TODAY’S WEATHER

🌧️ You’ll need your waterproofs: we’re expecting rain all day, often sustained and heavy, in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. London will be overcast, but dry. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Unrest over Trump raids continues | Thunberg yacht seized by Israel | Spending review wrangling goes on

📣 Unrest is continuing in Los Angeles as protestors demonstrating against immigration raids clash with law enforcement officers for a third night. (BBC Live coverage)

• Self-driving taxis were set alight and “incendiary devices” thrown at police horses. Police responded with rubber bullets, tear gas and flash bang grenades. (AP)

• Donald Trump announced the deployment of the National Guard to the city yesterday, a very rare unrequested deployment of federal troops in an American city. (AP)

• California Governor Gavin Newsom called Trump's deployment of the National Guard "illegal" and "immoral". (BBC)

📣 Israeli forces have taken control of a yacht carrying activist Greta Thunberg, which was attempting to deliver symbolic aid to Gaza and draw attention to the humanitarian crisis there. The yacht is being towed to Israel: the activists on board are said to be unharmed, and will be sent home when they reach shore. (Guardian)

• “All the passengers of the ‘selfie yacht’ are safe and unharmed. They were provided with sandwiches and water. The show is over.” (Israeli Foreign Ministry on X)

📣 Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper have yet to reach agreement on details of Wednesday’s Spending Review, with more cash expected for policing in England and Wales, but cuts for local government.

The UK Government is expected to unveil a raft of new spending commitments - many of which were trailed in the weekend press (see Ideas, below) - but there will also be cuts to help pay for it all. (BBC) (Guardian)

• On the relevance of all this to Scotland: it’s important. Graeme Roy, professor of economics at the University of Glasgow, offers a helpful primer on the interdependency of the UK and Scottish budgets. Wednesday’s spending review will be followed by the Scottish Government’s medium-term financial strategy on June 25. “Spending reviews are major events,” he writes. “They do not just allocate money for the next few years, but shape the overall direction of policy and trends in public services.” (Herald £)

• The winners and losers in Labour’s first spending review (Guardian)

IDEAS
Five ideas from the weekend

🗣️Word of the upcoming week: “Splurge”. There will be some serious splurges in Wednesday’s Spending Review, if plans trailed in the weekend press are to be believed. Whereas the last year’s October budget was all doom and gloom, expect this week’s review to be much more upbeat, with some very large (but multi-year) sums being committed.

• Interviewed in the Sunday Mirror, Rachel Reeves promised billions more for education, the NHS, national security and “firing up the economy”. And, although health and education are devolved matters, remember we can expect additional funding in England to eventually be reflected in funding for Scotland - although the Scottish Government will have discretion on how to spend it. (Mirror)

• The Chancellor had another interview - in the Observer - to talk about education, and another £4.6 billion splurge. (Observer)

• Over in the Sunday Sun, Peter Kyle - the Science and Technology Minister - promised £86 billion “for high-tech”, which means “investment in the UK’s fastest-growing sectors — tech, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and defence. (The Sun)

🗣️ Meanwhile, it’s time British pension funds started splurging too, and used their vast power to benefit Britain, says Will Hutton. Too many British companies have to look abroad for finance as they grow, which means the rewards of their success flow overseas. That’s unjust, because these superstar companies of the future - working in vital fields such as biotech and sustainable energy - often spring out of “an ecosystem of publicly created support,” he notes.

British pension funds aren’t much help to these growing companies, which are viewed as too risky for your retirement funds. But they benefit from £50 billion of tax relief each year, so the government has leverage to urge (and, if necessary, compel) them to spend more of their funds in the UK. That’s what a new pensions bill, published last Thursday, is all about.

“Some in the City and pensions fund world have welcomed the bill as brave and necessary,” notes Hutton. “Predictably, others have reacted conservatively. They protest that this is the state stealing pension fund moneys for political ends. They argue that if the government just lets market forces work, all will be well. But this is what got us here in the first place.” (Observer)

🗣️Edinburgh needs to “come up with a compelling global story” for its financial services industry, writes Jeremy Grant in The Scotsman. It is still the UK’s second-biggest financial centre, after London. But, globally, it sits at 29th - respectable, but with Glasgow coming up on the rails at 32nd, and there’s lots of competition from abroad.

Scottish Financial Enterprise thinks it has an answer, writes Grant, with - among other factors - a lower cost of living and higher quality of life (compared with London) being useful draws. It’s now calling for “a more clearly articulated government strategy” for investment in the asset management sector - just, notes Grant, “as Singapore, Ireland and Luxembourg do”. (The Scotsman £)

🗣️There was a lot of reflection on last week’s dramatic by-election win for Labour - the Herald has an entertaining bit of colour in its “Big Read” on the by-election, recounting how the party’s press officer bought apple pie - “humble pie”, he called it - for journalists covering the win on Friday.

But lots of people got the election wrong, the title notes, with Labour’s candidate even being called a donkey by a “party insider”. “The thing about donkeys though,” the paper notes, “is they are known for being sure-footed, steady and persistent — especially when the going gets tough.” (Herald)

• See also: Stephen Daisley: “Our political class had better start learning to pass themselves off as human or Reform will deliver a nasty surprise” (Mail)

🗣️Snoop Dogg, the rap superstar, wants to open a burger van outside Celtic Park. In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mail the star said he had an ambition to “personally serve up cheese and bacon beef burgers to fans.” He’s been a fan of the Glasgow club for two decades, and is on a mission to sell some copies of his cookbook improve food at sports grounds. “There has always been the opinion that food at sports stadiums is never good but that ain’t got to be the case,” he told the newspaper. (Sunday Mail)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Bus drivers in the west of Scotland are beginning a six-week strike over pay. (BBC)

📣 First Minister John Swinney is considering a reshuffle in the wake of last week’s by-election defeat. (Herald)

📣 Scientists in Aberdeen have made a ground-breaking discovery that could “revolutionise” treatment for chronic pain caused by conditions including fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. (STV)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 Children who attend private schools are being denied NHS treatment in England, with the Mail on Sunday highlighting serveral cases over the weekend. There are claims the Labour Government’s decision to charge VAT on private school fees has encouraged a “two tier” health system. (Mail)

• The claims follow a similar case in Scotland, where parents were told they would have to pay for tuition for their children while they were in hospital for cancer treatment because they attended a private school. (Mail)

📣 Sir Keir Starmer will visit Canada on Saturday to meet his counterpart, Mark Carney, ahead of the G7 leaders’ summit in Alberta. (Times £) (ITV)

📣 A couple whose Jaguar was stolen from outside their London home were forced to “steal” it back after police were too stretched to investigate. They tracked it using an Apple AirTag. (Times £)

📣 It’s not just Scotland which has problems with its ferries. Tasmania hasn’t covered itself in glory either: the vast Spirit of Tasmania IV remains docked in Leith - and is becoming a minor tourist attraction - because, back in Tasmania, they haven’t built a port big enough to accommodate her. (Guardian)

SPORT

🎾 It was, observers agreed unanimously, an “instant classic” final, one for the ages: Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner treated Roland Garros to more than five hours of dramatic, top-class tennis, in which Alcaraz of Spain recovered from two sets down to retain the French Open in a tie-break. (BBC)

• “For most other players in the history of tennis, there was no reason to believe in any outcome other than defeat.” And then Alcaraz saved a trio of Championship points. (Guardian)

⚽️ Portugal beat Spain on penalties to lift the Nations League last night, a tearful Cristiano Ronaldo lifting the trophy after he scored an equaliser during the game, but was then forced off injured. It was Portugal's third major international title in a decade. (Mail)

⚽️ Scotland visit Liechtenstein tonight in a friendly match. Excited? You bet. (5pm, BBC Scotland channel)