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In your briefing today:

• Nurse Sandy Peggie won a key aspect of her legal battle with NHS Fife - but parts of a complex and controversial employment tribunal ruling went against her. Read the key findings, and find the best analysis.

• We’re seeing a lot of weather already - and a big storm rolls in later

• Trumpian political connections are getting involved in that huge Hollywood takeover battle

• New Celtic boss Wilfried Nancy is getting plenty of advice from the pundits.

📣 Nurse Sandie Peggie won the key finding in her employment tribunal case against NHS Fife. She was harassed by her employers, the tribunal ruled.

But she was not victimised or discriminated against, the same judgement said. And some of her behaviour could have left Dr Beth Upton, a transgender doctor, “entitled” to view her conduct as a “hate incident”.

It’s a ruling likely to prompt an appeal from the well-supported Peggie, with a number of supportive voices speaking out in the media and social media since the ruling. There’s more analysis later in today’s newsletter: here are some of the stronger news and comment lines:

• Partial victory for nurse in NHS trans changing room row (BBC)

• Aspects of the judgement are “hugely problematic for women”, nurse’s lawyer says (Herald)

• NHS Fife’s blundering board should resign over ruling (Daily Record)

• “Both Peggie and the trans doctor involved, Beth Upton, can be viewed as victims of poor decision-making by NHS Fife”. (Scotsman)

📣 European leaders met in London to offer their support to Ukraine yesterday, with President Volodymyr Zelensky meeting Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz in Downing Street. But those European leaders are walking a tightrope, suggests Katya Adler, between getting behind Ukraine and keeping the US onside as it pushes for a speedy resolution to the war between Russia and Ukraine. (BBC)

• The UK is under attack from “Putin’s cyber army”, Yvette Cooper has warned (Independent)

📣 “The fight over the future of Hollywood just got nastier,” claims Bloomberg’s Christopher Palmeri, as Paramount Skydance launhced a hostile $108.4 billion bid for Warner Bros, attempting to gazump an agreed $82.7 billion deal with Netflix which was announced late last week.

There are all sorts of political involvements in the vast deal, reports Palmeri: “Paramount Chief Executive Officer David Ellison has touted his family’s good relations with President Donald Trump. The president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is participating in the Paramount bid through his Affinity Partners, according to financing terms unveiled Monday.

“Trump, who indicated that he will be involved in approval of a Warner Bros. sale, said he hasn’t discussed the topic with Kushner.” (Bloomberg via Yahoo)

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AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 First Minister John Swinney has claimed Scottish independence could reduce energy bills by more than a third. (Sky News)

📣 Three quarters of people living in rural Scotland think politicians don’t understand the needs of Scotland’s countryside, a report claims. (The Scotsman has the exclusive)

📣 One of Scotland’s most senior officers has been suspended over bullying allegations. A number of complaints have been made against Deputy Chief Constable Jane Connors, it is claimed. (BBC)

📣 Storm Bram will batter Scotland with winds of up to 90mph from later today, as a deep area of low pressure passes close to the west of Scotland.

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 Maternity care failings in England and Wales are “far worse” than anticipated, says Baroness Amos, who is leading a review into maternity care. Her update has highlighted “hungry mothers, dirty wards and poor care”. (BBC)

📣 UK households have cut their spending at the fastest pace in almost five years, according to Barclays. (Guardian)

📣 The French government faces (another) key budget vote today, after weeks of tense budget talks. It’s “deal or disaster” for the Eurozone’s second-biggest economy. (Politico)

📣 Japan is assessing damage after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake caused injuries and a tsunami. (AP)

📣 Ooh. There’s more evidence of a “hidden megastructure” under Egypt’s pyramids. “The pyramids are just the tip of the iceberg,” says radar engineer Filippo Biondi in a new podcast. “They’re merely a capstone to something much larger beneath the surface. The real structure is below.” (Mirror)

SPORT

⚽️ Hearts are relishing their role as title trailblazers says their Portugese star Claudio Braga, in the wake of their impressive 2-1 win over Celtic on Sunday. (Daily Record)

⚽️ Despite defeat in that big game, Kieran Tierney reckons he’ll relish his role in new coach Wilfried Nancy’s tactical setup. (Scotsman)

• Kris Boyd thinks Nancy should have stuck to a winning formula (The Sun)

⚽️ The fallout continues from Mo Salah’s comments about Arne Slot and Liverpool at the weekend, even though he’s been dropped from the Liverpool squad taking on Inter Milan in Italy tonight. (BBC)

• Other Champions League games involving UK sides tonight: Atalanta v Chelsea and Spurs v Slavia Prague, with all three games kicking off at 8pm.

IDEAS
Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife: more likely to follow after a mixed ruling in trans tribunal hearing

🗣️ There’s perhaps one point on which observers from both sides of the gender debate can agree: Sandie Peggie’s employment tribunal against NHS Fife was the highest-profile in years. Who can remember a similarly picked-over case?

Yesterday, as supporters of both Sandie Peggie and trans doctor Beth Upton took to social media to claim victories, the agreement appeared to stop there.

The 300-page judgement was far from clear cut, except for its criticism of NHS Fife, and even experienced legal hands found it a dense and occasionally puzzling read.

Rebecca McCurdy of the Herald (£) was one of those to pick her way through the findings, and offers one of the clearest bits of analysis this morning. She calls it “a narrow win for Sandie Peggie”, although an in-depth reading “is favourable for transgender medic Dr Beth Upton”.

She highlights five big takeaways from the judgement.

• On the issue of protected characteristics, the judgement forms a controversial “balance” between those of Ms Peggie and those of Dr Upton.

• Peggie compared Upton to trans prisoner Isla Bryson: in doing so, the tribunal found Peggie had made an “attack on the sense of identity” of the doctor.

• On Peggie’s gender critical views, the tribnual found Dr Upton was “entitled” to view her remarks as a “hate incident”.

• On patient safety, the tribunal was “damning” of how NHS Fife handled its investigation of Upton’s claims against Peggie.

• Finally, although the finding is critical of NHS Fife’s failure to revoke Dr Upton’s right to use the female changing room until alternative rota patterns could be put in place, it also says “there is very far from sufficient reliable evidence” to say a trans women presents a greater risk to “any person assigned female at birth” in a changing room than another woman “assigned female at birth”.

That last point may prove to be one that draws the most ire: it has already been branded “absolutely extraordinary”, “bypassing […] statistical risk work and reality” by Dr Kath Murray, the criminologist of policy collective Murray Blackburn Mackenzie.

In the Mail, Jenny Lindsay - an author who was written a book on the “gender wars” - says that although Peggie won the biggest claim, the full judgement “appears to contain ample grounds for appeal”.

“Like the Scottish Government, the ruling downplays the importance of the Supreme Court judgment, and uses genderist language such as ‘assigned female at birth’,” notes Lindsay. She also brands that final point, on safety, “an extraordinary passage”.

Sex Matters, a campaign group, is critical of the judgement. “Overall we are disappointed in the tribunal’s approach, which sought to reach a spurious ‘balance’ between a woman’s right to undress with privacy and dignity, and the right of an employee with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment not to be discriminated against in employment,” it says in a statement.

“We hope that parts of the judgment will be appealed”.

And that’s where we are likely to end up: many of the tribunal’s points are controversial, and Peggie will not lack support should she want to continue her fight.

Peggie herself is likely to speak more in the days ahead, and her legal team has already flagged that aspects of the ruling - likely those mentioned here - are “hugely problematic”. That none of this will end here is, perhaps, a final point on which all the parties are likely to agree.

👍 That’s your Early Line for the day

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