In your briefing today:

📣 Concerns are growing that full hostilities between the US and Iran will resume in the Middle East, as the US “Project Freedom” continues to attempt to guide stranded ships through the Strait of Hormuz and out of the Gulf.

Donald Trump has warned Iran will be “blown off the face of the earth” if it attacks US ships, but Iran has fired shots at American warships. It has also attacked a UAE oil facility. (AP) (BBC)

📣 Reform UK has confirmed it would build migrant detention centres in Green-voting areas in Scotland, overriding Holyrood as it acts on what it claims is a “national security emergency”.

Nigel Farage’s party has said it would not put detention centres in areas where its own party has an MP, or where it controls the council.

Scottish political leaders have said the policy amounts to “bullying” ahead of Thursday’s elections. (Herald)

📣 It was the Met Gala in New York last night: there was a “sea of adventurous looks” on the red carpet from Beyonce, Heidi Klum and Madonna, among others, as the fundraiser totted up $42 million in donations. (New York Times)

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📣 Most Scots think all police officers should have Tasers, according to Scottish Police Federation magazine 1919. (STV)

📣 A teenager who killed a bus driver in Elgin after he refused to let him board a bus has been released after less than 18 months in residential care. (Mail)

📣 Edinburgh Airport has been ranked worst in Scotland for flight delays. Manchester is worst in the UK. (Scotsman)

📣 TV presenter Kirsty Young is selling her private island on Loch Lomond for £3 million - or £10 million if you want a holiday lodge built first. Inchconnachan Island is nicknamed Wallaby Island thanks to its colony of wild wallabies. (BBC)

📣 Two people were killed and several others injured after a car drove into a crowd in Leipzig yesterday afternoon: a suspect, a 33-year-old German citizen, was arrested, but a motive has yet to be established. (BBC)

📣 Keir Starmer will host a summit to pursue a “whole of society” effort against antisemitism in the wake of a string of suspected antisemitic incidents in recent months, including the stabbing of two men in London last week. (BBC)

📣 An explosion at a fireworks factory in China has killed 21 people. (BBC)

📣 A separatist group in Alberta says it has raised enough signatures to force a referendum on the oil-rich province leaving Canada. A vote could happen as soon as October. (AP)

⚽️ And then there were two: Rangers effectively tumbled out the Scottish title race yesterday evening, losing 2-1 at Tynecastle to Hearts. The Edinburgh side’s captain, Lawrence Shankland, scored a second-half winner that sparked wild scenes of celebration, after Rangers had taken the lead in a first half they controlled. (Report) (🎥 Highlights)

⚽️ Mikel Arteta has his old club, Everton, to thank for keeping the English title race alive: they held Manchester City to a 3-3 draw last night, having come close to an astonishing win, with only Jeremy Doki’s strike seven minutes into time added on snatching a point for Pep Guardiola’s side. (Guardian)

📣 I’d long planned to scout around the nation’s columnists for today’s Early Line, a little more than 48 hours from polls opening, and get half a dozen of the best-written verdicts - whatever their political conclusions - on our electoral choice.

But you can only work with what’s there, and thus today’s roundup is an odd affair. It’s not got the breadth - or vehemence - I’d hoped for. I couldn’t find any great enthusiasm for the SNP - just an expectation they’d win.

There’s some interest in Reform, but only one with gusto. One or two would love to get rid of the current lot. Nobody had much to say about the others.

Perhaps the columnists’ weariness reflects the electorate’s. We’ll see.

🗣️Jenny Lindsay: “Whatever happens on Thursday, the next administration must urgently use the powers they have to address a palpable sense of social malaise. If I can be fair to the SNP, it would be impossible for any government in power for nearing two decades not to have amassed a long list of failures.

“But – aside from the Scottish Child Payment, introduced in 2021, which by all accounts has genuinely helped struggling families – I see little evidence that yet another SNP government has the ideas to address serious social ills with the gravity they deserve and urgently need.” (Scotsman)

🗣️ Stephen Daisley: “Two decades on from their 2007 victory, the SNP remains what it has always been and always will be: a party of campaigning, not of government. Promisers, not deliverers. Slick salesmen for a shiny tomorrow who won’t be taking any questions at this time.

“A vote against the SNP is a vote against the whole rotten, corrupt, failure-drenched status quo and an angry, frustrated, heartsore cry for something better than this.” (Mail)

🗣️ Alex Massie: “Enough is enough. Just as 14 years of Conservative administration were enough in 2024, so too, are 19 years of SNP government in 2026.

“If removing the Tories from office was a necessary act of democratic hygiene two years ago, so too, is teaching the nationalists a lesson at next week’s Holyrood election. There is no need to anticipate anything very much better to know that something different is required.” (The Times)

🗣️ Ruth Wishart: “What on earth is going on? How come the Reform Party threatens to become the second-largest party in Holyrood? […]

You may just recall that when Nige popped up to Scotland in his Ukip days, he was first barricaded in a pub and ­subsequently rescued by the local polis in a riot van. That was a wee while back, of course, in the days when just two in 1000 Scots could be found admitting to a Ukip vote.

Changed days it seems, and not for the better. (The National (£))

🗣️ Brian Monteith: “There is no prospect of change without electing as large a cohort as possible of Reform UK MSPs under the leadership of Malcolm Offord.

“We cannot go on rewarding those that are failing Scotland. To deliver change we must break with old habits and do things differently. Malcolm Offord is an achiever, a Scot who has shown he makes a significant difference. Supporting him on Thursday is our best hope of delivering change.” (Scotsman)

🗣️ Chris Deerin: “I hold no candle for Reform or Offord, but as the former SNP MP Joanna Cherry said recently, the election of a tranche of MSPs from the insurgent party “may give Holyrood a much-needed kick up the backside”.

“This is a sentiment I hear regularly from people who would never vote Reform, but who have grown weary of the Scottish Parliament’s and the Scottish Government’s complacency, and their failure to turn the dial on the many challenges facing our nation.

“In short, let a gaggle of toerags in and hope they cause enough trouble on the economic front to change the terms of debate.” (New Statesman)

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