In your briefing today:

📣 Donald Trump is on his way to Davos to meet world leaders and, later today, deliver a speech. Overnight, he doubled down on his ominous rhetoric over Greenland, telling reporters who asked how far he’d be willing to go: “You’ll find out”.

But there are growing concerns in the US that Trump’s position is leaving the US increasingly isolated around the world. Last night Canadian President Mark Carney delivered a speech at Davos, which warned of “the end of a pleasant fiction, and the beginning of a harsh reality.” (Sky News)

📣 The UK’s inflation has risen by more than expected to 3.4%, in figures released at 7am this morning. Some sort of rise had been anticipated because of increases in tobacco taxes and higher travel costs over the festive period. But the increase takes the headline rate still further away from its 2% target. (Sky News)

📣 What have we learned from the Scottish hospitals inquiry? Final submissions are being offered before a report is published, likely later this year, but the BBC draws a few of its own conclusions.

The greatest among them: that the water system probably caused infections. It’s a point now conceded - scandalously late in the inquiry process - by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Two children died and at least 84 fell unwell after contracting bugs in the hospital. (BBC)

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📣 Will the huge Ming Yang wind turbine factory get the go-ahead? Downing Street has said a decision to build a huge new Chinese embassy in London is “entirely self-contained”: it seems we shouldn’t take that decision as an indication the giant factory, intended for the Ardersier green freeport, will also get the green light. (Scotsman)

📣 An Albanian man who tried to murder a police officer with a chainsaw screamed at a judge as he was jailed for 10 years. (Mail)

📣 A new Rosyth to Dunkirk ferry will be running by this time next year, operators hope. (Scotsman)

📣 Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust has won another battle against the American hedge fund Saba, which was attempting to take control of the trust by removing all six directors and replacing them with three of their own nominees. Investors voted against the proposals. (This is Money)

📣 The Ukrainian parliament and one million homes in Kyiv are without electricity, heating and water after Russian strikes overnight targeted Ukraine’s energy grid. (Independent)

📣 Kemi Badenoch’s approval rating has moved past Nigel Farage’s for the first time in more than a year, after she sacked Robert Jenrick for planning to defect to Reform UK. It’s another bit of bad polling news for Reform, after recent polls have suggested its surge in popularity has cooled. (Independent)

📣 There was another train crash in Spain: a commuter train in Barcelona derailed after debris fell onto the tracks, killing one person and injuring 37. It came only two days after another crash killed at least 42 people. (AP)

📣 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to join Donald Trump’s board of peace. (AP)

📣 The Beckham family split continues on its grim trajectory: today, accusations that Victoria Beckham “grinded” on her son during an “inappropriate” first dance at his wedding. (Sun)

⚽️ A big upset in Europe last night, although claims this morning that Manchester City’s 3-1 humbling at the hands of Norway’s Bodo/Glimt was the biggest upset in Champions’ League history feel a bit over-the-top. Nevertheless, they were poor: new signing Marc Ghehi can’t get in the side quickly enough, it seems. (Guardian) (🎥 Highlights)

⚽️ Celtic are reported to be “on the brink” of signing big Czech striker Tomas Cvancara in a loan-to-buy deal. (Sun)

⚽️ Livingston manager David Martindale was left spitting tacks last night after his side conceded a late equaliser to draw 1-1 with St Mirren, in a game they really needed to win. He branded VAR “a wee bit amateur” after he claimed it failed to spot a foul by scorer Alex Gogic before the goal. It was hard to see anything wrong in the highlights. (BBC report and 🎥highlights)

🗣️ If you’re going to read or watch one thing on the new global order… or, indeed, one thing from Davos, make it Mark Carney’s address to the conference, delivered last night. (That link takes you to a transcript and a video, which takes about 30 minutes to watch.

The Prime Minister of Canada - and, of course, Governor of the Bank of England between 2013 and 2020 won a standing ovation in the hall, and sent ripples around the world.

He said the rules-based international order was over. It was “the end of a pleasant fiction, and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.”

It was a clever person speaking cleverly. That was enough, all by itself, to distinguish it in this dismal age for oratory.

But there was more to it than that. It was elegant in its construction - he wrote it himself, by all accounts. And it was timely and devastating in its assessment of Trump and the world he is forging without, at any point, mentioning him.

It also offered a clear-eyed view of how his nation, Canada, must position itself, the work the country was already undertaking to position itself in a more hostile world, and included an invitation to other nations to join it in doing the same.

Reaction to the speech is only starting to appear: Leyland’s Cecco’s dispatch from Toronto was published by the Guardian this morning and quotes Jack Cunningham, a professor of international relations at the University of Toronto.

“Carney is the first major western leader to basically acknowledge the reality,” says Cunningham. “A lot of leaders abroad are looking for somebody to set a direction. And this speech is planting a flag.”

On X, the BBC’s business editor Simon Jack hailed the speech as “quite something”. “Basically [he’s] saying [the] rules based order is over, other countries must band together to protect themselves against the US. That insurance against the US comes at a cost but so be it. Companies and countries must choose their side.”

The Free Press’s Rupa Sabramanya said it was a “remarkable” speech. “Citing Václav Havel, he says it’s ‘time for companies and countries to take their signs down,” she notes.

It is “extraordinary to see Canada asserting this kind of moral and strategic leadership,” she notes, “something we haven’t witnessed on the world stage in decades, especially at a moment when we have so much to lose if Trump chooses retaliation.”

(And, yes, I read a barb in that final sentence, too).

Finally, also on X, Mark Bird - the Economist’s Wall Street editor - noted “political speechmaking has generally degraded to the point that there’s no reason to read them, rather than simply how they’re reported, but Carney’s Davos spech is a rare exception”.

He’s right. I can’t think of a clearer-eyed diagnosis of where we are, and where we could go. I urge you to read it too.

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