THE BIG STORIES
Sarwar starts his fightback | Ukraine to blame, says Trump | Edinburgh University still has “snob” problem

📣 Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has started his fightback after months of dire polling numbers, and ahead of the party’s conference which starts in Glasgow on Friday. He’s everywhere today.

• In an interview with The Guardian, he admits the party has “a challenge facing us in the next 15 months”. His conference speech “has to be a big moment,” he says. (The Guardian)

• In the Daily Record’s Planet Holyrood podcast, he promises the end of peak time rail fares, and also talks about tax cuts and tax reform. (Daily Record)

• He tells The Sun’s Conor Matchett that Labour’s critics will have “egg on their face” come 2026 as it defies the polls and wins the Holyrood election. (The Sun)

• In the Holyrood Sources podcast, out later today, he expresses regret for voting for the SNP’s Gender Recognition bill, and suggests “organisational capture” is responsible for the plight of nurse Sandie Peggie, left fighting for her job after disputing a transgender doctor’s use of women’s changing rooms at her Fife hospital. (Holyrood Sources)

A clip of that Holyrood Sources interview with him and his deputy, Jackie Baillie, is below, along with a deeper look at Scottish Labour’s problems.

📣 Donald Trump says Ukraine is to blame for being invaded by Russia, saying the country could have “made a deal” before Russia’s unprovoked aggression in 2022, or at points since.

“Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years” Trump told reporters at his Florida residence. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.” (AP)

Trump has also said Ukraine should hold elections because the country has become a “massive demolition site” under President Zelensky. That’ll give Russia a chance to place its own man in Kiev. (Kyiv Independent)

The New York Times writes: “Mr. Trump is in the middle of executing one of the most jaw-dropping pivots in American foreign policy in generations, a 180-degree turn that will force friends and foes to recalibrate in fundamental ways. […] Mr Trump gives every appearance of viewing it [Russia] as a collaborator in future joint ventures.” (The New York Times £)

📣 Edinburgh University still has a problem with anti-Scottish discrimination from its English students, its principal has admitted.

He told the university’s general council “there is definitely unacceptable behaviour among student populations” but said they were working to root it out.

Guidance issued last year told students “Don’t be a snob!” although later updates changed the wording to suggest students “recognise that people’s knowledge is different to yours but no less valuable”. (The Times £)

IDEAS
Sarwar’s charm offensive attempts to draw Scotland’s attention from Downing Street

🗣️We are suddenly hearing a lot from Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, ahead of the Scottish Party’s annual conference starting in Glasgow on Friday.

Sarwar - personable, hard working - is undoubtedly his party’s greatest asset in Scotland. But he and Labour are facing increasingly trenchant criticism from Scottish voices. An example: Alex Massie’s commentary from the weekend, when he wrote: “Last week the party outlined a new direction for Scotland that chiefly seemed to amount to keeping SNP policies voters rather like.

“So Labour will not reintroduce undergraduate tuition fees or cancel free prescriptions. But who ever thought they would? If the SNP has a bad idea, the chances are that Labour will share it.”

It may even be slightly worse than that. It’s likely the Scottish public is forming a view on Scottish Labour without reference to what the Scottish party is saying at all. And the view they’re reaching, by watching events in Downing Street, is damning.

The Sunday Times poll last weekend had Labour down at 18% in the constituency vote in Scotland. That puts it perilously close to the Conservatives (15%) and Reform (14%). Sarwar himself sits in -17% net approval, versus -2% for John Swinney. He’s more popular than his boss, but so is Donald Trump.

Ouch. So, Sarwar has two big problems to contend with: people have a firm and firmly hostile view of Scottish Labour. And they’re not really paying attention (or are struggling to spot) Scottish Labour’s message here.

Hence Sarwar’s charm offensive this week. His appearance on the Daily Record’s Planet Holyrood podcast, released yesterday, comes ahead of his appearance on Holyrood Sources - trailed in the video above, out in full today, in which he expresses “deep regret” on aspects of the Gender Recognition Bill he voted for, and says there’s been over-reach and “an element of organisational capture” over the Sandie Peggie case.

This is a political path down which the SNP is both less able to follow for the obvious reason it has driven gender recognition reform in Scotland, and because too much of its party remains ideologically committed to that cause.

More will come this week at the conference - possibly on clearing NHS backlogs, for instance - taking aim at the big voter concerns. Sarwar will need it to cut through to start winning people back.

But his biggest problem will remain his being politically strapped to Starmer - a leader unique in how poorly he’s rated by the very people who voted him in only last summer. Escaping the deathly shadow cast by Downing Street will be Sarwar’s biggest political challenge.

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 The Scottish Government has refused to give an urgent statement on Sandie Peggie’s employment tribunal and is now being accused of “cowardice” for failing to offer a view on single-sex spaces. (Daily Mail)

📣 The chief executive of Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service says the country’s criminal justice system is under huge strain and “already at capacity”. The service has to indict around 2,000 cases by November. (The Scotsman)

📣 East Lothian Council has become Scotland’s first to approve a 10% council tax rise. More are expected to follow. (STV)

AROUND THE UK

📣 Tougher rules for selling knives online are coming in the spring. (BBC)

📣 Influencers are being hired to push an anti-vaping message to young people as research shows soaring use of vapes among under-18s. (Guardian)

📣 A British couple motorbiking across the world have been arrested in Iran, accused of espionage. (Sky News)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 Pope Francis has been diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs in addition to the earlier-diagnosed respiratory infection. The pope, 88, is said to be in good spirits. (Guardian)

🌎 The US faces three winter storms over the next few days, putting 100m people under alerts for snow, ice and flooding. (ABC News)

🌎 German trains are now less punctual than the UK’s, according to an FT analysis of 1.9 billion data points. The FT’s extraordinary effort comes after German chancellor Olaf Scholz mocked the UK’s “broken tracks and bad trains”. (FT £)

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

💰Lloyds Banking Group has told 6,000 technology and engineering staff their jobs may be at risk, with all its staff who joined before November last year going through an “assessment and selection” process.

The bank thinks some jobs have changed as part of a digital transformation programme. It has a substantial technology presence in Scotland: fresh numbers aren’t mentioned in the latest coverage, but in 2019 it announced plans to recruit 500 jobs at a new tech hub in Edinburgh. (The Register)

💰 HSBC plans to cut £1.2 billion in annualised costs by the end of next year. The UK’s largest bank made the announcement as it unveiled profits of £25.6 billion for 2024, up from £24.1 billion in 2023. (Independent)

SPORT

⚽️ Football is a cruel business. Celtic went out of the Champions League last night away to Bayern Munich, losing 3-2 on aggregate after a stoppage-time goal from Alphonso Davies. That’s no disgrace, far from it. But, in truth, Celtic were terrific last night: aggressive in their press, incisive in their passing, looking like a top-quality European side within moments of getting to extra time. They did an awful lot for Scottish football’s reputation.

• History to heartache as gallant Celtic gut-punched in Munich (Herald £)

• Munich Tear Fest (The Sun)