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Tuesday 6 January 2026
In your briefing today:
Scotland’s political leaders have set out their stalls, ahead of May’s Holyrood elections
Martin O’Neill has returned to Celtic, again, after the disastrous - and brief - reign of Wilfried Nancy
It’s icy cold across the UK - with travel disruption in parts of Scotland
👋 Good morning Early Liners! 🎂 Happy birthday to us… The Early Line celebrates a year of publication today.
Later I offer up a few things I’ve learned over the last 12 months of early starts. One thing’s very clear: I couldn’t have done it, and it would have been entirely pointless, without you.
So thank you for subscribing, telling your friends, offering your backing and your ideas, spending your hard-earned cash supporting, and simply opening and reading, in your thousands, since this little enterprise kicked off last year.
It’s been a blast. I can’t wait to see what the next 12 months holds.
Best, Neil Mc
TODAY’S WEATHER
🥶 ⚠️ Weather warnings for snow and ice cover all Scotland. That said, forecasters say Glasgow and Inverness should expect rain, while Edinburgh will see sleet. Aberdeen will have more snow. London will be cloudy but dry. (Here’s the UK forecast).
THE BIG STORIES
Scottish political leaders set out their stalls | Danish PM warns on Greenland | O’Neill returns (again) to Celtic
📣 Scotland’s political leaders have set out their stalls ahead of May’s Holyrood elections. First Minister John Swinney made a pitch for independence, Labour’s Anas Sarwar focussed on Scotland’s “failing” public services, while Tory leader Russell Findlay promised to boost the economy and cut taxes. (BBC)
The election campaign is under way. But which leader will survive the chaos? (Herald £)
Scottish Labour urges Starmer to stay out of Holyrood campaign (Guardian)
Sarwar challenges Swinney to a live TV debate, in an echo of Salmond’s tactics 20 years ago (Daily Record)
📣 The Danish Prime Minister has warned an American takeover of Greenland would end the NATO military alliance. “If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” Metta Frederiksensaid. “That is, including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War.” Fears of an American invasion of Greenland have grown since the US operation to capture Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro. (AP)
“We need it for national security, right now,” says Trump on Greenland. (Sky News)
Who could the US President target next? (Mail)
Maduro pleads not guilty in a New York court to drugs, weapons and narco-terrorism charges. (Guardian)
Chris Mason on Keir Starmer’s strategy of avoiding criticising Trump over Maduro (BBC)
📣 Martin O’Neill has returned to manage Celtic for the rest of the season, after his successful cameo late last year. He replaces Wilfried Nancy, who took over from him in early December but then notched up a sorry run of just two wins in eight games. The final defeat, 3-1 to Rangers at home, was the final straw for the beleaguered Celtic board. His reign lasted only 33 days, and he was followed out the door by head of football operations Paul Tisdale. (BBC)
How Nancy’s calamitous reign unfolded (BBC)
Martin O’Neill’s new remit: buy Celtic some time to find a long-term successor (Daily Record)
The Herald’s Matthew Lindsay went to an event with Martin O’Neill last night in a hotel in Kilsyth: Celtic fans there were in buoyant mood, and the 74-year-old got a rapturous welcome. (Herald)
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AROUND SCOTLAND
📣 It’s cold across Scotland… the Mail notes temperatures are lower than Siberia, bringing a “rare opportunity” for ice skating… and days off school for thousands of children. (Mail)
Live coverage: sixth day of disruption as more snow looms for north and north-east Scotland (Press and Journal)
📣 First Minister John Swinney is proposing a bank holiday on the Monday after Scotland’s first World Cup game this summer. (Sky News)
Critics say it’s a pre-election bribe… and only public servants will be able to take the day off (The Times £)
📣 Could the Lynx be reintroduced to Scotland? Charities are calling for the wild cat to return - although crofters and farmers are concerned they could end up killing livestock. (Mail)
AROUND THE UK & WORLD
📣 Families of those killed in the Manchester Arena bombing say they were failed by MI5 - and the intelligence agency should be included in new laws intended to prevent cover-ups in public life. (BBC)
📣 Big discounts for electric cars are “unsustainable”, according to a motoring group, even as EV sales fall behind ambitious government targets. (BBC)
📣 Iran’s supreme leader has a plan to flee for Moscow if protests in the country overwhelm security forces. (Independent)
📣 A powerful earthquake shook Japan this morning, although no tsunami warning was issued. (Independent)
SPORT
⚽️ Aberdeen’s sporting director, Lutz Pfannenstiel, says applications are flying in for the vacant manager’s job at Pittodrie. He says they’re looking for a “high-octane” style of football. (Daily Record)
Rangers play Aberdeen tonight - Peter Leven will be in charge in the away dugout. (Daily Record)
⚽️ Ruben Amorim lost his job as Manchester United manager yesterday: Scot Darren Fletcher will temporarily take the reins of the club he starred for, and which is now home to both his talented sons. (Guardian)
IDEAS
A year of The Early Line: six things I’ve learned
🗣️ The Early Line published for the first time exactly a year ago today. It’s been quite the ride. So, if you’ll forgive the self-indulgence, I’d like to offer up half a dozen things I’ve learned over the last year, by way of reflection. And if you’d like to offer your own feedback, do hit reply.
So, what have I picked up?
The original premise works. The plan was save you time (and sanity) by finding the best journalism on the key stories, digesting it, and serving it up with perspective born of experience, and a lot of reading.
That means The Early Line is built around a reader need, not a gap in the market: it assumes your time is scarce - and that time is the most precious commodity of all.
The complication is obvious: not everyone sees the point, and it’s hard to explain in an advert (word of mouth remains the strongest growth route, without doubt). But for readers who do need it, it’s become a daily habit: subscribers stick around, and the feedback has been (largely) wonderful.Not all the feedback is warm, mind you. On day one, a reader wrote: “Jesus Neil! Subscribed expecting chat about Scotland, instead let's all fret about Trump… Never have I unsubscribed so fast. Best of luck but badly mis-sold.”
I’ll confess to having a wobble: other newsletters have a tighter focus - a city, or a topic. While The Early Line’s breadth has precedent in the US - The Hustle, Morning Brew, 1440 - would it work in Scotland?
I’ve since learnt it does - but I took a lesson: there needs to be a sure-footed philosophy about what matters (and what doesn’t). (And another lesson: it won’t work for everyone. That’s OK.)The philosophy: Scotland matters most because it’s what we experience daily. But it sits on two other layers - the UK political and economic context, and Trump-era geopolitics and global events. Watching those layers provides foresight and insight.
The drumbeat has turned out to be Scotland’s struggling institutions - NHS queues, ferry delays, prisons, educational standards, failures of governance - but many “local” tales have global roots: aging populations, migration and identity, institutional underperformance, AI’s threats and opportunities.
Experiences elsewhere are relevant here - especially for readers who run things - and a morning email can knit all that together.There’s quite a lot of Trump, though. I didn’t expect to have to consciously regulate how much Trump appears, but I do. Partly it’s timezones: he’s active while we’re asleep, so the world’s 5am newslines are often what he posted around midnight his time.
Partly, though, it’s his deliberate use of the media: daily spectacle makes him hard to ignore - that’s the point, and it’s worth resisting occasionally. He might be the most powerful individual in the world… but not everything he says or does is vitally important, or urgent.The Party Line is vital light relief. The weekend edition is where I can put the more quirky stories without fear of them looking glib. From the occasionally absurd - a sofa blocking the Kingston Bridge, South Park taking on Trump, to my ongoing love of properties for sale in absurd locations, piecing the Saturday email together over the week is great fun and a welcome change of pace.
Being closer to readers is amazingly rewarding. Some days are harder than others. Michael MacLeod, editor of The Edinburgh Minute, talks about the “send” button on an email sometimes also being the “reveal mistakes” button: we’ll spot an enormous, embarrassing spelling mistake just as thousands of emails flood out across the world.
Even in the world of print, you can re-send a page to the printer. On the web, you can make a swift correction. Emails: once they’re sent, they’re sent.
But those are, in my experience, also the days when something quite uncanny happens: just as you despair at your stupidity, an email lands from a reader, thanking you and offering up a tip.
Your feedback - so easily delivered by hitting “reply” - really does make this form of publishing the most rewarding. I’m very grateful.
👍 That’s your Early Line for the day
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