other priorities.

Conway asks if Britain’s economic model is fit for purpose in the modern world. “The MoneySavingExpert strategy of choosing the product from wherever it could be sourced most cheaply might have made sense in a world of just-in-time supply chains, where inventories were derided and those who kept stockpiles of food and fuel dismissed as crazies,” he writes.

“Might it be that, all of a sudden, stockpiles of everything from diesel to food – “iron rations” as Keynes might have called them – are relevant all over again? Perhaps it is time to reconsider an economic model that precipitated the hollowing out of the country’s industrial heartlands, all in the pursuit of cheaper stuff.” (New Statesman (£))

🗣️ The Economist hails Canada and its prime minister, Mark Carney, who it says is offering a masterclass to other “middle powers” in how to handle a dangerous world.

Confronted with a “bullying” US president to the south, with only a so-so economy and “puny” armed forces of its own, it has plenty of vulnerabilities - including the possibility the province of Alberta will, on Monday, vote in a referendum to secede.

“In fact Mr Carney is riding high,” the newspaper notes. “Polls suggest that those Albertans will probably vote to stay. And under him, Canada is doing better than you might expect.”

His successes: trade deals and symbolic agreements, such as talk of associated EU membership. In defence, switching plans from American fighter jet purchases to potential Swedish alternatives. And reform, too. “A few years ago the country’s woeful politics and ailing government seemed broken,” it notes. But Carney has managed to pull of sweeping internal reform while avoiding what is known as the “Juncker curse, named after a president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker.

“Speaking of reform, Mr Juncker once said: ‘We all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it.’ Yet Mr Carney’s popularity has been surging even as he reforms.” That’s a trick more than a few counterparts may wish to emulate. (The Economist (£))

🗣️ There is a growing rebellion against screens in schools, writes Lara Brown in The Spectator. “In the past decade, a new divide has opened in Britain’s classrooms. Not between rich and poor, clever and dull, or private and state schools, but between children still taught by teachers using whiteboards, pens and paper and those being instructed by an avatar on a screen,” she writes.

Brown highlights one popular app, used by schools, which forces children to complete reading homework on a screen - effectively banning them from using a physical book. Much maths homework has moved almost entirely online.

Yet “Education Technology platforms have almost universally failed to provide evidence that they contribute to durable learning gains,” she notes. “Only 7 per cent of British EdTech companies have ever conducted randomised controlled trials. Those that have been conducted are not conclusive.”

Now, some of the best schools are throwing out tablets and going “paper first”. But Brown frets for a future in which the privileged get teachers, while the poor have chatbots. (The Spectator (£))

🗣️The answer to murderous Russian drones? Britain’s clay pigeon shooters, suggests The Economist, which spent a day with British soldiers learning the Victorian art.

Their advantage: they use shotguns which, explains the newspaper, have shells that contain many projectiles, which spread out in the air - making them ideal for catching a bird’s wing, or a quadcopter’s propeller. (The Economist (£))

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