TODAY’S WEATHER

☁️ We’ll have a dry, mild and less windy day in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. London remains sunny and warm, with a high of 28 degrees. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Report: US strikes had little impact on Iran | Scotland’s boss-heavy civil service | Cancer waiting time row

📣 The US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites last weekend only set back the country’s nuclear programme by months, according to a US Defence Intelligence Agency report.

The bombings failed to destroy two of the sites targeted, while much of Iran’s stockpile of materials for a possible nuclear weapon were moved before the US attacks. The report contradicts claims by Donald Trump that “the strikes were a spectacular military success” that “totally obliterated” Iranian enrichment facilities. (Guardian) (New York Times $) (AP)

• It’s one of the moments that will live for decades after Trump’s presidency: Trump drops the “f-bomb” as he expresses frustration at Iran and Israel dropping actual bombs, despite a ceasefire he’d helped broker. (🎥 See the clip)

📣 Scotland’s civil service has an exceptionally high ratio of managers to staff - one manager for every staff member - with no “specific plan or specific time” to reorganise the organisation, according to its new head.

Joe Griffin, the service’s Permanent Secretary, also told the Scottish Parliament’s finance committee that the “direction of travel” on a partial return from working at home - to two days a week, initially - was “clear”, despite internal documents and discussions showing huge resistance to the move back to the office. (Scotsman)

• Euan McColm: Civil servants’ “sense of entitlement is, at once, both infuriating and entirely surprising”. (Mail)

📣 Waiting times for cancer treatment have hit an all-time high, with nearly a third of patients with an urgent referral not getting any treatment within the 62-day target. Performance has declined markedly in the last year. (Scotsman)

• Neil Gray, the Scottish health secretary, finds himself in hot water for being in Japan on a work trip as the figures emerge. (Mail)

IDEAS
Why Keir Starmer is facing a make-or-break week with his own party over welfare reform

🗣️ Events in the Middle East, and moves to shore up the UK’s defences, have been a helpful distraction from domestic matters for Sir Keir Starmer. Because at home, things are looking bad.

A year on from his landslide win, Starmer finds himself in the position of losing an important vote on welfare reform next Tuesday, thanks to a rebellion of more than 100 MPs, including a quarter of the Scottish Labour contingent. (The benefits in question are delivered differently in Scotland, but cuts in England will have a knock-on effect on the Scottish budget, so what happens in Westminster remains highly relevant to those of us living north of the border).

At best, Starmer may have to rely on the votes of Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives, offered late last night, to see the reforms through.

Either option would be hugely politically damaging. Should the bill pass thanks to Tory support, it’s been reported that as many as a dozen members of government have threatened to resign. But the only alternative to a status quo which would wreak havoc with the UK’s finances, amid struggles to drive growth and those ever-growing bills for defence.

The BBC’s excellent roundup of the row puts it succinctly: “Politically, it looks very hard for the government to proceed with its flagship welfare policies. Economically, it is very hard to see how the government cannot proceed.” (My emphasis).

LabourList (disclaimer - of which I’m a director) has rounded up explanations from a few backbenchers who have put their names to an amendment which would, in effect, wreck the reforms.

Most talk about the impact on disabled people. As Josh Fenton-Glynn, MP for Calder Valley puts it, “the changes to the PIP ratings that would mean, at present, that someone who can’t put their trousers on, who needs help with showering, and who can’t go to the toilet without supervision, is told that they are capable of work.”

Labour figures I’ve been speaking to talk of mounting backbench dissent over a range of measures, from - yes - Rachel Reeves’ budget last November, but also including unpopular issues such as its stance on copyright and AI.

On the welfare cuts, one keen Labour observer pointed out to me that the issue close to a driving force for most Labour politicians - the desire to reduce poverty - whatever wing of the party they sit on. “I couldn’t believe even the more-Starmerite-than-Starmer Luke Akehurst spoke out over winter fuel,” they note.

Many other Labour MPs talk of the bill being drawn up in haste, of the need to consult, and of the need to reduce a “cliff edge” in support for the most needy.

That suggests that some softer reform might get their support. But concessions do not appear to be on offer, at least at this stage. It’s easy to imagine that might change in the days ahead, as Starmer looks to avoid defeat.

Yet alternatives will leave the UK having to find yet more money, from somewhere. That’s why, in a leader today, The Times (£) says the government must pass welfare reform through “at all costs”.

“Britain’s economic future depends on welfare reform,” the newspaper says. “Government debt is the size of the entire economy.

“If a bill as modest as this cannot get through parliament, there is no hope of getting the public finances under control.”

And that is a conclusion that would be watched, not just by backbench MPs getting a taste for rebellion, but by bond markets that decide how much we pay for government debt, and by a voting public that would then expect to see swinging cuts elsewhere in expenditure.

What we’ll see play out, then, is a straightforward power struggle: can Starmer bring his rebels into line, or does he take one of two politically risky paths: capitulation, which will blow a hole in his Chancellor’s budget, or defiance, which will spark a furious row - and potentially some resignations - in his government. Either path could leave him weakened, or even fighting for his political future.

It’ll be a defining week for his government, either way.

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 A police investigation into a top civil servant’s evidence to the Alex Salmond inquiry is still underway, reports the Herald. It had not been clear if, following Salmond’s death in October last year, the investigation would continue. Police Scotland confirmed yesterday that its work continues. (The Herald has the exclusive)

📣 The University of Dundee is getting a bailout: Scottish ministers are going to use “unprecedented” powers to hand the troubled institution £40 million over three years, although the money will be attached to “specific conditions”. (Scotsman)

📣 Women in Scotland are to get at-home cervical screening kits, with deprived areas with lower rates of screening being offered the innovation first. (BBC)

📣 Scots are still drinking too much: as a nation, we drink 50% above the safe drinking guidelines of 14 units a week, according to Public Health Scotland. Deprived areas hardest hit by hospitalisation and disease caused by alcohol. (STV) (See the data)

📣 The Clachaig Inn, the famous hotel and pub at the heart of Glencoe, is up for sale, prompting a great deal of reminiscing by climbers of good times at the famous old venue. (BBC)

• The Herald has an especially good write-through, quoting one climbing forum memory: “There was a fire that burned from September to June and all dreich days in between […] Benches were nailed to the floor and barrel-seats filled with sand so ye couldnae pick them up and throw them at each other… The words ‘You're barred!’ were unheard of until I got barred.” (The Herald)

AROUND THE UK

📣 The UK will buy nuclear-carrying fighter jets to support Nato’s airborne nuclear mission, the government says, in “the biggest strengthening of the UK’s nuclear posture on a generation.” The use of nuclear weapons would require permission from Nato, the US president and the British prime minister. (BBC)

📣 More Britons are struggling to make ends meet than ever, warns new research from the National Centre for Social Research. (Sky News)

📣 MPs say the government has taken “insufficient action” over compensation for the Post Office scandal. Many wrongly-accused or convicted sub-postmasters have yet to get “fair and timely” redresss. (BBC)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 The US Democratic party’s establishment has suffered another blow: the youthful state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has beaten Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayoral primary. (BBC) (WSJ - 🎁 free to read)

🌎 A British stealth fighter jet is stranded in India after encountering bad weather and a technical fault, sparking fears its classified technology may be at risk from prying eyes. (Independent)

🌎 Jeff Bezos is getting married again, to Lauren Sanchez, in a lavish wedding celebration in Venice on Friday. The Daily Mail has all the details you would expect, starting with more information on a “pre-wedding gala dinner” tomorrow featuring 200 millionaires and billionaires arriving by boat. (Mail)