TODAY’S WEATHER

🌦️ Chances are it’ll be dry in Glasgow and Aberdeen, but Edinburgh and London will see rain through the middle of the day. I’ll be mild, with temperatures in the high teens. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Starmer reshuffles his staff in a government reboot | Peggie “victim of witch hunt” | End of the US dream?

📣 Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer opened the new political term with a reshuffle of his Downing Street team and a promise to start delivering. But his decision to appoint one of Rachel Reeves’s senior advisors to a new role in Number 10 has led to claims that his Chancellor is, politically, finished, and is seen as an admission the government overall is in trouble.

• “Delivery, delivery, delivery” - Starmer set out his priorities in an interview with Matt Chorley on the BBC. (BBC)

• Keir Starmer has attempted to regain control of economic policy from the Treasury by strengthening his No. 10 team. (Guardian)

• “With his decision to centralise power in Downing Street at the expense of the Treasury, Sir Keir Starmer has demoted and humiliated Rachel Reeves.” (🎁Telegraph - free to read)

• More reaction and analysis on the Starmer government reboot, below ⬇️

📣 Nurse Sandie Peggie was the victim of a “full-blown witch hunt” conducted by NHS Fife after she refused to change in front of a trans doctor, her lawyer said yesterday in the concluding stage of her employment tribunal case against the health board.

NHS Fife then “attempted a shockingly spiteful public character assassination of her,” said Naomi Cunningham. “It has subjected her supporting witnesses to groundless smears, it has attempted to drive a wedge between her and her lesbian daughter, it has subjected her to a protracted investigation of obviously false allegations of a potentially career-ending gravity,” the hearing was told.

For NHS Fife, Jane Russell KC said a “gender-critical campaign” lay at the heart of Peggie’s case. She said Peggie had faced action not because of her gender-critical beliefs, but because of the “objectionable and inappropriate” way she had expressed them.Russell is expected to conclude her submission today. (Mail) (Times £)

• Key points from the final legal submissions (Herald)

📣 It’s the end of the American dream: new polling has found Americans have lost faith that hard work leads to economic gains. “Nearly 70% of people said they believe the American dream - that if you work hard, you will get ahead - no longer holds true or never did, the highest level in nearly 15 years of surveys,” reports Lindsay Ellis and Aaron Zitner. The discontent spans political and demographic lines, even as the public’s view of the US economy brightens. (🎁WSJ has the exclusive).

IDEAS
What does Keir Starmer’s government shake-up really mean?

🗣️ What should we make of Sir Keir Starmer’s government shake-up? Beyond the Kremlinology of Rachel Reeves’ political future, we can see one thing clearly: the staff appointments and internal moves show how her forthcoming budget, due to be delivered late next month or in early November, is the defining event of the government to date. It may even be the defining moment of his government overall: the pivotal moment on which all else will turn.

Economic policy lies behind some of voters’ biggest concerns: “the economy” has long sat top of YouGov’s tracker, above immigration and asylum, health and crime. It’s both something people feel they experience directly - the money in their pocket - and emotionally: the confidence they have they’ll have a job this time next year. It makes political sense for it also to be top of Starmer’s priorities, rather than something delegated to his Chancellor.

Underscoring this, Tom Belger of LabourList notes that yesterday’s announcement contained a new “Kier-list” - one of his increasingly notorious lists of priorities. “Today the Prime Minister has bolstered the Downing Street operation as this government delivers on the country’s priorities: growth people feel in their pockets, secure borders, and getting the NHS back on its feet,” ran the statement.

That’s a succinct list of three, a neater successor to his “10 leadership campaign pledges, six National Policy Forum priorities, six milestones, six ‘first steps’, five missions, three ‘foundations’ bolted onto the missions, two priorities (living standards and immigration), and growth as priority number one.” It’s new focus, after a fashion.

Note, also, the people being moved around. Darren Jones - who became an MP in 2017 - was effectively Rachel Reeves’ deputy at the Treasury. Now, in the new role of chief secretary to the prime minister, Jones is “expected to do lots of media for the PM on the government’s message and delivery, and to take on the threat from Reform,” according to the Guardian.

But it’s not just about the communications, as the Prime Minister noted in his comments to the BBC, when he spoke of moving to a “delivery phase” and sharing “the frustration and anger of voters”.

Andrew Marr in The New Statesman (£) suggests Jones will have a very practical job: making things happen, “to pursue policies and speed them up”, after a year in which Starmer’s critics claim he’s pulled government levers, only for nothing to change. Marr also notes that, for Reeves, “to lose her lieutenant just as a ferociously difficult run-up to the next Budget begins, must be a little unsettling for her.”

So what, then, of the Kremlinology? It’s what a big portion of Fleet Street focuses on this morning. The Telegraph sees Reeves being “frozen out” by Number 10: a government rest “which undermines Rachel Reeves’s authority”. The Mail asks: “The End of Reeves”, with Andrew Pierce writing that it’s all “grim news for the Chancellor”, with Jones’s appointment “reeking of panic”. “Oh, it’s simple” Pierce says one minister said to him. “Rachel is f***ed”.

Scrape away the party politics, however, and it’s not that clear that Reeves is finished by these moves. At least, not yet.

The Prime Minister’s closer interest in the economy will, inevitably, mean the budget the Chancellor delivers in the autumn will be a co-production: these appointments bind the thinking, and thus the fates, of Numbers 10 and 11 more closely together. The job there: “fill a hole, in a way that makes it not look like they’re filling a hole”, according to one “insider” speaking to Heather Stewart.

Which brings us back to where we started: this autumn’s budget is this government’s cup final, one that will seal the fate of the entire government, and not just its two most senior members. Plus ça change.

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 MSP Colin Smyth met girl guides at Holyrood days after he was charged with possessing indecent images of children. (The Daily Record has the exclusive)

• Smyth, also accused of hiding a camera in the Scottish Parliament toilets, has resigned as convener of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. (STV)

📣 Police Scotland has a looming staffing crisis: close to 5% of officers will be able to retire from next summer, with the force also finding it more difficult to recruit new staff. (Herald)

📣 A man has been arrested after a child was allegedly sexually assaulted at a campsite in the Highlands in July. (Daily Record)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 Home secretary Yvette Cooper plans to suspend all new applications under the refugee family reunion route, as part of measures intended to clear the asylum backlog and reduce the number of people crossing the English Channel illegally. The numbers of family reunion visa applications being issued has soared in the last two years. (Independent)

📣 Protestors took to the streets across the US yesterday to mark Labor Day, criticise President Donald Trump and demand a living wage. (AP)

📣 Afghans have described the horror of an earthquake in which at least 800 people have died, and 2,500 were injured. Those numbers are expected to rise sharply, with many villages in the remote region hit unaccounted for. (Guardian)

📣 Nestle has fired its Chief Executive for an “inappropriate relationship” with a direct report, after just over a year in the job. (Independent)

SPORT

⚽️ Football’s transfer window slammed shut last night - England at 7pm, Scotland at 11pm - and a flurry of late deals made it appear it was flapping open in the wind. Some of the bigger deals we know happened:

• Striker Youssef Chermiti has joined Rangers, at £8 million their most expensive signing since Tor Andrew Flo (The Sun)

• Rangers have also signed defender Derek Cornelius on a season-long loan, as Cyriel Dessers leaves for Panathinaikos and Oscar Cortes leaves for Spain. (BBC) Nico Raskin, however, stays put. (Mail)

• Celtic’s big signing was winger Sebastian Tounekti, who joins from Hammerby: he was a key target for Brendan Rodgers. (BBC)

• Celtic striker Adam Idah moved out, to Swansea for £6 million. The Hoops were frustrated in their attempts to sign a number of other players on deadline day.

• Kevin Nisbet returned to Aberdeen, this time permanently, for around £300,000. (Daily Record)

• But Lyndon Dykes - who had been expected to also move north, to Hibs - isn’t going anywhere: his salary costs were too much. (Daily Record)

⚽️ In England, Premier League teams spent more than ever before - more than £3 billion this summer - with the biggest deal of all being Liverpool’s: they signed Alexander Isak from Newcastle for a British record transfer fee of £125 million. (BBC)

• You can see every transfer deadline day deal done here