In your briefing today:

📣 Angry Labour MPs have turned on Keir Starmer over the “boys’ club” atmosphere in Number 10 that led to Peter Mandelson’s appointment to US Ambassador, and a peerage for Matthew Doyle, despite both men’s links with known sex offenders. The scandals have come close to ending his premiership.

Harriet Harman urged Starmer to fill the vacant post of first secretary of state with a female candidate, and the role used to “transform the political culture in government around women and girls”. (Independent)

📣 AI-powered camera systems are to monitor Scottish motorists to spot drivers breaking the law.

The cameras will be capable of looking into cars to see if distracted drivers are using their phones or failing to wear seatbelts, with the AI deployed to analyse images before they are reviewed by analysts, and any alleged offences pursued.

Previous pilots have been very successful in spotting drivers misbehaving during a trial in Greater Manchester. (The Daily Record has the exclusive)

📣 Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe says Britain has been “colonised” by immigrants who are draining resources from the state. Ratcliffe, one of the country’s richest men, made the comments in an interview with Sky News, in which he also made incorrect statements about the UK’s population. The comments, which echo far-right talking points, have sparked controversy. (Sky News has the interview)

AI gets smarter when your input is complete. Wispr Flow helps you think out loud and capture full context by voice, then turns that speech into a clean, structured prompt you can paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or any assistant. No more chopping up thoughts into typed paragraphs. Preserve constraints, examples, edge cases, and tone by speaking them once. The result is faster iteration, more precise outputs, and less time re-prompting. Try Wispr Flow for AI or see a 30-second demo.

Start flowing free

📣 MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy, suspended by Labour this week, has defended her friendship with sex offender Sean Morton.

Morton, a former Moray councillor, has been convicted twice of possessing indecent images of children.

But Duncan-Glancy says she was deeply disappointed by her suspension, and said her friendship came “from loyalty and care”. (BBC)

📣 Bosses at two under-fire health boards have had their generous pay increases suspended. Executives at NHS Lothian, and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, were given “temporary” rises of up to £20,000 a year for leading a shakeup of the health service. But Health Secretary Neil Gray has suspended the rise. (BBC)

📣 A man has been arrested after the death of a man - James Greenhorn - in a Glasgow street on Monday afternoon. (Daily Record)

📣 Chancellor Rachel Reeves says the government wants “further alignment” with the EU, and that it’s a “political argument we can win”. (Sky News)

📣 Canadian police have identified the suspect who carried out a school massacre in British Columbia as Jesse Van Rootselaar, a trans-identifying teenager with a history of mental health problems. (Sun) (AP)

📣 The UK economy grew by 0.1% in the final quarter of 2025, which is broadly in line with expectations. (BBC live coverage)

📣 US Attorney General Pam Bondi was at the centre of a remarkable Congressional hearing yesterday which degenerated at points into a shouting match with Democrats. She was there to discuss the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files, which has drawn heavy criticism. (AP has a report and footage)

📣 A man who drove home immediately after leaving court with - yes - a driving ban has now been handed a suspended jail sentence. (Independent)

⚽️ Another day, another twist in the Scottish title race, and more late goals in this thriller of a season.

⛸️ More Winter Olympics heartbreak: Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson fell well short of their dream of ending Britain’s 32-year wait for an Olympic figure skating medal, a big mistake bringing a “nightmare on ice”. (Guardian) (BBC - 🎥 see the dance)

⚽️ In yesterday’s Early Line we quoted Spurs’ Thomas Frank insisting his job was not under threat after Tuesday night’s loss to Newcastle. He was wrong: he got his marching orders yesterday, having failed to get players and fans on board. Or the club winning. (BBC)

🗣️ Let’s take a brief detour, today, away from the tawdry business of Epstein and the rest, to the Winter Olympics, where some of the storylines emerging suggest a flurry of Netflix documentaries will be on their way. Here are three remarkable tales that will keep the screenwriters busy.

⛸️ We start with figure skating, where today’s Scotsman notes that “intrigue and controversy on the ice are as old as Olympic time”.

Team GB’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson “seem very nice”, notes Ross McLeish in a report about their heartbreaking disappointment yesterday.

That’s to their credit in a cut-throat sport: take, for instance, gold medallists Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, of France, who are a new couple: Beaudry previously competed for Canada and Denmark “before being rushed into French citizenship last year in order to find Cizeron a new partner”.

That, of course, leaves Cizeron’s former dance partner heartbroken: in this case Gabriella Papadakis, with whom he won the Olympic title in Beijing and five world titles.

“Their split was acrimonious,” notes McLeish, “with Papadakis describing him as controlling and demanding and labelling their relationship ‘unbalanced’ in a tell-all memoir.”

His report contains more remarkable detail of intrigue in the sport, which makes Blades of Glory (🎥) appear less a hilarious yet outlandish comedy and more a hilarious but close-to-the-bone dramatisation. (The Scotsman)

⛷️ On the slopes, meanwhile, the story of Lindsey Vonn is utterly remarkable: the downhill skier who, despite having a ruptured ligament in one knee and a titanium joint in the other, decided to compete before crashing and horribly breaking her leg seconds into her first run.

Vonn has just undergone a third operation on that leg, and her career - aged 41, mind you - appears over, according to her father. She’s also faced criticism - and some questioning of her judgment - after her accident.

But, in the Times, Matthew Syed finds her “inspirational”, and recalls watching her qualification race in St Moritz last December. “It was, of course, ‘crazy’ that the 41-year-old might win. It was absurd. It was also perhaps the most thrilling evocation of high-adrenaline, high-intensity sport I’ve seen,” he writes.

“A lifetime for most ordinary people seemed compressed into an unforgettable 90 seconds, this fabulous human being turning her skis into Pegasus as she flew down a mountainside, the Alps - those ancient ripples of geological stress - seeming to come alive to watch what was unfolding.”

She won that race by an extraordinary margin - 1.24 seconds. Of course she was going to take the chance at the Olympics. And we should celebrate the madness. (🎁 The Times - gift link)

⛷️ Not all competitors are quite so noble, however. You might have spotted French biathlete Julia Simon holding a finger to her lips as she crossed the finish line, as if to silence onlookers.

Their approbrium may have stemmed from Simon's conviction last year for credit card fraud against one of her national teammates, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, from whom she stole €2,000.

While Simon won gold, Braisaz-Bouchet came 80th in the same race: it would be nice to think the winner would compensate her compatriot in some way, now. But don’t hold your breath. Having denied the crime for three years, she confessed, but can’t remember committing the crime. “It’s like a blackout”, she said.

She has, at least, apologised. (Guardian)

Sent this by a friend?