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

The Herald:

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

The Herald:

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 Herald: 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

The Herald:

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

The Herald: Buses will be on the road in the run-up to Christmas

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

The Herald:

"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.  

The Herald:

“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

The Herald:

"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

The Herald:

“£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.

The Herald:

“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 Herald: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was arrested for 'tax evasion' and held for 81 days

“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

The Herald: Bald vulture

“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 

The Herald:

“All you go on about is Scotland.”

A caller brings the love-in with Mr Salmond to a close. 

The Herald:

“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. 

The Herald:

“Kate in Fenchurch Street? That’s on the Monopoly board isn’t it Kate?”

This week’s Partridge moment

The Herald:

“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. 

The Herald:

“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.