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In your briefing today:

• Nato’s chief and the UK’s defence secretary have given separate warnings that Europe must prepare for war with Russia.

• John Swinney continues to stand by his Justice Secretary Angela Constance

• Scotland’s clubs had another dire night in Europe, with two of the three now unable to progress to latter stages.

📣 Europe must prepare for war “on the scale our grandparents endured”, Nato’s secretary general has warned, in one of the starkest warnings yet to the West about Russia’s military ambitions.

“We are Russia’s text target,” warned Rutte in a speech delivered in Berlin yesterday. “And we are already in harm’s way.” (Independent)

• The Mail splashes with a similar warning from Britain’s Armed Forces minister Al Carns, who says the country is on a “war footing” and also warns the “shadow of war [is] at Europe’s door”. (Mail)

• Speaking at the launch of a new British Military Intelligence Service Carns said Europe is not facing “wars of choice” anymore but “wars of necessity” with a high human cost. (Politico)

📣 John Swinney has dismissed calls to sack Justice Secretary Angela Constance over claims she misled the Scottish Parliament over a grooming gangs inquiry. Constance has been accused of wrongly claiming grooming gangs expert Professor Alexis Jay “did not support further inquiries” into abuse and exploitation. Opposition MSPs are backing a motion of no confidence, but Swinney says Constance had “clarified” her comments about Prof Jay’s views. (BBC)

📣 The US wants to persuade four European countries to leave the EU according to a longer, unreleased version of the US National Security Strategy. Austria, Hungary, Italy and Poland are listed as countries with which the US should work “with the goal of pulling them away from the [European Union], it says.

The classified version of the document also refers to “civilisational erasure” in Europe because of mass immigration and multiculturalism. (Defense One has the exclusive) (The Times £)

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AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Nurse Sandie Peggie says she will appeal an employment tribunal rulings against NHS Fife, amid growing evidence of errors in the judgement and calls for employment judge Sandy Kemp, who heard the case, to explain his work. (Scotsman)

• Part of the trans rights tribunal decision has been revised after claims an incorrect quote from a previous case was used. (Mail)

• Peggy ruling correction has shamed the Scottish justice system (Daily Record)

📣 Football supporters’ groups have called for the World Cup ticket sale to be halted after it was revealed ticket prices for Scotland games start at £133 a seat. (The Sun)

📣 14 Scottish communities, scattered across the country, are to share £280 million of revitalisation funding. (BBC)

📣 The editor of the Times and Sunday Times in Scotland has been suspended from his job after being charged over indecent online communications. (BBC)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 The “super flu” surge will bring the NHS a challenge “unlike anything it has seen since the pandemic,” says health secretary Wes Streeting. He also warns that a planned strike by resident doctors in England would be the “Jenga piece that collapses the tower”. (The Times £) (BBC)

• Should you wear a mask in public if you feel unwell? (Guardian)

📣 Britain’s new train timetable goes live this weekend: it’s “squeaky bum time” ahead of what will be a sweeping change intended to bring more trains, greater reliability and faster journeys. (Guardian)

📣 Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro says all the US wants, amid its escalating pressure on him and the South American nation, is all down to one thing: oil. Is there more to it than that? (BBC)

SPORT

⚽️ It was another miserable night for Scottish clubs in Europe. All three clubs suffered disappointing defeats, with two of three now out of Europe before Christmas.

• Celtic sank 3-0 to Roma at Parkhead, their second home defeat in a row under new boss Wilfried Nancy. He left pundits unimpressed when he said he was “not concerned” by the situation he’s in. (Daily Record) (🎥 Highlights)

• By contrast Rangers boss Danny Rohl was furious at his side’s defending, saying they destroyed their own good work in a 2-1 defeat at Ferencvaros. They’re all but out of the Europa League. (Daily Record) (🎥 Highlights)

• Aberdeen are also out of Europe after their disappointing 1-0 defeat at home to Strasbourg. “Prize money and pride is all that is left to play for,” writes Mark Atkinson. (Scotsman) (🎥 Highlights)

IDEAS
How to stop the populist right | The man who knew Nigel Farage at school | How the Christmas message is for all | Prince’s accuser is Person of the Year

🗣️ Across Europe, talk of how to stop the populist right occupies much of the thought of our elected leaders. So The Economist’s cover this week - Can anyone stop Europe’s populist right - is timely.

The newspaper warns that apocalyptic warnings of what might happen should the far right gain office - last week, Keir Starmer warned Reform UK was a challenge “to the very essence of who we are as a nation” - are pointless.

“The doctrines of the populist right do indeed contain much to condemn,” The Economist says in a leader. “Yet talking about them in apocalyptic terms is doomed to fail. For their own sake, and for the good of their countries, mainstream politicians and their supporters urgently need a different approach.”

What should that approach be?

It starts with adopting some of the populists’ impatience for change. And then submitting some of the populists’ policies to proper, public scrutiny - rather than outright dismissal and demonisation. Only then will electorates learn that the populists would destroy growth, tackle issues that are fading in importance and be cruel.

Voters should also worry more about geopolitics, suggests the newspaper: populists’ “weakness for the autocrats in Russia and China” aren’t in our interests - or very popular - either. (Economist £)

🗣️David Edmonds went to school with Nigel Farage, and writes in The New Statesman about what he heard. He’s one of around 20 former classmates who have come forward with details of the Reform UK leader’s schoolboy racism - allegations which, it should be noted, Farage denies. Reform UK says these “latest attacks” are “a naked attempt to discredit Reform and Nigel Farage.”

What does Edmonds remember? A school career of racism, right until his departure aged 18. He remembers much more than mere banter. And he dismisses claims of conspiracy: he says understanding Farage matters given he has ambitions for high office.

He also has a confession. “Farage is the most prejudiced person I’ve ever met,” he says. “But when I knew him (really from the ages of 14 to 16; our paths then diverged at A-level), I didn’t dislike him. Although I’m Jewish, I was not the target, unlike others, of anti-Semitic abuse.

“I feel ashamed now that I didn’t do more to call him out. My excuses are weak. It was a different time, when the National Front were on the rise, and football terraces were full of skinheads giving Nazi salutes. And I suppose I was cowardly.” (New Statesman £)

🗣️The far right features in The Spectator’s Christmas message, which delves deep into the meaning of the festival and calls for religious leaders not to make their message more relevant to this world, but “more radical in transcending it”.

It notes Tommy Robinson’s proposed carol concert, “at an as yet undisclosed London location, proclaimed as the event to put ‘Christ back into Christmas’”. It notes that the juxtaposition of the traditional Christmas story with Robinson’s would “offend most mainstream sensibilities.

“Established churches across the country have reacted with horror and disdain at the former football hooligan and recent prison inmate claiming to be Christianity’s champion this Christmas.”

And yet… the magazine also notes in its leader that “it is no endorsement of Mr Yaxley-Lennon’s politics or lifestyle to recall that Jesus himself proclaimed his good news was for everyone.

“We cannot glimpse into the souls of individuals and weigh the precise merits of their professions of faith. What we should do is recall the example of Jesus, whose love was not rationed and whose message was for all mankind.” (The Spectator £)

🗣️The New World names Virginia Giuffre their person of the year: a year which was “the year of her vengeance”, but also of her death, by suicide, on April 25.

“History will recall her as the woman who took down a prince,” writes Sonia Socha. “But Virginia Giuffre was so much more than that: a brave survivor of sexual abuse who spoke out about the horrors she experienced at the hands of some of the world’s most powerful men.” (The New World £)

👍 That’s your Early Line for the day

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