In your briefing today:

📣 Ukraine plans to hold presidential elections and a referendum on any peace deal with Russia by mid-May.

The Trump administration been pressing Kiev to hold the votes, or risk losing proposed US security guarantees, the Financial Times reports this morning. The Trump administration is keen for peace negotiations to conclude this spring, bringing the conflict to an end by June.

It’s being suggested Vladimir Zelenskyy intends to announce the plan for elections and a referendum on February 24, the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion. (Financial Times (£) has the exclusive)

📣 It’s only Wednesday morning, but it’s already been a long week for the Labour Party. Reeling from the Mandelson scandal, Anas Sarwar’s decision on Monday to turn on Keir Starmer has split the party - with some Scottish support for Sarwar, but far wider backing for the Prime Minister - for now.

Now the party is facing further revelations about more embarrassing friendships with a sex offender among its senior members: Pam Duncan-Glancy, an MSP who was the party’s Scottish education spokesperson, has had the whip removed over her friendship with Sean Morton.

Lord Matthew Doyle, a former Prime Minister’s director of communications who was ennobled last year, has also had the whip removed over his decision to campaign for Morton, who wasn’t even a Labour candidate, in 2017. (Daily Record)

📣 Ten people are dead after shootings in British Columbia in Canada: eight people, including a women believed to be the shooter, died in shootings at a school, while two more people were found dead at a nearby home. (AP)

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📣 The court battle over the definition of “woman” has cost the Scottish taxpayer more than £766,000 so far - after the Scottish government was ordered to pay campaign group For Women Scotland their legal costs. (Sky News)

📣 News company Reach has announced plans to close its Glasgow print plant, with the loss of around 100 jobs. Production would move to Oldham and Dundee. (BBC)

📣 Tickets for this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival go on sale today: there are early briefs for 350 shows across the city this August, with organisers saying they’re also on the brink of signing big, pan-festival sponsorship deals. (Scotsman)

📣 The Scotland 2050 conference has launched its own manifesto, aiming to “move Scotland beyond five-year electoral cycles”. It’s calling for a cross-party “forward planning committee” to take a longer-term view of Scotland’s challenges. (Scotland 2050)

📣 Antisemitic incidents have spiked in the UK following the deadly Manchester synagogue terror attack last year. (Guardian)

📣 “Radioactive pig-boar hybrids” are thriving in Fukushima after the nuclear disaster of 2011. (Independent)

📣 Senior managers at the Co-op have complained of a “toxic culture” at the executive level of the 180-year-old group, with “fear and alienation” even among senior staff. (BBC)

📣 Former Dr Who actor Noel Clarke has been arrested over an historic allegation of attempted rape. (Sun)

⚽️ The Edinburgh derby exploded into life at the death last night: a late winner from Tomas Magnusson sent Tynecastle into a frenzy, re-established Hearts’ six-point lead at the top of the table, and added further credence to their once-unlikely title tilt. (BBC report and 🎥 highlights)

⚽️ Rangers travel to Motherwell tonight, with Hearts’ win last night adding presure to an already tricky clash with the much-admired Steelmen. Danny Rohl says his team are no longer “too fearful, too respectful or too scared” of their opponents. (Mail)

⚽️ Spurs slumped to a 2-1 home defeat against Newcastle last night: fans are growing concerned they’re in a relegation battle, sat in 16th place and only five points clear of West Ham who are in the drop zone. But manager Thomas Frank insists his job is not under threat. (BBC)

🏉 Scotland assistant coach Pieter de Villiers says Scotland can go on and win the Six Nations (yes, this year) by beating England at Murrayfield on Saturday. (Scotsman)

🗣️Was Anas Sarwar’s decision to turn on the Prime Minister and call for his resignation on Monday a masterstroke - or folly? Lining squarely up in the “folly” camp is Michael Blackley, who says the Scottish Labour leader finally snapped when he went on the attack over the Queen Elizabeth hospital scandal… but the headlines were full of Mandelson and London Labour’s follies.

But now, says Blackley, Sarwar looks isolated and lacking a narrative for the forthcoming election. “‘I don’t see what he says for the next three months,” one “former Labour strategist” tells him: “‘Vote Labour but I hate the Prime Minister?’”

“Senior figures in the party now believe that Mr Sarwar may even resign before the Prime Minister,” says Blackley, “since a bad Holyrood election result will now inevitably spell the end, with one source saying: ‘The only thing I took from yesterday was he’s not going to get his seat in the House of Lords when he loses.’” (Mail)

🗣️But, for Kenny Farquharson, Sarwar has changed the national conversation. He can see why, through a Westminster lens, Sarwar’s gamble “seems quixotic” and a failure, because it hasn’t triggered a cascade of UK Labour resignations.

“Here in Scotland, 400 miles from SW1, we tend to look at politics through a Scottish lens. And from this perspective Sarwar’s big moment looks very different. In fact, it looks to me very much like an inflection point in Scottish politics, a clarifying moment in our relationship with the rest of the UK.

“Sarwar did the right thing. In fact, he did the only principled thing he could do. Why? Because ultimately Sarwar owes his loyalty not to the prime minister, not even to his own party, but to Scotland and to the Scottish people.” (🎁 The Times - gift link)

Since when was it the state’s job to tell women to have children? Rebecca McQuillan poses the question after the French government announced it would write to 29-year-olds reminding them that their biological clock is ticking. It’s all part of a 16-point plan to boost France’s flagging birth rate.

But “the choice of whether or when to have children is intensely personal and naturally much more complex than Macron’s government makes it sound,” writes McQuillan, and women are putting off children for complex reasons - including money and the state of the world.

“What, then, is the next step?” she asks. “Compulsory speed dating? Re-education classes for individuals with idle wombs? Greater economic and political stability would be a better place to start.” (The Herald)

🗣️ Magnus Linklater vividly highlights the impact of business rates on small tourism businesses. One case study: a clean-energy engineer-turned-entrepreneur who invested in hand-built, eco-friendly holiday lodges and bothies. Things went well: they won awards. “Too successful, perhaps,” writes Linklater.

“Last August, following a revaluation carried out by Scotland’s rates assessors, the business was hit by a 183 per cent increase in its rateable value; instead of paying £22,000 a year, the bill has risen to £62,250. The increase meant that Drummond no longer qualifies for small business rates relief, leading to a 618 per cent increase in his monthly costs: from £360 to £2,583.”

That’s unsustainable, he notes: by his calculations. It could all end with an application for a demolition licence. “‘On a personal level, I am struggling to even contemplate this decision. Years of planning and development would be erased … the situation is profoundly distressing and, frankly, absurd,’” says the entrepreneur. (🎁 The Times - gift link)

🗣️Sarah Campbell suggests some restaurants you really shouldn’t book for this Saturday, Valentine’s Day. More obvious swerves include “messy BBQ joints”. Less obvious places to give a miss should include, she suggests, seafood restaurants: there’s a knack to eating oysters, she notes, and “no date wants to see you dribble a snotty gobful of unchewed mollusc down your front.” (The Herald)

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