TODAY’S WEATHER

🌦️ A mixed bag across Scotland: it’ll be a wet day in Glasgow, but Edinburgh and London will only see rain this afternoon in an otherwise dry day. Aberdeen will be dry throughout. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Starmer’s judgement in question after Mandelson sacking | US reels from Kirk murder | Warning over shopliftings gangs

📣 Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing questions about his political judgment after being forced to sack his US ambassador, Peter Mandelson, over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted paedophile financier.

It was the third time Lord Mandelson had lost a high-profile government job in a career spanning four decades: he quit his first job in 1998 over loans from a ministerial colleague, and his second job in 2001 over a passport application from an Indian billionaire.

• Chris Mason: “The current attrition rate of senior figures from the government is running at one a week this autumn […] For Sir Keir Starmer, there are now questions about whether he should have been more curious all along about his now former ambassador's friendship with Epstein.” (BBC)

• “The scandal comes at a disastrous time for Starmer ahead of Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK next week. He is also facing an internal Labour battle over the deputy leadership after his deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, had to resign last week over her tax affairs.” (Guardian)

📣 The United States continued to reel from the public killing of Charlie Kirk. His violent death took place not only in public at an event on a University campus in Utah, but on the mobile phone screens of his largely youthful audience around the world. As the FBI appears to struggle in its investigation of the crime, some commentators worry the assassination is the start of a disturbing new chapter in the country’s political transformation.

• Images and video of the alleged shooter have been released by the FBI, which is now coming under pressure over its failure to identify the killer (Guardian)

• Charlie Kirk’s death has sparked a fierce debate over his political legacy. “He wasn't shy when it came to expressing his views - and his detractors also didn't hold back.” (BBC)

• Conservative activists have set about trying to identify social media users who posted offensive, even celebratory, comments about Kirk’s death, some of which suggested Kirk deserved to lose his life over his views. One high-profile analyst lost his job with broadcaster MSNBC. (AP)

• Peggy Noonan: “What a disaster all this is for the young […] All the young who followed him saw the horrifying video of the moment the bullet hit him. They will remember it all their lives, it will be part of their understanding of politics in America.” (🎁WSJ - gift link)

📣 Police and retail organisations are warning that criminal gangs are behind a surge in shoplifting across Scotland.

Their claims came as police released pictures of an array of weapons seized from professional shoplifters who had been responsible for a wave of retail thefts across the country. (The Daily Record has the exclusive)

IDEAS FROM THE WEEKLY MAGAZINES
Labour’s coming civil war | Kirk’s views on English universities | What happens if the AI boom busts?

News late in the week is bad news, at least as far as the weekly news magazines are concerned. They struggled to reflect Peter Mandelson’s sacking, or the murder of Charlie Kirk, in their print editions. Instead, digital addenda have provided (some worthwhile) perspective on events.

🗣️”Any hope that Peter Mandelson’s removal would be limited in its impact on the Labour Party has already died,” writes Andrew Marr in one such brief addition to the publication’s website. He quotes the national coordinator of Mainstream, a new centre-left faction of the party, attacking Keir Starmer’s “narrow and brittle political project” as something that “will break him and could break the Labour party. We need a government and party of all the talents and all the views”.

From this we can take three things. First, Marr observes that “the danger of civil war between the soft left and the Blairites, with the prime minister caught in the middle, is now glaringly obvious”. Second, he also notes the attack is aimed at Morgan McSweeny, “the absolutely key advisor credited with the Mandelson appointment in the first place and an old enemy of some of those who back Mainstream.” Third (and this is me, not Marr, offering this): yes, Burnham’s running, eventually. (New Statesman £)

• Marr’s cover story this is week examines Starmer’s chances after last week’s reshuffle. Will it be enough to save him from his enemies, he asks. tl;dr: no. (New Statesman £)

🗣️The most popular story on The Spectator’s website is a piece written in May, by Charlie Kirk. That month, he’d visited the UK to debate students at Oxford and Cambridge, and The Spectator asked him to write about the experience. “The result was this well-observed, funny and now strangely prophetic-sounding piece about the condition of England,” the magazine says.

Kirk wasn’t impressed by what he found among the student bodies of England’s two most prestigious universities. At Cambridge, “For all their learning and talent, the students were unprepared and appalled to hear takes that, by now, are mainstream and even boring in America.”

“Charlie Kirk believed in free speech. He died speaking freely. RIP,” concludes the magazine. (The Spectator £)

🗣️Tim Shipman looks ahead to Donald Trump’s state visit next week, with “potential landmines” lying in plain sight. It looks likely, for instance, that he’ll sit down for an interview with GB News’s Beverley Turner. “He could say literally anything,” one Downing Street official notes.

But they are also sanguine about what will follow: they think the public is used to Trump’s “off-piste verbal excursions”. There will also be a big announcement: a UK-US tech deal worth “billions of pounds of investment” to Britain. (The Spectator £)

🗣️The Economist poses an interesting question: what if the world’s $3 trillion bet on AI goes sour? After all, it says, “the scale of these bets is so vast that it is worth asking what will happen at payback time. Even if the technology succeeds, plenty of people will lose their shirts.” And if it doesn’t succeed? “The economic and financial pain will be swift and severe.”

Why wouldn’t it succeed? Put simply, it might not turn out to be as good - or as useful - as the boosters have it today. The big bets are on the largest AI models, for instance, but smaller, more lightweight (and cheaper) AI models are gaining favour among early adopters. If they “win”, then all the computing power being bought now might not be necessary. Or it could be that widespread adoption of AI is slower, because of reluctant managers, a lack of electricity, or problems with the tech. (Economist £)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Perth and Kinross Council managed to scrap a £128,000-a-year role without keeping any records, they claim. The information commissioner has described this as “astonishing”. (The Courier has the exclusive)

📣 Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has promised to save Ferguson Marine jobs from an “SNP clusterf***” with a commitment to “collapse the over-bureaucratic system” if he becomes First Minister. (Scotsman)

📣 Dozens of tickets bought by the High School of Dundee for Newcastle United’s game against Barcelona have been cancelled, after a fan backlash. The school had been planning a £295-a-head excursion to Newcastle for pupils. (STV) (Mail)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 An increasing number of Israeli reservists are refusing callups for its invasion of Gaza City, despite the risk of imprisonment. One group calling on Israel’s leaders to stop sending their children into war is comprised of mothers who fear their sons will die in vain. (AP)

📣 The English Green Party’s new leader claims he’s had “multiple conversations” with Labour MPs thinking of defecting to his party. (The Independent has the exclusive)

📣 Prince Harry has made a “surprise” visit to Ukraine, pledging support for thousands injured in the war with Russia through his Invictus Games Foundation. (The Guardian)

📣 A water company has banned tankers from delivering its water to the Wiltshire estate of an American billionaire, who was using it to fill a lake. (BBC)

SPORT

🏉 Scotland star Chloe Rollie is preaching positivity ahead of our clash with England in the Women’s World Cup quarter-final in Bristol on Sunday. “Anyone can beat them on the day. It’s possible,” she said. “I think it’s just about getting the passion there and getting the Braveheart feel of it.” (The Offisde Line)

⚽️ Celtic fans will hold a “12th man 12th minute” protest against the club’s board in their game away to Kilmarnock. (Scotsman)

⚽️ Ahead of his clash with Rangers at Ibrox, Derek McInnes is telling his Hearts players - and fans - not to get carried away with the Edinburgh club’s performance so far. (Daily Record)