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In your briefing today:

• A u-turn on workers’ rights could land Keir Starmer in (more) hot water

• Great reads from the weekly magazines: Britain’s alarming decline | The AI revolution’s favourite philosopher | Why we should defend marriage

• A terrific night for Martin O’Neill and Celtic in Europe… not so much for Rangers and Aberdeen.

📣 Keir Starmer has U-turned on reforms to workers’ rights which would see workers protected from unfair dismissal from their first day in the job.

The reform was a central promise in Labour’s election manifesto that had been championed by former deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner.

But it will be replaced by a six-month threshold, after the plans came under fire from small business owners, and struggled to make progress through the House of Lords. (Guardian) (Independent) (BBC)

📣 The huge fire in Hong Kong has finally been extinguished with the death toll from the blaze now standing at 94, including one firefighter. But with the search for survivors about to draw to a close, and many hundreds of people still missing, it is feared that number will soar. (BBC live coverage)

• The eight residential blocks in the complex had been undergoing renovations for more than a year, and were covered in bamboo scaffolding and green mesh. But a highly flammable styrofoam material being used in the work also helped the fire spread rapidly. Three senior managers of the renovation company have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. (South China Morning Post)

📣 Scottish Health Secretary Neil Gray has ordered an investigation after medical records linked to a public inquiry were destroyed.

The records would have shed light on the actions of disgraced surgeon Sam Eljamel. But Gray only found out on Wednesday about their destruction when it was first reported in the media, leaving him “greatly concerned, angry and appalled”.

The inquiry’s lawyer, and opposition MSPs, have warned a criminal act could have taken place. (Scotsman) (BBC)

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AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 The lawyer representing nurse Sandie Peggie in her employment tribunal has hit out at the Scottish Government, accusing it of being in denial over the Supreme Court ruling on gender, and behaving “disgracefully”. In an interview with the BBC Naomi Cunningham likened transgender ideology to McCarthyism. (🎥 BBC Scotcast podcast) (Scotsman) (Mail)

📣 Glasgow City Council’s leader, Susan Aitken, has rejected calls for an emergency summit on the city’s homelessness problem, saying the meeting would divert resources and time away from dealing with the crisis. (Daily Record)

📣 A former soldier has admitted risking a constable’s life as he tried to “blow up” a police station with petrol bombs. A judge at the High Court in Edinburgh saw dramatic footage of the man throwing the weapons in Livingstone earlier this year. (Mail)

📣 Police Scotland will audit claims of child grooming gangs going back to 2013, the force has confirmed. It says it will also “develop an overview” of the demographics of suspects and offenders. (STV)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 Donald Trump has said one of two National Guard members shot by an Afghan national near the White House has died. He called the suspect, who had worked with the CIA, a “savage monster”. (AP)

• The death prompted him to launch a tirade against immigrants, saying he would “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations. “Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” he wrote on his Truth Social account. (AP) (Truth Social)

📣 Vladimir Putin has doubled down on demands for Ukrainian territory ahead of talks with the US (BBC)

📣 Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has defended calling Chancellor Rachel Reeves “spineless, shameless and completely aimless” in her response to the Budget. Badenoch had come under attack for the tone of her attack on Reeves. (BBC)

• Rachel Reeves’ uncle has attacked the budget as the “worst I’ve ever heard” and branded it “a disgrace”. (The Sun has the exclusive)

📣 There’s been a sharp fall in UK net migration over the last year, with migration to the UK falling by two-thirds in the 12 months to June 2025. The population grew by 204,000 - down from 649,000 - with the fall driven by fewer arrivals for work and study. (BBC)

SPORT

⚽️ Celtic had a terrific night - one of their best away performances in Europe for years - as they overcame Feyenoord 3-1 in the Europa League. It was their first win in the Netherlands since Martin O’Neill last managed them, when he masterminded a famous win over Ajax in 2001. (Daily Record) (Sun) (🎥 Highlights)

• “My wife said I’d mess it up” - O’Neill steers Celtic through choppy waters (BBC)

⚽️ Rangers could only manage a point against 10-man Braga at Ibrox, after a Nasser Djiga blunder let the Portuguese side equalise. Rangers were pointless before the match, and they’re now almost certainly out of Europe after Christmas. But head coach Danny Rohl was keep to accentuate the positive. (Daily Record) (Sun) (🎥Highlights)

⚽️ In the Conference League, Aberdeen’s chances are “hanging by a thread” after their 1-1 draw against Noah of Armenia. It was another disappointing European outing for Jimmy Thelin’s side. (Daily Record) (Sun) (🎥 Highlights)

IDEAS
From the weekly magazines: Britain’s alarming decline | The AI revolution’s favourite philosopher | Why we should defend marriage

🗣️In the wake of Rachel Reeves’ budget, The Economist does not offer reassurance. “Britain is in alarming decline,” the newspaper says in a leader. “Its paltry productivity growth, high borrowing costs and incoherent economic policy are bad enough. But the country also risks the collapse of the political centre ground.

“The brutal truth is that eventually, one way or another, radical change is coming to Britain. Either today’s centre-left government will choose the dramatic change that fixes the economy, or change will be forced upon the country by the financial markets or by voters stampeding towards the extremes.”

It does not spot good solutions amid the mess. “After this budget, the drift towards populism will surely continue,” it says, noting that the Greens - one of those extreme options - are led by Zack Polanski, who once agreed to enlarge a woman’s breasts using hypnosis.

“He now promises voters a gobbledygook fiscal rule by which ‘Inflation doesn’t go higher than the skills and resources that we have in our economy,’” it notes.

“Charlatans can’t solve Britain’s problems. Neither, it seems, can Labour.” (The Economist £)

🗣️Another excellent edition of The New World (nee The New European) - its AI special - is well worth your time. There’s much, much too much to summarise here, but Matthew D’Ancona’s contribution is particularly interesting.

He profiles Nick Land, the English philosopher who - says D’Ancona - has both been prescient about the future for several decades, writing in 1994 about a dystopian future that now feels very familiar, and who also holds extreme views now that, among some, would simply see him dismissed as a far-right loon.

But D’Ancona says he deserves - and gets - more attention than that.

“Thirty years ago, when so many others were celebrating the ‘end of history’, the ‘Third Way’ of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, the triumph of liberal democracy, free markets and tyranny-busting information technology, an intense young academic in Warwick saw the world very differently,” writes D’Ancona.

“He saw AI not as the completion of the Enlightenment but the force that would ensure its inevitable destruction. He saw centrism as the death-rattle of an old order, not the natural terminus of political life.

“The people who are building our future are listening to Nick Land. We ignore him at our peril.” (The New World £)

🗣️ Marriage needs defending, writes Madeline Grant, as it threatens to fall out of fashion entirely and leave society the worse off. “Marriage is undergoing a seemingly inexorable decline,” she writes.

Causes? Relationships are in decline overall: the great relationship recession has been noted by The Economist (and in this newsletter) in recent months. But it’s also changes in the way we meet people - apps are great for flings, not for long-term things - and our desire to leave things to later on. Throw in influencers targeting both men and women with a message that marriage is bad, and you can see where this cultural problem is coming from.

Marriage, argues Grant, is good for us, good for society, and good for the children we bring into the world. “There is power in those ancient vows: for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish,” she writes. “Even the most woo-woo, secular wedding will adapt these words in some form because they are unimprovable”. (The Spectator £)

👍 That’s your Early Line for the day

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