Absolutely incredible way to seal our return to the World Cup. Remember crying when we got pumped by Morocco at France 98. This has been a long time coming 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

What a shambles this is. The Scottish Government has sat on its hands for years over this and now decides there's not enough time to do it properly before May's election.

Excl: ScotWind developers have warned it is "highly unlikely” projects can be built in time “by existing Western” companies - piling pressure on the Labour government to approve a Chinese firm's Highland factory plans. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Anas Sarwar has backed Keir Starmer's leadership, hit out at the Downing Street briefers "undermining" the UK Labour government, but was unable to say if the PM will join him on the Holyrood campaign trail next year. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Shell had handed back a ScotWind lease it paid £86m for, with 3GW of clean energy and more than £3bn of promised Scottish investment put at risk if Crown Estate Scotland cannot find a developer to take it on. Scottish Renewables has warned over "fierce headwinds". www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has given his support for more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, calling on the UK Government to be "pursuing the opportunities that exist". www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

NEW: Rachel Reeves signals she intends to remove the two-child cap *in full* "I don't think a child should be penalised because they're in a bigger family through no fault of their own," she tells BBC.

Shona Robison has given the strongest signal yet the Scottish Government could be poised to hike income tax again after warning she may be forced to "potentially revisit" a vow not to alter the levy in a "nightmare situation" for Scotland. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Allan Brooks, the corporate recruiter from Canada I wrote about in August who went into a 3-week-long delusional spiral with ChatGPT, sued OpenAI Thursday, alongside six other plaintiffs. They blame ChatGPT for their mental breakdowns and for four suicides. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/t...

Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design. news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

If Rachel Reeves does hike income tax in England, it could potentially cause a £1bn headache for John Swinney and (another) political migraine for Anas Sarwar www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

The chief of Scotland's renewables sector has joined forces with the North Sea oil and gas industry in an unprecedented move to heap pressure on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to ensure the energy transition isn't a flop due to actions by the UK Labour government. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Excl: The outgoing chairwoman of Public Health Scotland has hit out at the food and drink sector's "shameful pushback" against Holyrood's attempts to improve public health. tackle obesity and restrict junk food. www.scotsman.com/health/outgo...

Excl: John Swinney will not attend COP30 as he snubs the global climate talks for the second year in a row www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

@johnswinney.bsky.social has announced that workers made redundant from the Grangemouth refinery closure will be given "priority consideration" for a flagship green jobs scheme. He also warned "public confidence" needs to be improved over the energy transition www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

John Swinney is being urged to rollout a private jet tax after new analysis revealed it could have generated an extra £20m this year. Campaigners say it would “send a clear message ultra-wealthy polluters won’t be allowed to continue to get off virtually scot-free”. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Good morning - here is today's front page of The Scotsman: PM defends barracks plan for migrants after backlash

It has taken the SNP since 2007 to bring forward some meaty proposals to overhaul council tax. Still a long way to go until we get any concrete change and it's clear there will be "winners and losers", but some interesting options in here www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

SNP Health Secretary Neil Gray has admitted that “procedures of low clinical value” will be stopped by the NHS as the health service shifts from a focus on acute hospital services to community care and prevention. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Edinburgh's housing convener has been suspended from Labour ahead of being officially sacked on Thursday. The Labour ruling group in the capital now only has 10 councillors - less than one sixth of the total members. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Excl: The Scottish Government’s blueprint to resuscitate its National Care Service plans has been branded “another costly SNP talking shop” after it was revealed thousands has been spent on the first three meetings of an interim advisory board. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

The Labour UK government has been told to stop actively accelerating the decline of the oil and gas sector amid fears clean energy jobs “are not being created at the pace and scale required” to “match heavy job losses” www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

🔴 EXC: Police probing ‘irregularities’ in Alba Party's finances after concern raised by leadership www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

John Swinney has defended his meetings with Chinese wind turbine manufacturer, MingYang, first revealed in my story in yesterday's Scotland on Sunday. The First Minister has also warned that the UK government blocking the investment would be a "setback" www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Excl: SNP ministers have spent the last 12 months trying to woo Chinese wind turbine manufacturer, MingYang, to invest in Scotland despite national security concerns. In reality, the lobbying has been going on for years. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Excl: SNP ministers have spent the last 12 months trying to woo Chinese wind turbine manufacturer, MingWang, to invest in Scotland despite national security concerns. In reality, the lobbying has been going on for years. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Whatever you think of the SNP in Glasgow, some remarks from Scottish Labour MPs who should know better, have been embarrassing. This today, incorrectly claiming SNP housing policies have any impact on asylum cases which is reserved to Westminster and dealt with by Home Office contractors, is mince.

The Scottish Lib Dems are poised to do something next May we've not seen from them for a while - try and use the Holyrood regional list vote to maximise their number of MSPs. My analysis on why the Lib Dems could use a triumph in the Highlands to spark a resurgence. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Environment impact report on controversial Rosebank oil field in North Sea revealed www.scotsman.com/news/scottis...

Excl: Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been warned that more than £40bn of North Sea investment could be lost if she fails to rethink bringing forward her reforms to the windfall tax - amid alarm it could damage the ability to scale up offshore wind ambitions. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Excl: An SNP minister has warned lessons will need to be learned from the Met Police use of live facial recognition before it is considered in Scotland. But the SNP has agreed that an act of parliament should be required before it can be used north of the border. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

John Swinney has used his SNP conference speech to announce a network of community walk-in GP clinics will open across Scotland to end the 8am rush for appointments. They will open seven days a week from 12pm to 8pm. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

John Swinney has pointed to "precedent" over an SNP majority leading to the 2014 referendum for "legal considerations" around forcing a re-run of the vote. But the 2014 referendum was not tied to the SNP's majority - it was agreed between the UKG and SG. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Police officers are now "default security guards" at A&E departments across Scotland with health callouts due to NHS pressures "crippling" the force, according to the chairman of the officer union. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

A bold gamble from John Swinney on his leadership here. He told SNP conference he "took the leadership to deliver independence" - a move the SNP's deputy leader said was the First Minister having "staked his premiership on the idea of winning independence”. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

🧵I'm up in Aberdeen for SNP conference this weekend. Lots to tak about over the next three days. Here's our scene-setting analysis from @alistairkgrant.bsky.social www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Excl: The SNP has been accused of being "all over the shop" by climate campaigners over the party's wobbly stance on oil and gas. The party is also facing criticism it is shunning talking about oil and gas at its conference, taking place in Aberdeen this weekend. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

First Minister John Swinney has insisted that “Scotland is on a pathway to independence” and is "deadly serious about the arguments" for breaking up the Union. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

The Scottish Conservatives' Holyrood debate on immigration, claiming without evidence that asylum seekers are putting pressures on local communities, shows May's election campaign will be grim and grubby. Scottish politics is at risk of being dragged into the gutter. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Didn't expect my tabs-heavy lifestyle to be in such a minority.

Despite watering down targets, rowing back and binning off climate action, refusing to publish an energy strategy since 2017 and delaying the blueprint for cutting emissions, the SNP Government insists Scotland reaching net zero by 2045 has “never been in question”. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Excl: Edinburgh's housing convener will be sacked after refusing to quit amid an angry row with her Labour colleagues after her comments proposing the capital's proportion of affordable housing is cut, despite the city being engulfed in a housing crisis. Such a mess. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Douglas Ross's Right to Recovery Bill will have its stage 1 vote this week. But the well-intended legislation, which would give those with an "addiction" or "dependency" on alcohol or drugs a right to treatment, could exacerbate Scotland's drug death crisis. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

The Scottish Conservatives insist the party is not pandering to Reform and the misinformation Nigel Farage is spreading over immigration. Tories using their Holyrood debate time for this tomorrow.

Excl: The Labour housing convener of Edinburgh City Council has suggested the city's allocation of affordable homes should be cut, despite the capital grappling with a housing crisis www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Excl: Heat pump installations in Scotland have gone backwards. Campaigners have warned that the repeated delays to the watered down Heat in Buildings Bill has "left homeowners and industry in limbo, stalling progress and undermining confidence". www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

🎙🎧 New episode of The Steamie podcast from @scotsman.com. We discuss Labour conference and what it means for Anas Sarwar's chances at May's election and look ahead to Tory conference. With @alistairkgrant.bsky.social, @andrewjquinn97.bsky.social and Rachel Amery open.spotify.com/episode/0hBr...

NatureScot's advice to rid communities of urban gulls: -Draw "googly eyes" on takeaway boxes -Wave arms around -Stare them out www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Rent controls will be made permanent after exemptions were agreed, while second and empty home-owners in Scotland can expect their council tax bills to shoot up. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

'Do they love our country?': Sir Keir Starmer lumps SNP in with Reform in Labour conference speech, via @andrewjquinn97.bsky.social www.scotsman.com/news/politic...