Hello and welcome to The Midge, your first bite of the day’s politics in Scotland and elsewhere.
Today![The Herald:]( "The Herald:")
- Teacher recruitment rules relaxed to ease crisis
- Dugdale (above) joins LibDems in tax rise promise
- Cameron EU deal unveiled
- SNP and Labour MPs join forces against June EU vote
- BP announces hefty drop in profits
- Google parent overtakes Apple as world’s most valuable firm
06.00 BBC Radio Four Today headlines
Cameron secures “red card” system on EU laws … Cruz wins in Iowa … Jordan struggling to cope with Syrian refugees … Brazil: all systems go for Olympics despite Zika virus … Scottish Labour to raise income tax … Scots tourist dies in Thailand … Alphabet overtakes Apple.
07.00 BBC Good Morning Scotland headlines
Labour join LibDems in calling for tax rise… Winds disrupting travel … EU proposals later … Clydesdale bank de-merger confirmed … Trump setback.
Front pages
Exclusive: Education Correspondent Andrew Denholm reveals in The Herald that teachers who have qualified outside Scotland will now be allowed to work in schools immediately under a new conditional registration scheme.
The National joins forces with women’s groups in calling for a new law against inciting hatred of women.
The Scottish Daily Mail fears Labour’s pledge of a penny on income tax could open the door to a “tax raid on middle Scotland”, with the SNP joining Labour and the LibDems in raising tax rates.
The Daily Express and the Sun carry pictures of the Scots father killed by an elephant while holidaying in Thailand.
The Daily Record calls on Nicola Sturgeon and David Cameron to “sort it out” on the fiscal framework. The paper which broke the story of “The Vow” says: “After months of big promises, fiery rhetoric and hard-won compromise, they look set to let us all down.”
The Times says the publication of an EU deal today could force MPs to declare their hands on Brexit, while the Telegraph reckons David Cameron has secured a deal that will allow Westminster to block EU laws.
The FT says industry experts fear up to 50 North Sea oil and gasfields could cease production this year.
Camley’s cartoon
Camley takes a peek into the future of gene editing.
Need to know
The story from Iowa is all about the losers. Headlines: Clinton looks to have squeaked it, Cruz beat Trump by a healthy 4 points. The ones to watch now, though, are third-placed Florida senator Marco Rubio, vying for the Republican nomination, and Hillary’s opponent, 74-year-old Brooklynite Bernie Sanders. Rubio (above), second generation Cuban-American, is more to the liking of the Republican mainstream than Cruz or Trump, while self-professed democratic socialist Sanders is surpassing Obama in geeing up the youth vote and attracting millions of small donors. Next stop, New Hampshire, Tuesday, February 9.
Diary
- Edinburgh: Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale speech on avoiding cuts to public services.
- Edinburgh: Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson speech to the David Hume Institute.
- Commons: Enterprise Bill; Business Questions; Westminster Hall debates on regional airports and gender pricing; Constitution Committee on inter-institutional relations in UK with Lords Lang, Forsyth and Steel. Defence Committee on Syria; Home Affairs on countering extremism, witnesses include Google, Twitter, Facebook execs.
- Lords: Michael Gove before Lords Justice Sub-committee on British Bill of Rights; Commons leader Chris Grayling gives evidence to Lords committee on Strathclyde Commission.
- London: The Oldie of the Year award.
Talk of the steamie: comment sections
In the FT, Janan Ganesh is growing tired of the “sheer galloping nonsense” that is the Tory leadership race for a vacancy that does not exist.
Hugo Rifkind in the Times addresses integration, concluding: “A society can have any number of foods, headdresses and religious ceremonies, but it cannot have any number of values.”
Siobhan Synnot in the Mail says HMRC has rejected her plea to pay 3% tax. “I’m going to Google what to do next.”
Afore ye go
“The two things I have argued about most in my life are Scottish independence and Bono. People should get off the guy’s back.”
SNP MP Mhairi Black (above), who has visited Kenya to see the work of the U2 frontman’s charity, ONE. Daily Record
"Adele has not given permission for her music to be used for any political campaigning.”
A spokesman for the singer (above) fires a shot across the bows of Donald Trump, who has been using Rolling in the Deep as his warm up music.
"I'm not asking for any special favours here for Scotland. I'm simply asking for a fair deal.”
Nicola Sturgeon on the fiscal framework deal, Good Morning Scotland
"All that money - you would think he could buy himself a decent wig”.
Former MP Glenda Jackson on Donald Trump.
“If the deal is that we are allowed to do it when we want, then yes, but if we have to phone a friend - indeed in this case, 27 friends - to decide that we can put our foot on the brake, then no driver in their right mind would get into a car with those sorts of conditions.”
Tory MP Nigel Evans on the EU migration “emergency brake”. BBC World at One.
$568 billion
The worth of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, which has knocked Apple ($535 billion) off the top spot as the world’s most valuable company.
“The pound sterling has served us very well as a currency and we shouldn’t be defacing it.”
Tory MSP Murdo Fraser after a Dundee man found a pound in his change with the Queen’s head covered by a sticker. It read: “Scottish UDI movement”. The Courier
“To watch Michael Portillo on a railway programme – addressing the camera as if he’s trying to order dinner in the world’s noisiest restaurant, done up like Mr Blobby at a job interview – is to peer directly into the soul of the man.”
Stuart Heritage on Great American Railroad Journeys, BBC2, Mondays. The Guardian
“There are seven stages of bonuses. By the third, the wife is a modern art ‘collector’. By the fifth, she is a philanthropist. By the seventh, she has an OBE.”
A banker’s wife on bonuses. The Times
Is it a bird, is it a plane, ask Transport Minister Derek Mackay and ScotRail MD Phil Verster. No, but in years to come it might be Charles Bombardier’s Antipode, a concept plane complete with rocket boosters that could travel from London to New York in 11 minutes. There is hope for Glasgow-Edinburgh commuters yet. CNN
Thank you for reading. See you tomorrow.
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