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Tuesday 10 March 2026
In your briefing today:
Glasgow is mourning the loss of a city centre landmark
After Sunday’s Old Firm violence: what’s to be done about it?
It’s an AI special today: author Ronee Hulk answers Early Line readers’ questions on our AI future… and gifts us a slightly uncanny McIntoshbot so you can create your own Early Line-themed content, at any time in the day…
TODAY’S WEATHER
THE BIG STORIES
Glasgow mourns loss of a landmark | Police target Old Firm yobs as spotlight falls on clubs | Oil prices recede after Trump claims war is nearly over
📣 Glasgow is mourning the loss of another landmark to fire: the city’s Union Corner was utterly destroyed by Sunday’s blaze, which started in a vape shop and at one point threatened all of Central Station.
A swathe of the city remains taped off this morning, train services are badly disrupted, and questions swirl about how the accident happened, how repeats can be prevented, and what happens to this prominent site. (Sun)
Glasgow MSP Paul Sweeney wants a crackdown on vape shops after a shop “full of incendiary devices” sparked the fire. (Daily Record)
Business owners have been left “heartbroken” after their livelihoods were destroyed (BBC)
A lament to the loss of a city’s heritage: “For generations of Glaswegians, it was a building which served as both a landmark illuminating the night sky and a meeting point in the heart of the city.” (Scotsman)
Marissa MacWhirter: The fire has torn the heart out of the city (Herald)
City suffers another kick in the teeth (Times - gift link)
The fire shows the vulnerability of Glasgow’s older buildings (Guardian)
Train travel into Glasgow remains heavily disrupted this morning: Glasgow Central remains closed today, with no services into the high-level station, and services running through - non-stop - on the low-level. (Scotrail)
📣 Usually, the fallout from an Old Firm match is of the footballing sort: managers making excuses or voicing hope for their tournament chances. Not so this time. The revolting behaviour of the “ultras” groups backing Rangers and Celtic is the biggest focus, with calls now for the masked yobs to be prosecuted and banned.
There have been nine arrests so far, and reports a child was hit by a coin during the post-match violence. (STV)
Police say they’ll go after the “weapons-grade morons” (the Sun’s term) who caused the trouble. “The message is simple: it is not a question of if, but when we will identify and come looking for you.” (Sun)
BBC presenter Connie McLaughlin has talked about being caught up in the trouble, and asking Celtic star Tomas Cvancara: “is that your blood?” (Daily Record)
Alan Pattullo picks up on the sectarian singing heard, loud and clear, when Rangers chose to play the long version of club anthem Simply The Best before the match. “The alternative words were sung as loudly as many in the press seats could remember,” he writes. “The stain of sectarianism has never gone away, but it's surprising that it has become amplified on the new owners' watch.” (Scotsman)
Keith Jackson says ultras culture has become “cancerous” and calls for footballing authorities to introduce sporting sanctions - such as point deductions - for clubs whose fans misbehave.
“If these young dolts are not afraid of breaking the law of the land then maybe they’ll have cause to think again when they’re being policed by their own supporters - grown adults who tend to display low levels of tolerance when it comes to seeing their team’s league position being damaged or endangered.” (Daily Record £)Bill Leckie says the chaos shows the Old Firm can’t be trusted, and it’s time to entirely ban away fans at the fixtures. (The Sun £)
John McGarry notes the “appalling Ibrox scenes have been widely condemned by everyone except the two clubs involved”. (Mail)
📣 Oil prices have fallen from crisis levels after Donald Trump said the Iran war was “ahead of schedule” and would end “very soon”. But the price surge yesterday has placed the cost of living front and centre once more, and highlighted the huge economic risk of war in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Tehran refused talks with Donald Trump, and vowed to use more powerful missiles - denying US claims they’d been destroyed.
Live coverage: Guardian | BBC | Al Jazeera
Reeves issues inflation warning after oil prices soar (Independent)
Chris Mason: The cost of living is catapulted centre stage yet again (BBC)
Faisal Islam: It was the most volatile day of oil trading in history (BBC)
Trump’s advisors urge him to find an Iran “exit ramp”, fearing a political backlash over the war (WSJ - gift link)
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AROUND SCOTLAND
📣 Police Scotland is failing to take fingerprints in more than 12,000 arrests a year, potentially missing chances to identify suspects or link them to crimes. (Herald)
📣 MSPs will begin considering 300 amendments to the Assisted Dying Bill today, in the first of three long sessions. (Holyrood)
📣 A Scottish-based police dog who saved a man’s life has been given a special award at Crufts. (STV)
AROUND THE UK & WORLD
📣 A social media ban for under-16s has been rejected after a vote in the House of Commons. (Independent)
📣 China is set to approve a law promoting “ethnic unity” (BBC)
📣 Five Iranian footballers have been given humanitarian visas after they refused to sing the national anthem before a match last week. (BBC)
📣 A “remarkably well-preserved” Roman sarcophagus has been unearthed in Budapest. (AP)
SPORT
🏉 Darcy Graham says it would be a “dream come true” to win the Six Nations. “Graham and his Scotland teammates are bang in the mix,” writes Mark Atkinson. (Scotsman)
⚽️ Some sport on TV to look forward to tonight: The Champions League enters the last-16 stage.
Galatasaray v Liverpool is an early game (5.45pm, TNT Sports 1)
Athletico Madrid v Spurs (8pm, TNT Sports 1)
Newcastle United v Barcelona (8pm, Amazon Prime)
IDEAS
Your AI questions, answered by author Ronee Hulk
Let’s build things, start families, create and launch new concepts, and get involved instead of stepping back. I don't think we can stop where things are headed, but I do believe we can influence and shape how it happens.”
📣 Something slightly different today: a deep dive on artificial intelligence which, I hope, will serve as a useful primer on what’s going on, and how it might impact you - and future generations.
Some background: Edinburgh-based author Ronee Hulk wrote a book on our AI-driven future, which came out in late 2025, called Dear Future: You Can Keep The Change.
I asked Early Line readers if anyone knew who Ronee - a pseudonym - actually is. Ronee themselves got in touch, almost straight away, and over Christmas and since we’ve had a correspondence… which led to three things.
First, I reviewed Ronee’s (excellent, thought-provoking) book. You can read that review in the ideas section of this Early Line, from mid-February. It’s an accessible and thought-provoking primer.
Second, Early Line readers sent in their questions about AI - those, and Ronee’s answers, are published today here, on the Early Line’s website. Click through to read Ronee’s answers to your questions, including…
Are we really headed for a Matrix-style future?
What should we make of Palantir, government data and the NHS?
Should we all learn to use AI?
Is there any hope for humanity?
… and more!
(The Q&A is published today on The Early Line’s website, separately, simply because the daily email has a word count limit, so it can get past inbox size limits. I didn’t want to viciously edit the questions and answers down - they’re simply too interesting.)
Finally, Ronee surprised me by putting together McIntoshbot.com, an AI version of me, Early Line editor Neil McIntosh. It is both flattering… and rather shocking.
Explaining why he did that, he writes: “By way of background, I instructed Replit to create a series of games, an article generator and a chatbot themed around Neil McIntosh. My point is this, if you have an idea that needs a web or mobile presence, you don't have an excuse to sit there and do nothing. You don't have to rely on a third party to build and launch a web or mobile application.
“Over the past month, I've built several new web apps, each would have cost 6-figures+ and taken at several months to build out just two years ago.”(It’s worth saying: the text of each regular Early Line is entirely powered by human effort, fuelled by coffee. The only AI-powered output here is the logo, and the illustrations on the Q&A page, all of which were done by AI. I’m no artist, that’s for sure).
📣 Thoughts on any of this? Do, as ever, hit reply and let me know.
👍 That’s your Early Line for the day
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