TODAY’S WEATHER

☁️ It’ll be a bright morning in Glasgow but with rain this afternoon. You’ll see showers in Edinburgh at points throughout the day. Aberdeen and London will be dry. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Liverpool’s day of celebration turns to horror

📣 Forty-seven people were hurt, including four children, when a car ploughed into a parade celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League win around 6pm yesterday evening. One child and an adult are thought to have suffered particularly serious injuries.

Widely shared video footage showed a car in the middle of the crowd being attacked, before it roared through the middle of the packed street, with dozens of people being flung off, or under, the car. (Liverpool Echo)

• Police were quick to say that a 53-year-old white British man, believed to be the driver of the car, had been arrested. They were not treating the incident as terrorism. (BBC’s ongoing coverage)

• “It missed myself and my family by literally inches,” said one fan. (BBC)

• Witnesses described scenes of panic and chaos as the vehicle careered into the crowd, “marring what should have been a day of pure celebration”. (Independent)

• Speculation immediately started as to what had happened, and why. (Mail)

IDEAS
By-election sets a difficult test for Scotland’s established political parties

🗣️ The Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse byelection, caused by the untimely death in March of local MSP and Scottish government minister Christina McKelvie, looms for the SNP and Labour like a late - and very unwelcome - exam.

The constituency goes to the polls a week on Thursday - on Thursday, 5 June - and it’s far from clear who will win.

Although the SNP has consistently held the seat since it was first contested in 2011, when McKelvie beat former Hamilton South MSP Thomas McCabe, this is traditionally Labour territory, or was before the pro-independence wave of the last 15 years or so. Had this been held at the end of last year, this would have been a straight two-horse race between the two parties.

But the rapid rise of Reform UK since the New Year has changed the UK’s political map, and yesterday First Minister John Swinney conceded that the seat is now a “three-way contest” between the SNP, Labour and Reform. He was unable to say if he thought the SNP was favourite to retain the seat.

(The bookies say the SNP is overwhelmingly the favourite, although those odds may be based on precious few bets, and very little hard data).

Labour has been worried for some time that it could be beaten into third place.

Listen to those working in the constituency, and you hear of deep discontent among voters. STV’s Colin Mackay spent a day there last week, speaking to dozens of people. “The apathy and the anger were almost overwhelming,” he wrote, with many of those willing to speak on camera “scunnered with all the political parties”.

Angry SNP voters, “a few” Labour voters - also angry - and “a few” Reform voters - “two of them were some of the keenest voters I met,” said Mackay.

“Scunnered” is a word that gets used regularly - Anas Sarwar also used it, and “frustrated”, to describe the mood in the area last week. Local issues include the grim state of the local town centre, poverty in the area, and the cost of living - in other words, the sort of concerns that will exist across a swathe of Scottish constituencies going to the polls next May. But there’s also a wider sense of frustration at governments in Edinburgh and London that appear distant and gaffe-prone.

That provides more fertile ground for the populism of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which is why he’ll be making a rare trip to Scotland this weekend. His last visit was in 2019, when he attended a Brexit party event. Many still remember his ill-fated visit to Edinburgh in 2013 when, for his own safety, police escorted from a pub in the Royal Mile. He branded the independence protestors who had confronted him “fascist scum”.

Protestors that day accused UKIP of racism, and Reform UK faces similar accusations this week over an online advert, on which they have spent thousands, which claims Anas Sarwar will “prioritise the Pakistani community”. Sarwar called it “dog-whistle racism”. Swinney, yesterday, also called the attack on his political rival as “blatantly racist”.

Farage may face more protests later this week. But the mood in the constituency suggests there may be some - perhaps even many, in the privacy of the polling booth - who will offer him a warmer welcome. Less than a year out from the Scottish elections, scunnered voters may leave the established parties with a real headache.

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 First Minister John Swinney says he turned to his teenage son for advice in the wake of a spate of knife crime deaths across Scotland. He also attacked the “sickening” £600,000-a-year pension of Fred “the shred” Goodwin, the former RBS banker. (The Daily Record has the exclusive)

📣 The cancellation of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay had “little to no impact” on its economic benefit to the city, the event’s organisers have claimed, because of insurance policies against cancellations.

45,000 people had bought tickets for the event - up from 40,000 the previous year - but were let down when the event was called off because of poor weather in the run-up. The decision to cancel was criticised when the weather on Hogmanay itself turned out to be mild. (Scotsman)

• They’ll try again with the outdoor events next Hogmanay (Herald)

📣 There’s an exodus of North Sea engineering talent, Aberdeen and Grampian’s Chamber of Commerce warns, threatening the UK’s energy transition and presenting “a wake-up call for policymakers”. (The Scotsman)

AROUND THE UK

📣 Polling shows half of “red wall” voters disapprove of Labour’s handling of benefits. (Guardian)

📣 Health Secretary Wes Streeting has urged doctors in England not to vote for strike action in a ballot which gets under way today. (BBC)

📣 A YouTuber celebrated victory in the notorious Gloucestershire cheese-rolling event for the second year running, saying he “risked his life” for the win. The video footage is, as ever, terrifying. (BBC)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 King Charles will address the Canadian Parliament today, outlining new Prime Minister Mark Carney’s legislative priorities in his speech from the throne. It is widely being viewed as a show of support from the UK and the King in the face of annexation threats by US President Donald Trump. (AP) (Times £)

• King Charles’s visit to Canada shows the monarchy’s quiet diplomatic strength (Independent)

🌎 Just what was France’s first lady doing to Emmanuel Macron as they prepared to disembark from their plane last weekend? A moment where she appears to push him in the face with both hands made headlines across the world. (AP)

SPORT

⚽️ Livingston secured promotion back to the Scottish Premiership with a remarkable comeback victory against Ross County last night. Their return has come after manager David Martindale changed his footballing approach. (BBC)

⚽️ Who’s going to manage Rangers? Speculation continues to swirl around an almost total void of actual information.

• Russell Martin’s still in the frame (The Sun)

• So is Davide Ancelotti - his dad says he’s in negotiations with “a European club” which… could be Rangers. Or anyone in Europe. (The Record)

⚽️ The Foundation of Hearts has approved Tony Bloom’s £10 million investment in the club. Chairman Gerry Mallon said Bloom’s involvement could “really help shake up the Scottish football establishment”. (Scotsman)