In your briefing today:

📣 First Minister John Swinney will launch the SNP’s election manifesto today with a promise to put economic growth at the heart of his government’s mission. The promise, which is being interpreted as a swing away from Nicola Sturgeon’s left-wing agenda, will be backed up by plans for a “major projects office” to cut through bureaucracy and secure big investment opportunities more quickly. (The Times)

Other elements of the SNP manifesto have also been trailed out across Scottish titles this morning, including:

📣 Who’s lying? It’s the biggest row of the Scottish election campaign so far: Reform UK’s Scottish leader, Malcolm Offord, said Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar had come “bouncing up to me in Paisley Town Hall” after an episode of Question Time in December and suggested Reform and Labour work together “to remove the SNP”.

But Anas Sarwar has denied the claim vehemently, saying Offord was talking “complete nonsense” and was a “chronic liar,” and again telling journalists yesterday: “Malcolm Offord is a liar. It’s nonsense. No deal, no stitch up, no nothing.”

Offord - having dropped it rather casually into Tuesday night’s Channel 4 debate - has now doubled down on his claim. (Herald)

Other headlines from the campaign include…

📣 UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves has stepped up criticism of the US war with Iran, telling a Washington audience that it was a “mistake” and that“I’m not convinced that we are safer today than we were a few weeks ago.” (Guardian)

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📣 Monarch of the Glen actor Alexander Morton has died aged 81. The Glasgow-born actor had become a well-known face on the hit series, as well as on Take the High Road and River City. (BBC)

📣 A man who killed another with a single punch in a late-night altercation in Renfrew has been jailed. (Daily Record)

📣 Farmers could try to block Scottish motorways this week as part of a nationwide protest at fuel prices… although a mooted protest on the M8 didn’t happen. (Herald)

📣 An “untouched” private island off Scotland’s west coast up for sale, with a guide price of £350,000. (Scotsman)

📣 The UK economy showed a surprise 0.5% jump in February, before the Iran war started… suggesting the economy was gaining momentum before the conflict. (Guardian)

📣 Keir Starmer will summon social media bosses to Number 10 this week to demand action on child protection. (Independent)

📣 As photo calls go, it was brutal: new Hungarian PM Peter Magyar was formally invited to form a government by the country’s president and posed for a picture to mark the occasion - before coolly telling him he was “unworthy of representing the unity of the Hungarian nation” and should resign. (Independent)

📣 Sarah Cox looks set to be announced the new BBC Radio 2 breakfast presenter, after Scott Mills was sacked. (The Sun)

⚽️ What a game it was: Bayern Munich and Real Madrid served up a high-octane, world-class treat last night - seven goals, two red cards and an exit for Madrid amid a red haze of fury. It was a game that, for once, entirely lived up to its billing. (BBC report & highlights)

🎾 Seven-time Grand Slam champion Jamie Murray has retired from tennis after two decades at the top of the sport. (STV)

🗣️How do you talk to your children about “this age of endless war”? Rebecca McQuillan, like many Gen X-ers, “learned in the primary school playground what ‘nuclear war’ meant.”

Fresh conflict - and the exposure children get to the horrors of war via social media - means an intervening era of hope has long since come to an end, with a psychologist working with Save the Children UK warning that “even children not directly affected by war experience significant anxiety about it.

“They advise reassuring them that adults are working to end the conflicts they are hearing about. They advise honesty,” says McQuillan. “The challenge we face is mastering our own feelings and coming to terms with this new, shifting reality – not kidding ourselves that there is a way back neatly to the world we knew, but not catastrophising either.

“We’re all having to learn to live with uncertainty and in that uncertainty, focus on the hope. Part of that is remembering that the narcissists and fanatics who claw and bully their way to the top have a habit of tumbling from their gilded pillars.” (The Herald)

🗣️ It’s safe to say Euan McColm isn’t a fan of the SNP’s plans to give every school starter a new satchel. “Like prescriptions and baby boxes, it’s a symbol, something that confirms the sneaking suspicion which lies in the depths of every Scots’ mind that we are just better than other people,” he writes.

“But, like those other policies, the free bag won’t begin to tackle the problems to which it is declared a solution. It won’t make any difference to schools facing funding shortages or children struggling through poverty.

“Still, it’ll be somewhere for kids to put the laptops they were promised in 2021 but haven’t received, I suppose.” (Daily Mail (£))

🗣️ Brian Monteith reflects on the demise of the Scottish Conservatives who, he says, have once again failed to offer a positive vision for voters, instead focusing on the risk of another independence referendum should the SNP win a big vote.

Polls say they’re headed for seven seats, he writes. The only good news that can be gleaned from that is that it sets low expectations: getting into double figures on polling day itself would be seen as a success, “when it would actually be their worst since the dawn of devolution.

“What we are seeing now is, I believe, the likely reckoning of the Scottish Conservative hierarchy leaving it far too late to build support based on a positive offering.” (The Scotsman)

🗣️ As postal ballot papers land on doormats this week, Sir Tom Hunter’s comments might strike a chord. “Is it just me or are more nutters hoping to get elected into public office — and not just in Scotland but globally?” the serial entrepreneur asks.

“Running a country must be the most important and most difficult job there is, therefore we need the absolute best. As you look at your ballot paper ask yourself the question: do we have the best?

“How do we attract the best into public service? Should we have the equivalent of Kennedy School of Government at Harvard or the Blavatnik School at Oxford? I would love to help solve this.”

He goes on to propose a mini manifesto of his own, adding: “Only great leadership will put Scotland where it truly deserves to be.” (The Times)

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