In your briefing today:

📣 Iran has confirmed it has selectively reopened the Strait of Hormuz - but only for “non-hostile vessels” and provided “they neither participate in nor support acts of aggression against Iran.” Ships which have made it through include those from China, India and Pakistan. (BBC)

📣 Chancellor Rachel Reeves says there won’t be universal help for consumers stung by rising energy bills caused by the Gulf conflict, saying any government help would be targeted. She told the House of Commons she would review the planned fuel duty rise in September, but did not commit to delaying it. (Guardian)

📣 Reform UK’s Scottish leader Malcolm Offord has admitted telling a “vile” homophobic joke about the partner of the late pop star George Michael, during a speech to a rugby club.

A source close to Offord said he apologised at the time of the speech and "took ownership" of the mistake, including making a donation to an LGBT rugby group. (The Daily Record has the exclusive)

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📣 Glasgow Central Station, Scotland’s busiest, returns to full operation today, for the first time since the devastating Union Corner fire. (BBC)

📣 Former SNP council leader Jordan Linden has denied sending images of a sexual nature and making sexual advances towards men and boys. (BBC)

📣 File this one under “surprised-they-have-to-be-told”: MSPs have been told they must not share overnight accommodation with their staff under any circumstances. Rules on how much alcohol can be expensed while away have also been tightened. (Holyrood)

📣 Russia launched 948 drones against Ukraine in 24 hours, in a new spring offensive that is the largest aerial attack since it started the war. (Independent)

📣 There have been dozens of close calls on the ground at US airports, it’s been revealed, in the wake of the deadly crash at LaGuardia airport late on Sunday. (WSJ)

📣 Tributes have been paid to Married at First Sight dating coach Mel Schilling after her death at the age of 54. She had been diagnosed with cancer two years ago. (BBC)

📣 A musical version of Irvine Welsh’s 1990s film Trainspotting will open in London this summer - 30 years after the movie's release. (Mail)

⚽️ The papers are full of rhapsodising about Scotland and Napoli star Scott McTominay’s demeanour these days: he’s the ultimate pro, say his teammates. (Scotsman) (Daily Record) (Mail)

⚽️ Hearts manager Derek McInnes says he’s confident about the Scottish title run-in, because his side has the best head-to-head record in the league. (Daily Record)

⚽️ Graeme McGarry asks: Why is Dundee United’s pitch so bad? Especially when Dens Park, literally next door, is lush and green? (Herald)

⚽️ Mo Salah, one of Liverpool’s greatest players, will leave the club 12 months early this summer. (Guardian)

🗣️It’s hard to ignore the weight of events Magnus Linklater alludes to as he points to Aberdeen-born and bred armed forces minister, Al Carns, who has unusual first-hand experience of war.

Should he come to campaign alongside Anas Sarwar in the forthcoming elections, says Linklater, we should listen carefully to him. “Especially right now,” writes Linklater, “as the world holds its breath and waits to see what Donald Trump does next.

“What he will add […] is something every party needs to confront, but has yet to consider - that, as war impacts on everything from energy prices to food in the shops, what will be required, if we are to survive it, is the kind of national resilience wartime conditions demand, but which most of us, conditioned to peace, have yet to understand.

“Much of this campaign will be spent in scoring routine political points, exposing the failure of SNP policies, the indecisions of a Labour government, or Reform’s uncosted agenda. Will anyone have the courage to say: ‘We face an existential threat from the enemy outside, and we need to pull together to confront it?’

“It would be idle to assume that overnight the mudslinging that is part and parcel of an election campaign will be put aside. It is not, however, too much to ask that grown-up leadership takes the place of parochialism, and that the Scottish perspective is judged against the backcloth of a world at serious risk from an escalating war. (The Times)

🗣️ “It’s beyond tiresome how Scotland has been conducting itself lately,” says Jenny Lindsay, who also finds politicians too ready to trade insulting zingers instead of more calculated arguments when they disagree in public.

And she doesn’t see much hope for the near future, given the Scottish Greens and Reform UK are expected to make great strides in May’s elections, “meaning the already fractious debating chamber could become far more obnoxious and even less collegiate.

“Sometimes,” she writes, “watching debates in the [Scottish Parliament] chamber, I’ll find myself disappointed – even by politicians I otherwise admire – flinging barbs unfairly at opponents, or heckling insults.

“This isn’t a bland call for kindness. It’s a call for more consistently skilled rebuttal of political opponents who often richly deserve it.” (The Scotsman)

🗣️ Perhaps with similar thoughts, Dani Garavelli takes aim at those who mocked Nicola Sturgeon’s emotional final speech in the Scottish Parliament.

“Much has been made of Sturgeon’s advice for future MSPs,” writes Garavelli, “with her opponents mocking her criticism of a tribalism she has sometimes indulged in.

“But that was her point, wasn’t it? We should all be allowed to pass on what we have learned from our mistakes.

“With that in mind, the line that resonated most with me was her plea to keep a sense of perspective. ‘If everything is a scandal or an outrage, then nothing is, and those who deserve to be held to account get off scot-free,’ she said.” (The Herald)

🗣️Fellow Herald columnist Kevin McKenna is not in such a forgiving mood as he imagines what the promised new chapter for the paperback edition of Sturgeon’s memoir, Frankly, might contain.

In an oblique reference to claims Sturgeon’s hardly been in the Holyrood chamber - or much, even, in Scotland - since stepping down as First Minister, McKenna imagines Sturgeon writing: “My constituents know that I’m promoting their neighbourhood everywhere I go and seeking inward investment from the influential literary communities of Cambridge and Stratford. I’m constantly seeking to identify areas of common interests between these places and Govanhill.

“Why, at the Cambridge Literary festival last year,” he continues, “I was approached by a local lady who’d heard of the daily challenges the young folk of Govanhill must overcome. She wanted to invite some local pupils down and perhaps put on a wee show about their experience of cleaning chimneys and working down the pits before starting their school day.” (The Herald)

🗣️And Graham Grant takes it a step further, with his own dark assessment of the SNP’s record in office. “The political theorist Hannah Arendt once delivered a warning about the power of the state that resonates today as much as it did decades ago,” he writes.

“She said: ‘If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.’

“When we’re bombarded with propaganda, deception and spin, it’s wiser not to put any faith in our political masters, and not to trust a word they say.

“That is a bleak conclusion – and yet doesn’t it sound familiar, at least to anyone living under the yoke of the SNP, nearly 20 years after it took office?” (Mail (£))

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