THE BIG STORIES
Trump halts arms support for Ukraine | North American trade war begins | Vettriano remembered

📣 President Trump turned up the pressure on Ukraine overnight, announcing a freeze on military aid. He also said the US would follow through on threats of 25% tariffs for Canada, Mexico and China. Those will come into force in a few hours.

• Ukraine: the “pause” in US assistance impacts $1 billion of weapons promised by President Biden late last year. It will remain in force until Trump feels Ukraine has demonstrated a “good faith commitment to peace negotiations with Russia”. (Guardian) (AP) (New York Times £)

• Tariffs: a trade war has started between the United States’ North American neighbours and historic allies. China has also immediately retaliated against further tariffs being imposed on its exports to the US. The moves raised fears of higher inflation in the US and damage to the global economy. (AP) (FT £)

📣 In the House of Commons, Keir Starmer told MPs that Western countries needed to keep military aid flowing to Ukraine. Starmer was reporting back to the Commons after visiting Washington and chaired Sunday’s defence conference in London, where he announced a Franco-British peace initiative. (The Guardian)

• Quentin Letts said the cheers for Starmer in the Commons brought to mind Tony Blair receiving similar “as he lured us to war in Iraq”. (The Mail)

• Nigel Farage was accused of “fawning over Putin” (The Independent)

• The SNP’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, was under fire from his own party after branding Keir Starmer “weak” on Ukraine and Trump. The Daily Record had the exclusive.

📣 Scottish artist Jack Vettriano, who died over the weekend, is remembered across the Scottish press today.

• In The Times (£), his obituary looks back on critical controversy. “His work was not just dismissed by the art establishment; it was dismissed with a passion, an active loathing. The critic Duncan MacMillan described his art as ‘frightening … his work shows the extent to which even art has been compromised by the argument that the market is the most powerful thing.’”

• In The Scotsman, his own comments about fame are recalled: "I think it’s very difficult to be famous in your own backyard. Of course, the public there love me because they love ‘the story’. But the establishment, the art world, clearly don’t like the story.”

• Barry Didcock in The Herald calls Vettriano “that most honourable of Scottish entities – the self-taught man of genius. Something tells me classist snobbery and critical downgrading will be no match for his artistic legacy”.

IDEAS
Starring Trump as Iago

🗣️I’ll confess that it’s been a daily challenge to get The Early Line’s balance right since it launched in January. It’s coincided with the second ascent of Trump, who has brought a vast flow of pronouncements, wrenching policy shifts and - against him - outrage. I didn’t intend this to be so focused on foreign affairs, but when faced with all this… whaddya going to do?

But I do appreciate it’s all… a lot. A few readers have been in touch, concerned we’re heading for WW3, or something like it. I hope this email doesn’t give that impression - I don’t think we are, at least not soon - but I do want to strike the right balance between reflecting what’s going on, and not depressing thousands of readers before they’ve even got out of bed.

So: ”Is it possible to find any cheering takes on the last few days?”, I was asked yesterday, as the coverage of Trump’s verbal dust-up with Zelensky in the Oval Office rolled on. The answer is… well yes, as it happens. Sort of.

Ian Leslie, who I recommend, caught my eye last night with his latest email (£). Yes, he piles in with the moral outrage seen everywhere in the last three days - “it would be merely perverse not to join in,” he says. But he adds: “It’s quite possible, however, that this row will recede in importance the further we get from it; that it will follow Kahneman’s rule (#4 on this list)[NM adds: “assume the present isn’t as important as it seems”].

So that is… hopeful. And Leslie adds: “I get the feeling that many politicians and commentators haven’t quite grasped the strength of Trump’s aversion to war. It’s one of the things that makes him a very unusual president […] inside the red-faced hawk is a dove, with an almost physical horror of violence.”

That’s something also picked up on by Professor Anthony Glees, a security and intelligence expert who was talking to the Mirror yesterday.

Cheer up, then - it’s not the end of the world? And you might find this take entertaining: it’s from Tina Brown, former editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and more, on her drolly-titled SubStack, Fresh Hell. She has an enjoyably catty turn of phrase, from “3D internet troll JD Vance”, to the image she paints of Starmer and advisors rolling around laughing at their ploy to invite “King Cheeto” to meet King Charles.

Trump’s hatred of Zelensky comes from the latter’s “intractable principles” - “It’s all in Othello,” she says. “POTUS is the perpetual Iago, who hated the admired lieutenant Cassio because ‘he hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly.’”

The best antidote to all this bluster? Don’t rely on headlines: delve deeper. Perspectives like Brown’s, and Leslie’s, aren’t optimised to drive clicks on Google, or win ratings and awards: they’re sane, clever takes from people who’ve seen lots and thought about it. That’s the way of getting through all this, for me at least: read wisely. I’ll do my best to surface the best, here: please continue to feel free to hit reply, any time, and let me know how I’m doing.

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Nearly 250 Scottish Government civil servants are based elsewhere in the UK, allowing them to avoid Scotland’s higher taxes. The number includes seven senior members of the civil service, earning more than £100,000. (Daily Mail)

📣 Officers with guns should have been dispatched to an incident in Aberdeen where a man was repeatedly struck by a police car and a police dog was injured, the Scottish Police Federation has said. (STV)

📣 Coca-Cola will no longer be served at the Glasgow Film Theatre after staff objected to handling it. A letter from the Unite union had called for the theatre to endorse the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. (The Herald)

📣 Locations around Scotland will get up to £20 million each to revive high streets, community hubs and public services. The reas to receive funding are Arbroath, Elgin, Orkney, Peterhead, Dumfries, Irvine, Kilmarnock, Clydebank, Coatbridge and Greenock. (The Scotsman) (Gov.uk: Plan for Neighbourhoods)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 The Pope remained on ventilation in hospital last night as he continued to fight pneumonia. He suffered two “acute respiratory crises” yesterday. (AP)

🌎 Iran’s economy is in trouble: the country’s parliament voted to impeach the economy minister amid soaring inflation and a falling currency, in part caused by Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign to stop Iran building a nuclear weapon. (Al Jazeera)

🌎 Dolly Parton’s husband, Carl Dean, has died aged 82. The country music icon announced his death on social media after 59 years of marriage. (Daily Mail)

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

💰 UK rental prices are rising more slowly according to the latest data from Zoopla, released today. The average UK rent is now £1,284 a month. (Yahoo)

💰 The City of London’s bonus season is back, in good news for the sellers of supercars and expensive property. This year’s awards will represent the first full year bonuses after the removal of a cap in October 2023. (Evening Standard)

💰 The CBI in Scotland has a new chair: Martin Pibworth, chief commercial officer of SSE, succeeds Jennifer Young. (Daily Business)

SPORT

🏉 Gregor Townsend has named his squad for Saturday’s Six Nations match against Wales with Matt Currie, Ben Muncaster and Nathan McBeth making the squad, but Luke Crosbie and Jack Mann out through injury. (The Scotsman)

⚽️ There’s movement in Rangers takeover saga: the deal for US investors to buy a majority stake in the club has now been agreed in principal. Due diligance is now under way while paperwork gets drawn up. Sky Sports had the exclusive.