In your briefing today:

📣 What’s going to happen next in Downing Street? It’s unclear, but we should brace for a chaotic period in UK politics, starting (or rather, deepening) today.

That all-important Makerfield byelection takes place in the North of England, following on from which there are at least three courses of action being pushed for by various parties. All of those scenarios assume Andy Burnham wins.

📣 The US and Iran have signed a deal to end the war, ease sanctions and - vitally for the global economy - reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Talks over Iran’s nuclear ambitions - which were one of the US’s biggest concerns before it started the conflict - continue. (AP)

The precise text of the deal has not been released, although US officials dictated parts of it to journalists after days of security vetting, on condition of anonymity.

Based on that read, most analyses of the deal see a big win for Iran, which has secured major concessions from the US without having to offer much in return.

📣 Patients across Scotland are suffering because of a shortage of specialist doctors who can interpret scans and manage cancer, the Royal College of Radiologists has said. The body has described a “shocking picture” across radiology departments and cancer care centres, and said “alarm bells should be ringing” about the service. (Scotsman)

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📣 Scotland’s female councillors have spoken of how they face “endemic” levels of misogyny and threats, to the extent many are being put off entering public life. (STV)

📣 The head of CalMac has suggested a big shake-up in how ferries are run, raising fresh questions about the complex structures through which the services are managed. (The Herald has the exclusive)

📣 The kind chap who donated his £900 ticket to a young Scotland fan who’d been scammed has spoken out, saying he didn’t want his fellow fan’s memory to be “ruined” by a fraud. (Daily Record)

📣 The bosses of the world’s biggest AI firms have been locked in discussions with the G7, and have a clear ask for the world’s leaders: come up with a way to govern artificial intelligence. But they disagree on what that should mean. (Sky News has the exclusive)

📣 Here’s something happy and slightly miraculous: cervical cancer deaths have fallen to zero among young women given the HPV vaccine. (BBC)

📣 A potential heatwave is on its way, at least for southern parts of the UK: warm weather in Europe is expected to creep north because of a “heat dome” that’s developed across the continent. (BBC)

📣 “The most famous tree in the world” - a 1,000-year-old oak in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, has died. (Guardian)

⚽️ Derek McInnes is Rangers’ new manager, appointed as the club’s 22nd permanent manager after Danny Rohl moved to join RB Salzburg. McInnes, who played at Ibrox for five years, will appoint a backroom team with a distinctly domestic bias. (Daily Record) (Sun)

⚽️ England got off to a winning start against Croatia, but only, apparently, after some words of motivation from Thomas Tuchel at half-time, after a disjointed first 45 minutes. Harry Kane scored twice, while Jude Bellingham and Marcus Rashford delivered fine finishes to produce a 4-2 win. (Report & highlights)

Other results yesterday:

🗣️ Rebecca McQuillan hails the UK government’s plans for a social media ban for under-16s. “It’s not benign, it’s not just a way to keep in touch with friends,” she writes. “If anyone wondered what all the fuss was about over social media risks to the under-16s, hearing the voices of parents whose children have been profoundly harmed should leave them in no doubt.”

She describes a group of parents coming together in a TV studio, as the Prime Minister made his announcement, to quietly celebrate the move. All of them had lost a child because of online harm. There was so many of them, she writes, “they had to be seated across two rows”.

“These children, their families and friends have paid the price for the wholly ineffectual action of social media companies to protect children,” she writes. “It’s likely that deaths will be prevented by taking those companies’ products out of children’s lives.” (Herald)

🗣️ Jenny Lindsay reacts strongly to the Herald’s interview with Q Manivannan, the newly elected Scottish Greens regional list MSP who quickly gained notoriety for being elected on only a student visa, which runs out later this year. He is also trans/non-binary-identifying. Lindsay says the sort of language of inclusion he deploys masks “a disregard for women.”

“I was halfway through the interview, on the edge of my sofa, when the rage began to take hold. Here I was again, listening to another highly manipulative, pretty young man, earnestly twisting reality in an attempt to woo otherwise intelligent people into believing his dangerous worldview.” (Scotsman)

🗣️ It’s the Royal Highland Show this weekend: always a splendid occasion, and one that Vicky Allan has attended since she was small. Sometimes it was dull, she writes, sometimes she and her brothers would go and scavenge in the food hall “while our dad, suddenly chatty, talked endlessly to sales reps”.

“But, of course, we weren’t quite old enough for the real refreshments, and only ever glimpsed the show’s key role as a venue where farmers went to drink, party, socialise and get hammered – even meet their future partners,” she writes.

Later in life, it - and her upbringing on a farm - had a profound impact on her work now as an environmental journalist. “I feel connected to the seasonality of food production and have that strong sense of where it comes from,” she writes. “But I also know how tough it can be for farmers to make change.” (Herald)

🗣️ John MacLeod’s columns are always a treat: typically, what appears to be superficial whimsy with substance at its heart, if you go looking for it.

His latest, currently not locked behind a paywall, is on his holiday plans: a modest intent to descend from his island home to Glasgow and revisit the haunts of his childhood.

“Only boys really know an area,” he writes. “The secret trails and the useful shortcuts. The shady nooks, the gaps in fences, the scalable trees, the grumpy neighbours, the friendly dogs and the one that might have the arm off you. […] And the odd sight that sears.

“Passing our old manse last year, I noted a pile of fresh logs by the steps from the garden path.

“Circular; freshly sawn from the freshly felled. A cypress my late father had planted half a century ago, reduced to so much Swiss roll.” (Mail)

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