TODAY’S WEATHER

☁️ An overcast day for many of us. There will also be rain early on in Glasgow and from late afternoon for Aberdeen, but Edinburgh and London should both stay dry. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Scottish police warn of strain over Trump visit | Israel in new Gaza offensive | Could pension age hit 74?

📣 US President Donald Trump’s visit to Scotland this week is placing extraordinary demands on Police Scotland, with tensions running high between the force and rank-and-file officers. The Scottish Police Federation says it is seeking legal advice over claims workforce agreements have been broken by the force in the run-up to the five-day visit, which starts on Friday. (BBC)

• Large-scale protests are being planned by the “Stop Trump Coalition” for this weekend in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. (Scotsman)

• The visit is being seen as “one of the biggest operational challenges for the force since the COP26 climate change summit nearly four years ago,” reports Martyn McLaughlin, “with thousands of officers set to be deployed as part of a vast security operation.” (The Scotsman)

• “We do not have enough police officers in Scotland. Anyone that says we do, I don’t know where they get those figures from.” (STV)

📣 Israeli troops pushed into areas of Central Gaza for the first time yesterday, targeting an area where several aid groups are based with an air and ground offensive. The area had been largely untouched by the war to date. (Guardian) (AP)

• The move came as 25 countries, including the UK, issued a statement saying “the war in Gaza must end now”. (AP)

• Speaking in the House of Commons, UK foreign secretary David Lammy said he “utterly condemned” the killing of civilians who were seeking food and water. (Guardian)

📣 Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall has announced a review of the retirement age, as she warns of a “tsunami” of pensioner poverty. Research by Age UK has found that people looking to retire in 2050 are on course for a pension that’s £800 a year less than current pensioners. (Independent)

• There are fears the state pension age could rise more quickly, reaching age 74 by 2068-69 in order to contain public spending. (Mail)

• See below for more detail on the UK’s public spending conundrum. ⬇️

IDEAS
The UK’s rickety public finances: can we handle the truth?

🗣️ Are British voters and politicians unable to handle the truth about the state of the UK economy, and the trade-offs required to set it on the straight and narrow?

The question is becoming a recurring theme among observers, in the wake of the backbench rebellion over welfare cuts and the likely difficult decisions faced by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in her autumn budget statement.

In a post on his Substack, Alex Massie offers a detailed breakdown of “the mess we’re in”. There are good reasons, he writes, why we are where we are: we’ve seen a cocktail of problems - a mix of soaring debt, soaring costs of that debt (£100 billion a year!), and rising inflation. Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have thrown huge spanners in the works.

But there comes a point when bills have to be paid, he says, and that point is now. “Unfortunately, many MPs and most voters remain in denial,” he writes. “This is the context in which to understand the tempests that have raged over tiny budget items.

“Scrapping the universal winter fuel payment for the richest cohort of pensioners in British history was only going to save around £1.5bn; the welfare ‘cuts’ were in reality an attempt to trim the rate of increase in welfare spending by a mere £5bn by the end of the decade. Each of these things, comparatively trivial in the greater scheme of matters, proved politically impossible.”

Massie also points out that the UK’s credibility is assessed continually by the bond markets which trade the vast amounts of debt already run up, and required in the future, by the UK. The problem is that credibility is hard to come by, not least because the UK’s economic indicators aren’t particularly healthy.

Writing on Bloomberg (£), Allegra Stratton refers to the UK’s “doom loop”: a cycle of bad news that only encourages more… bad news. For instance, worries about the economy, and possibly higher taxes later in the year, is leading households to start building up some rainy day funds - which means they’re not spending now. It isn’t, she notes, likely to be quiet summer, as speculation about a wealth tax grows.

Gurpreet Narwan of Sky News assesses the options Reeves could take to “ease her fiscal bind”. The problem, she writes, is that the government isn’t convinced wealth taxes will work. “The evidence base is shaky and the debate over the efficacy of these types of taxes has divided the economics community,” she writes.

The political dividing lines are already set: as we linked to yesterday, many on the left would welcome a wealth tax, and environmental groups have joined calls for the “super rich” to fund the sustainable economy.

But investment bosses, CEOs and venture capitalists (£) are less than sure - and they, of course, are closer to the markets for all that debt… which will, ultimately, offer a verdict on Reeves’ plans.

And that verdict, more than that offered by her backbench colleagues or the media, will be the one that has the most significant implications for her job, the future of this government, and the nation’s economic well-being.

AROUND SCOTLAND & THE UK

📣 Sandie Peggie would not have treated trans patients differently, her manager told an employment tribunal yesterday. (Mail)

• Two more members of The Royal College of Nursing has been accused of hostility towards members who raised concerns about men, identifying as women, using women’s single-sex spaces. Nurse Sandie Peggie is suing the union for failing to back her in her case against NHS Fife. (Herald)

📣 The famous Ibiza Rocks party hotel has paused events at its venue after two Scots fell to their deaths in separate incidents in recent days. (BBC)

• In the most recent incident, ice hockey player Gary Kelly, 19, fell from a balcony. (Mail)

📣 Average rents are up by £221 a month in only three years, according to new research from property portal Zoopla. (BBC)

📣 The “funniest joke of the Fringe” award, which has run for 18 years, won’t be happening this year. Last year’s winner was Mark Simmons’ effort: “I was going to sail around the globe in the world’s smallest ship but I bottled it.” (Scotsman)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 The European Union is set for a trade confrontation with the US as trade talks between the two falter. Donald Trump has demanded further concessions late in discussions, which has caused Germany to shift its position closer to France’s more confrontational position. (🎁 WSJ - free to read)

🌎 Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, claims his father had taken Ambien - the sleeping drug - in the run-up to the disastrous debate with Donald Trump that killed his chances of re-election last year. The then-President shocked the audience with his mouth agape and often nonsensical performance. (New York Post)

🌎 Cosby Show star Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played son Theo Huxtable in the sitcom, has died aged 54 after being caught in a rip-tide while swimming in Costa Rica. (ABC News)

SPORT

⚽️ Rangers’ competitive season begins tonight with a crunch Champions’ League qualifier against Panathinaikos in front of a sell-out crowd at Ibrox. There are doubts the team, being reshaped under new boss Russell Martin, is anything like ready. (Scotsman)

• Rangers fans have been warned about their behaviour ahead of the game, with a suspended UEFA sanction hanging over the club. (Herald)

⚽️ England’s women take on Italy today in the European Championships semi-final, with the match overshadowed by the racist abuse suffered by defender Jess Carter. (BBC)

🚴‍♀️ The Tour De France puts its riders through one of the sport’s “most daunting ascents” today, writes Alasdair Fotheringham, passing through the “bleakly beautiful moonscapes” of Mont Ventoux. Young Scottish rider Oscar Onley is in fourth place as the race enters stage 16. (Cycling News)

🥊 Scottish boxer Josh Taylor, once undisputed world champion, has announced his retirement on medical advice, after he was told continuing in the sport would put his sight at risk. (BBC)