TODAY’S WEATHER

🌧️ Another day of rain and brighter spells for Glasgow and Edinburgh, with a largely early morning and that rain coming in the afternoon. Aberdeen will be dry all day, while London will be wettest of all. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
MSP charged over secret camera claims | Reeves mulls tax hit on banks | ScotRail’s hopes for fare cut

📣 Labour MSP Colin Smyth has been charged over allegations he put a secret camera in a toilet at the Scottish Parliament.

It was revealed last week he had been suspended from the party after being charged in connection with possession of indecent images. Smyth, from Dumfries, was arrested after police searched his home, phone and computer. He said those allegations had come as an “utter shock”. (The Daily Record has the exclusive)

Last night, his parliamentary pass was withdrawn by authorities and workers at the Scottish Parliament were offered the use of support services. (BBC)

📣 Speculation continues to swirl about how Chancellor Rachel Reeves will raise money to shore up Britain’s public finances. The latest: that banks will be targeted, with a charge on the sector’s profits or even a new bank levy. An increase in bank corporation tax could raise up to £3 billion.

“Politically it is an easy target,” one senior banker tells the FT. “No one likes banks, they are seen as a whipping boy for the government.” But the government is also being warned that a raid on banks would not be consistent with its growth agenda. NatWest’s Paul Thwaite has recently insisted that “strong economies need strong banks,” while reporting better-than-expected profits.

The extent of the UK’s fiscal black hole has yet to be determined: that estimate is being prepared by the Office of Budget Responsibility. (Financial Times £)

• Asda chairman Allan Leighton has urged Reeves to stop “taxing everything in some way, shape or form”. (Independent)

📣 ScotRail is getting rid of peak rail fares once more - and bosses are confident the move will have a bigger impact that the last time, when it did little to change travel habits. (The Scotsman)

IDEAS FROM THE WEEKLY MAGAZINES
Why we’re heading for a crash | “Gentle parenting” vs the new neglect | Irvine Welsh on Oasis

🗣️We’re headed for a crash, says Michael Simmons in The Spectator’s cover story. The reason is our soaring government debt, built up by national finances that are shot. We are an aging population with too few taxpayers:

He looks back through the surprisingly lengthy history of how we got here - it stretches back to the 1970s. But, also, “‘The market hates Rachel,’ an international bond trader summarises,” speaking of the Chancellor.

What happens next? Simmons identifies three possibilities: a market meltdown this autumn which brings down the government, or a budget on the back of “enough good news” that defers that crash until around the next election, in 2029, or - finally - prolonged stagnation. This latter option “would be the bleakest of them all”, “another generation […] condemned to know nothing but slow, methodical decline, wages eaten away by inflation and disposable incomes no better than they were decades ago.”

What’s the way out, then? Only a deeply unpalatable and fundamental rethink about what the state can and can’t do. Unaffordable promises, from not increasing taxes to the pensions “triple lock”, would need to go, whatever the political cost. But it’s far from clear any political party is ready to do its duty, because of the cost we - as voters - would inflict. (The Spectator)

🗣️Millennial parents are desperate to raise their children differently, writes Kate Mossman. At the heart of the difference is “gentle parenting”, which “puts the child and their feelings at the centre of things”. At best, she writes, “when a child is distraught and having a tantrum, we empathise with their struggle and validate their emotions. This helps the child to understand these feelings and, over time, learn to regulate them – without resorting to the demeaning tools of threat, reward or punishment.”

At worst, she adds, all this turns into an “extraordinary test of personal resilience”: “One’s own needs are negated in service of the child’s, and parents are sucked dry with the effort to be empathic and patient.”

But they’re raising, says Mossman, a generation of children that is far more emotionally open. “It’s about raising decent adults, not obedient children,” one exponent tells her. (New Statesman £)

🗣️The Spectator paints a different image of modern parenting. Rosie Lewis, a foster carer and adopter, “knows what neglect looks like”. And she sees a new, quieter form of it: “Parents aren’t talking to their children any more”.

Specifically mothers, who tend to spend the most time with their children in early, formative, vital years. “And the plain truth is that some mothers are present in body, but mentally checked-out. Scroll-hypnotised on TikTok, responding to WhatsApp messages mid-feed, taking endless videos of their toddlers dancing to trending songs – but not actually speaking to them.”

That’s having a devastating impact on children’s development, and Britain now faces an epidemic of neglect among middle-class famililes with iPhones, she says. (The Spectator £)

🗣️ Irvine Welsh is writing the New Statesman diary this week: he enjoyed himself at Oasis, even if it was “across the wrong side of the city at Murrayfield Stadium” and through “the tedious distraction of the Edinburgh Festival, manifest in that perennial question, usually from people you run into who are up from London, shivering on the cold, blustery streets: what have you seen so far?

“Yes, Oasis were almost inconceivably brilliant. It seemed like the first genuine post-lockdown event of scale for all my people, right here, right now; a splurge of unmitigated love, freedom and loss, and a celebration of life and of each other. You know, all the things that music was meant to be about.” (New Statesman £)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 First Minister John Swinney has accused Elon Musk of damaging social cohesion in Scotland after the world’s richest man spread disinformation about an incident involving a teenage girl in Dundee. (Express)

• Police have warned the public not to share misinformation about the incident (Guardian)

📣 This weekend’s storm won’t be as bad as the one earlier in the month, but gales could still disrupt ferry travel to and from the Inner Hebrides this weekend. (STV)

📣 The Scottish Greens will announce their new co-leaders today at 10am. Dominic Ashmole, Ross Greer, Gillian Mackay and Lorna Slater are all battling it out for the two roles: only Ashmole isn’t a sitting MSP. (BBC)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 Vladimir Putin's attack on the British Council building in Kyiv is a “clear message of hostility”, foreign affairs experts have warned. The attack, which also damaged the EU’s headquarters in the city, came amid a barrage of drone and missile attacks which left at least 19 dead. (Mail) (Independent)

📣 Children are to be offered a chickenpox vaccine on the NHS from next January, with the hope it’ll protect against rare but severe complications, and free parents from having to take time off to look after sick children. (BBC)

📣 Reform’s promise to abolish equality and diversity policies is “ludicrous” and could take policing and society backwards, one of England’s most senior chief constables has said - days before retiring. (Guardian)

📣 The UK government embarked on the biggest reorganisation of councils in England for decades without doing its own cost analysis, relying instead on one prepared by the County Council Network. Now that organisation has revised its analysis, and says the changes could cost money instead. (BBC)

📣 Tokyo is having its “Volcanic Disaster Preparedness Day” with AI-generated videos showing a simulation of a violent eruption of an active volcano to prepare the city’s 37 million residents for the worst. (AP)

SPORT

⚽️ It was another miserable night for Scottish teams in Europe, capping a week of them: Aberdeen and Hibs missed out on European group stage football after defeats in qualifiers.

• Aberdeen crashed out the Europa League with a 3-0 defeat to FCSB in Bucharest, the sending off of Alexander Jensen and award of a first-half penalty proving the decisive moment. (Daily Record) (🎥BBC)

• Hibs had an agonising exit from the Europa Conference away to Legia Warsaw. They were 1-0 down on the night, 3-1 down on aggregate, but produced a thrilling second half performance that was only foiled in the third minute of time added on, when the hosts equalised. They went on to seal it in extra time. (Sun) (🎥YouTube)

⚽️ Celtic’s Adam Idah is headed for the exit with Swansea ready to spend £7 million on the forward. (Record)

• Celtic signed long-term target Michal-Ange Balikwisha, the winger arriving for around £4.5 million. (Sun)

⚽️ Former Aberdeen star Bojan Miovski is “en route” to Rangers for a cut-price fee. (Record)