TODAY’S WEATHER

⛅️ After yesterday’s mixed bag, it’ll be a bright, dry and mild day for Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and London. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Starmer in “meltdown” as aide quits | Huge new US investment - but no whisky deal | Rent control u-turn

📣 It’s being called a “meltdown” by some: the problems certainly do continue to add up for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with a key aide resigning over crude messages about veteran MP Diane Abbott. That came as he struggled to answer questions over what he knew about Peter Mandelson’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, and US President Donald Trump flew in for a state visit to the UK.

Some reports say Labour MPs are now “openly” talking about replacing Starmer before next spring’s elections.

• Starmer aide’s exit over lewd Abbott jokes deepens crisis (Guardian)

• Starmer goes into meltdown - another disastrous day for Labour (Mail)

• Trump’s visit is mired with potential pitfalls despite careful planning (BBC)

Perhaps most crushingly of all, the Telegraph claims Trump will “go easy” on Starmer, recognising the PM is “on the ropes”.

📣 Trump and Starmer expect to announce up to £10 billion in economic deals during the US President’s visit to the UK, including a science and technology partnership that is expected to yield vast new investment. The deals will not, however, include any deal on tariffs on Scotch whisky.

The latest deals will be in addition to previously announced plans to make it easier for both countries to build nuclear power stations, allowing the use of each other’s safety assessments of reactor designs to fast-track approvals.

Google will also announce a £5 billion investment in the UK in the next two years to support growing demand for AI services. (🎁Bloomberg has the exclusive - gift link)

• Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has criticised the proposed deals as a "Silicon Valley stitch-up", and demanded the government puts it to a vote in parliament. He claimed the deal was “a Silicon Valley stitch-up that hands tax cuts to tech billionaires while undermining protections for our children online." (Sky News)

📣 Build-to-rent properties will be exempt from rent controls after the Scottish Government quietly dropped plans for a national scheme, first agreed to in the Bute House Agreement between the SNP and Scottish Greens in 2021.

The Scottish Government now plans to allow individual councils to decide on measures they introduce in their areas, with Housing Secretary Mairi McAllan justifying the move as a way of “increasing housing supply and addressing affordability challenges". (The Herald has the exclusive)

IDEAS
Are our broadcasters giving Nigel Farage and Reform UK too much airtime?

🗣️ Does Nigel Farage and his Reform Party get too much media coverage? A recurring claim since before Brexit is that broadcasters - especially the BBC - have fuelled the rise of the far right by consistently giving it air time.

Farage’s appearances on Question Time - and there have been dozens - were particularly controversial when he was not either leading a party or running for election.

His status has, of course, changed since then - but it is still claimed he, and Reform, gets more attention than it deserves from the national broadcaster. It’s a claim particularly pushed by the Lib Dems.

Academics from the University of Cardiff have run the numbers, and the results are, perhaps, surprising: Reform has been getting less coverage than its vote share might demand, at least by one method of calculating a fair share, while the broadcasters focus their interest on Labour and the Conservatives.

The analysts followed the choices of the five leading political debate programmes: the BBC’s Question Time, Any Questions? and Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg and - on commercial channels - ITV’s Peston and Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips. The research was done in the in the post-General Election 2024/2025 parliamentary season.

They found the shows allocated the most airtime to Labour (39%) and the Conservatives (38.1%). Other parties were under-represented relative to their vote share at last year’s General Election.

• Reform UK won 4.7% of politician appearances but had a 14.3% vote share.

• The Lib Dems had 8.6% of appearances on a 12.2% vote share

• The Greens had only 3.7% of appearances but 6.7% vote share.

What appears to be happening here, concluded the academics, was that the number of seats won in the election was the factor being given greatest weight - not the number of votes cast for a party.

And, of course, our first-past-the-post electoral system has its problems. A small advantage in votes can lead to a big advantage in seats. Conversely, large votes concentrated in small areas lead to a disappointing haul of seats. But broadcasters will still favour seats over votes, carrying that shortcoming of the electoral system into the way they set up public debates.

Professor Stephen Cushion notes that some people may still say Reform UK gets too much coverage. “After all, the party only had a handful of MPs elected in the last general election,” he notes.

And, indeed, that’s exactly what is happening - with some observers pointing out that Reform, with 0.7% of all MPs, featured in 25% of the BBC’s all-important 10pm bulletins (which lie outside the panel and debate programming examined by the study).

And that’s certainly the point the Lib Dems, finding themselves squeezed out, are saying as they lead this fight. They’ve launched a petition demanding the BBC corrects its “wall-to-wall” coverage of Reform by committing to a permanent guarantee of “proportional coverage of political parties year-round” - and that proportion would be drawn from MPs elected.

The BBC defends its position by pointing to poll ratings - which the Lib Dems would like to see ignored in calculations - and the fact Reform is “setting the political weather”. A spokesperson for ITV News also rejected the Lib Dem criticism, telling the Guardian: “Editorial decisions are guided by news value and public interest, with coverage reflecting electoral performance and significant political developments.”

As the political temperature - and alarm over the far right’s progress - rises, you can expect the debate over airtime to also become more fraught. Some critics may also point to the irony that Reform, were it in government, would almost certainly scrap the license fee that funds the BBC.

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 The Scottish Parliament is set for a late-night session today to debate a range of reforms to the country’s legal system, including the removal of the not proven verdict. The government's Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill would also raise the bar for a guilty verdict in criminal trials and pave the way for the creation of a special sexual offences court. (BBC)

• Why Scotland has the not proven verdict, and why it’s proved controversial (Daily Record)

• The not proven verdicts that rocked Scotland over the years (Daily Record)

📣 A man has died after being found injured at a holiday park in Inverclyde. Police arrested a 21-year-old man and 28-year-old woman in connection with assault. (Sky News)

📣 Suspended Scottish Labour MP Brian Leishman has sponsored an SNP bill to scrap the two-child cap. The MP was suspended for previous breaches of party discipline, including previously signing an SNP bill. The vote takes place later today in the House of Commons. (The Scotsman has the exclusive)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 Israel’s defence minister has said “Gaza is burning” after heavy strikes struck Gaza City, with indications that an intensive operation targeting the Gaza Strip’s biggest city is now underway. (AP)

📣 Labour's bid to deport the first small boat migrant was halted at the last minute after a legal challenge. A migrant who arrived across the Channel last month was due to be sent back aboard a scheduled flight to Paris yesterday afternoon. (Mail)

📣 Big pharmaceutical companies have now ditched or paused nearly £2bn in planned UK investments so far this year, with accusations that the government is not spending enough on new medicines for use in the NHS. They argue there is too little incentive for them to develop drugs and test them in the UK. (Guardian)

📣 A long-awaited "Hillsborough Law" bill will force public officials to tell the truth during investigations into major disasters. The news has been welcomed by campaigners, who had feared the landmark Public Office (Accountability) Bill was going to be watered down. (BBC)

📣 Donald Trump says he will follow through with a threat to sue The New York Times. In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president said he had "the Great Honor of bringing a $15bn Defamation and Libel Lawsuit" against "one of the worst and most degenerate newspapers in the History of our Country". (Sky News)

SPORT

⚽️ Russell Martin took his Rangers players for some wild water swimming in Loch Lomond yesterday, but remains in a job despite speculation about his future swirling around Glasgow. (Daily Record)

• A fan group has called for both Martin and chief executive Patrick Stewart to be removed from their roles (The Sun)

⚽️ While Rangers struggle, Aberdeen have contrived to be even worse - sitting bottom of the table with only one point and no league goals scored. Manager Jimmy Thelin says, unsurprisingly, the focus is on getting some wins. (Daily Record)