In your briefing today:

📣 Prime Minister Keir Starmer will attempt to save his premiership today with a speech promising to “face up to the big challenges” for the country on growth, energy, defence and Europe. His speech comes in the wake of heavy defeats for the Labour Party in the Scottish, Welsh and English elections last week.

Leadership rivals wait in the wings. His former deputy, Angela Rayner, has called on him to “meet the moment”, health secretary Wes Streeting has called demands from around 40 Labour MPs for the PM to set a timetable to quit, and backers of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham hope to pressurise the PM to quit. (Guardian)

📣 Scotland’s new intake of MSPs pitches up at Holyrood today for induction, with a busy and controversial agenda ahead. John Swinney says he will pursue a second referendum despite not securing a majority, and also says he won’t work with Reform, who came joint second in the elections. Swinney said he wanted the country to be “fully Farage-proofed”, with the power to hold a referendum, by 2029. (Independent)

📣 Iran sent its response to the latest US ceasefire proposal but Donald Trump immediately rejected it on social media, calling it “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE” (his caps).

Iranian state television said its demands included reparations by the US, sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, an end to sanctions, and the release of seized Iranian assets.

Washington’s latest proposal had proposed ending the war, reopening the strait and rolling back Iran’s nuclear program. (AP)

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📣 One of Scotland’s leading fashion designers has told of her horror at seeing her dog killed by another, larger dog in a Highland village last week. (BBC)

📣 Two men were stabbed outside a retail park in Stirling, in what’s being treated as an attempted murder. (STV)

📣 A bakery driver helped save three people from a fire while he was out delivering bread to a school in Busby. (Herald)

📣 President Trump will visit China and President Xi Jinping on Thursday, in a summit that will have a packed agenda - and a tightrope for the US president to walk. (Guardian)

📣 Passengers aboard the hantavirus-stricken ship have begun returning to their home countries, with one American passenger testing positive and a French passenger exhibiting symptoms. (AP)

📣 People who work long hours are more likely to become obese, a study suggests, because of work-related stress and a lack of time to exercise. (Mail)

📣 Netflix drama Adolescence was the big winner at last night’s Bafta TV awards, scooping four awards. Other big winners included Celebrity Traitors, and Last One Laughing. (BBC)

📣 Emma Willis is to be unveiled as a new host of Strictly Come Dancing. (Sun)

⚽️ Celtic consigned Rangers to third place with a comprehensive 3-1 win at Celtic Park yesterday in the final Old Firm game of the season. Goal of the game was a spectacular Daizen Maeda overhead kick - one of the contenders for goal of the season, in a season packed with wonderful goals. It sets up a barnstorming finish to the season: with just two games to go, the final game is a meeting between Celtic and Hearts at Parkhead on Saturday. (BBC report and 🎥 highlights)

⚽️ In Spain, a Marcus Rashford strike set Barcelona on the way to a title-confirming victory over their greatest rivals, Real Madrid. (Guardian)

⚽️ In England, Arsenal edged past West Ham but only after a late, late VAR drama when Callum Wilson’s late equaliser was chalked off. In a vital game for both the title and relegation, the decisive moment was a referee peering at a screen: the biggest VAR call the game has seen, suggests Miguel Delaney. (Independent) (🎥 Highlights)

🗣️ Patrick Maguire set the scene for the end of Keir Starmer’s time as Prime Minister, saying mutinous Labour MPs are ready to put a stop to Starmer’s “Willy Wonka” phase after he made the unlikely claim he’d stick the job for ten years. It could all start today, says Maguire, when they react to a speech Keir Starmer is due to deliver.

“Billy Connolly once joked that there is no situation so bad that it cannot be made worse by country music,” writes Maguire. “Two years ago a world-weary Labour MP suggested that their party’s equivalent was sending Starmer out to give an interview or speech. Everything he has said this weekend has made his bad situation worse. And it is with a speech that the prime minister has vowed to prove himself.

“If, as appears likely, what we hear from the prime minister is yet another stroppy metacommentary on his own leadership — more ever-decreasing circles of bland declaratives and unsubstantiated gestures towards radicalism — then this speech will finish him.” (Sunday Times)

🗣️ That “decade in Downing Street” claim was made in an interview with The Observer, in which Starmer also revealed a new youth mobility scheme is close to being completed with Europe, meaning under-30s will be able to live or work in the UK - with young Europeans able to make the journey in reverse, too. “Brexit has held back our young people,” he said. “They should be free to work, study, travel in European countries, just as I was able to when I was growing up.” (The Observer)

🗣️ The Sunday Post did the numbers on the MSPs bidding farewell to Holyrood. Forty-two members stood down ahead of the election, and will share in a pot of £2.66 million - an average of £63,333 - although the exact amount will depend on years served and those who took on extra responsibilities. The biggest single payout will go to the outgoing presiding officer, the Greens’ Alison Johnstone, who will receive £106,911.

Meanwhile, another 22 MSPs who lost their seats will share in £1.22 million in resettlement grants: an average of £55,454. They’ll also benefit from a pay rise that was applied on April 1 this year, which added £3,211 to annual salaries. (Sunday Post)

🗣️Influencers are encouraging people to claim they have a variety of conditions, including ADHD and dyslexia, in order to get free access to airport lounges, queue-skipping facilities and other perks. The claim is they’re abusing the “sunflower lanyards” intended to help people with hidden disabilities, including dementia and Crohn’s, signal to staff, discreetly, that they may need help. (Sunday Telegraph)

🗣️Oasis could make a return to Scotland next year on a new tour: Celtic Park in Glasgow is being eyed as a possible venue for a series of gigs in summer 2027, after the football season. (Sunday Mail)

🗣️ The Met Gala - that extraordinary charity event in New York - was last Monday, and lots of outlets enjoyed featuring the celebrity attendees’ often wild attire. It presents, in the words of The New York Times last week, “a stage where celebrities strive not merely to look pretty, but to create indelible, avant-garde fashion moments.” Even the Early Line pointed to red-carpet coverage.

All such a media cliche… until the response from readers, which has been furious. “I’m sorry. I find this display of ‘fashion’ disgusting and I wish the NYT wouldn’t celebrate it,” reads the most recommended comment under the title’s recap of the “15 favourite looks”.

“The uneasy state of the American economy watered the soil for this sentiment to grow,” reports Jacob Gallagher. “It seems that the gala, to some, landed as a financially frivolous, Marie Antoinette-like affair.” (New York Times)

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