Image caption The Herald’s headline “Boris v Parliament” sums up the last 24 hours, after Boris Johnson’s bid for a snap general election on 15 October failed. The leader suffered “another heavy defeat” in the House of Commons. The vote was 298 to 56, a majority of 242 but this was 136 short of the two-thirds majority the Prime Minister needed under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. Labour and the SNP abstained. Image caption The National does not mince its words, describing the Prime Minister as a “loser”. The paper says Mr Johnson was “humiliated again” in parliament, losing his first three votes in power. Image caption The Scotsman says the UK is on course for an election next month after MPs passed legislation blocking a no-deal Brexit. The paper says Labour and the SNP both refused to back going to the country before the cross-party bill ruling against a no-deal Brexit had passed. The paper reports that Mr Johnson told the Commons parliament had “voted to stop, to scupper any serious negotiations” to secure a new Brexit deal. Image caption Another bold headline from The Scottish Sun details the rejection of the PM’s bid to go to the polls. The paper claims MPs said no, believing Mr Johnson was setting them a “trap”. Image caption The Daily Telegraph chose to focus on the leader of the opposition. The headline “Hypocrite Corbyn rejects election to break deadlock” introduces an opinion piece by Camilla Tominey which claims says Mr Corbyn has been persuaded by “Brussels-loving Blairites” to “capitulate over his long-cherished election”. Image caption The Times Scotland edition claims that Mr Johnson has been “blocked” and faces an “increasingly difficult” battle to force a general election. The paper says “his enemies are plotting to trap him in office but without power”. We see a photo of the prime minister and his political strategist Dominic Cummings who has been criticised heavily during debates. Image caption Chickens seem to be featuring prominently in the papers and the Scottish Daily Mail declares “Corbyn chickens out of an election”. It refers to Boris Johnson calling the Labour leader a chicken in the House of Commons on Wednesday. Image caption The Scottish Daily Express screams: “Boris urges ‘people power’ to force election”. The paper calls Mr Corbyn’s decision not to support a general election yet “an extraordinary act of cowardice”. Image caption The Daily Record has Boris Johnson on its front page, but its main story regards an incident of abuse involving Celtic captain Scott Brown who was the target of abuse over the death of his sister. The paper reports that Ibrox managing director Stewart Robertson reached out to the midfielder yesterday to say sorry for the taunt. Image caption The Press and Journal reveals that top human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar has spent three days in the Orkney islands probing the case of former Black Watch sniper Michael Ross who was convicted of the racist killing a Bangladeshi waiter. Mr Anwar has been recruited by campaigners to fight his life sentence conviction. Ross was jailed for murdering Shamsuddin Mahmood, 26, by shooting him in the head in an Indian restaurant in Kirkwall in 1994, when he was just 15. Image caption The Courier’s lead is about a Blairgowrie woman who has admitted attacks on a six-month-old girl on Tayside that left the child badly brain-damaged. Shannon Soutter, 23, from Blairgowrie, targeted the baby between February and April 2018. A court heard the child’s long-term prognosis was “poor”. Image caption A group of neighbours, concerned about break-ins from a local gangs, are considering taking matters into their own hands with CCTV cameras after people who were using sledgehammers broke into someone’s home while they were asleep. Image caption And the Daily Star of Scotland leads with a celebrity story featuring This Morning presenter Allison Hammond who claims she had to “stop breastfeeding her son after nearly killing him with her boobs”.
