TODAY’S WEATHER

🌤️ It’s a brighter, dryer day across the country: Glasgow sees sunny spells all day, it’s particularly sunny in Edinburgh this afternoon and Aberdeen has a decent day too. London will be sunny, dry and warmer - although nothing close to the highs seen of late. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
The grit of the deal | Reform seeks to drive asylum seekers out of hotels | Reeves looks at ‘mansion tax’

📣 After the showbiz of Monday’s White House summit, the grit of the detail around any peace deal between Russia and Ukraine: Donald Trump has now ruled out putting US troops into Ukraine, having given a more equivocal answer earlier. That means Europe will have to step up to offer the practical support - and deterrent - for security guarantees, which are so fundamental to a peace deal. (Guardian)

• The UK is willing to send troops to Ukraine as part of a “reassurance force” (Independent)

• The Kremlin is playing down suggestions there will be a summit any time soon between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. (BBC)

• But Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, an ally of Trump’s, says he believes the US President is ready to “crush” Russia’s economy if Putin refuses to take part. (AP)

📣 Councils across England are now poised to take legal action to remove asylum seekers from hotels in their areas. Nigel Farage says all 10 councils controlled by Reform UK will “do everything in their power” to force asylum seekers out after Epping District Council won a temporary injunction. Farage urged people “concerned about the threat posed by undocumented males living in local hotels” to follow the Essex town in peaceful protest. (BBC)

• Nigel Farage: Epping has shown the way to win (Telegraph (£))

• Labour’s plans are in turmoil after the court injunction. What are the alternatives? (Guardian)

• Anti-racism campaigners have hit out at “extremists” who took part in a protest against asylum seekers being housed in a former hotel in Falkirk over the weekend. (BBC)

📣 Rachel Reeves could target high-value homes - those valued at more than £1.5 million - for higher taxes to help plug the UK’s fiscal black hole. The changes to capital gains tax could come in the autumn budget, with higher-rate taxpayers selling their “primary” residence having to pay 24% of any gain they make. (The Times (£))

IDEAS
The corrupting of our children | New norms for our environment | Scottish politics’ real scandal | The joys of holidaying at home

Five noteworthy columns from recent days

🗣️“Giant tech companies are colluding in the corruption of children,” claims Neil Mackay, pointing to a disturbing story from a primary school in Loanhead where primary six children were added to a WhatsApp group and urged to send explicit photographs of themselves.

It sounds, he says, like a low-budget horror movie: “What’s known is this: the children weren’t using council-issued devices; parents were warned to check their children’s phones; some kids were targeted on their personal devices; and Police Scotland is investigating.”

What’s also known is that Meta recently lowered the minimum age for using WhatsApp from 16 to 13, and the same company (unrelatedly) also allows its AI chatbots to have “sensual” conversations with children. “You know what that’s called? Grooming,” writes Mackay.

The answer? “Smartphones should be restricted to anyone under 16, and banned in schools full stop”. (The Herald £)

🗣️ Defund the arts venues that want to ban ideas they don’t like, says Stephen Daisley. He pokes fun at staff at the Summerhall Edinburgh Fringe venue who denounced Kate Forbes as being a risk to the “safety and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ artists, staff and audiences”.

“Anyone affected by Kate Forbes? Are we talking about the same Kate Forbes?” he asks. “5ft 2in? Likes the Bible? So young she makes Ross Greer look middle-aged?

“This is the sort of fankle you get into when you believe, or pretend to believe, that political speech – and mainstream political speech at that – is violence and oppression and literally genocide.” (Daily Mail)

🗣️ In England, trees are dropping leaves early due to heat stress, and Jeremy Clarkson is fearful about this year’s harvest, writes Vicky Allan. In Scotland, the spring barley harvest is coming in two weeks early, amid concerns growing cereal crops in Scotland is becoming increasingly “unpredictable and difficult”.

Is this year an aberration, a new norm, or something that has always come and gone, wonders Allan. “There were bad harvest years and good years in my farming childhood […] Farming has never been easy,” she writes.

“But looking back to those times, something I reflect upon now is that it may be that we were, and had been for a long time, living in a period of relative climate certainty that may now be breaking down.” (The Herald £)

🗣️ There was only one set of revelations about Scottish politics worth your time last week, reckons Brian Monteith, and it wasn’t Nicola Sturgeon’s memoirs. Rather, this year’s official Government Expenditure and Revenue (GERS) report “read more like a horror story.”

Spending in Scotland is up 42% in just five years, he notes, from £82.8 billion in 2019 to £117.6 billion today. If it had risen in line with inflation, it would have increased only to £103 billion. “The additional £14.6 billion has gone on what, exactly?” asks Monteith.

“We should all be deeply concerned about the waste of money, the rush to book international receptions, the offices we don’t need, the staff complement that only knows how to grow and where redundancies are not allowed. The free bus travel with daily excursions to shoplifting centres for under twenty-fives.” (The Scotsman)

🗣️Gabriella Bennett has been revelling in the unexpected joys of taking a week off, and staying at home.

Unlike travelling abroad, there was no “responsibility of doing”: she returned from a walk and “realised we had nothing to do.

“It was a novel feeling in the age of the internet, when boredom is as rare and precious as an endangered animal. That week I spotted it everywhere. That week I had to make my own fun.” (The Times £)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 A Fife councillor who groomed and abused a teenage girl has been jailed for 27 months. David Graham, a former Labour councillor, had been convicted at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court in July. (STV)

📣 NHS Fife is refusing to say who wrote and approved its lengthy statements on the Sandie Peggie industrial tribunal, published last month and widely condemned. (The Scotsman)

📣 An extraordinary moment captured in a recording: a four-year-old boy saves his mum’s life by calling for an ambulance. Young Joshua Miller made the call from his family home in Ayr late last year, after his mum became unwell with an asthma attack that left her unable to speak. Now a recording of the call, in which he’s gently persuaded to reveal what is happening, has been released. (Daily Record)

AROUND THE UK

📣 England flags are appearing alongside roads across England: there are concerns about the motives behind the campaign, even if organisers say they are simply being patriotic. (Guardian)

• Removal of the flags by councils has sparked a backlash (Daily Mail)

📣 Britain will be “battered” by wind and rain next week as the remnants of Hurricane Erin arrive on our side of the Atlantic. The coming bank holiday weekend (for readers in England only) will, at least, be pleasant. (The Mirror)

📣 Noel Gallagher has praised his brother Liam for “smashing it” during Oasis’s performances on their reunion tour. The remarks are noteworthy given the brothers had endured a 15-year feud before agreeing to return to the stage. (The Sun)

SPORT

⚽️ There was a point midway through the first half of Rangers’ game against Club Brugge where even the most ardent fan would have feared a heavy, heavy defeat. The Ibrox side was 3-0 down and, it seemed, ready to ship more goals amid an amateurish defensive display.

An improved second half saw them stem the damage and get a goal back - with another harshly chalked off by VAR - but only a heavy, and quite unlikely, win in the second leg will see them through to the valuable Champions League group stage. The pressure on manager Russell Martin grows. (BBC)

• Martin tells fans: The “precursor to change is pain”. (Daily Record)

• Martin says he’s not to blame for the horror show (Daily Mail)

⚽️ Could Jamie Vardy end up at Celtic? Brendan Rodgers is ruling nothing out… or in. (Daily Record)

• Brendan Rodgers didn’t make any new signings before last night’s 11pm deadline. (BBC)

• It’s the Parkhead side’s turn to play in Europe tonight: they’re at home first in their Champions League qualifier against Kairat Almaty. (8pm, TNT Sports 1)