THE BIG STORIES
Should Scotland cut teacher numbers?

📣 A think-tank has suggested cutting Scottish teacher numbers by 2040 in response to falling school rolls. The move would save £500m a year, but teaching unions have said it “lacks any educational rationale” given increasing demands on teachers.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies says cuts could save £500m a year from the £8 billion spent annually on schools and childcare. Their report is likely to be political kryptonite - but it might spark fresh discussion about budgets, and the future of Scottish education. (The Scotsman)

• IFS: “Scotland’s schools are relatively well funded. Falling pupil rolls and workforce planning represent both challenges and opportunities going forwards.” Read the full report.

📣 World leaders gather in Munich from today for a hugely consequential Munich Security Conference. Donald Trump has announced - apparently without consultation - that there will be talks between the US, Russia and Ukraine over the war, while tensions within NATO are high over member nations’ spending on defence and Donald Trump’s desire to “buy” Greenland.

• Frank Gardner: “The current world security order – the catchily named International Rules-based Order – is in danger of crumbling. Some would argue this is already happening.” (BBC)

• Munich braces for team Trump (Foreign Policy)

• Zelenskiy expected to meet Vance in Munich (Reuters)

📣 The suspect in yesterday’s car attack in Munich is an Afghan national, sparking further fierce debate about immigration in Germany ahead of a general election on February 23rd.

The attack, in which 30 people were injured, is the third attack in as many months in which immigrants are the only suspect: another car attack, in December, killed six and injured 300 at a Christmas market. An Afghan immigrant killed a child and adult last month. Another Afghan man went on trial yesterday on charges of murder and attempted murder after a stabbing attack at a political rally last year.

• Dozens injured as driver crashes car into Munich protest (New York Times)

• Weidel: “What was the man even doing here?” (DW.com)

• Man goes on trial after stabbing attack at rally (Reuters)

IDEAS
Labour’s unpopular populism | The Spectator’s hunt for government waste | Reform’s bad energy (policy)

🗣️You might think that populism means, at some level, being popular. But Andrew Marr in The New Statesman argues we’re in the grip of a different, Labour, form of populism: a counter-revolution against Farage and Reform. Recent policy and leaks suggest Labour is enacting “a reactive programme aimed at white working-class voters who feel the world has been unfairly tilted against them”, he says.

“There is something steel-grey, purse-lipped and mildly puritanical about the mood in Downing Street […] If you are searching for bubbling optimism, look somewhere else. This Reformation doesn’t want to buy a pint for Nigel; it wants to burn his local down.” (The New Statesman)

🗣️The Spectator launches SPAFF - the Spectator Project Against Frivilous Funding - this week, taking aim (with some inspiration from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency) at frivolous government spending. They’ve created a search engine that pulls together various government spending records (all already online, it should be noted) so readers can go hunting for “that are in need of the axe”.

It’s disturbingly easy to find stuff that makes you sit up - the magazine flags an Arts Council grant of £650,000 to a “festival of thrift” which will provoke cliched cries of “you couldn’t make it up!” And Fortnum and Mason does well from the Foreign Office… There will be worse in there. (The Spectator) (The SPAFF search)

🗣️Amid the hand-wringing about Reform creeping up in the polls, one factor hasn’t had full consideration: that Nigel Farage and co are so bad at policy beyond their anti-Europe, anti-immigration core, people decide they’re hopeless. That’s the prospect “Giga Watt” - not, I suspect, the correspondent’s real name - raises in Reaction, after the party’s Richard Tice unveiled its energy policy, which involves burying every overhead cable, punatively taxing farmers, banning battery storage and windfall-taxing renewable power.

"The policy is indescribably bad,” writes Watt. “They are putting forward unserious, unrealistic and heavy-handed government-driven bans and taxes that, if Labour or the Tories proposed anything similar, they would denounce as power-mad Stalinism.”

Coming from Reaction, which might be more sympathetic to Reform than many, that’s stinging criticism. (Reaction)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Another SNP MSP is standing down at next year’s Holyrood election. Evelyn Tweed, MSP for Stirling since 2021, is the second woman to stand down after claims her name was on an all-female “hit list” linked to the party’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn. (The Scotsman)

📣 A school that banned mobile phones in 2020 says the move has contributed to better pupil behaviour, reduced bullying and better marks. Berwickshire High School in Duns was flagged by a report last month for its pioneering work in returning “knowledge” to the curriculum. (Daily Record) (Previous coverage)

📣 Several Aberdeenshire libraries threatened with closure have been saved after an outcry by locals. Councillors voted yesterday to approve various measures to keep the libraries open, with three buildings potentially moving into community ownership. Only one library from an original list of 13 will close, while talks continue over four others. (Press & Journal £)

AROUND THE UK

📣 The Prime Minister has backed Chancellor Rachel Reeves after she came under further pressure about inaccuracies in her CV and claims around her use of expenses while working at a bank.

Two stories published by the BBC yesterday raised further questions about her time at the Bank of England and Halifax Bank of Scotland, but Sir Keir Starmer said she had “dealt with any issues that arise”. (BBC)

📣 First-time buyers were up by a fifth last year, according to data from Halifax (Sky News)

• Where’s the cheapest place to buy your first home? The Independent maps the entire country and lets you search around: Scottish areas occupy many of the top slots. (Independent)

📣 It’s going to be a cold weekend with the chance of snow over higher ground in Scotland and Northern England. (Met Office)

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

📣 Donald Trump plans reciprocal tariffs on countries worldwide from April, raising the odds of a global trade war that could drive up US inflation and damage the economy everywhere else.  He says the US will target countries which charge tariffs on US imports, whether they are friends or foes, and will work on a “country by country” basis. There’s also the question of what, exactly, the US will interpret as a tariff - one report today suggests VAT will be counted as one.

• Donald Trump triggers prospects of global trade war (Sky News)

• UK at risk as Trump targets VAT (Telegraph)

💰 HSBC is planning £1.5 billion in annual cost savings under a restructuring being planned by new CEO Georges Elhedery. The bank employs 34,700 people in the UK, and 215,180 globally. An announcement is expected on Wednesday next week, as the bank presents its results. (FT £)

💰 Scottish salmon exports surged to an all-time high of £844m in 2024 - a staggering 45% rise year on year, and easily surpassing the previous high of £618m in 2019. Growth was particularly strong in Asia, with exports to China and Taiwan up more than 60%. (The Fish Site)

SPORT

🏉 Scotland winger Darcy Graham didn’t suffer a significant injury to his head after colliding with Finn Russell in Sunday’s defeat to Ireland, but he’s still a big doubt for the game against England a week tomorrow. (The Scotsman)

⚽️ Rangers fans continue to be furious after their club tumbled out of the Scottish Cup in a result which is being branded the worst in the club’s history. At the Daily Record, Keith Jackson thinks “nervousness” came from the manager down during the fateful defeat to Queen’s Park, and that he “threw [young midfielder] Bailey Rice under a bus” by substituting him at half time on his senior team debut. (Daily Record)

• Rangers CEO: Clement decision is not financially-driven (Herald)