Scottish minister Jamie Hepburn quits after assault claim
A Scottish government minister has quit after being accused of assaulting and verbally abusing a former leader of the Conservatives in Scotland.
MSP Douglas Ross made the allegation about parliamentary business minister Jamie Hepburn at the end of First Minister’s Questions (FMQs) on Thursday.
Mr Hepburn said in his resignation letter that he had “not acted in accordance with my own personal code of practice”.
He added: “There is no denying that my interaction with Douglas Ross fell well short of that standard.”
Jamie Hepburn listens to a speech in Glasgow in January 2024. Pic: PA
Mr Ross accused Mr Hepburn of assaulting him by firmly grabbing his shoulder before launching into a foul-mouthed tirade while leaving the Holyrood chamber on Wednesday afternoon.
The now former minister has rejected claims he had been physical with Mr Ross, but admitted to using “choice words”.
Mr Ross said the decision to resign was “correct”, adding Mr Hepburn had personally apologised to him.
He continued: “However, this issue should have been settled yesterday when the first minister was made aware of the full facts.
“Jamie Hepburn admitted behaviour that fell well short of that expected of ministers. Instead, John Swinney backed him and the nationalists were determined to ride this out and endorse that behaviour until I called for the situation to be investigated by the Independent Advisers on the Ministerial Code.”
Mr Ross claimed he had been “physically assaulted and verbally abused” by Mr Hepburn.
Conservative MSP Douglas Ross speaks to the media on Thursday. Pic: PA
‘Lost his temper in a big way’
“The minister grabbed me on the shoulder and held on to me all the way out of the chamber,” Mr Ross said.
“At the same time, he was continually swearing at me and getting more and more aggressive. He just wouldn’t give up.
“He lost his temper in a big way and there is no way that behaviour can be tolerated in any workplace.”
Speaking to journalists, Mr Hepburn admitted that he put his hand on Mr Ross’s shoulder and “probably used a few choice words I shouldn’t have”.
He added: “That’s it.”
The Scottish parliament said there was no CCTV footage of the alleged incident.
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Jamie Hepburn alongside Colin McAllister, chief of staff at the Scottish government, on Thursday. Pic: PA
‘Quite out of character’
Mr Hepburn said in his resignation letter to First Minister John Swinney that despite “whatever annoyance I felt at that particular moment”, there was no excuse for his language.
“I hope it is recognised on your part and others that this behaviour was quite out of character on my part,” he said.
He added that his continued presence as a minister in the Scottish government would cause distraction and that, “in such circumstances I believe it is best that I stand down with immediate effect”.
Mr Hepburn, MSP for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, has held numerous roles within the Scottish government, and was most recently minister for independence from 2023 until 2024.
The longest US government shutdown on record is finally set to conclude, with the House of Representatives voting through a contested funding bill on Wednesday.
The bill is now headed to US President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it Wednesday night.
Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers staunchly debated the bill in the House of Representatives, ahead of a final vote that ultimately ended in favor of the bill, with 222 votes in favor and 209 against.
According to a statement obtained by Fox News Digital, US President Donald Trump has already indicated that he will sign the bill, which would officially end the shutdown. The BBC reports that Trump plans to sign the bill at 9:45 pm local time during a private dinner with business leaders.
“The Administration urges every Member of Congress to support this responsible, good faith product to finally put an end to the longest shutdown in history,” the statement read.
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The funding bill would cover most of the government’s expenses through to the end of January next year.
The bill saw neither side of the political aisle willing to budge. Democrats were pushing to halt the bill, demanding more funding for healthcare and the cost-of-living crisis. Republicans were not willing to address these concerns in the bill, instead calling for the government to reopen and promising to address these issues afterward.
The government shutdown has halted the progress of crypto bills and also left a significant number of spot-crypto exchange-traded fund applications sitting on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s desk.
Meanwhile, other bills — such as the comprehensive market structure bill — that have made some progress even during the shutdown, will now be able to gain more traction.
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Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan is more confident that crypto markets will boom in 2026, particularly as there hasn’t been a late-2025 rally yet.
Speaking to Cointelegraph at The Bridge conference in New York City on Wednesday, Hougan said a crypto market rally at the end of 2025 would have fit the four-year cycle thesis, meaning 2026 would mark the start of a bear market, similar to 2022 and 2018.
When asked to revise his prediction about whether the crypto market will boom in 2026, Hougan said: “I’m actually more confident in that quote. The biggest risk was [if] we ripped into the end of 2025 and then we got a pullback.”
Hougan said interest in the Bitcoin (BTC) debasement trade, stablecoins and tokenization would continue to accelerate, while arguing that Uniswap’s fee switch proposal introduced on Monday would reinvigorate interest in decentralized finance protocols in the coming year.
“I think the underlying fundamentals are just so sound,” Hougan said. “I think these earlier forces, institutional investment, regulatory progress, stablecoins, tokenization, I just think those are too big to keep down. So I think 2026 will be a good year.”
Bitcoin can still set a new high before year’s end
Hougan is still optimistic that Bitcoin, Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL) can set new highs by 2026, but not as far as Maelstrom Fund chief investment officer Arthur Hayes and Fundstrat managing partner Tom Lee think.
The pair predicted a few months ago that Bitcoin and Ether could reach $250,000 and $15,000, respectively, before the end of the year.
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Bitcoin is currently trading at $101,762 and Ether at $3,416, meaning that they would have to rise 145% and 340% to reach those lofty targets.
Crypto-native retail is “depressed”
Speaking of the current market pullback, Hougan blamed it on “crypto-native retail,” arguing that many early investors have “compressed upside” with large sales lately.
And those who expected a repeat of the 2020-2021 bull cycle have been given a harsh reality check, Hougan said.
“Crypto native retail is depressed, they were beaten down by FTX, they were beaten down by the memecoin debacle. They were beaten down by the altcoin season not arriving. They got hurt on the 10/10 liquidation, and I think they’re just sitting this one out.”
On the other hand, “TradFi retail” is thriving, according to Hougan, who pointed to the rise in spot crypto exchange-traded fund inflows over the last two years.
“Traditional retail, like my uncle, he’s moving into crypto, that part of retail is still alive,” said Hougan.
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Double-dealing, plotting, declarations of loyalty and treachery – in recent weeks the nation has feasted on Celebrity Traitors.
But these sorts of antics emanating from Downing Street, a couple of weeks out from a critical budget, feels far less entertaining and only serves to further hurt a struggling prime minister.
It wasn’t the intention. Allies of Keir Starmer have been alive to growing talk of a possible post-budget challenge, which has building amid growing concerns from MPs about the upcoming manifesto-breaking budget, the continued dire polling, and a Downing Street forever on the back foot.
There was a decision, as I understand it, from the PM’s team, in light of questions being asked about a possible challenge, to put it out there that he would stay and fight a leadership challenge should it come.
Politics latest: Starmer denies authorising attack on Streeting
I was briefed about this on Tuesday by allies that wanted to make the case to the parliamentary party about the perils of trying to oust a sitting prime minister 18 months into the parliamentary term.
My contacts made it very clear to me that the PM would fight any challenge, in turn triggering a three-month leadership battle that would spook the markets, create more chaos and further damage the Labour brand.
They also stressed the PM has no intention of giving way just 18 months in. The intention was to try to see off any plot and scare the parliamentary party into line at the prospect of a full-on meltdown should the challenge come.
But the decision by some of the PM’s allies to anonymously also drop the name of prime traitor suspect – Wes Streeting – into briefings has badly backfired and plunged No 10 into crisis.
‘Frustration’ after PM’s allies went ‘too far’
As for the clean-up job, Mr Streeting – already carded for the morning round ahead of a speech on the NHS on Wednesday – has come out to declare his loyalty (tick), but also take aim at the No 10 briefers, and called on the PM to take them to task.
On the part of No 10, I was told by sources on Wednesday morning that there wasn’t an attempt to brief against the health secretary – there is a view that some of Sir Keir’s allies might have gone too far, rather to make it clear the PM was prepared to fight a challenge if it came.
I am told by one No 10 source there is “frustration” over how his played out and it had “got out of control”.
“Wes is doing a good job, is an asset and doing a big speech today making the broader case of not cutting spending ahead of the budget,” said a source.
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Health Secretary Wes Streeting denies claims he is having talks about ousting the PM and says such accusations are ‘self-defeating’ and don’t ‘help anyone’.
But putting the genie back in the bottle is no easy feat. MPs are furious at the briefings and exasperated that No 10 have made a mountain out of a molehill, with some suggesting that there wasn’t an active plot post-budget, and they have created a crisis when there wasn’t one.
“They’ve done this before,” observed on senior party figure. “They pick a fight of their own making and imply everything is a calamity ahead of a big possible negative, be it the budget or the Batley and Spen by-election [in an effort to get MPs to rally around the PM].
“It’s worked in the past; I think they have misplayed it this time. They have started a fire they cannot put out.”
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Sir Keir Starmer backed Wes Streeting at PMQs earlier.
The prime minister has been left badly burnt in all of this. He was forced at PMQs to defend his health secretary and his chief of staff as Kemi Badenoch goaded him over No 10’s “toxic culture”, and called for him to sack Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff.
The PM told his party that he “never authorised” briefings against his cabinet and that it was “completely unacceptable”. But when his team were later asked about what the PM was going to do about it, they didn’t appear to have an answer.
If he takes no action, it will only feed into the sense among many in his party that Sir Keir doesn’t have a grip of his operation and is not leading from the front. That’s difficult when his health secretary, having professed his loyalty, has called on the PM to deal with those briefing against him. It’s a mess.
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Sir Keir Starmer was forced to defend his health secretary at PMQs after a series of briefings against him that the PM said were unauthorised.
Budget measures to calm febrile party
And this mess comes at a time that is already so difficult for this government. Number 10 and No 11 knows exactly how difficult the coming weeks are going to be.
The chancellor has been out pitch rolling her budget, trying to explain the reasons behind potential manifesto-breaking pledges and arguing that the alternatives – cutting spending and a return to austerity or breaking fiscal rules, and the knock on effect in the markets – are far worse.
The prime minister is also going to be out making the case as Downing Street and the Treasury work out how they can possibly try to sell a manifesto-breaking budget to voters already completely disillusioned with this Labour administration.
I’m told that the current working plan is to do a combination of tax rises and action on the two-child benefit cap in order for the prime minister to be able to argue that in breaking his manifesto pledges, he is trying his hardest to protect the poorest in society and those working people he has spoken of being endlessly in his mind’s eye when he takes decisions in No 10.
The final decisions are yet to be taken, but the current thinking is to lift the basic rate of income tax – perhaps by 2p – and then simultaneously cut national insurance contributions for those on the basic rate of income tax (those who earn up to £50,000 a year). That way, the chancellor can raise several billion in tax from those with the ‘broadest shoulders’ – higher-rate taxpayers and pensioners or landlords.
At the same time, the chancellor intends to move on the two-child benefit cap – although it’s unclear if that will be a full or partial lifting of that cap – in order to argue that Labour is trying to still protect those on lower incomes from tax hikes.
Those two measures will be designed to try to calm a febrile party and prevent panic after the budget. As one informed MP put it to me, the combination of tax rises for wealthier workers and more support for parents with more than two children are arguments that many MPs could get behind.
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Will the chancellor cut the two-child benefit cap to save cash when she unveils her budget? Mhairi Aurora looks at the dilemma facing Rachel Reeves.
More bad news at moment of peril
This is also why No 10 getting ahead of a possible post-budget coup has surprised me a little, given that pretty much all the conversations about a possible challenge to the PM have been linked to the ballot box test next May.
One party figure told me on Wednesday it would be “insane and catastrophic” to for the party to try and bring down a Labour PM over a Labour budget, given, for a start, how the markets would react, and thinks the No 10 briefing is a reflection of how “paranoid and out of touch” the Starmer operation is with the parliamentary party.
But it is also true that there is a settled view among some very senior figures in the party that Sir Keir lacks the charisma, leadership and communication skills to take on Nigel Farage, while broken manifesto promises will kill his hopes of standing for a second term. As one figure put it to me: “Breaking those promises will destroy him. The public won’t give him a hearing again. We need a clean skin.”
The whispered plots around Westminster are now front page news – not something the Sir Keir would have wanted as he prepares to front up what is shaping up to be his biggest test as prime minister yet, should he break the most sacred of his manifesto pledges on not raising VAT, income tax and national insurance on working people.
There is no doubt the budget will be a moment of peril – and those who wanted to be faithful to the PM this week have somehow only managed to make his situation even worse.
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