In your briefing today:

📣 Business leaders and economists are calling for a rethink of Scotland’s tax regime after new data suggested higher tax rates were costing the public purse tens of millions of pounds each year.

Reports over the weekend suggested a new 48p tax rate on high earners in Scotland, introduced by Humza Yousaf’s government, cost the public purse about £22 million in a single year.

Now Businessman Sir Tom Hunter has warned Scotland cannot “tax its way to economic growth”, while academic Sir Anton Muscatelli said politicians must be willing to take “corrective action”. Business organisations including the Institute of Directors and the Confederation of British Industry also called for a rethink. (Times)

📣 Fire crews in France are in a “race against time” to tackle the vast blaze threatening Bordeaux, with weather conditions offering an opportunity to halt the fire’s progress.

French President Emmanuel Macron, visiting a control centre for the huge firefighting effort, urged crews to “stay strong” and vowed “we will win this battle together.”

The battle against the fires is expected to continue for weeks, while 250,000 people who have been evacuated must also be cared for. (AP)

📣 The Scottish businessman and philanthropist Sir Ian Wood has died aged 84. He is widely remembered as one of the country’s most respected business figures after turning his family's fishing boat repair yard into a global engineering player. (BBC)

Claude can be your analyst, editor, and strategist.
But most professionals are using it to fix grammar.

These 200+ Claude prompts take it from grammar tool to your most powerful AI work assistant.

Sign up for Superhuman AI and get:

Claim your free prompts

📣 A “Welcome to School Bag” promised by the SNP during the Holyrood elections is uncosted and likely to be too expensive to deliver, civil servants have warned. (Scotsman has the exclusive)

📣 Labour MSP Michael Marra has entered the contest to take over from Anas Sarwar as party leader. Marra, based in Dundee, is a list MSP for North-East Scotland. (The Daily Record has the exclusive)

📣 People from Coalsnaughton evacuated in May after ground in the village started to shift now fear their homes will be demolished. (BBC)

📣 The career criminal behind the acid attack on now-Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay is to be released next week. Findlay said he would “not be intimidated by cowardly gangland cretins”. (Glasgow Live)

📣 Two divers have died after getting into trouble in Loch Fyne, on Scotland’s west coast. (STV)

📣 Labour has overtaken Reform UK in an opinion poll for the first time in more than a year, as it enjoys a “Burnham bounce”. (Guardian)

📣 UK pension providers are working on plans to create a £1-billion fund to invest in British science and technology companies. (Bloomberg)

📣 A court has heard shocking evidence about a funeral director who kept the remains of loved ones in his premises for years. (Mirror)

📣 Vast rainfall in Asia has brought devastating floods across the region, from Afghanistan to Taiwan. (Guardian)

📣 Is Donald Trump warming towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy? (Semafor)

📣 A shootout that killed three in Seattle may have been gang-related. (AP)

🏅The opening night of Commonwealth Games athletics brought a gold for Scotland as Ben Sandilands powered to victory in the Men's 1500m T20 Final. Steven Bryce also made the podium after securing bronze. (Scotsman)

⚽️ Bodo/Glimt forward Kasper Hogh has passed his medical and is expected to complete his club record £11 million move to Celtic today. (Daily Record)

⚽️ Hearts need to produce a “magical and historic night” if they are to overcome a four-goal deficit against Sturm Graz at Tynecastle tonight, Hearts boss Wouter Vrancken says. (BBC)

⚽️ Rangers are close to sealing a £3 million deal for South African defender Olwethu Makhanya. (Daily Record)

⚽️ Someone at Chelsea has decided they lack experience in the dressing room: they’re said to be interested in Brentford’s Jordan Henderson (36) and Brighton’s Danny Welbeck (35). (BBC)

🗣️ The Cairngorms wildfires may now be on the wane, colder weather and rain as well as the efforts of Scottish Fire and Rescue helping douse the flames after 14 days. Around 10 square miles of this rare and beautiful landscape have been blackened, while entire villages were evacuated and an as-yet unquantified toll has been taken on wildlife.

People who know this landscape were calling it a “disaster” nine days ago. Nick Kempe was one: he’s a former board member of Scottish Natural Heritage and a current member of the Executive Committee of the Scottish Campaign for National Parks.

In a post on Parkswatchscotland, he wonders if it could have been averted.

A little rain put out early spurs of the fire, he notes. “One wonders many helicopter water carries from Lochan Uaine, just over a kilometre away, would have been needed to contain and extinguish the wildfire at this stage on its first day?” he writes.

The RSPB requested helicopter support, but a spokesman said they believed none were available because “they are all deployed to England and Wales fighting wildfires down there.” (Scottish Fire and Rescue don’t have any on their books: they have to be hired).

The RSPB was also told “adequate assistance had been deployed” and, thus, no helicopters would have been required.

“Clearly, adequate assistance hadn’t been deployed,” writes Kempe. “That failure allowed the wildfire to spread and grow in size, making it far, far harder to extinguish.” He points the finger at budget cuts for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) which have made it reluctant - even when it’s possible - to deploy expensive resources like helicopters.

That’s a theme picked up by Magnus Linklater in the Times today. “Last year the Highlands were hit by a “mega-fire” on Dava Moor near Carrbridge that spread across 27,000 acres, larger than the present outbreak,” he writes. “It was brought under control only after helicopters were sent to water-bomb the area.”

The helicopters arrived late, because they had to be hired from a private company, and they’d been busy on a filming contract, “a delay the government described euphemistically as a ‘mobilisation issue’. Ministers acknowledged at the time there were ‘lessons to be learnt’.

“Not enough, it seems,” notes Linklater. He adds that the Scottish Government did, however, request help from the Ministry of Defence, but they were advised the MoD “does not possess aerial firefighting assets stationed within the UK.”

“That resulted in the required headline in the pro-SNP National newspaper: ‘UK government fails to provide water-bombing support for Cairngorms fire.’

Linklater also delves into some of the issues around muirburn - the deliberate burning of strips of land, usually in the cooler seasons, to create firebreaks. That’s a disputed tactic: a post on Scotland: The Big Picture offers a counterpoint to some of the “pro” arguments for muirburn, including environmental concerns and claims it simply isn’t that effective.

We don’t know what caused the fire, but in The Herald Alan Simpson says the public needs to be educated on fire risks - and we need to ban portable barbecues. “While the cause of the fire has not been revealed, we can guess that irresponsibility by somebody, somewhere will almost certainly be the source,” he writes.

Climate change is likely to make wildfires more frequent in Scotland, whatever we do. It looks likely that debate about both the causes, and the means of coping with, the disaster of these huge blazes is one that will burn on long after the actual flames are doused.

Sent this by a friend?