In your briefing today:

📣 Pressure is growing for an inquiry into Peter Murrell’s embezzlement of SNP funds, with a Westminster committee pressing to hold a joint probe with Holyrood MSPs. The Scottish Affairs Committee has agreed that its chair, Patricia Ferguson, write to the chairs of some Holyrood committees with a view to working together.

Separately, the Electoral Commission is also working with the SNP to determine if Murrell embezzled taxpayer cash while on his years-long crime spree as the party’s Chief Executive. (Scotsman)

📣 Andy Burnham will face a difficult first decision as Prime Minister: how to find £7 billion in public spending cuts to pay for the increased defence spending promised by Keir Starmer this week.

That was confirmed by Downing Street yesterday, when it said government departments have yet to finalise where £6.8 billion of capital spending cuts would come from over the next four years in order to provide the extra cash.

An interim plan envisages a 1% annual cut to the capital budget over the next four years, with the biggest hit to the Department for Energy and Net Zero, which will face a £2.3 billion cut over four years. (The Times)

📣 Staff at Napier and Queen Margaret Universities have been briefed on plans to create a “multi-university” that would maintain the institutions’ independence, but pool some services. Scotland’s Rural College would also be included.

The two universities are also undertaking cost-cutting measures, including redundancies. Napier University has announced plans to leave its Merchiston campus, which has been the home to the institution since its foundation as a college.

The site includes the historic Merchiston Castle, where mathematician John Napier - who invented logarithms, and after whom the University is named - was born. (The Times)

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📣 Calls are growing for mayors in Scotland, with John Swinney being urged to rethink his opposition. The Centre for Cities says councils are too small to tackle the economic and infrastructure challenges facing cities. (Herald has the exclusive)

📣 Britain needs an urgent “reset” of its oil and gas strategy to maintain its national security, Aberdeen’s business leaders claim. (Mail)

📣 Ex-Scottish Labour MSP Colin Smyth will face trial later this year over allegations he caused multiple crashes in Edinburgh while over the drink-drive limit. He denies the allegations. (STV)

📣 There’s been a “furious” set of attacks on Kyiv overnight by Russia, with Poland scrambling fighter jets in the early hours as a preventative measure. At least eight people were killed, and 30 injured. (Independent)

📣 Another heatwave is on its way for London, the south of England and the Midlands from this weekend. A warning is in place from midday on Saturday until the middle of next week, although this one will be less humid than the last. (Mirror)

📣 A drug deal between the UK and US designed to placate Donald Trump could cost more than 200,000 avoidable deaths in England, according to analysis published in the British Medical Journal. (Guardian)

📣 Sixteen children have been rescued from a “horrific” dilapidated home in Ohio where they had been mostly confined to one room for the last four years. (Guardian)

📣 A Russian couple scaled the Empire State Building, right to the very top of the needle, got engaged… and then got arrested. (See the video - BBC)

⚽️ England were 15 minutes away from tumbling out of the World Cup at the last-32 stage yesterday evening: a defeat against DR Congo which would have ranked as one of their worst ever.

But then up popped captain Harry Kane with an outstanding double - his second goal really was a world-class strike - to ensure his nation’s progress. (Report & highlights)

Next up: Mexico at the Azteca Stadium, in the wee hours of next Monday morning. England will need to be way better than this to progress any further, Harry Kane or not.

⚽️ Other World Cup results:

⚽️ World Cup games in the next 24 hours:

⚽️ There are indications Scotland star Lewis Ferguson could make the switch from Bologna, where he’s captain, to Rangers - where one imagines he’d be given the armband again. Business will be expensive, however: he’s expected to command a transfer fee of around £17 million. (Daily Record)

🗣️ Britain’s wealth has drained away faster than any other developed country’s over the last five years, with a startling 23.2% fall in British families’ assets leaving us poorer than the Dutch and Italians, and only a touch better off than the French.

That’s one of the more startling conclusions of the 17th edition of The Global Wealth Report by UBS, looking at global wealth as measured by assets (and debt) owned by families.

It finds that global wealth has expanded for the third consecutive year: it’s just not coming to the UK (or, at least, that it’s not coming on average to the UK. I’ll explain later).

“British families have suffered a bigger blow than those in countries such as Turkey, Bulgaria, Mexico and Kazakhstan over the past five years,” as the Telegraph puts it.

The other country to be flagged by UBS as suffering a similar fall was the Netherlands - and, there, the drop was smaller - 14.36%.

🗣️ What’s driving the fall? Three things have clobbered wealth in the UK.

🗣️ Is Scotland in the same boat? Broadly, but not quite. We haven’t got a breakdown of wealth in Scotland. But if we turn to another recent IFS report on living standards and poverty trends in Scotland, we find that median annual income is slightly higher because housing costs are lower. While we don’t have data, we can hazard a guess that in asset terms, we’re worse off than - say - those living in London - our homes are simply worth less. But we’re also spending less of our incomes on housing. Swings and roundabouts.

🗣️ Where are people getting richer, faster? This Is Money notes that South Korea appears to be booming: average wealth per person there has grown by more than 55% in the same period. Russia also appears to be doing nicely despite, you know… everything.

🗣️ Not everyone’s feeling the pain. I mentioned earlier that wealth wasn’t coming on average to the UK, which brings us to a curious anomaly in the UBS data: while families’ average wealth may be falling, the portion of people at the top end of the wealth scale is growing, and this appears to hold true around the world, regardless of the state of the broader economy.

For instance: membership of Britain’s super-rich club - people with $50-100 million in assets - grew 5.1% over the last five years. Those at the lower rungs of high wealth - $5-10 million and $10-50 million - also expanded their ranks. (Although this is small beer compared to China, where those segments are expanding at between four and five times the pace).

🗣️What do we take from that? That an old saying is true: the rich are, indeed, getting richer, and it’s happening all over the developed world.

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