In your briefing today:

📣 The conflict in the Middle East has widened overnight, with an RAF base in Cyprus targeted in a suspected drone strike, Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon exchanging fire, and oil prices surging after ships were attacked in the Gulf.

Explosions have been heard overnight in cities across the Gulf region and in Jerusalem, while there are evacuations in Beirut.

📣 Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was confirmed dead on Saturday, with Donald Trump said to have been shown a picture of his body in the rubble of his Tehran compound.

📣 The UK government stated early on that it was not involved in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, but later stated that it would allow the US to use British military bases to attack Iranian missile sites.

This distinction, being made by Keir Starmer’s government - being described as “legalistic” in some quarters - may be significant, drawing a line between the initial attacks which included the killing of Khamenei, and the ongoing campaign to destroy Iran’s capability to develop nuclear weapons.

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📣 What issues will decide the Scottish election in May? The BBC has commissioned some polling which Professor Sir John Curtice pores over: there are no surprises that the economy - specifically cost of living - tops the list.

Health and social care is second, and immigration is third. That last item is, I’d say, new to the top three. (BBC)

📣 Children’s prospects are being harmed by the SNP’s Curriculum for Excellence, according to the thinktank Enlighten. A commission set up by the group says the place of knowledge has been “devalued” by the curriculum. (Scotsman)

📣 A new quango to tackle Scotland’s “housing emergency” will cost taxpayers around £2 million to set up and not be operational for years. Scotland currently spends around £6.6 billion on quangos every year. (Herald (£) has the exclusive)

📣 UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is to announce that, from today, asylum seekers who win refugee status in the UK will be offered only temporary protection. (BBC)

📣 Ministers are considering a social media curfew and restrictions on AI chatbots to keep children safe online. (Independent)

📣 Burned-out young Chinese people are snapping up cheap flats in semi-finished complexes, as they look to “retire early”. (AP)

⚽️ The spoils were shared in the Old Firm clash between Rangers and Celtic, a dramatic 2-2 draw at Ibrox. But the real winners were Hearts and, to a lesser extent, Motherwell: that pair, who won on Saturday, didn’t need to kick a ball to see their relative positions improve with the stalemate. Hearts are six points clear of Rangers in second; Motherwell are only two off Celtic, in third. (Table) (BBC report & highlights)

⚽️ In England, the contrasting fortunes of North London’s two giants couldn’t be more stark.

🎥 See highlights from all the weekend’s games in England’s Premier League (BBC)

🗣️ Conflict in the Middle East means oil prices are about to go up, with the obvious direct impact on costs to consumers for fuel, but also an impact on inflation across the world. That makes the UK’s energy policy all the more important - and controversial - and Alex Massie thinks we’re getting things wildly wrong.

He contrasts UK policy with that of Denmark - which is now looking at issuing new licenses for gas extraction from the North Sea.

Meanwhile, says Massie, “successive Conservative and Labour governments have made a monumental Horlicks of their responsibilities […] Britain has some of the highest energy costs in the world and this, you must remember, is largely the consequence of policy working as it was intended to.” (The Times - gift link)

🗣️ Meanwhile, the move of Hunterston B to public ownership in order that decommissioning can begin need not be the end of nuclear energy at the site, the UK’s energy minister has said. Michael Skanks said he “wants Scotland to have a nuclear power future” and called on the SNP to drop its “ideological block” to the energy type. (Scotland on Sunday £)

🗣️ Can Anas Sarwar win the Holyrood election with “quiet optimism”? His team thinks so. Seat projections from the latest Scottish polling says Labour is heading for “near-irrelevance” in Scotland: just 11 MSPs, half its current number, tied with the Tories and Lib Dems as Holyrood’s smallest party.

But the party claims private polling shows grounds for hope: a large body of voters who would consider switching, and look warmly upon Anas Sarwar as a potential First Minister. The party hopes, by fighting 48 target constituencies - mostly in the Central Belt - as “mini by-elections”, it can become competitive. (The Times - gift link)

🗣️Nigel Farage claimed Reform UK was “robbed of victory” by foreign-born voters in last week’s Manchester by-election, and promised to stop non-British citizens from voting in UK elections if he became Prime Minister.

Even for Reform, which lost by more than 4,000 votes, this makes for a particularly pointed and racially-charged attack.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Farage said the result was “the most glaring example yet of what happens if we’re not careful about the impacts of mass immigration and about the legitimacy of those who can vote in our elections”. (Mail)

🗣️ A Covid-era “VIP lane” scandal brews: a tiny Scottish company called Rehear Labs was “inexplicably plucked from obscurity” and given £54 million of Government PPE contracts during the pandemic, reports the Sunday Post. But it’s not filed accounts since, hasn’t paid tax on its profits, and HMRC has moved to shut the company down. (Sunday Post)

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