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In your briefing today:

• Labour has suffered a huge defeat in a Welsh Senedd by-election

• Taxpayers short-changed "by billions" in ScotWind auction, says think-tank

• Weekly magazines take a look ahead to the UK’s future politics

• Grim results in Europe for Rangers and Aberdeen, but Celtic manage a win

📣 Labour has suffered a “seismic” Senedd by-election defeat in Wales, with the Caerphilly seat being taken by another party for the first time in 100 years. Plaid Cymru won with 47% of the vote, with Reform second on 36% and Labour on a paltry 11%. Turnout was a Senedd election record high of 50.43%. The defeat paints a dire picture for Labour, as it prepares to enter a big year of elections in Scotland and Wales. (BBC) (Wales Online)

• The result deals a blow to Keir Starmer’s leadership ahead of elections in May (FT £)

• Election guru John Curtice, appearing on the Today programme earlier, painted a bleak picture for Labour. Could Labour come third in the Senedd elections next year? “The firm, clear answer, from Caerphilly, to that question, is yes, it could happen.” (Guardian)

• Labour is at panic stations today after it suffered a by-election disaster (Mail)

• Ruth Mosalski: What you can, and cannot, read into the Caerphilly result (Wales Online)

• The result was a disappointment for Reform, which had hoped to win. When the result was announced at 2.10am, Nigel Farage was nowhere to be seen. (Sky News)

📣 Donald Trump has called off trade talks with Canada because of a television advertisment opposing US tariffs, which he said misstated facts.

The ad - now playing on most US TV networks - is entirely voiced by the late US President Ronald Reagan, and is highly critical of the impact of trade barriers. Reagan’s Presidential Foundation said the ad’s use of his words “misrepresents” his address, and was without their permission.

Trump’s statement on social media came after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had said he wanted to double the country’s experts to countries other than the US, because of the threat - and uncertainty - posed by Trump’s tariffs. (🎁 New York Times - gift link) (AP) (See the ad on X)

📣 The Scottish Government has promised another £20 million of public money for Edinburgh’s new concert hall, as costs for the project continue to rise. The Dunard Centre, to be built off St Andrew Square, is now expected to cost £162 million, with Scottish Government money contributing £30 million. The centre was given planning permission in 2021 but has been hit by delays as well as soaring costs. (The Scotsman)

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AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Taxpayers were short-changed by “billions” by the botched ScotWind auction, which sold off 20 seabed plots for large offshore wind farms, according to a report from the think tank Future Economy Scotland. The auction raised £755 million for around 30 gigawatts of capacity. By contrast, an auction in England and Wales raised £8 billion for just 8 gigawatts of capacity. (The Times £) (Future Economy Scotland - who don’t appear to have posted their own report at send time, alas)

📣 Police are investigating “irregularities” in the Alba Party’s finances after a complaint was raised by its leadership. The news comes amid bitter infighting in the party, which has its annual conference in Dundee this weekend. (The Scotsman has the exclusive)

📣 Two sisters who played a “key” role in a £67 million insolvency avoidance scheme have been banned from acting as directors for seven years. (Daily Record)

📣 Drones could soon fly in medicines and mail in rural parts of Argyll and Bute (BBC)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 Wes Streeting has attacked a doctors’ strike in England and Wales as a “slap in the face” for the NHS. (The Independent has the exclusive)

📣 Rachel Reeves is considering breaking another manifesto promise and increasing income tax, as she seeks to plug a £30 billion gap in the nation’s finances. (The Guardian has the exclusive)

📣 Keir Starmer will push allies to supply more long-range missiles to Ukraine at a defence summit in London today. (BBC)

SPORT

⚽️ After Brendan Rodgers branded his misfiring stars as the equivalent of a Honda Civic, thank goodness his side got moving again last night. They turned things around against Sturm Graz, coming back from a goal down to win 2-1 in Glasgow in the Europa League. (Daily Record)

• “After this almighty display of character Brendan Rodgers will surely be more careful with what he says in future.” (The Sun)

• Rodgers: “Sometimes, like at the weekend, you have to be harsh to be clear. And then you hope that you get that reaction, that these players know that I'm with them always.” (The Scotsman)

⚽️ No such joy for Rangers. New head coach Danny Rohl was left having to offer a “grovelling apology” to angry fans after witnessing a limp display against Brann. He jumped the advertising hoardings to deliver his message to the away support - who then sang his name. Rangers are now bottom of the Europa League table. (Daily Record)

• Tom English: “And so it begins for another Rangers head coach. More timidity to observe, more vulnerability in defence, more powder-puff stuff up front, more wide men running in ever decreasing circles.” (BBC)

⚽️ Aberdeen were embarrassed 6-0 away to AEK Athens, utterly outclassed by the Greek side in their worst-ever European defeat. (BBC)

• Jimmy Thelin said Aberdeen got exactly what they deserved from the game, slamming the performance as “not acceptable”. (Daily Record)

IDEAS
From the weeklies: “Ungovernable” Britain | The new Islamo-socialist alliance | Why China’s winning | Pensioners are glued to their screens

🗣️Britain is ungovernable, declares Andrew Marr, in his final contribution as The New Statesman’s political editor (he’s becoming an editor-at-large).

He observes that the postwar British political establishment collapsing. “The nation’s patience has snapped,” he writes. “So many failures have brought the end of a politics of management and, both to right and left, the emergence of a politics of outrage and disgust. You can detect it almost everywhere, from the once-Tory shires to the NHS.”

What’s gone wrong? “The Labour establishment had underestimated the deeper difficulties of so much it was facing,” says Marr. “The intractable problem of ballooning welfare spending and worklessness; the sheer incompetence of much of the state; the pressures on housing and public services caused by the post-Brexit immigration wave.”

And that’s likely to leave us, next election, “with a government we didn’t expect”, born of fragmenting multi-party politics “stuck awkwardly inside an electoral system built for two”. (The New Statesman £)

🗣️ Speaking of all that, The Spectator introduces us to what it calls “Britain’s new Islamo-socialist alliance”, which it defines - at least in Parliamentary terms - as the four Muslim independent MPs elected last year plus Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, the co-leaders of Your Party, “formalising a quixotic alliance of anti-capitalists, environmentalists, Muslim voters and trans activists.

“Supporters think this new coalition could win 50 seats at the next general election. It would be the biggest hard-left presence in parliament’s history,” the magazine says. (The Spectator)

🗣️The White House might believe it’s winning its trade war with China. The opposite is true, says The Economist. “It has learned to escalate and retaliate as effectively as America,” says the magazine. “And it is experimenting with its own extraterritorial trade rules, thus changing the path of the world economy.”

Why is China “breathing more easily than America”? First, Trump threatens much, but TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). Second, when he does follow through, China has become adept at retaliation in ways that really hurt the US.

Third, the trade war has made President Xi and the Communist Party stronger, not weaker. Things might not be good at home - problems include “its property hellscape, timid consumers, cowed entrepreneurs and the overcapacity and capital misallocation that its industrial policy creates.” But Trump’s stance has vindicated Xi’s project to prepare China for a hostile world. (The Economist £)

🗣️Don’t worry about your children’s screen time. Worry about your parents’: pensioners now spend more than half of their waking hours glued to their smartphones, iPads, game consoles and TVs.

Or maybe don’t worry at all: “The digitisation of old age is a good thing,” The Economist declares. “The elderly have perhaps more to gain from smart devices than any other age group.

“Facebook and WhatsApp bring daily updates from old friends and faraway grandchildren. Zoom transports church, book clubs and doctors’ appointments into the home for people who cannot attend in person. E-commerce removes the need to trek around shops. Hours of entertainment from any era are available on demand.”

But they are still vulnerable to con-merchants, and the elderly do have a susceptibility to online misinformation: a problem, notes the newspaper, given they are the most likely in society to vote. (The Economist £)

👍 That’s your Early Line for the day

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