Hello and welcome to The Midge, your first bite of the day’s politics in Scotland and elsewhere. 

The Herald:

 

Today

  • Catholic Church: sex health units near schools “sinister”
  • Homes evacuated in Aberdeenshire after flooding
  • No safe level of drinking, say medical chiefs
  • Household debt in UK highest for five years
  • Facebook in fresh funk over Saltire

06.00 BBC Radio Four Today headlines

Drinking levels cut … 40 rescued from homes near Aberdeen … Record levels of UK debt … S Korea resumes broadcast blasts to north … Chinese stockmarket turbulence continues … Flying Scotsman back on the tracks in East Lancashire … Green light for video tech trial in Scottish Cup.

07.00 BBC Good Morning Scotland headlines

Dozens rescued in North East as Don overflows … Power off in some areas, rail line and schools closed … Safe drinking limits … Obama attacks National Rifle Association on guns … Designs for Battle of Stirling monument go on display.  

 

The front pages

The Herald:

Helen Puttick’s exclusive in The Herald reports on the Catholic Church’s response to Scottish Government proposals for a more “youth friendly” approach to sexual health services. And Facebook is in a twist again over emblems, this time offering users the Union Jack rather than the Saltire as a way of flagging up Burns Suppers. 

The National says a monitoring group, AirWars, is demanding answers after reports linking Iraq deaths to British air strikes.

The Herald: In another exclusive, Rebecca Gray in the Evening Times meets the unsuspecting Iraqi refugee who was moved into the former flat of killer Alexander Pacteau. 

Radical Islamist groups are waging a “campaign of hate” on campuses, says the Scottish Daily Mail

The Herald: Flooding in Hill Street, Hilperton

In the Telegraph, Tory leader Ruth Davidson accuses the Scottish Government of delay in taking up extra cash from Westminster to help with flooding. 

The Times has a picture of a starving boy in Madaya, Syria, where residents are reported to be eating pets and grass. The town has been under siege from government forces since July. 

The FT highlights fresh turmoil in China’s stock markets, saying questions are being asked about Beijing’s ability to handle the economic slowdown. 

The Sun and the Daily Record lead on the murder of 82-year-old Mary Logie at her home in Leven, Fife.

The Guardian and the Scotsman splash on the new drinking guidelines.   

 

Camley's cartoon

The Herald:

Camley finds fresh horror lurking in the waters

 

Need to know

The Friday of the first week back at work after Christmas was never going to be a good day to break the bad news about safe drinking, and so it has proved. The UK’s chief medical officers, in the first revision to limits for 20 years, have said there is no such thing as a safe level of drinking. But if you do drink, the limit should be 14 units a week for men and women, equivalent to seven small glasses of wine, or seven pints of beer, a week. The Daily Telegraph editorial calls the recommendations harsh, nannying and sweeping. “The hyperbolic claim that there is no safe limit - that someone is taking their life into their own hands when they enjoy a glass of sherry - defies common sense.” It is going to be a busy day for those trying to sober up the UK about drinking. 

 

The diary

  • Glasgow: International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, co-hosted by the University of Glasgow. 
  • PM bilateral with Jordanian counterpart. 
  • Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon begin four-day visit to Japan.

Talk of the steamie: the comment sections

The Herald: CONFERENCE DEBUT: Just one delegate stood to applaud Alex Salmond, but that was one more than Wendy AlexanderIn The Herald, education correspondent Andrew Denholm looks at testing times ahead for the Scottish government after the publication of its schools plan, while Rab McNeil wishes he was Alex Salmond’s wallet. “Oh to be so capacious, to jingle so merrily.” Business editor Ian McConnell ponders a gloomy start to the new year for retailers. 

Kenny Farquharson in the Times gives Nicola Sturgeon full marks for her plans to close the attainment gap in education. 

Emma Brockes in the Guardian writes in praise of the lawyer at the heart of Netflix’s Making a Murderer. 

In the Telegraph, Fraser Nelson reckons the Tories are getting ready for civil war over the EU. 

The Herald: Emily Thornberry has resigned her position as shadow attorney general

Jan Moir casts a beady eye over (above) Emily Thornberry’s qualifications to be the new Shadow Defence Secretary. “Until now,” writes Moir in the Daily Mail, “I firmly believed that Diane Abbott was the ghastliest woman at Westminster.”

 

Afore ye go

The Herald: PSY changes title of song amid offence fears

Politics Gangnam-style

South Korea has marked the 32nd birthday of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, and expresed its displeasure over H-bomb test claims, by resuming the blasting of pop music over the border. 

The Herald: Charming: Mary Ann Rogers’ painting of a Cairngorm reindeer

 

“Once he served 24 courses, including moose lips.”

President Clinton chews the fat with Tony Blair about Boris Yeltsin’s catering skills. As revealed in transcripts released yesterday by the Clinton Presidential Library. Via Martin Rosenbaum, BBC

The Herald: MOVING IN: Tony and Cherie Blair celebrate his election triumph outside Number 10 in 1997

“Cherie is in great form but just keeps getting bigger and bigger.”

Another day, another call from Blair to Clinton, this time during Mrs Blair’s pregnancy.

The Herald: GUIDANCE: Fiona Hyslop

"A compliant, reverential media is not compliant with a modern democracy.”

Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop (above) during a Holyrood debate, led by French-born SNP MSP Christian Allard, to mark one year since the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris. 

The Herald: Big Ben chimes as the School Council arrives.

"My great failing in life is to listen to everybody at whatever greater length they wish to speak to me. And this building is full of people who speak at great length on lots of things.”

Jeremy Corbyn explains why his reshuffle took an age. The Yorkshire Post

The Herald: Robert Harris talks about his new novel

“The very definition of futility: a shadow cabinet ‘reshuffle’ of people doing imaginary jobs in a government that will never exist.”

Novelist Robert Harris (above) elegantly demolishes the Corbyn efforts.

The Herald: Lord of the Rings book cover.

“Mordor”

When Google Translate was asked to turn “Russian Federation” into Ukranian it came up with the name of Tolkien’s evil kingdom in The Lord of the Rings. The search engine giant said the glitch had now been fixed. BBC

The Herald: A Saltire car aerial at the  Aberdeen International Conference Centre in Scotland, ahead of the SNP Spring Conference, where Labour voters in Scotland will be urged to vote Yes in the independence referendum to "reclaim" their party. PRESS ASSOC

“There’s no chance of Scotland leaving, there’s no chance of Wales leaving. We’ve been a union for 300 years – they had their opportunity, they were at the peak of Scottish nationalism and they still didn’t do it.”

Leave.EU campaign founder and UKIP donor Arron Banks at a Foreign Press Association debate.

The Herald: Watson poised to study at Yale

Our Shared Shelf

Emma Watson, aka Hermione Granger of Harry Potter and UN Ambassador, finds a name for her new feminist book group on Twitter. 

The Herald: PANTS MEN: G3 – The Ginge, The Geordie and The Geek, Graeme Rooney, Paul Charlton and Kevin O’Loughlin

Pants and trainers.

What ex-Labour advisor turned commentator Dan Hodges wore to run along Whitehall after losing a bet over how successful UKIP would be at the General Election. Commuters got an eyeful, charities got £1000. PA

The Herald: Abraham Lincoln

“Someone has stolen Abraham Lincoln's hands. A museum in Kankakee, Illinois, has reported that their plaster mould of the Great Emancipator's hands was taken in December. Do you know what this means? They've got his fingerprints. Somewhere out there there's a thief that can unlock Lincoln's iPhone.”

Late Show with Stephen Colbert

 

Thank you for reading The Midge, your first bite of the day’s politics in Scotland and elsewhere. See you on Monday.