In your briefing today:

📣 President Donald Trump has again stalled on his threat to obliterate Iran’s energy plants, giving Iran ten more days to open the Strait of Hormuz. Trump claimed talks between the US and Iran are going “very well” despite Tehran’s insistence it is not negotiating with Washington. His comments after a difficult day on US stock markets, with shares making their biggest losses since the war started. (AP)

📣 Scotland’s political leaders launched their election campaigns yesterday, and the signs are that the gloves are already off. John Swinney immediately tried to tie Labour to Reform, claiming Anas Sarwar’s party could strike a “grubby backroom deal” with Nigel Farage’s party. Sarwar said he wouldn’t “touch” Reform. (Scotsman £)

📣 Former SNP politician Jordan Linden, who was once chair of North Lanarkshire Council and chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament, has been found guilty of a string of sexual assaults on five young men and boys aged 15 to 22. Linden, who “looked shocked and appeared to choke back tears” as the verdicts were announced, is likely to face jail. (Daily Record)

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📣 Ferry operator CalMac says it’s facing an “unprecedented” challenge with seven ferries out of action, creating the “most pressing [crisis] we’ve faced”. (BBC) (Herald)

📣 The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has reportedly been told it is a “suspect” as part of an investigation into the death of firefighter Barry Martin in a fire in the old Jenners building in Edinburgh. His widow claims he was sent in “unprepared and underequipped” to tackle the blaze. (Sky News)

📣 The SNP is being warned its plans to help first-time buyers could push house prices even higher. Think tank Common Weal says the plan to help buyers to a deposit will act as a subsidy for large housing developers. (The Herald)

📣 Jimmy Savile’s home in Glencoe has - finally - been demolished. (Daily Record)

📣 The UK’s pothole league is out, and Aberdeen comes “top” with the highest rate per 100km of roads with a big hole. Edinburgh is fourth, Glasgow sixth. (Scotsman)

Keir Starmer says he “hates the fact” he made a “mistake” in appointing Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US, and “beat myself up” about his decision. His comments come in a new interview with Sky News. (Sky News)

📣 The boss of NS&I is leaving the Premium Bonds bank over a £470 million savings scandal, in which tens of thousands of customers claim the bank had lost track of their life savings. (Independent)

📣 Vladimir Putin is asking Russia’s oligarchs to donate to Russia’s defence budget. (Guardian)

📣 A woman who claimed she was too ill from anxiety to leave the house, defrauding the benefits system of £23,000, was discovered ziplining and surfing in Mexico. (Independent)

⚽️ Wales saw their World Cup dream die in the most heartbreaking way last night, losing on penalties to Bosnia-Herzegovina in a shoot-out they had led. (BBC)

⚽️ Scotland play Japan tomorrow at Hampden: Middlesbrough’s Tommy Conway, enjoying rich club form, hopes to bring that to Scotland - and thinks Scotland’s “band of brothers” can make an impact in North America this summer. (Scotsman) (Daily Record)

📣 The Early Line’s covered the war a lot this week: today, quite deliberately, I’ve gone for some interesting stories that are not about Iran, the US or (directly) about the Scottish elections… we’ll all have plenty more of that in the weeks ahead.

🗣️ Sarah Mullally was installed as the 106th Archibishop of Canterbury yesterday: the first woman to hold the job and thus someone who, according to the Guardian, has “shattered the glass ceiling”, sending “a strong message to those in the pews and pulpits of English parishes and more than 165 countries, a significant proportion of whom still refuse to accept female priests.”

Can she, however, heal a divided church? And, notes Madeleine Davies, can she do that while moving in “more interesting socio-religious times than those navigated by [predecessor, Justin] Welby; there is increasing tolerance for conversations about the value of spiritual belief. But this terrain is not without peril. The growing interest in Christianity is tinged with something darker.

“The Church’s leadership is already grappling with how to respond to the shouts of ‘Christ is King’ at Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom marches. At a recent conference in Oxford, the conservative writer Mary Harrington diagnosed the revival of interest in spiritual matters as evidence of ‘the breakdown of the material preconditions for modernity’. This was, she suggested, ‘at least as frightening as it is welcome’.”

It’s a tough, old job. (New Statesman (£))

🗣️ As The New World (formerly The New European, of course) celebrates its 10th birthday, editor Matt Kelly notes the pro-European cause the newspaper has espoused for the last decade is more popular than ever. Where, once, it was “the paper for the 48%”, that slogan would need to be adjusted today to “the paper of the 56% who believe Brexit was a mistake”, he writes.

It’s time to talk about rejoining after the next general election, he writes. “We need a national debate to produce a national vision: one replacing the undeliverable promises of Brexit with an understanding of how this country, with all its history, ability and potential, thrives again.

“And it’s the outcome of that debate that should determine the winner of the next general election, not some regressive, regretful retreat to the position of 2016 that, in any case, no longer exists.”

🗣️The Spectator offers an unsympathetic look at the Green Party, which it says has abandoned its roots (on the way, we might add, to becoming much more popular - if current polling is to be believed).

The relevance to Scotland: it’s worth noting Zach Polansky is more popular than all the Scottish political leaders, bar John Swinney. The Scottish Greens are enjoying a modest boost thanks to the English leader’s success.

What, then is he up to? Angus Colwell is unimpressed. “The Green party’s origin story reveals the sentiment that endures today under Zack Polanski’s leadership: the worst thing is always happening,” he says.

“Overpopulation, global famine, animal slaughter, ecological devastation, Boris Johnson, rampant terfdom, genocide. The Greens have been the most hospitable political home for the apocalyptic, the anxious and the scared.

“This weekend’s Green conference is a perfect opportunity to witness the party’s paranoid style, says Colwell. “Looking through the motions, a picture emerges of a movement consumed by its neuroses. It is no longer possible for the Greens to be just green: the party has been eaten up by what some people call the ‘omnicause’. If you’re a conservative with environmental leanings, then you’re not welcome. If you’re a gender-critical eco-warrior… well, there’s no such thing. Climate activism begets trans activism begets Palestinian activism.“

It’s all a long way from the Ecology Party’s roots, writes Colwell. (The Spectator (£))

🗣️These are tough times for “big food”: Unilever, founded a century ago by the combination of a soapmaker and a margarine manufacturer, is looking to shed its food business, including the likes of Hellmann’s mayonnaise, Knorr soups and Marmite, and focus on cleaning products for homes and people.

Why so? Own-brand labels from supermarkets have damaged their big brand sales. Healthy eating, and lawmakers’ encouragement of it, has taken a toll too: many countries are moving to make it harder to advertise foods high in sugar, salt and fat.

The final blow, perhaps: the rise of slimming drugs, and their tendency to dampen desire for snacks.

Even Nestle, that behemoth of comfort foods, is changing: it’s selling its ice cream business and moving into healthy frozen meals.

All change, indeed. (The Economist (£))

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