In your briefing today:

📣 The sixth session of the Scottish Parliament has been dissolved, and the starting pistol fired on six weeks of debate ahead of elections in early May.

That’s sparked plenty of reflection on the last five years of work by the Parliament, and turned the focus on what parties are promising for a session that will - barring surprises - take us into the 2030s.

📣 The UK government has blocked a £1.5 billion plan for a wind turbine factory at Ardersier Port, proposed by Chinese company Ming Yang, on national security grounds. The decision prompted a furious reaction from the Scottish Government, which has lobbied Ming Yang for years for the investment, including meetings with First Minister John Swinney and his deputy Kate Forbes. (The Scotsman had the exclusive)

📣 Donald Trump insisted Iran is keen to make a deal and a ceasefire is drawing closer… even as Tehran dismisses his ceasefire plan. Iran proposed its own plan via state TV, demanding a halt to killings of its officials, a deal to ensure no other war is waged against it, reparations, and sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. (AP)

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📣 NHS Scotland staff will be given the one-off bank holiday for the World Cup, the Scottish Government has confirmed. (STV)

📣 Stella McCartney looks set to finally win planning permission for their “forever home” at Roshven on Loch Ailort. (BBC)

📣 Dunfermline star Graham Carey is mourning the loss of his partner, Rachel Borthwick, after a battle with cancer. (The Sun)

📣 A US court has found social media giants Meta and Google intentionally built addictive platforms that harmed a 20-year-old woman’s health - and awarded her $6m in damages. It’s a ruling that is likely to have implications for hundreds of similar cases. (BBC)

📣 Wes Streeting says he doesn’t want to see Keir Starmer ousted, urging voters to “give the guy a chance”. (Guardian)

📣 National Savings and Investments is expected to pay hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to customers who claim a catalogue of errors in managing their money. (BBC)

📣 Rent is costing an ever-larger chunk of people’s income, new research shows. (Sky News)

⚽️ What are the big questions Steve Clarke is considering this international break? There are still some issues to be sorted in this, the last squad gathering before June. (BBC)

⚽️ Rangers’ owners will plough in another £16 million to the club as they prepare for next season - but will also be increasing season ticket prices as they attempt to increase the playing budget available to Danny Rohl. (Daily Record)

🗣️ Are we headed for a “khaki election” in Scotland? Douglas Fraser, until recently BBC Scotland’s business and economy editor, takes to Substack to wonder about the impact of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East on the forthcoming Holyrood elections, and the government that’s formed afterwards.

The UK is not directly involved in either conflict, Fraser notes. “And yet the shadows they cast are far darker than any we’ve seen affecting Holyrood politics before.” Britain is far from prepared for the economic and military struggles that many think will some come our way.

In that context, Fraser says, opposition attacks claiming the SNP are opposed to weapons manufacturing in Scotland may land a little more effectively. But, more importantly, the state of Scottish finances - already stretched - will be worsened by conflict and its global economic impact.

“The Royal Society of Edinburgh is adding to those from Audit Scotland, the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Fraser of Allander Institute, saying promises must be in the context of affordability, and choices must be explained in terms of the trade-offs involved.

“Yet I’ve heard little serious talk or thinking about how the financial crunch is going to be tackled. Merely implausible talk of efficiency savings and ill-defined public service reforms.” (Douglas Fraser on Substack)

🗣️Alex Massie takes aim at the spending plans of Reform UK, principally, but also the SNP, in the Times today.

He accuses Lord Offord of “fantasy calculations” at its manifesto launch last week. “Following an immediate cut in income tax, Reform suggests, income tax rates should eventually be three percentage points lower in Scotland than the rest of the United Kingdom,” he writes. That’s a policy which would, “at current levels, remove about £4 billion a year from the Scottish government’s budget.

“That is a chunk of change, though admittedly rather less than half the cost of the SNP’s preferred policy of full fiscal autonomy within the UK. The Nationalists do not often talk about this, and for good reason since I am not persuaded voters would relish spending reductions on anything like that scale.” (The Times)

🗣️At a UK level, purse strings are likely to tighten, not least because of the astonishing cost of defense systems. They’re set out with chilling clarity in an excellent piece, this time from defence expert Francis Tusa in the Independent. He makes it clear Britain is entirely unprepared for a missile attack from Iran, or anyone else.

The UAE, he notes, has been targeted by 1,800 drones and 352 ballistic missiles since the Iran war started. The UK doesn’t even have 352 interceptor missiles in its arsenal.

Moreover, Gulf states fired more than 800 Patriot missiles in the first few days of the war to defend themselves against the Iranian barrage: that’s at least $3 billion of missiles. In days.

Most worryingly, Tusa dismisses cosy thoughts that our European NATO allies would sort it all out for us as Iranian missiles overflew their countries. Not so - indeed, he writes, there’s been some irritation at the UK looking to freeload off other countries’ missile defence.

“It is difficult to put over what many have seen as ‘normal’ that there are no direct threats to the UK, might no longer be the case – it is frightening, it is disconcerting,” he writes. “But what is worse: accepting that there are some new priorities for defence, or a situation in the future where the UK suffers serious damage and destruction from an enemy attack using a range of missiles and drones?” (Independent £)

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