THE BIG STORIES
Reeves prepares to cut billions from the UK budget

📣 Rachel Reeves will cut UK spending by billions of pounds today in a spring statement that will be a defining moment for the Starmer government, and likely spark a huge political row. Bloomberg Economics expects cuts of £10 billion. But how that total is achieved is still unclear, hours before the 12.30pm announcement. (Bloomberg)

• The Times says she will announce further welfare cuts, beyond those already announced, after being told by the Office for Budget Responsibility that the first set of cuts will raise £3.4 billion, not the £5 billion she needs. (The Times £) (BBC)

• The Chancellor will blame global events for Britain’s faltering economy. But, according to the Mail, voters say it’s her fault, with 53% saying Labour lied about its economic plans to win power. (Daily Mail)

• The announcement could define Scottish Labour’s propects in Holyrood, but Scotland Secretary Ian Murray told MPs the planned welfare cuts would have no impact on the Scottish budget “in the current spending round”. (Scotsman)

• Health experts are warning “people will die” as a consequence of the expected cuts to social security. (Holyrood)

• Fiscal hawk or playing a bad hand: what kind of chancellor is Reeves? (Guardian)

• Murdo Fraser: Here’s how Reeves should go for growth, and why she won’t (The Scotsman)

🔎 Paid subscribers will get a special edition, at 6pm tonight, with analysis of and opinion on Rachel Reeves’ announcements, in more detail than I’m able to squeeze in here. If you’re interested, upgrade to monthly or annual membership now!

📣 Russia and Ukraine agreed a ceasefire in the Black Sea although it was immediately qualified by the Kremlin, which said it was dependent on agricultural export sanctions being relaxed. (Guardian)

• Putin is beaten in the Black Sea. Of course he wants a ceasefire there (Telegraph)

• Ceasefire is “not what Ukraine needs” as it misses vital security guarantees, including protecting ports. (Kyiv Independent)

• The US claimed credit for brokering the deal (AP)

IDEAS
Scotland’s columnists: On Sheku Bayoh, tuition fees, the death of left-wing politics, and hinterlands

🗣️ A powerful column on the Sheku Bayoh case from Kenny Farquharson, with a simple question at its core: would Bayoh be alive if he was white? If he was, to use Farquharson’s words, “a Sean instead of a Sheku,” would his sons still have a father? Farquharson’s view is clear. “I feel a rising shame as a Scot,” he writes. “The fact that racism has still not been discounted means the Bayoh saga is a stain on a Scotland that believed it was better than this”. (The Times £)

🗣️ The SNP needs to make some “hard choices” in Government on “free” university tuition and prescription charges, writes Ian Johnson. “Politicians need to be willing to respond to changed circumstances, not ideologically wedded to a system that is failing,” he writes. “Politicians need to realise and accept that they cannot be popular all the time. Those that try to are prioritising their own grip on power over the national interest.” (The Scotsman)

🗣️Graham Grant in the Mail takes a slightly different tack - but ends up in a similar place. “There are few areas of public life which have been spared the ham-fisted reforms of the SNP – and sadly higher education isn’t one of them,” he writes. It’s time to reconsider tuition fees, he says, because of the financial plight of Scotland’s universities. “How much more damage is the SNP willing to see the university sector suffer before it intervenes?” (Daily Mail)

🗣️Labour and the SNP have killed left-wing politics, says Kevin McKenna in The Herald. Starmer’s Labour would happily endorse Margaret Thatcher’s position on the 1980s miners’ strike, Poll Tax “and the anti-trade unionism and militaristic fetishism” of that era. “Quite how you can call yourself a Labour supporter while backing Rachel Reeves’ welfare cuts and Sir Keir’s dangerous jingoism in Ukraine is beyond my understanding,” he writes. (The Herald £)

🗣️Alison Rowat celebrates politicians’ all-important “hinterland” - famously found to be missing in Margaret Thatcher by Edna Healey - and hopes Nicola Sturgeon’s forthcoming autobiography, Frankly, will delve into hers. In a Q&A with the former First Minister in The Times at the weekend, she found mention of poetry particularly encouraging: Maya Angelou’s “wonderfully inspiring” And Still I Rise was listed as “the poetry that saved me”. “By their hobbies shall ye know them,” says Rowat. (The Herald £) (The Times’ Q&A £)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Anas Sarwar has put pressure on his London colleagues by suggesting the UK should be “maximising our existing resources”, suggesting he backs issuing further licenses to extract oil and gas from the North Sea. That’s not the UK government’s position. (Scotsman)

📣 A three-decade investigation has led to the return of thousands of stolen documents to the National Records of Scotland. They were taken by a former member of staff and University professor, David Stirling Macmillan, who worked in the Scottish Record Office between 1949 and 1950. He died in 1987. (Scotsman)

📣 Former Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has confirmed he won’t run in next year’s Holyrood elections. He’s eyeing a return to Westminster at the next UK general election. (Holyrood)

AROUND THE UK

📣 Bird Flu has the potential to become a pandemic, according to a director at the UK’s Health Security Agency. The virus is not much of a risk to the public today, but Richard Pebody says recent changes to the virus in recent years are worrying. (Independent)

📣 The University of Sussex has been fined £585,000 by its regulator for failing to uphold freedom of speech. Professor Kathleen Stock left the University in 2021 after being accused of transphobia for her views on six and gender. The University said it plans to challenge the findings, accusing the Office for Students of pursuing a “vindictive and unreasonable campaign” against it. (BBC)

📣 Prince Harry has resigned “in shock” from his own charity after infighting led to the entire board of trustees resigning. (Times £) (Guardian)

📣 The UK’s longest road tunnels are to be built under the Thames, after an £8.3 billion plan was approved by the Government. The 14.5-mile Lower Thames Crossing will link Kent and Essex. (Independent)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 Donald Trump has played down the Signal chat leak fiasco, saying National Security advisor Mike Waltz “has learned a lesson and he’s a good man”. He blamed a staffer for accidentally including The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief in the chat, which leaked US military plans and exposed a rant by JD Vance against “free-loading” Europeans. (Semafor)

• JD Vance says he will also join a controversial US trip to Greenland on Friday, which comes after repeated threats by Trump to take over the island. (BBC)

🌎 Millions of tyres from the UK intended for recycling are, in fact, being incinerated in makeshift furnaces in India, causing health problems and huge pollution. (BBC)

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

💰 Irn-Bru maker Barr is closing its Strathmore bottled water brand and closing a factory in Forfar, putting 23 jobs at risk. It was announced as the company announced growing profits and revenue, driven by the Rubicon brand and continued “strong growth” from Irn-Bru. (Herald)

💰 Scottish accountancy leader Bruce Cartwright has written to former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to tell him he’s wrong after Hunt claimed AI would shrink the profession and advised graduates to avoid it. (Daily Business)

💰 Brussels is seeking to fund an alternative to Elon Musk’s Starlink following US threats to switch off the satellite broadband company’s services in Ukraine. (FT £)

SPORT

⚽️ Rangers have been warned they face an Ibrox stand being closed if there’s a repeat of “racist and/or discriminatory behaviour” seen during their game against Fenerbahce game earlier this month. Fans held up a banner saying, “Keep woke foreign ideologies out. Defend Europe”, which attracted UEFA’s ire and has led to the club handing out lifetime bans to some of the ultras responsible. (The Sun)

⚽️ Scotland’s defeat to Greece was depressing… but it wasn’t as embarrassing as the under-21s 6-1 defeat to Iceland during a training camp in Spain. Boss Scott Gemmill will be having questions asked of him: he, in turn, is unhappy with the players, who were outclassed. Although some young players were in the full Scotland squad this week, so unavailable to Gemmill, the result will ring alarm bells about the quality of the age group. (The Scotsman) (Daily Record)