THE BIG STORIES
Reeves walks a tightrope as Trump hits UK with tariffs | Scotland’s doctors warn of cuts without more cash

📣 Rachel Reeves unveiled a spring statement yesterday which showed her - and the UK economy - walking on a fiscal tightrope. Even with big cuts to disability benefits and other cuts, her “headroom” to meet fiscal rules remains tiny, and vulnerable to global events. As if to illustrate the problem, only hours later Donald Trump announced tariffs on one of the UK’s biggest exports to the US - cars.

• Reeves defends her handling of the economy (BBC)

• Chancellor accused of balancing the books on the backs of the poorest (Guardian)

• Rachel Reeves writes in The Times today saying “Labour’s plan is starting to bear fruit”. (Times £)

• The head of Oxfam Scotland says a wealth tax on the top 0.04 of the population could have generated £24 billion to tackle poverty, combat climate change and bolster public services. (The Scotsman)

• Today’s Early Line reviews reaction from across the political spectrum, below ⬇️

📣 Donald Trump announced those 25% tariffs on cars imported to the US in a statement made last night.

The UK sends around 100,000 vehicles to the US each year, and they’re expensive (think luxury brands such as Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley, Rolls-Royce and Aston Martin). That means cars are the UK’s single biggest export category to the US by value, and economists think sales could be hit by 7%. The i Newspaper set all this out back in February. (The i) (ONS: UK Trade with the US)

📣 Scotland’s doctors are warning they will have to cut services across Scotland unless they receive a significant and sustained injection of cash. BMA Scotland has sounded the alarm as an Audit Scotland report, published today, finds the Scottish Government is failing to meet its promises to improve the sector. (The Herald) (Read the Audit Scotland report)

IDEAS
Missed opportunities, tough choices in Scotland, an unexpected star… and worse to come?

From a variety of perspectives, here’s some of the more interesting commentary on the state of the state after yesterday’s spring statement

🗣️ Juliet Samuel says George Osborne can take some of the blame for where we find ourselves after his “gradualist” austerity drive between 2009 and 2016, which ended up “more of a missed opportunity than a historic event.” Countries around the EU which took the axe to their deficits - Ireland, Greece, Portugal - “are all currently at the prudent end of the EU’s budgeting league table while also boasting of higher growth than almost all western European countries”. “Having taken such harsh medicine at the height of the euro crisis, they can all now regard those dire fiscal episodes as affairs of the past,” she writes. (The Times £)

🗣️John McLaren says the budget looks tough from a Scottish perspective. “John Swinney’s Government […] needs to find money to help pay for a variety of Scottish exceptionalisms, often relating to big ticket issues. These include: free university tuition; higher and additional social security payments; and for more public service workers per head of population; and who are, on average, higher paid.” The best ways out of this are higher Scottish growth, relative to the rest of the UK, or higher taxes. Plans for the former are unconvincing, he says, while taxes are at their limit. It’s “an uncomfortable spot,” he says. (The Scotsman)

🗣️ Fraser Nelson says the star of mini-budget was, unexpectedly, Angela Rayner. Her planning reforms are expected to mean 170,000 more homes by the end of this parliament, more economic growth, billions a year more in tax and even to help lift living standards by £500 a year. [..] This part of the chancellor’s “growth, growth, growth” agenda is going very well. The rest of it: not so much. […] As things stand, the UK is braced to lose the equivalent of the working-age population of Birmingham to sickness benefit in the next few years. Today’s statement offers nothing to slow this calamitous momentum.” (The Times £)

🗣️ In a leader, the Morning Star said opposition to the cuts unveiled by Reeves did not come in Parliament, but outside “where disabled people rallied to insist the Chancellor’s books should not be balanced on their backs,” the title says. “Despite her denials, Rachel Reeves condemns Britain to more of the same austerity that has crippled services, and lowered living standards, for 15 years.” It calls for a wealth tax, “an idea whose time has come.” (The Morning Star)

AROUND SCOTLAND AND THE UK

📣 Reform leader Nigel Farage has agreed to settle his “debanking” dispute with NatWest nearly two years after a row over the closure of his accounts, which culminated in the resignation of the lending giant’s chief executive. (Independent)

📣 Center Parks has unveiled its plans for a £400 million holiday village in the Scottish Borders. (STV)

📣 An NHS software provider has been fined £3m over security failings that led to a ransomware attack on the NHS in 2022. (BBC)

📣 Whisky barrel investment scams have conned victims out of millions of pounds of savings, a BBC investigation has found. The victims include a woman who spent more than £100,000 on casks which experts say were only ever worth a fraction of the price she paid. (BBC)

📣 A man who stole 325 Creme Eggs has been banned from an entire county - Cambridgeshire - for three months. (Guardian)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 Donald Trump played down the staggering security leak in which his government’s national security officals chatted about attack plans and accidentally invited one of the US’s most senior editors to join them. (AP)

• The New York Times has reproduced the entire chat, and annotated it: it’s a handy way to know who’s who, and what they’re talking about. Here’s a gift link so you can read it for free 🎁

• UK spies have “deep-rooted fears” about sharing intelligence with the US after the leak, with higher restictions likely to be placed on some material sent to their US counterparts. The i has the exclusive.

🌎 Those wildfires in South Korea continue to rage with firefighters trying to save people and ancient artifacts from the flames. (BBC)

🌎 Denmark has welcomed a decision by a US delegation visiting Greenland to confine their trip to a miliatry base, rather than take in a dog sled race as well. (Reuters)

🌎 We knew the Pope was seriously ill in February: now he’s back in the Vatican we’re learning just how ill he was. Doctors briefly considered suspending treatment after one breathing crisis, but elected to take aggressive action instead. The Pope, and those around him, knew at one point “he might not survive the night”. (AP)

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

💰 Scotland’s economy made a strong start to the year, Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes said, with GDP growing by 0.5% in the quarter to January versus the previous three months. (Daily Business)

💰 A bidder is in talks to buy Prestwick Airport, John Swinney confirmed yesterday. The airport has been owned by the Scottish Government since 2013. (The Herald)

💰 NatWest Group is planning to ramp up its support for entrepreneurs through its “accelerator” initiative, alongside new university partnership. (Scotsman)

SPORT

⚽️ Former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan has gone where Scottish punditry has feared to tread and asked… in what way was that banner held up by Rangers fans, which has got them lifetime bans and the club the threat of significant punishment, “racist and discriminatory”? Former Liverpool and England midfielder Danny Murphy, on air with Jordan, was equally baffled. (The Sun)

⚽️ Daizen Maeda has been offered a huge new Celtic contract. (The Sun has the exclusive).

⚽️ Rangers do have an option to buy their on-loan talisman, Vaclav Cerny… but they’re running out of time to spend the necessary £5.5 million. (The Daily Record has the exclusive)

🏉 Forwards coach John Dalziel is the only Scot in the backroom team for the forthcoming British & Irish Lions tour. (Scotsman)