TODAY’S WEATHER

☀️ There’s a threat of rain this morning in Glasgow in what is, otherwise, a dry day. Edinburgh and Aberdeen will also be dry and less windy than yesterday. London, however… it’ll be tipping down, especially this morning. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Warning over Scotland’s cancer care | New twist in gang war | Polls open in closely-watched by-election

📣 The Royal College of Radiologists is warning Scotland faces a “ticking time bomb” in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, with the situation here far worse than across the rest of the UK. Unless urgent action is taken, the body warns, delays faced by cancer patients will only worsen. (Scotsman)

📣 The sinister, and increasingly baffling, gangland war raging across central Scotland has taken another turn: one of the grief-stricken families of a Scottish gangster murdered in Spain has said their rivals of two decades were not to blame. They think it was another, foreign gang that committed the crime. That echos police comments, reported yesterday, that the crime was not necessarily linked to Scotland. (The Sun has the exclusive).

• The Mail, however, thinks Scotland should “brace” for “a wave of revenge attacks”. (Mail)

• A former Glasgow city councillor says all this violence could have been avoided if the “cancer of organised crime” had not been allowed to fester had his warnings, made 25 years ago, been heeded. (Daily Record)

📣 The polls have opened for the voters of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse as the constituency elects a new MSP. The poll - the first Scottish Parliament by-election since 2019 - follows the death of the SNP’s Christina McKelvie. (BBC)

• Former Rangers manager Graham Souness has branded Nigel Farage a “chancer” and backed Labour candidate Davy Russell. (The Daily Record has the exclusive)

• Labour leader Anas Sarwar has insisted his party can win. (The Herald)

• You’ll have the result and analysis of its implications in tomorrow’s Early Line

Where do we want Scotland to be in 2050? 

Want to network with some of the brightest minds in Scotland? ✨ 

The Scotland 2050 event is your chance!

The event, on Tuesday 17 June 2025, will feature discussion from some of Scotland’s leading figures, all taking an expert look at the future of Scotland across topics including housing, energy and women in public life.

Check out the full programme, featuring speakers including First Minister John Swinney, Anas Sarwar, Cherie Blair, Kate Forbes and Alex Cole-Hamilton.

Better still, be there too, for free, joining hundreds of other attendees keen to see - and help shape - Scotland’s future.

To get your FREE ticket, click here.

IDEAS
I, for one, cautiously welcome our AI overlords.

🗣️ Today, something I’ve been meaning to write for a while: an explanation of just how much artificial intelligence is in each edition of The Early Line. I’m often asked.

The long story short: I use lots of AI, but not on what you are (I hope) all here for: these words.

So: The Early Line masthead logo? Put together by an AI brand generation tool. The Facebook advert some of you might have clicked on when you first learned of The Early Line? Created inside an AI-enhanced graphics package, enhanced by Meta’s advertising AI, and served to you - specifically you - using Meta’s algorithms. (New versions of which have the multi-billion pound advertising industry seriously worried this week).

Even two years ago, there’s simply no way I could have done all this - branding, ads, optimised marketing - without professional help. And, yes, you can quickly see those expert roles which are threatened by more people following this DIY, AI-enhanced route. Many entry-level jobs are already under grave threat from AI (£).

But these words in the newsletter every morning? It’s all very manual. I really do get up at 5am, make some coffee in an old-fashioned drip machine, and use bookmarks to open up a bunch of tabs in my browser. What I write for you depends on my judgment of what’s interesting, important and good. And I type a little faster as the dreaded 7am news jingle approaches on Radio Scotland. Sometimes, my judgment is off, and you let me know. Sometimes, you tell me I get it right.

The only AI that comes near the words is a proof-reading tool, Grammarly, which - like an over-powered spell check - highlights my inelegant sentences and misspellings, and fixes them if I click “yes”.

The issue of consent is vital, because you don’t want to hand over the keys to the machine just yet. Grammarly makes mistakes. And if AI is working on a subject where the weight of words has to be carefully judged, you need to watch it like a hawk. For all the talk of soon-to-be superhuman intelligence AI is currently poor at working with information that’s emergent, ill-formed and scattered. Or “news”, as it’s sometimes called.

It simply starts making things up. Worse, it won’t tell you it’s doing so, unless you challenge it.

A disturbing example of this AI flakiness emerged earlier this week.

Author Amanda Guinzburg sought ChatGPT’s help in deciding which of her essays to submit to an agent. “What ultimately transpired,” she writes, “is the closest thing to a personal episode of Black Mirror I hope to experience in this lifetime”. I’ll let you read her whole piece yourself - it rewards the effort, if you’re at all interested in how deceitful and manipulative our future AI overlord currently is.

Her experiences align with my own experiments with ChatGPT. Because, yes, I’m experimenting all the time.

Just as desktop publishing made typesetters redundant, and websites weren’t great for printed newspapers, I do believe that one day, AI could relieve me of the need to get up early in the morning to read lots of news websites. It will provide you with something far more deeply considered and personalised, in text, audio, and video, than I could ever manage. It’ll offer the perfect summary of world events - as long as you don’t want any human input. And it’ll probably fake that brilliantly, too.

Whether that takes off, of course, will be entirely down to you.

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Scotland should elect mayors across its key city regions to help create more jobs and stop “squandering” opportunities for economic growth, Gordon Brown has said. His comments come as a new report, Innovation Nation, is launched by the Our Scottish Future think tank. (Times £) (Our Scottish Future’s report)

📣 Edinburgh University’s principal defended his salary to MSPs yesterday, and refused to rule out redundancies as the institution seeks to make £140 million in annual savings. (Herald)

• Staff at the University are to strike in the ongoing dispute over those cuts. (STV)

📣 The family of a Scottish man who vanished on a stag do in Portugal say they are “absolutely devastated” after a body was found. (STV)

📣 Douglas Ross has accused Holyrood’s Presiding Officer of making an “incorrect statement” to MSPs in an escalation of the ongoing dispute between the pair. (Scotsman) (Holyrood)

📣 Sad news from the Borders: those chicks being raised by a “love triangle” of Ospreys have died, after the male bird left the nest. (BBC)

AROUND THE UK

📣 Rachel Reeves is expected to restore winter fuel payments in her spending review next week - but then raise tax for millions of better-off pensioners. (Times £) (Guardian)

• Rachel Reeves appears to be leaning towards cuts, rather than tax rises, in her spending review. (Independent)

📣 Keir Starmer branded Israel’s actions in Gaza “counterproductive”, “intolerable” and “appalling” in parliament, calling for a ceasefire between the two countries and warning of sanctions against Israel. (Mail)

📣 Women using weight loss drugs have been urged to use barrier contraception after dozens have reported becoming pregnant while taking the medicines. (Guardian)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 A cure for HIV could be a step closer after researchers in Melbourne found a way to force the virus out of its hiding place in human cells. But a new treatment for the 40 million people who have the virus is likely still years away, despite the breakthrough. (The Guardian has the exclusive)

🌎 At least 11 people died and 30 were injured in a stampede outside an Indian Premier League cricket ground, as Royal Challengers Bengaluru celebrated their first-ever IPL win. (AP)

🌎 Donald Trump has banned citizens of 12 countries from travelling to the US, with those from seven others facing restrictions. (AP)

SPORT

⚽️ Rangers are expected to confirm today or tomorrow that they’ve appointed former Southampton boss Russell Martin as their new manager. He’s flying to Glasgow to complete a three-year deal, the first managerial appointment of the club’s new era under the ownership of 49ers Enterprises. (Daily Record)

• Rangers fans are unimpressed with Martin’s appointment. And Scottish clubs are racing to outdo each other in riling their fanbases with managerial appointments in this “hold my beer” summer in Scottish football. Graeme McGarry is in amusing form. (The Herald)

• The new man has a full in-tray: there are at least six “burning issues” he’ll need to address. (The Sun)