In your briefing today:

📣 John Swinney’s plans to reform the Scottish NHS dominate today’s headlines, after a BBC interview with the First Minister yesterday morning. Talking to the BBC’s Sunday Show he said Scots should not have to travel further for health care, despite the number of health boards being reduced from 14 to two. He also refused to put a “specific figure” on NHS job losses. That’s led to claims from political rivals that he was “out of his depth.”

📣 The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has surged to victory in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, well ahead of mainstream rivals, but has fallen short of a majority in the state parliament.

It becomes the first far-right party to win control of a German state since WW2, giving it power over policing, local education and culture. The victory is being seen as a huge political moment in Germany: the country’s principal TV channel, Das Erste, cancelled its crime drama Tatort to report on the result and its consequences.

Abroad, the victory was noted by US President Donald Trump on social media, and hailed by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitreiv. But Polish PM Donald Tusk said “only idiots and traitors can rejoice at the triumph of the AfD”. (BBC)

📣 MSPs have been accused of asking “rubbish” pre-prepared questions at Holyrood committees because they’re too busy scrolling through social media on their phones, according to a former SNP minister.

The criticism came in a series of “exit interviews” with seven ex-MSPs from the SNP, Labour and Conservatives, all of whom left the Scottish Parliament at the election in May. Their contributions were anonymised.

One MSP said: “When committee members don't even read their papers, you can tell they've not read their papers, and that's their credibility undermined.”

The IPPR is calling for a “citizens’ commission on Scotland’s democracy” to “work on upgrading Scotland’s democratic institutions”. (Scotsman) (Herald)

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📣 Former Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes has criticised John Swinney’s ambiguous stance on North Sea oil and gas, saying Scotland risks a “neither-nor”. (Sunday Times)

📣 A tenement fire in Glasgow is being blamed on vandals, with Glasgow MSP Paul Sweeney claiming “disinformation” about the flats being renovated for use by asylum seekers was to blame. (Sun)

📣 Former loyalist paramilitary boss Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair, who now lives in Scotland, wants to get involved in politics, targeting illegal immigrants. (Record)

📣 The Scottish Government plans to extend its network of “embassies” from nine to 40, despite the current network costing £7 million a year. (Daily Business) (Express)

📣 Nigel Farage wants to buy the campervan that jailed former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell famously bought with SNP cash. (Sunday Mail)

📣 A second far-right protest on the south coast of England saw hundreds of people descend on Portsmouth after a small boat, carrying 140 migrants, landed near the ferry port. The group was trying to stop the migrants being moved to a centre for processing: the disturbance was only halted around 3am when police obtained a dispersal order. (BBC) (Mail)

📣 Chancellor John Healey will deliver his first big speech as Chancellor today, and will attempt to soothe market concerns about the UK’s economy. He’s expected to say Britain “is turning a corner”, but needs to do more to ensure prosperity spreads across the UK. (Independent)

📣 Five people were killed when an Amazon cargo plane overshot a runway in Miami. (WSJ)

📣 Iran says it plans a new “exclusion zone” near the Strait of Hormuz. (AP)

⚽️ Hearts snatched a late win over 10-man Dundee despite the visitors leading for most of the match. But a Braga penalty in the 84th minute, and then a fine Kerjota strike, won the points. (Report & 🎥 highlights)

⚽️ The pressure’s growing on Hibs boss David Gray after his side lost 2-1 away to St Johnstone. (Report & 🎥 highlights)

⚽️ Arsenal roared back from a goal down to beat Chelsea 2-1 in a thrilling London derby, after the visitors had opened the scoring in only the second minute. (Report & 🎥highlights)

⚽️ New Everton man Ainsley Maitland-Niles marked his return to English football with a late, late winner for his side against Manchester United, after an incredible see-sawing final 15 minutes in which both sides thought they’d secured a win. (Report & 🎥 highlights)

⚽️ It’s being hailed as the “miracle win”: somehow Kimi Antonelli won the Italian Grand Prix despite having started from 19th place. He beat teammate George Russell, who’s also his main title challenger and started on the front row, in a performance being described as “perfection”. (Report & 🎥 highlights)

🗣️ Victory in Ukraine could come to the side which most successfully employs an entirely new form of warfare: swarms of drones, which comprise of dozens of unmanned machines attacking a target as one.

That verdict, which sounds a lot like a plotline for an airport paperback, is the verdict of General David Petraeus, the decorated former head of US Central Command which was in the UK last week delivering a lecture to the House of Lords.

Petraeus told The Sunday Times that both sides in Ukraine are experimenting with autonomous systems that make their own decisions on where to fly and what to attack: whoever develops the most effective system will enjoy a huge advantage, because they won’t need as many pilots. (Sunday Times)

🗣️ From swarms of drones to swarms of… hornets. The UK’s National Bee Unit - yes, we have one - is asking for the public’s help to stop the yellow-legged hornet establishing itself in Britain, which would end up being devastating for the nation’s bee colonies. We’re being asked to use an app to track - but not kill - the hornets, at which point the unit will swing into action to trace the nest. (Times)

🗣️ Argentina appears to be shifting its policy on the Falkland Islands. The country has always maintained its claim to the islands, but the stance has often appeared more philosophical than tangible.

But last Thursday night the country’s far-right, libertarian President Javier Milei took to the airwaves in what Lucía Cholakian Herrera reports was a rare national TV address to say, “The Malvinas are Argentine by history and by right.”

He added: “This means that the islanders, being an implanted population in a usurped territory, do not have a legitimate right to self-determination, and that any argument based on referendums held on the islands is invalid.”

Three reasons for his new interest: first, Argentina’s win over England at the World Cup, and the nationalistic outpouring that created. Second, oil extraction plans from a field north of the islands. Third, his domestic political woes.(Observer)

🗣️ Out for a walk over the weekend, I passed the old Scottish Widows HQ near Holyrood Park. Vacant since 2020, the award-winning 1970s building is in a sad state now: fenced off, its famous ponds largely drained.

An argument about what to do with it rages on: various plans for hotels and student accommodation have surfaced, only to be abandoned. None, it appears, retain the whole building, which consists of 12 hexagonal modules.

The Twentieth Century Society is now voicing its concerns, even though the latest plan - for “either one or two hotels” - does retain elements of the existing design. It wants to see more detailed plans. In the meantime, this groundbreaking building continues to gather dust in one of the city’s most striking locations. (Architects’ Journal)

🗣️ To experience Edinburgh Airport is to be shocked by it: there’s been yet another high-profile denunciation of the place, this time by former SNP MP Douglas Chapman, who returned back from holiday with his family only to discover - as so many of us have - that the place is a “disorganised, unwelcoming shambles”. In a Tweet, he described the experience as “shitty”. (Scotsman)

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