In your briefing today:

📣 The Scottish Government is being threatened with further legal action by the Information Commissioner as an extraordinary row over the release of documents escalates.

David Hamilton says he can no longer trust the government to handle files, relating to an ethics investigation into Nicola Sturgeon, “unsupervised”. He says the government has given “preposterous and unacceptable” excuses for failing to comply with his orders.

In a statement, Hamilton said: “Perhaps worse than the fact that Scottish ministers have once again failed to comply with one of my decisions, is that they appear to have tried to conceal this breach of trust with unjustified delays and a wall of silence.” (BBC)

📣 A US refuelling plane has crashed in Iraq after an “incident” involving two aircraft, with “hostile fire or friendly fire” not involved. Rescue efforts are ongoing. (AP)

📣 Glasgow’s only high-ladder fire engine was unavailable on Sunday when the Union Corner building went up in smoke - although the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service says it was there in 19 minutes, and wasn’t required until two hours later. (Guardian)

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📣 It’s the 30th anniversary of the Dunblane massacre: stories across the media remember the horrific impact of the day, and the 16 children and one teacher who were murdered. Residents of the town will mark the day with “quiet dignity”, a local minister says. (Daily Record)

📣 There have been 84 unreported cases of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment at Holyrood over the last five years - including serious allegations affecting men and women, and some linked to alcohol. (Scotsman)

📣 A former classmate of Tony Blair has said the future Prime Minister offered solace and kindness while they boarded together at Fettes, and the classmate was the victim of sexual and physical abuse at the school. (Times - gift link)

📣 Broadcaster Kaye Adams has hit out at “malicious stories” being circulated that she berated an intern and used a misogynistic slur, calling them “absolutely untrue”. (Instagram) (BBC)

📣 An Australian tourist accused of smashing the Stone of Destiny exhibit with a hammer has fled the country, having failed to contact police or hand in his passport. (STV)

📣 Kemi Badenoch has accused Keir Starmer of lying about Peter Mandelson’s appointment, claiming that incriminating documents were removed from this week’s files release to avoid further damage to the PM. (Mail)

📣 Ed Miliband says the government “will not tolerate” profiteering from the rising price of oil. (BBC)

📣 Jo Malone is being sued by Estee Lauder and… Jo Malone Limited, over the use of her own name. (Independent)

📣 US weather is about to “go nuts” with blizzards, a polar vortex, a heat dome and an atmospheric river, all at once. Nearly every part of the US will have unusually wild weather, although it is a big place… (AP)

🏉 Gregor Townsend has unveiled his side for Scotland’s day of destiny in Dublin - with three new men coming onto the bench, and changes to cover the loss of injured duo Scott Cummings and Gregor Brown. (Scotsman)

⚽️ Rangers and Celtic have - finally - reacted to the shocking scenes of disorder at Sunday’s Old Firm match, both clubs both condemning the disorder but also defending their own fans. The Scottish FA has launched an independent review of the disorder - an investigation welcomed by both clubs. (BBC)

🗣️ One magazine piece has created a stir this week, within hours of it being published: historian John Bew offers a grand sweep history of Britain’s political malaises over the centuries, and the “Machiavellian moments” that have met them.

He says we’re in another, now, and it requires radical action if we are to be secure, and relevant, in the future.

What we are living through now, since 2008, has been disorienting, uncomfortable, he says. It’s the end of a political order that has allowed “for the longest period of sustained economic growth since the Second World War,” he writes. It is incomparable in scale “to anything we have seen in almost 80 years.

“Here are some hard truths,” he writes. “The current social contract – particularly around welfare, health and pensions – is unsustainable on current levels of growth.

“A domestic and international legal system that does not allow us to control our borders has lost legitimacy at home. We have the highest energy prices in the Western world, just at the moment when energy is vital to our ability to take advantage of relative national strengths in technology.

“And there is currently no route to higher defence spending – which is inevitable unless the nation is content to continue on a path towards greater insecurity and irrelevance – without major cuts elsewhere in the public spending stack.

“These are grand strategic problems that can only be confronted as a coherent whole.” (The New Statesman £)

🗣️ Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has blocked 15% of the global oil supply, notes the Economist, and changed oil markets forever. “The shock the war has unleashed could be huge,” the newspaper says in a leader.

“Iran’s new hardline supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, now knows that energy prices are America’s weak spot,” it says. “Disruption to energy markets will therefore come and go with geopolitical tensions, especially if Iran concludes that it needs a nuclear weapon to be safe.

“That is the new reality in which investors, businesses and policymakers must now operate.” (Economist £)

🗣️ Trump’s Iranian gamble has been an “Epic fail”, proclaims The Spectator’s front page, trailing Freddy Gray’s analysis inside. Grey says “Operation Epic Fury, his assault on Iran, has exposed once again the limits of American power, as well as the shortcomings of the madman approach.

“A bold president armed with the most awesome military the world has ever seen can achieve a lot. But he cannot control the global price of energy or the internal power dynamics of very different, very hostile countries.

“He never admits defeat. But even his powers of persuasion might not be sufficient to stop Epic Fury going down in history as an epic fail.” (Spectator (£))

🗣️A decade on from Brexit, Britain has become more European. Not only does it now drink more coffee than tea (that switch happened around the time of the European referenum, funnily enough) but it now also has a falling birth rate, young people living at home for longer, (soon) continental-style workers’ and renters’ protections, and an economy that tracks the Eurozone. Even the Telegraph is being bought by the Germans.

The UK remains Eurosceptic, however, and countries on the continent are moving towards that view, too. It’s one way - perhaps, the only way - in which the Continent has become more British. (Economist £)

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