ScotGov appears to have kicked council tax reform into the 2030s…after Ivan McKee said on the radio that there was “absolutely a need” for a revaluation, govt says it’s not happening and any big reform will need an electoral mandate (in 2031, after five more years of debate)

Fergus Ewing is one of three MSPs seeking to retain the same seat they've had since 1999. On current boundaries he's never had a majority under 20% - the Tories were the closest challengers in '21 and '16. So it could well end up being a straight race between him and Emma Roddick

Fergus, Winnie, Margaret and Annabelle Ewing have clocked up a combined 102 years of elected politics in Holyrood, Westminster and the European Parliament. But in 2026, a Ewing will stand *against* the SNP at the polls. Going to be a fascinating contest...

The bookies were offering longer odds on Labour winning Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse (11/1) than they were on Aberdeen winning the Scottish Cup final against Celtic (8/1)...

ScotGov has used a parly question the morning after the local elections down south to announce that it isn't going ahead with its long-promised misogyny bill this term, but will instead add sex protections to the hate crime act. Conversion practices ban also kicked to next term

The champagne is out…Susan Smith says everybody should be protected by the Equality Act; this is not about hatred for any other community, but there need to be protections in the law based on biology

Susan Smith and Marion Calder from For Women Scotland jubilant after their win in the Supreme Court; thanking their supporters across the country who backed and donated to the case; say there is an ongoing fight against some government policies and guidance

Lord Hodge says the predecessors to the Equality Act used definitions of biological sex; gender reassignment was added as a separate protected characteristic. Says after “painstaking analysis”, including people with a GRC in the sex group would make EA read in an “incoherent way”

Lord Hodge says unanimous decision of court is that woman and sex in equality act refer to biological sex. He counsels not to see this as a triumph for one side over the other - stresses law still gives trans people protection against discrimination

Supreme Court ruling on For Women Scotland vs Scottish ministers; Lord Hodge reading verdict. He says court is aware of strength of feeling from both sides, but court’s role is to decide what the law means - what is a woman, when it comes to the Equality Act?

I have today written to the Returning Officer @SouthLanCouncil to confirm the by-election for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse will be held on Thursday 5 June 2025. Read the news release⬇️ https://t.co/AdALlGAQFa

All that's going to happen is that we have to read the government's position out of the court papers in complicated legalese, instead of a minister or spokesman explaining it to people in something approaching plain language

I'm like a broken record on this, but there is absolutely no reason why the government cannot comment on a *civil* case. There's no jury, no risk of prejudice, they've already thrown a kitchen sink full of arguments at the court and there'd be no harm in reiterating them publicly

After more than six years and 350 eps, today was our last Podlitical. Obvs pretty gutted, but huge thanks to @LucyJWhyte @Rajdeep1 @nickeardleybbc @lynseybews @MatthewSMCox @BBCDavidWL @MylesBonnar @Annie__McGuire @GeorgiaZemoreyR and countless others who made it such a fun ride

All that and more, including how John Swinney is taking his budget on the road in January to win over the public and put pressure on MSPs, and the “hard reality” of winning support for independence (while not “getting bogged down in process”). Wherever you get your podcasts etc

More from John Swinney i/v: - the 1am chat with Willie Rennie that made him vow to reach out of govt bubble - how he might’ve stood down in 2026, but now pledges to stand for full term as FM to 2031 - how 2-child cap policy was added to a budget that put SNP “back on front foot”

Sat down with John Swinney for a wide-ranging chat on Podlitical… - how he feared the SNP could “quite easily have been wiped out” in the GE - why he’s the “one person on the planet” to turn their fortunes around - and lots more… https://t.co/yp5e79jXe8

Where parties ran multiple candidates in multi-member wards in 2022, they were returned in alphabetical order 83.7% of the time. Proposal is to randomise the order on ballot papers; ministers voiced concerns about impact on disabled, but will run the study

Ban on dual mandates obvs hogged attention in the election reform bill at Holyrood, but it also commits ministers to a review of ballot paper ordering; potentially countering phenomenon where candidates of same party are usually returned in alphabetical order in council elections

Obvs there's a long (ish) way still to go until Holyrood 2026, and multiple opportunities for narratives and momentum to shift. We may have just had one in the budget! But if you take these by-elections as a reasonable indicator of sentiment post-GE, we're in for quite a contest.