Good morning and welcome to The Midge, your first bite of the day’s politics from Scotland and elsewhere.
Today
- Lords call for Scotland Bill halt
- Sturgeon (above) wins politician of year for record fourth time
- EU ministers meet in Brussels for emergency border talks
- US House of Representatives increases Syrian refugee vetting
- Trident vote “before Christmas”
06.00 BBC Radio Four Today headlines
EU Ministers meeting in Brussels … White House threatens to veto Syrian refugee clampdown … Police in England warning cuts could threaten ability to respond to terror attacks … France tables draft UN resolution … BFI says TV’s first interracial kiss happened in Britain, not America.
07.00 BBC Good Morning Scotland headlines
Lords call halt to Scotland Bill and want Barnett scrapped … Theresa May to Brussels … Detectives renew appeal over Balerno attack in August … Centenary of Somme to be marked in Edinburgh next year …. Scottish singer-songwriter C Duncan in running for Mercury Music Prize tonight.
The front pages
The Herald splashes on a Lords’ report calling on David Cameron to hit the pause button on the transfer of more tax and welfare powers to Scotland until the economic impact is clearer. “Nobody knows what is going on” the committee concludes.
The Evening Times demands to know how an offender under supervision managed to abduct and assault a child.
The National leads on the Lords report’s dim view of the Scotland Bill.
The Scottish Daily Mail says the SNP took a £10k donation from an animal rights group shortly after its MPs blocked a vote on fox-hunting in England.
The Sun and The Daily Record delve into the background of Europe’s first female suicide bomber, with the Sun saying Hasna Ait Boulahcen, 26, used to be “a wild clubber who enjoyed fellas, fags and hard drugs”.
The Financial Times splashes on the report into the collapse of HBOS, saying any further action against those responsible could take at two years and amount to no more than industry bans.
The front pages of The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and the Times highlight calls to tighten up the EU’s border controls post-Paris. The Telegraph also reports that Labour deputy leader Tom Watson will send a written apology to Lord Brittan’s widow for comments made following the former Tory minister’s death. A Home Affairs Committee report is due today.
The Scotsman has a picture of the Queen on a tram in Birmingham, saying she could one day be opening a new section of line in the capital after an extension to Leith was agreed in principle.
The Independent says a single UN Security Council resolution against Isil could be on the cards.
Camley's cartoon
Camley hears the word on the street about smacking
Need to know
Home Secretary Theresa May (above) will be in Brussels today, as efforts to combat Isil go global. France, dismayed at the ease with which the terrorists were able to travel from Syria to Paris, want EU citizens entering the Schengen free movement area to face the same checks as non-EU citizens. A few weeks ago the free movement of Europe’s citizens was held to be a red line for Europe’s leaders - post Paris, no longer. At the UN Security Council in New York, a French resolution calling for a united international front against Isil is competing against a Russian motion which includes a call for co-operation with President Assad. Officials are hoping for a single resolution before the weekend is out.
Talk of the steamie: the comment sections
In The Herald, Alison Rowat marks the First Minister’s anno primi with a call for her to carpe the old diem. Drew Allan considers the moving and thought-provoking responses to Paris from Herald letter writers. On today’s letters page, the warning in The Herald by a top economist that the Scotland Bill could leave the country worse off prompts spirited exchanges.
A Daily Mail leader asks “who is really in charge of the SNP?”. The FM said she would listen to the PM’s case for Syrian airstrikes, says a leader comment, but her foreign affairs spokesman Alex Salmond says a UN mandate is essential. In the Times, Kenny Farquharson looks at the shifting sands of SNP policy on Syria.
Philip Stephens in the FT says Europeans must celebrate the freedom they have and recognise it is under threat.
Business for Scotland founder Gordon MacIntrye-Kemp takes to The National to argue that the EU has been good for Scotland.
In The Scotsman, Joyce McMillan calls on the SNP to raise its policy-making game.
In the Telegraph, Fraser Nelson looks ahead to the spending review and says the next round of cuts could be one of the toughest missions facing any modern Chancellor.
The diary
- Commons: Private Members’ Bills
- Glasgow: Council leader Frank McAveety speech on city’s economy
- Glasgow: Officials from Glasgow Central Mosque join Jewish Council of Scotland, the Christian and Sikh community, the Islamic Society of Britain, the Scottish Government and Police Scotland, to unite against hate crime.
Afore ye go
“Call Me Dave Airways”
Labour MP Chris Bryant finds a name for the new, £10million plane to be used by the Prime Minister (above). Sky News political editor suggests “Cam Air”.
"As a man I can say quite clearly that Margaret Thatcher (above) represented my views very nicely indeed, but I'm not sure she would have been the pin-up to many of the politically correct, left-leaning women that are obsessed with having more women in Parliament today.”
Philip Davies, Tory MP for Shipley, during debate for International Men’s Day.
“As far as I’m concerned, mankind – we don’t discuss womankind – mankind is a genus, and women is a special sort of a man.”
UKIP MEP David Coburn (above) addresses Holyrood’s European Committee
“Thanks to a string of powerful performances in TV debates and campaign rallies, Nicola Sturgeon established herself as the commanding presence in Scottish politics. Simultaneously, she emerged as ‘the most dangerous woman in Britain’ – which is a bit worrying because I’m sitting next to her tonight.”
Magnus Llewellin, Editor-in-Chief of The Herald, warms up the crowd at the paper’s Politician of the Year awards
Television history was made in Britain, not America, says the British Film Institute. Far from the 1968 smooch between Captain Kirk (played by William Shatner, above) and Lt Uhura being the first interracial kiss, an ITV play of 1962, You in Your Small Corner, got there first. Sorry, Kirk.
Thank you for reading The Midge: your first bite of the day’s politics from Scotland and elsewhere. See you on Monday.
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