Reform busy firefighting in Scotland but may yet set Holyrood’s politics ablaze
Hope, change, progressive change, change with fairness at its heart – from a harbour north of Edinburgh to a hipster arts venue in Glasgow’s Barras Market, Scotland’s political parties spent the first official day of the Holyrood election campaign reaching for the phrase that best encapsulates what people will get if they vote for them on 7 May.Only one of the main parties did not hold an event to set out their stall on Thursday: possibly Reform UK was too busy firefighting after another of its Scottish parliament candidates quit, bringing to four the number who have stepped down or been suspended since they stood with the party leader, Nigel Farage, under a hail of turquoise confetti last week.But despite the bright spring sunshine, Farage was a shadow presence at the other launches, with the Scottish National party’s John Swinney and Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar in particular differentiated by their approach to him.At the newly renovated Citizens theatre in Glasgow, Swinney urged supporters to get out and campaign for a “historic” overall majority – as happened once before in 2011 under Alex Salmond – promising voters “a fresh start with independence”.An SNP majority would not only force another independence referendum, but also “lock Nigel Farage out of any influence” in Scotland, he said, speaking from a lectern emblazoned with the word “hope”.
Recent polling has put Reform, led in Scotland by the billionaire financier and former Tory peer Malcolm Offord, neck and neck with Scottish Labour for second place behind the SNP,It is certainly a gamble whether Swinney’s laser focus on independence – which backfired so spectacularly at the 2024 general election when the party plummeted from 38 to nine MPs – comes good this time round,Offering a “fresh start” is either canny strategy or sheer nerve after nearly two decades in power and diminishing public satisfaction with SNP-run public services,Given the hostility between Reform and Scottish Labour at last year’s Hamilton byelection, when Farage repeatedly and personally attacked Sarwar on race, it was more than a stretch in Thursday morning when Swinney warned: “Depending on how the numbers stack up after the election, without an SNP majority there is always the potential for a grubby, backroom deal between Labour and Reform,”At the Scottish Labour launch, a few miles across the city centre at Barras Art and Design, Sarwar responded that Swinney should be “ashamed of himself” for suggesting any association.
This was a “trick”, said Sarwar, adding: “John Swinney wants to talk up Reform because he doesn’t want to talk about his record.”“After 20 years of SNP government, Scotland needs change,” he told activists, standing in front of a “Scotland needs change” banner that echoed Labour’s 2024 general election imperative, a bold move, some observers suggested, given the extent of Keir Starmer’s unpopularity.But while Swinney raised the spectre of Farage abolishing the Scottish parliament and selling off the NHS, Sarwar dismissed Reform as a “distraction” who “can’t win in Scotland and can’t beat the SNP”, promising voters he’d “get the basics right” on health, crime and housing.Across the central belt to Edinburgh, and in the face of abysmal polling, the Scottish Conservative leader, Russell Findlay, deployed that trusted Tory attack line on the constitution, telling voters to get behind his party to “stop Swinney and his push to break up the United Kingdom”.While this has served his predecessors well, it is unlikely to stop the leaking of support to Reform, with the Tories – the second largest party at Holyrood – facing a scrabble for fourth place against the Scottish Greens and Lib Dems.
On a windy Calton Hill in Edinburgh, the Scottish Greens, who are a separate party north of the border but seeing a modest Zack Polanski bounce, presented themselves in contrast to their former governing partners the SNP, arguing that, with the post-Sturgeon nationalists tacking to the centre: “No one else is representing that kind of progressive change any more,”At the Liberal Democrats’ launch at Newhaven harbour, in the Edinburgh Northern and Leith seat they hope to win from the SNP, their Scottish leader, Alex Cole-Hamilton, said his party had “a vision for change with fairness at its heart” and acknowledged as other leaders did before him that people across Scotland were “tired and frustrated – and they’re right to be”,In doing so, Cole-Hamilton named one of the great unknowables of this election,With voters scunnered with politicians of all kinds, are they more likely to pick the disruptors, stay at home or vote tactically?According to Ipsos polling earlier this month, two in five voters say they may yet change their mind before polling day,
Castleford’s sensational spell blows Bradford away to kick off birthday celebrations
It is fair to assume neither Castleford Tigers nor Bradford Bulls will be in title contention later this year, not least based on what we saw here from both teams. However, in terms of an appetiser to set the scene for Super League’s 30th anniversary weekend, this West Yorkshire derby was about as entertaining as you could have hoped for if you were a neutral.The beauty of early-season games like these is that narratives that have been formed can be quickly dismantled in the blink of an eye and, given defensive displays they have put in so far, it was hard not to feel that was perhaps the case on this occasion.With three wins from their opening five since promotion, Bradford have rightly been heralded as a major positive of 2026. In contrast, Castleford have won only once and arrived at this game off the back of a 72-6 defeat at Warrington, one of their heaviest in the Super League era
Sinner continues smooth Miami progress with win over Tiafoe as rivals fall
The past nine days at the Miami Open have not been kind to most of the world’s best male tennis players. One by one, so many have fallen, most dumped out with mediocre performances. Even Carlos Alcaraz, the world No 1, was not immune to the string of giantkillings in Florida.One man remains completely unbothered. Having broken Novak Djokovic’s 2016 record for most consecutive sets won at Masters 1000 events earlier in the tournament, Jannik Sinner has continued to bulldoze through the draw as he tries to follow up his recent Indian Wells title by winning the Sunshine Double
From Laurel Hubbard to sex testing in five years: why the Olympics U-turned on transgender rules | Sean Ingle
The IOC’s shift in position on trans women in elite sports is seismic, but new president Kirsty Coventry is reflecting a changed political climateBy any measure, it amounts to one of the most astonishing U-turns from a governing body in modern times. Four and a half years ago, the International Olympic Committee was lauding the appearance of the first transgender weightlifter, Laurel Hubbard, at an Olympics, and issuing a framework to sports saying that transgender women “should not be deemed to have an unfair or disproportionate competitive advantage” over biological women.Now it has not only ripped up every last morsel of that guidance but also performed a spectacular 180-degree turn.Over 10 tightly worded pages, the IOC now states that the female category must be protected for fairness and safety reasons, and makes it clear that SRY screening – a sex test using saliva or a cheek-swab – will be used to determine biological sex.It is a monumental shift that means transgender women and athletes with differences in sex development (DSD), who were reported as female at birth but have internal testes and have undergone male puberty, are now banned from the female category at all future Olympics
Prem Rugby introduces minimum salary floor of £5.4m for clubs next season
Prem Rugby will introduce a minimum salary floor of £5.4m for each club next season as part of a long-term plan to increase competitiveness. The Rugby Football Union Council voted last month to ringfence the existing 10-team Prem until the 2029-30 season, when it is hoped two clubs will be added provided they meet minimum financial and sporting standards.Explaining the Prem’s growth plans in detail for the first time, its chief executive, Simon Massie-Taylor, revealed they are aiming to open expansion windows every four years, when up to two clubs could join. The first tender process will take place during 2027 and the most impressive applicants could be invited to join Champ Rugby the following season, with a view to moving up to the Prem in 2028-29 as long as they reach the playoffs in the second tier
Tom Brady, 48, says he explored return to NFL but league ‘don’t like that idea very much’
Tom Brady says he explored the idea of making a return to the NFL as a player but the league “don’t like that idea very much”.Brady’s last NFL game came in a defeat to the Dallas Cowboys in January 2023. Since then he has become a part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders as well as a television analyst for Fox. A spokesperson for the league said that Brady, who turns 49 in August, would need to divest his stake in the Raiders if he was to return to playing.“I actually have inquired [about a return to playing], and [the NFL] don’t like that idea very much,” Brady told CNBC Sport this week
Transgender women athletes banned from female events at Olympics by IOC
The International Olympic Committee has banned transgender women and DSD athletes from the female category of events at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and future Games.Kirsty Coventry, the president of the IOC, said the landmark decision had been taken because “it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category”.The IOC has also confirmed that all athletes wanting to compete in the female category at future Olympics will have to undergo a one-off SRY (sex determining region Y gene) screening to detect their biological sex. Usually that is done via an unintrusive cheek-swab or saliva test.Coventry said the decision, which applies to elite individual and team sports, was based on science and would protect the fairness and safety of women’s sport
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