TODAY’S WEATHER

☀️ A mixed picture: a bright start in Glasgow but rain later this afternoon. Edinburgh has a risk of rain later, but is more likely to stay dry. Aberdeen will be sunny. London is overcast but warm and, I suspect, muggy. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Nurse cleared: pressure mounts for NHS Fife | Anger grows over MOD’s leak and cover-up | Scottish MPs lose whip

📣 Sandie Peggie, the nurse accused of misconduct after she complained about having to share a changing facility with a transgender doctor, was cleared yesterday.

The announcement came only hours before the resumption of an employment tribunal, brought after Ms Peggie was suspended. She claims her treatment was unlawful and has brought a case against NHS Fife and Dr Beth Upton: the health board is now under pressure to apologise and settle that case. (BBC) (Daily Mail) (Guardian)

• Scottish ministers have been accused of letting the situation at the health board get “completely out of hand”. But First Minister John Swinney insisited he had “confidence” in the board of NHS Fife. (Scotsman)

• NHS Fife’s Equalities and Human Rights Lead Officer, Isla Bumba, was quizzed by lawyers and the judge at the tribunal yesterday. “For someone whose £60,000-a-year job is to lead on equality and human rights, the 20-something seemed a bit vague on equality and human rights legislation.” (Herald)

• Susan Dalgety: Why NHS Fife chair must apologise and resign (Scotsman)

• Julie Bindel: A clown show of a case made Sandie Peggie's life a misery - now it's time NHS chiefs face the consequences (Mail)

📣 The Prime Minister says Conservative former ministers have “serious questions to answer” over a data breach which revealed the details of thousands of Afghans who had supported British forces, the vast secret evacuation it forced, and a cover-up of the entire fiasco enabled by a superinjunction only lifted on Tuesday.

But many commentators are also noting it took Labour a year in power for the legal block on discussion of the fiasco to be lifted, and the move only came after a concerted campaign by news organisations and their lawyers. (BBC)

• Holly Bancroft: Inside the secret scramble to save lives after the MOD data breach (The Independent)

• Three key questions after data breach and huge secret evacuation (BBC)

• Independent: Political superinjunctions put governments beyond the law. (Independent)

• More reaction to the breach is below ⬇️

📣 Scottish Labour MP Brian Leishman is among four who have had the party’s whip removed for repeatedly breaching discipline. The Alloa and Grangemouth MP said he could not support policies that “make people poorer”. All four MPs voted against the Government’s planned welfare reforms earlier this month. (Scotsman)

IDEAS
Horror, then anger, over state ineptitude and cover-up

The scale of the data breach that led to the details of thousands of Afghans, some of whom had worked with British forces, being leaked online has left commentators shocked at the stupidity that led to thousands of lives being put at risk. And the enormous court-enabled cover-up, ended only on Tuesday, which prevented scrutiny from MPs, the press and the public, has left them angry.

🗣️“There are scandals, there are conspiracies, and then there is the great Afghan cover-up,” says Allister Heath, writing in The Telegraph. “It is the ultimate in betrayals, a heinous abuse of power by a self-righteous caste blinded by its own stupidity, an explosive concoction of every pathology, every lie, every error, every cross-party ideological perversion that has brought down our great nation.”

“Super-injunctions must be abolished. They don’t happen in America, and they shouldn’t exist here. Free speech is essential: there can be no taxation without representation, and we cannot have billions spent on refugee programmes or anything else without debate or scrutiny.” (🎁Telegraph - free to read)

🗣️”The scale of the scandal is breathtaking,” writes Andrew Neil in the Daily Mail. “Not just the stupidity of the original data breach but the fact that the British state conspired against its own people to bring – behind our backs and at huge expense – thousands of Afghans into the country, while going to enormous lengths to hide the fact it was doing any such thing – all to cover up its own incompetence.

“At a time when trust in politicians is already at an all-time low it would be hard to imagine anything more damaging, more designed to see trust plummet even further. The sense of anger and betrayal will soon be palpable.

“This story doesn't end now. It is just the start,” warns Neil, pointing to confusion over the costs incurred to date, and the likely ongoing costs of resettlement. It may even be, he says, that the wrong people are resettled: some Afghans, who simply “chanced their arm” to be resettled despite not working for the UK, may get to move, while those who risked their lives are left in Afghanistan.

“Democratic scrutiny and disinfecting sunlight will now have their day,” he writes. “As revelation is piled upon on revelation, there should be ruin for reputations and carnage for careers.” (Daily Mail £)

🗣️ Juliet Samuel, in the Times, casts doubt on the value of the leaked list. “In the official ‘handover process’,” she writes, “which saw babies crowd-surfed into airports and billions in military kit left behind, the Taliban was given the keys to a full biometric database of government employees, plus extensive payroll data including ID numbers and addresses.

“Besides which, anyone who has lived in a village, let alone a remote tribe village, knows that neighbours know each other’s business. It’s probably not a secret if the next door farmer’s son has worked for the British government.

“The secret list, in other words, wasn’t necessarily the hot commodity our officials feared. (The Times £)

🗣️A former minister for veterans’ affairs, Johnny Mercer, writes a fairly extraordinary column in the Telegraph saying that “now the public can see for the first time the true scale of the ineptitude of the British state, through two successive governments, concerning Afghanistan.” Remember, the author is a former minister, at the heart of government during the initial response to the crisis.

“Whilst there will no doubt be a rush to blame the individual who sent it (I know who he is), it would be entirely unfair and wrong to do so. Because I can honestly say this whole farcical process has been the most hapless display of incompetence by successive ministers and officials that I saw in my time in government, of which this poor individual was just the end of the line.

“I feel furious, sad and bitter about the whole thing.” (🎁 The Telegraph - free to read)

AROUND SCOTLAND & THE UK

📣 A man who stepped in front of a moving train in Glasgow while carrying a toddler has been found guilty of attempting to murder the child. (BBC)

📣 The RAC has found eight of the ten biggest EU airports have no drop-off fees for drivers, while more than half of UK airports have introduced fees in the last year. (Scotsman)

📣 Trading Standards have warned Nicotine pouches with colourful packaging and sweet flavours can be bought, legally, by children. (Independent)

📣 Shopkeepers on Edinburgh’s Victoria Street, Scotland's most photographed street, say it has been "wrecked" after vandals covered surfaces in graffiti. (BBC)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 Israel's military struck the Syrian defence ministry in Damascus and government forces in southern Syria as sectarian fighting in the country continued. But the US said it had agreed “steps” to end the violence. (BBC)

🌎 US President Donald Trump has slammed his own supporters as “weaklings” over their interest in the Jeffrey Epstein case, and some of the (likely) conspiracy theories which have sprung up around the story. (AP)

🌎 A huge fire has destroyed the main stage of the Tomorrowland dance music event in Belgium, two days before it was due to begin. (Sky News)

🌎 A Roman-era mosaic depicting an erotic scene, stolen by a Nazi soldier during World War Two, has been returned to Pompeii. (AP)

SPORT

⚽️ Kieran Tierney was in great form and Celtic supporters were “left gushing” at the display of new signing Benjamin Nygren in the Glasgow side’s 2-0 friendly win over Sporting CP. (Daily Record)

⚽️ Rangers managed a decent 4-1 win over Dunfermline in a pre-season friendly… but now £3.5 million signing Thelo Aasgaard is an injury doubt for the Champions League crunch against Panathinaikos next week. (The Sun)

• Is Rangers’ win-or-bust tie in Europe coming too quickly? (Mail)