Hello and welcome to The Midge, your first bite of the day’s politics in Scotland and elsewhere.
Today
- Swinney to councils: accept deal or lose millions
- Cameron heads to Aberdeen amid oil industry crisis
- UK will take more child refugees from Syria
- Scottish Government “busting a gut” to meet powers deadline
- Sweden to expel up to 80,000 failed asylum seekers
- I got you babe - Salmond and Cher
06.00 BBC Radio 4 Today headlines
UK to take more orphaned refugees … EU competition commissioner willing to look at Google deal … Waiting times worse in Wales than England … Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo on trial in Hague.
07.00 BBC Good Morning Scotland
Aberdeen in line for £500m from Holyrood and Westminster … Child refugees … Sweden expels migrants … SNP’s Hosie writes to European Commission over Google deal… MSPs say Scotland “failing minorities in workplace” … SSE to cut gas prices … Road camera snaps wildcat … Obama: Oscar row part of broader issue facing America.
The front pages
Failure to sign up to the Scottish Government’s deal will cost councils tens of millions, reports Gerry Braiden in The Herald. Cosla leader David O’Neill said sanctions were so “punitive” it was unlikely any local authority would increase council tax. On the wing, Kate Devlin and David Leask report on former FM Alex Salmond’s backing of a private prosecution of the driver involved in the Glasgow bin lorry crash.
The National and the Guardian highlight a UN report on Yemen questioning UK involvement.
The Evening Times leads on the Lord Advocate turning down bids for private prosecutions from families of the Glasgow bin lorry and North Hanover Street crash victims.
The Scottish Daily Mail says the SNP’s Westminster health spokesperson, Dr Philippa Whiteford, is earning £500 a day as a surgeon. Ms Whiteford said her local NHS hospital was “desperate” and she wanted to help.
The Times splashes on one of Google’s biggest shareholders - James Anderson of the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust - calling on the firm to pay more tax.
The FT finds Google and Apple fighting back, with the FT running a letter from Google communications chief Peter Barron which states: “Governments make tax law, the tax authorities independently enforce the law, and Google complies with the law.”
The Daily Record reports on the 365 job losses at Texas Instruments in Greenock with the work moving overseas.
The Telegraph says David Cameron will unveil a £250 million city deal for Aberdeen today, while praising the “broad shoulders” of the UK in tackling the oil industry crisis.
The Scotsman pictures flooding in the Borders.
“The worst guests the place has ever had,” is the verdict on three Stirling Albion players kicked out of a hotel near the club’s ground, reports the Sun.
Camley’s cartoon
Camley on the Lord Advocate’s refusal to allow a private prosecution over the Glasgow bin lorry crash.
Need to know
Less than 24 hours after the furore caused by David Cameron’s “bunch of migrants” remark at PMQs, it has been announced that the UK will take more unaccompanied refugee children from Syria. But the number is unspecified, and the children will come from camps in countries bordering Syria and not those who have made it as far as Europe. The latter will be helped via a £10 million fund from the Department for International Development. Once again, the PM is enforcing a distinction between refugees in Europe and elsewhere in a bid to discourage people from travelling. And once again, aid agencies and the public will ask if he is right to do so, particularly where orphans are concerned.
The diary
- Holyrood: FMQs
- Aberdeen: David Cameron visits to talk about North Sea oil and gas industry.
- London: The widow of poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko to meet Home Secretary Theresa May.
- Seattle: Amazon and Microsoft earnings released.
- City: Office for National Statistics publishes growth figures.
Talk of the steamie: the comment sections
In The Herald, Iain Macwhirter finds himself swithering over Brexit, while Helen McArdle considers where Scotland should be heading on transport. Cheaper bus and train fares, anyone?
Rosa Prince in the Telegraph reckons the time has come to relocate the Westminster parliament.
Owen Jones in The Guardian says “the fingerprints of the west” are all over the conflict in Yemen.
Edward Lucas argues in the Times that a good tax system should be simple, sweeping and severe.
Afore ye go
"Lego have just rocked our brick-built world and made 150 million disabled kids, their mums, dads, pet dogs and hamsters very very happy.”
Disabled parent Rebecca Atkinson celebrates convincing Lego to introduce a wheelchair-using minifigure. It goes on sale in June.
“We love each other. It’s a sort of trial separation, I think it’s proving harder for him than for me but I’m going to help him through it.”
ITV political editor Robert Peston (in younger, less foppish days, above) on whether he is missing his old sparring partner, Eddie Mair. Radio Times
"Tech tax breaks facilitated by politicians easily awed by Valley ambassadors like Google chairman Schmidt eg, posh boys in Downing St."
Rupert Murdoch (above), Twitter
“£130million would barely buy you a spare room in Witney.”
SNP MP Pete Wishart (above centre) tries to put the Google tax bill into perspective by referring to property prices in the PM’s Oxfordshire constituency (below). BBC World at One.
“WHAT?”
Tory MP Anna Soubry, on the same MPs’ panel, reckons Mr Wishart is a better musician than estate agent. She did concede, though, that £130m “doesn’t sound like an awful lot of money”.
“The way I can protest is that I can withdraw my works from that country.”
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei closes his exhibition, Ruptures, in Copenhagen over the Danish government’s seizure of refugees’ valuables to pay for their upkeep. Guardian
“Imagine Jason Bourne - but with feathers, claws and two-meter wingspan.”
CNN tells the story of the griffon vulture that flew from a nature reserve in Israel to the Lebanon, only to be reportedly seized by locals as a spy. The tagged bird was released but is now missing.
5 IN 5 SECONDS: FROM ALEX SALMOND’S LBC SHOW
“All you go on about is Scotland.”
A caller brings the love-in with Mr Salmond to a close.
“How can he face Isis, he can’t face a chick on TV.”
Cher’s view of Donald Trump pulling out of tonight’s Fox News debate after a previous row with anchor Megyn Kelly. Mr Salmond, “a fan since Sonny and Cher”, quoted the singer’s tweet.
“Kate in Fenchurch Street? That’s on the Monopoly board isn’t it Kate?”
This week’s Partridge moment
“Because my colleagues have been to Calais.”
On why, unlike Jeremy Corbyn, he had not visited the migrants’ camp. He and co-host Iain Dale will now consider going together.
“I’m no holding a brief for Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the rest.”
Lest anyone was in any doubt
Thank you for reading The Midge, your first bite of the day’s politics in Scotland and elsewhere. See you tomorrow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article