** Our splash in the Sunday Telegraph **

Exclusive: Billions for Scots as Boris Johnson plans spending spree in blueprint to preserve the Union https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/05/01/billions-scots-boris-johnson-plans-spending-spree-save-union/">https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/...

Boris Johnson is planning to spend billions of pounds on new road and rail links and treating Scottish patients on English NHS beds in a move against Nicola Sturgeon.

Students will be offered exchanges between UK nations and diplomats asked to make the case for the Union.

Whitehall lawyers have also been ordered to sharpen their pens to fight in court any attempt by the SNP to call a referendum without the consent of the UK government amid fears nationalists could win a Scottish parliament majority this week.

One senior source said that the result was likely to be "bloody awful" in Scotland. One minister said that the SNP were viewing Thursday’s vote as “a referendum on a referendum. There is no room for complacency. We are in a bare knuckle fight.”