In your briefing today:

📣 German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called his party’s latest election rout “a disaster”, as the far-right AfD looked on track to become the largest party in the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Exit polls suggest Merz’s Christian Democratic Union dipped below the 5% threshold needed to retain any sort of presence in the regional parliament, its worst-ever election result.

The far-right’s continued success intensifies a political crisis in Germany, compounded by the Left Party's likelihood of winning the mayoralty in Berlin. Merz is now under huge pressure, with suggestions he could be replaced mid-term. (BBC)

📣 Nicola Sturgeon says the TV docudrama The Wargame is shining a light on Britain’s “threadbare” defences. She told Times Radio the intention of the show “is not to scare people, but to make people think.

“When we were filming, talking about Russian attacks on warships, we came out for a break and there was real-life news of a Russian ship firing on a yacht in the English Channel,” said the former First Minister.

“Russia is already engaged in this sort of activity and there needs to be a discussion about what that means for government, and for the wider public.” (Times)

📣 Donald Trump is stuck in a dilemma over what to do about the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. By curtailing some shipping through the Red Sea, particularly targeting Saudi vessels, they’ve managed to cause an economic shock that’s reverberating around the world, driving up fuel prices and creating shortages. Saudi Arabia, moreover, is an important ally in the war against Iran.

But if the US backs Saudi Arabia in their attacks on the Houthis, they open up another front in the Middle East - creating new pressure for a stretched US military. And the Houthis are not attacking US shipping, so far. (New York Times)

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📣 The new University term starts today with a five-day strike at the University of Dundee, where lecturers will also not take part in lectures, seminars or tutorials until after 23 October. They’re unhappy at the threat of compulsory redundancies at the troubled university. (BBC)

📣 Scotland’s A&E crisis is spreading to other parts of hospitals, medics at NHS Lanarkshire claim, with thousands waiting for surgery

📣 Balaclavas should be banned for a safer Glasgow, the city’s new council leader has suggested. (Times)

📣 The UK should “team up” with Canada and Europe in a new transatlantic economic alliance, Canada’s finance minister has suggested. (BBC)

📣 England’s largest teaching union has called for a halt to graded Ofsted school inspections, arguing they pose a “risk to life” for school staff. (BBC)

📣 A senior doctor who worked alongside Lucy Letby thinks she was used as “a scapegoat” to cover up the failures of an understaffed, high-risk unit, according to a new Sun documentary. (Sun)

⚽️ The Old Firm met for the second time in seven days, but the outcome was the same: a Rangers victory, from a side that Derek McInnes now says he’s happy to put his name to. As Thomas Duncan notes, that’s hardly a surprise: this Rangers side now bears some of the hallmarks of its manager’s style: aggressive, physical, fast. Celtic once again had no answer, losing 1-0 in the League after their 3-0 reversal last week, this time in front of their own fans. (Report & highlights)

⚽️ Also yesterday: a remarkable game at the Etihad where Manchester City were pushed all the way by Sunderland, eventually winning 5-3. (Report & highlights)

🗣️ The growing military threat from Russia continues to draw widespread coverage. We are now being prepared for an attack, and not just mentally. On the BBC, Allan Little opens his long read on our psychological readiness for conflict by reminding us the government wants us to stock up on canned food and water.

Politico reports Germany is preparing hospitals for a possible conflict, Lithuania has updated evacuation plans, and NATO troops are exercising in the Baltic region, while Belarusian forces have staged large manoeuvres near Lithuania.

The Independent carried a story saying “rogue” drones are targeting Britain’s military bases “almost daily”. The MoD isn’t saying who it thinks are behind them… but Moscow or Tehran “were the obvious culprits”, the title reports.

🗣️ Friend of this parish, Edinburgh-based AI author Ronee Hulk, pitched up in the Daily Record to offer an eminently readable piece on where we are with the whole “Is-AI-going-to-wipe-out-humanity?” thing.

The AI apocalypse will be less obvious, more mundane, than the movies might have it, he says. “The truly hazardous manifestation of AI won’t resemble The Terminator,” writes Hulk.

“It’ll be a dull, invisible, efficient system buying, selling, diagnosing, hiring and firing at speeds no human - or human institutions - can understand.

“No part of this needs to wake up one morning and decide to exterminate us. We only need one part of it to develop extreme capability and slightly err off course.” (Daily Record)

🗣️ Michael Marra was named the new Scottish Labour leader, bestowing upon him the privilege of navigating the party out of the aftermath of its worst-ever Holyrood election result in May, which left it with only 17 Scottish Parliament seats.

Marra, an MSP for North-East Scotland since 2021, saw off a challenge from former council leader Joe Fagan, promised to bring “politics with the doors open” in his first 100 days, in an attempt to “reconnect Labour’s values to where Scotland is today.”

Pollster Mark Diffley, speaking to the BBC, summed up Marra’s challenge: “"The party has become a bit of an irrelevance, and I think that is the biggest hurdle that they face going forward.” (BBC)

🗣️ Earl Spencer continued to unleash against The King. But his sit-down interview with Laura Kuenssberg (key takeaways here), broadcast in prime time last night ahead of his memoirs being published tomorrow, was full of what we might call contradictions.

That he was on the BBC at all was something of a surprise, given his views of the Corporation’s “appalling deception” (and it was appalling) that led to her famous 1995 “three of us” Panorama interview that Spencer says left her “alone, more exposed and in danger”.

He unleashed a tirade on the media coverage of Harry and Meghan, calling it “cancerous”, drawing parallels with Diana’s relationship with the media. Yet his book is being serialised in the Daily Mail, which few readers would consider friendly to the estranged royal couple.

And, of course, he once promised never to attempt to profit from his sister’s life. “Publishing sources” claim he’d have got an advance of £750,000 to £1 million for his book, and may make more if it does well in the US. (See the Earl’s interview on BBC iPlayer)

🗣️ Strictly Come Dancing sashayed back onto our screens, this time with three hosts… and it’s still fab-u-lous, darling, at least for the Guardian. “The new presenters Emma Willis, Josh Widdicombe and Johannes Radebe look not a little terrified,” writes Emine Saner, “but the vibe they’re going for is can’t-quite-believe-we-got-the-gig humility combined with superfan credentials, which is absolutely the right note.”

The Radio Times review is a little cooler, capturing a little of the confusion viewers might have felt with the change in format and some of the awkwardness of its new presentation trio, not all of whom are familiar with live TV.

It also warns tougher times may be ahead: “Strictly’s launch show had been filmed more than a week before it aired, and even then, on occasion it appeared clunky,” writes Frances Taylor.

“But next week, Strictly goes live. And then there really will be nowhere to hide.”

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