TODAY’S WEATHER

☁️ A cloudy start for Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen gives ways to sunny spells later. It should be dry.. London has a chance of rain over lunchtime. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
World’s biggest wind farm sparks row | Trump tariffs return to upend global trade | Festivals kick off in Edinburgh

📣 The Scottish Government’s decision to sign off on the world’s biggest wind farm, to be built in the North Sea at the Berwick Bank, has been met with a storm of criticism from environmentalists who say it will have a devastating impact on seabirds in the area.

The RSPB said the decision “could catapult some of Scotland’s most-loved seabird species towards extinction” while The National Trust for Scotland said the decision was “deeply disappointing” and would cause “significant harm”.

The Berwick Bank wind farm will be sited 24 miles off the coast of East Lothian and will create enough electricity to power every household in Scotland twice over, its developers say. (BBC) (Scotsman) (Mail)

📣 Donald Trump once again upended global trade, announcing overnight a slew of new tariffs on goods entering the US.

Although baseline rates for many of the country’s trading partners remain at the 10% level imposed in April, despite threats they could go up, rates on some Canadian, Swiss and New Zealand goods have jumped. (Guardian live coverage) (BBC live coverage).

• Trump's global tariffs 'victory' may well come at a high price (BBC)

• Trump injects new dose of uncertainty (AP)

• Analysis: Trump’s tariffs are back, and so is his playbook (Sky News)

📣 Edinburgh becomes the world’s biggest arts venue once again from today, as the Edinburgh Festivals begin their 2025 run. More than 2,000 artists from 42 countries will appear at this year's International Festival, while there are another 4,000 shows in The Fringe, and yet more at book, film and other festivals. (BBC)

• It’s the second-biggest Fringe Festival ever (Scotsman)

• John Swinney has warned of the importance of freedom of speech at the Festivals (Herald)

• Brian Cox, who is appearing in a play about the collapse of RBS in this year’s Festival, has been typically forthright about Donald Trump’s comments on another independence referendum. (Sky News)

THOUGHT-PROVOKING IDEAS FROM THE WEEKLY MAGAZINES
Where are the thinker-politicians? Why Israel has gone too far. And better ways to sell green change

🗣️As MPs drift out of their Westminster bubble and back to the real world for August, Andrew Marr hopes they pay close attention to what is going on there, even if they step into the streets with a sense of “forboding and guilt” with the prospect of spreading anti-migrant riots and economic crisis around the corner.

There are signs of recovery, he says. Just nobody telling a story about what they are, or what they mean - and what the nation might eventually add up to. We lack great storytellers; the (dire) state of the nation as much an intellectual failure as it is political.

“We have hardly any public philosophers of left or right,” he says, “no nationally discussed novelists or poets. As leaders of a bigger conversation, our navel-gazing universities have become entirely useless.

“Once we had thinker-politicians who could, for good or ill, catch our imaginations: Tony Benn, Enoch Powell, Tony Crosland, Margaret Thatcher. Once we had great journalistic explicators, from Christopher Hitchens of this parish to Alan Watkins or Peter Jenkins. Much less so now.”

So the task falls to Starmer, and our other political leaders, despite the fact they are “entirely unsuited to bearing the weight.” Marr hopes they get some time to contemplate it all in the weeks ahead. (The New Statesman £)

🗣️The scandal-encircled Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, should resign, says The Economist (following up on another theme of this newsletter in recent weeks). He might have done quite a good job until around two years ago, he writes, and Spain is going well, far outpacing Eurozone rivals. But the corruption scandals in his government mean Spaniards are more disillusioned with their politicians than most other Europeans. His repeated apologies aren’t enough, says the newspaper: for the sake of democracy, he “should take responsibility and step down.” (The Economist £)

🗣️ Rod Liddle thinks “Israel has gone too far”. Moreover, “If any other country in the Middle East had behaved as monstrously as Israel has in recent weeks, the jets would be lined up on our runways ready to do a bit of performative bombing,” he writes.

That’s of note, because Liddle has been far from a supporter of Palestine, or much else in the MIddle East, ever. As he says, “I have been to Israel many times, as a journalist, as a holidaymaker, as a friend. I accept without demurral the argument that it is the region’s only democracy – and a liberal democracy at that – surrounded on all sides by authoritarian failed states which wish to see it wiped from the face of the Earth.”

But its actions leave him little choice, he says. And “if you are already howling that I have swallowed Hamas propaganda, and that either it is Hamas who is stopping the aid getting through or that the far-from-starving Palestinians are tucking into three square meals per day, eggs Benedict, shrimp étouffée, bananas Foster and so on, then you are labouring under a delusion.

“If virtually every non-aligned observer in the world, including the President of the USA, believes that the people of Gaza are starving to death and Israel is primarily responsible, then that’s good enough for me, frankly.” (The Spectator)

🗣️Meanwhile, The Spectator’s cover story this week contains themes which will be familiar to anyone who… read yesterday’s Early Line. John Power’s piece, Ctrl U: the Online Safety Act is shutting down the internet (£), is a well-argued polemic against all that was discussed here 24 hours ago (I’d love to say that was planned… it was not).

🗣️The Economist argues it’s time to ease off on hard messages about net zero and sacrifice in the name of climate change, and find new ways to make a green transition feasible. Politicians, it writes, “should try harder to reduce the pain inflicted when decarbonisation involves lots of ordinary people.

“Do not bully them into buying heat pumps when there are too few technicians to install them. Make switching to an electric car easier by building charging infrastructure and letting in cheap imports from China.”

And, it adds, “apply the same pain-reducing logic to adaptation. Marine Le Pen, the leading French populist, struck a chord when she complained that France’s elite had air conditioning but its masses did not.” (Economist £)

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Costs for Scotland’s long-running historical child abuse inquiry have risen to £111million, adding to a growing bill Scottish public inquiries which has now hit £230 million since 2007. (The Mail has the exclusive)

📣 An eight-year-old boy has been sexually assaulted while camping with his family in the Highlands. Police said a man approached the child, who was sleeping in his own tent, in the early hours of Thursday at the Loch Ness Bay campsite in Drumnadrochit. (BBC)

📣 A jellyfish thought to be extinct has been found… in a rockpool on South Uist (Guardian).

AROUND THE UK & THE WORLD

📣 US special envoy Steve Witkoff will visit Gaza today to inspect food distribution sites. The White House says he will "secure a plan to deliver more food and meet with local Gazans to hear first-hand about this dire situation on the ground". (BBC)

• The mathematics of starvation: how Israel caused a famine in Gaza (Guardian)

📣 It was “Britain’s most upmarket cocaine ring”, serving the City of London, with “wealthy clients, drugs of 'mind-blowing' quality, impeccable service... all run by a mild-mannered antiques dealer.” And now it’s been smashed - the Mail goes deep on how. It’s a remarkable read. (Mail)

📣 The crisis in NHS England threatens to deepen this winter, as the Royal College of Nursing warns its members feel “deeply undervalued”, and will be balloted on industrial action after 91 per cent of its members voted to reject the government’s pay offer of 3.6 per cent. The threats come after a five-day walkout by resident doctors ended on Wednesday. (Independent)

📣 TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson says his Diddly Squat Farm has "gone down with TB", and that everyone working there "is absolutely devastated". The disease can require culls of cattle to eradicate the outbreak. (BBC)

📣 A Ukrainian soldier trapped, injured, behind enemy lines managed to escape on an e-bike, delivered by drone. (Telegraph - free to read)

SPORT

⚽️ Brazilian Junior Brumado struck in injury time to send Hibs crashing out of the Europa League at the first hurdle. Earlier, Rocky Bushiri had sparked wild scenes at an Easter Road close to capacity. But the brilliant late strike snuffed out any chance of progress. (BBC)

⚽️ Dundee United made it through against UNA Strassen of Luxembourg, sealing progress in Europe for the first time in 28 years. But manager Jim Goodwin said his side "need to learn quickly". (BBC)