In your briefing today:

📣 Prime Minister Keir Starmer has agreed to face-to-face talks about an independence referendum, the SNP claimed last night.

Scottish government sources are quoted as saying the Prime Minister reiterated his opposition to Scottish independence during a brief post-election call with John Swinney, but agreed to discuss the issue and others next month. Downing Street says the meeting is to discuss “shared issues” - not only the constitution.

The news has been seized upon by supporters of independence as a moment where Swinney can press home his demand for a second referendum, his claim built upon the number of pro-independence MSPs in the new Scottish Parliament.

Backers of the union have been placed on “red alert”, in the words of one newspaper this morning. (BBC)

📣 Keir Starmer survived another day after his crunch cabinet meeting yesterday morning, with no leading ministers willing to break ranks and publicly criticise the embattled PM.

But he meets his health secretary, Wes Streeting, this morning - Streeting is considered a principal rival, and his supporters the main force behind a wave of resignations among junior ministerial ranks since Labour’s election defeat last week. (Times)

📣 Donald Trump arrives in Beijing today for a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which is being viewed as a big moment for, in AP’s words, “a world worried about war, trade and artificial intelligence”.

Trump has played down differences with China over his war with Iran, and also hopes to head off further trade battles by signing deals for American food and aircraft. (AP)

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📣 Questions continue to swirl around the future of new Green MSP Q Manivannan, who may not be able to work as a politician or stay here beyond the expiry of a visa. (BBC) (Mail)

📣 Teachers have defended this year’s Higher Maths exam after pupils complained it was “unrecognisable” from past papers, saying it “was nothing special." (BBC)

📣 Good news on the ferries: sailings on multiple CalMac routes are returning to normal after weeks of disruption caused by breakdowns. (Scotsman)

📣 The UK says it will send drones, fighter jets and a warship to support a multi-national mission to safeguard shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. (BBC)

📣 Popular British high-street sandwiches contain vast amounts of salt, new research has found. (Mail)

📣 Ten more people who were passengers on the hantavirus-hit MV Hondius will be brought to the UK for self-isolation. (BBC)

⚽️ It’s crunch time in the Scottish Premiership tonight: Hearts stand on the brink of an extraordinary achievement, with the potential to be crowned champions of Scottish football tonight if they can overcome Falkirk at Tynecastle, and Celtic lose to Motherwell at Fir Park.

Without those results, the Jambos face a nail-biting trip to Parkhead on the final day of the season. It’s a thrilling conclusion to an event-packed season. (BBC)

⚽️ Kilmarnock survived relegation last night, beating Dundee 3-1. (Report & 🎥 highlights)

📣 Commentators have had a few days to digest the Scottish election results, and have been offering their verdicts on the poll…

🗣️ Historian Rory Scothorne thinks the elections show Scotland’s left-wing identity is part myth, part reality.

“On the surface, the results do suggest a change in tone,” writes Scothorne. Reform’s “surge from nowhere to 16% of the vote is unprecedented at Holyrood, rivalled only by the SNP’s 13-point rise in 2011,” he writes.

But “that is still a long way short of Reform’s projected UK-wide share of about 27%,” he notes, and “it is only thanks to Scotland’s dual-vote electoral system that Reform can celebrate any real success.

“There are still reasons for centre-left optimism,” he insists. (Guardian)

🗣️Jenny Lindsay sees the election result as “a triple-whammy blow for women”. The first blow: “an increase in the number of Scottish Greens, a party full-throated in opposing women’s sex-based definition and subsequent rights on that basis.”

The second: the loss of advocates for women including Ash Regan and Pam Gosal, “who staunchly defended women’s rights in the face of fundamentalist opponents last session.”

The third: “the continuation of a government unapologetic about spending millions of taxpayers’ pounds on court cases arguing women are not adult human females.”

The people supporting this position are “a tiny minority of the population, though probably a majority in postmodern arts institutions, Glasgow Southside’s vegan cafes, and – depressingly – possibly the next Scottish parliament, disagree.” (The Scotsman)

🗣️Kenny Farquarson also sees Glasgow’s Southside looming large: it’s where SNP/Green-backing Byres Road Man, first seen in the early days of devolution “sipping lattes in chi-chi cafés in Glasgow’s West End, listening to Belle and Sebastian CDs and being ironic”, has moved.

Now, however, “Byres Road Man would not be seen dead sipping a latte. The cool café order is an espresso tonic or anything with miso or ube. He streams Angine de Poitrine on Spotify. Irony is no longer fashionable. In its place is sincerity. Also, Byres Road Man no longer lives on Byres Road. He moved to the Southside, bro.”

His pronouns have become they/them, and their politics have changed, too: it was both votes Green last week: “Scotland’s young, urban, progressive, left-wing voters belong to the Greens now. A party once seen as the SNP’s natural ally is now perhaps its biggest rival.”

And that, notes Farquarson, could be a big problem for the SNP: could it be outflanked on independence by its former ally? (Times)

🗣️Neil Mackay opts for a more ghoulish metaphor in his analysis: “British politics has finally caught up with the building it calls home. The old duopoly of Labour and Conservative has rotted away, like Parliament. The two parties are dead but don’t have the sense to get into their coffins and close the lid,” he writes.

“Though if we reckon British politics is broken now, and the Union ragged and ruined, just wait a few years. It’s likely that Nigel Farage will become the next Prime Minister.

“Farage will become Britain’s Donald Trump, and he’ll do what Trump did to America: destroy it on the altar of culture wars and anti-migrant extremism.

“The premiership of Farage will finish the current iteration of British politics. It will mark a watershed. And with it, Farage will finish the Union.” (Herald)

🗣️Rebecca McQuillan sees cuts - sorry, efficiency savings (a term she wants banned), on the way. There’s a £5 billion black hole in the public finances, but nobody is talking about what this means.

“Really this should have been the story of the campaign, but the parties conspired silently with one another to avoid being the ones to talk about cuts,” she writes. “Now the reckoning. It will make this term of office the SNP’s toughest yet.”

“We’re about to discover that the civil service and health service management and public sector bodies are not actually jigsaw clubs but full of motivated, hard-working folk doing stuff that punters actually want.” she writes. (Herald)

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