In your briefing today:

📣 The Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea will be given the go-ahead within the next couple of weeks.

The gas field was approved by the Conservative government in 2022 but development was delayed by a ruling from a Scottish court, after environmental groups argued consent was given without fully considering the climate impact.

A consultation on the future of Jackdaw and another new oil field, Rosebank, closed in August, and the decision rests with Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh. Approval is now expected to be announced just before Parliament breaks, in the middle of the month, for the party conference season.

Energy Minister Kate White told the House of Commons yesterday that Fahnbulleh would make separate decisions on the two sites. It’s not clear when the Rosebank decision will be made public. (BBC)

📣 Vietnamese children are being trafficked into Scotland in increasing numbers to be sexually exploited or forced to work in cannabis farms, nail bars and car washes. Others are made to cook and clean for Vietnamese families already in the country. Data revealed by a Freedom of Information request shows Edinburgh has seen the most cases, closely followed by Glasgow. (Daily Record has the exclusive)

📣 Two men have been pulled alive from a hydropower tunnel in Nepal, nine days after catastrophic flash floods devastated the area, sweeping away villages and - it is feared - killing thousands. The rescue has raised hopes that dozens more people believed to be trapped in tunnels can still be saved. (AP) (Guardian)

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📣 Hundreds of people gathered in Edinburgh to demand a moratorium on “Scotland’s data centre boom”, including a project in Fife that’s been billed as the second-largest in the world. (Guardian)

📣 There are accusations that top jobs in the two new Scottish health boards - replacing the existing 14 - have been “carved up”, with two committees formed last year effectively bagging the top jobs for the CEOs of NHS Lothian and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. (Herald has the exclusive)

📣 Fewer than two in five Scottish pupils are passing maths, English and STEM subjects at National 5 level. (Scotsman)

📣 Labour and the Scottish Greens took two council seats from the SNP in Edinburgh by-elections yesterday. (Herald)

📣 None of the £200 million earmarked for Grangemouth has been committed or spent on projects at the site, the UK government has admitted. (Scotsman)

📣 Nigel Farage is at the centre of a new funding row as a Channel 4 News undercover investigation appears to show his team plotting to avoid electoral laws on foreign donations. (Channel 4 News has the exclusive)

📣 Britons are being urged to stock up on days of food and water supplies, as the UN warned the El Niño climate phenomenon was “supersizing before our eyes”, threatening to cause extreme weather events across the world. (Guardian)

📣 Argentina’s leader has warned oil companies of sanctions if they exploit reserves near the Falklands. (BBC)

📣 The British Army has been told to stop “non-essential” training exercises to save money. (BBC)

⚽️ “Thrilling” Hearts overpowered Hibs in the first Edinburgh derby of the season, winning 3-1 and aided by a brilliant Josh McPake goal. Hibs sub Adam Mayor also made a big contribution to an entertaining clash, with a thunderous shot to pull one back for the hosts after the break. (BBC report & 🎥 highlights)

⚽️ Rangers swooped for two more players on the final day of the transfer window: Venezuela striker Kevin Kelsy and Algeria winger Badredine Bouanani. (BBC)

⚽️ Celtic left three of their summer signings out of their Europa League squad. (Sun)

🗣️ Vicky Spratt wants to introduce you to “generation screwed” - the young people “lost in the chasm between aspiration and reality”.

“If the 1980s and 1990s spawned Yuppies - young, “upwardly mobile” professionals with university degrees, well-paid jobs and disposable incomes - the 2010s and 2020s belong to the “Dumpys”: the Downwardly and Unhappily Mobile Professional Young,” writes Spratt. “The Dumpys have some of the trappings of a middle-class existence - a degree, a professional job - but lack its foundations: a secure home of their own, financial freedom.

“For the first time since industrialisation, huge numbers of young adults are no better off than their parents were at the same age. The comfortable, educated, professional middle class is collapsing, and with it the aspirations of many who wish to join it,” she writes.

Supporting her thesis, case studies of 30-somethings burdened by student debt, living with their parents and struggling to raise enough money for a deposit. One feels he is “downwardly mobile in comparison to his parents”. Spratt writes: “Only my wealthiest friends have more than one child; siblings are becoming the new status symbol.”

What happens next with this frustrated generation? Spratt isn’t sure. “This is new territory, and there is little from the past that can help predict what happens next.” (New Statesman (£))

🗣️ Maybe they all turn to China for answers. The country has become “weirdly attractive to young Westerners” reports Lucy Reade.

A new generation of “Chinamaxxers” love the dazzling cities and amazing trains, enjoy the food, wear the fashion and watch its cinema. They’re “not new-age ‘tankies’: authoritarian communists who have committed Mao’s Little Red Book to memory,” she writes. “The Gen Z Sinophile is far less ideological than earlier generations.”

One of the most prominent “Chinamaxxers” is Mungo McCosh, a student at Edinburgh University who has travelled extensively around China for several years and has “totally fallen in love with the place”.

In China at the moment, on a gap year, “he has been ‘absolutely living it large here’, and that visitors, particularly young people, are ‘blown away’ by the infrastructure, development, convenience, safety and the friendliness of Chinese people.” He says the Chinese state has never offered him money or other support for his content.

“The real question that I’ve been asking myself is,” he says, “to what extent is this sort of online obsession with China genuine and comes out of an understanding for the culture, and how much of it is a reaction to maybe what some people feel is the decline of the West and dissatisfaction with, particularly in the United States, their current administration, but also in the UK, a weaker Britain and a non-EU Britain?” (The New World (£))

🗣️ Reform, meanwhile, has a plan to make you fall in love with Nigel Farage again, reports The Spectator. Tim Shipman and James Heale are previewing - although it has already started - the party’s annual conference, which comes as the party faces a decline in the polls, and questions about its leader.

Richard Tice, the deputy leader, will speak today ahead of Nigel Farage’s keynote immediately afterwards. Tice will offer what the party hopes will be eye-catching plans to revive Britain’s housebuilding and high streets.

Farage will tell the conference that, leading a Reform government, he’ll be ruthless with Cabinet colleagues who don’t produce results. It’ll be part of an attempt to assert authority over a party that has appeared divided over the summer, since Farage faced accusations about his funding, and won the by-election he caused in Clacton. (Spectator (£))

🗣️The Economist rails against the data centre backlash, branding it “human unintelligence”.

“Politicians are racing to outdo one another with restrictions, moratoriums and bans on building,” it complains in a leader. “Voters and politicians alike are making a big mistake.

“One popular myth is that data centres guzzle more water than Agastya—an argument helped along by the grossly inaccurate calculations of a bestselling book. In reality, a mid-sized data centre uses roughly as much water as two golf courses and considerably less if it recycles its water, as many now do.

“Concerns over electricity use are more numerate: data centres really do need a striking amount of power. However, there is little evidence so far that they have raised energy prices,” the newspaper adds.

“America unilaterally making it harder to build AI infrastructure will simply hand the advantage to China, whose authoritarian leaders can put data centres wherever they choose.” (Economist (£))

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