Top story: ‘Put a sock in it’
Good morning, I’m Warren Murray. Sitting comfortably? Yes? No? Regardless, it’s time to begin.
The chancellor, Philip Hammond, is in hot water this morning after telling an international audience of business leaders that Britain’s trade relationship with the EU will only change “hopefully very modestly” after Brexit. Theresa May has been forced to disown the remarks, which were made at the Davos forum in Switzerland and highlight the gulf between Hammond and Tory arch-Brexiters.
Here’s what Hammond said: “We are taking two completely interconnected and aligned economies with high levels of trade between them, and selectively moving them, hopefully very modestly, apart.” As pro-Brexit Tories voiced their fury, No 10 moved to distance the prime minister from her chancellor’s remarks: “Whilst we want a deep and special economic partnership with the EU after we leave, these could not be described as very modest changes,” said a source.
Former minister Andrew Percy put it more bluntly, saying Hammond should “put a sock in it” and stop “mocking other cabinet ministers by writing his own Brexit policy”. But pro-EU Tory MPs hit back: “Hammond was spot on,” said one, “and the prime minister should be supporting her chancellor, not giving in to an unrepresentative ideologically driven minority.”
In another headache for May, there are rumblings of a challenge to her leadership if local elections later in the year go badly for the Conservatives. Her shaky handling of Brexit is a factor but one eurosceptic MP says it is as much about backbenchers’ fears of losing their seats to Jeremy Corbyn’s resurgent Labour. “It is a small percentage of the parliamentary party who want a change of leadership. The rest want to cling to nurse for fear of something worse.”
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South Korea hospital fire – Dozens of people are feared dead and many injured after a fire ripped through a hospital and nursing home in Miryang city, South Korea. About 200 people were in the six-storey Sejong hospital when the fire broke out, police said. The fire reportedly erupted in the A&E department. It comes a month after 29 people were killed in a blaze at a fitness club in the South Korean city of Jecheon.
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Bar on chocolate discounts – Health experts are calling for limits to price cuts for “sharing bags” of chocolate that children and adults end up eating by themselves in a single sitting – fuelling obesity rates. Action on Sugar examined 95 products and found sugar content of up to 29 teaspoons in a single bag. (Somewhat relatedly, here’s how brawls ensued when a supermarket chain discounted Nutella in France.) Meanwhile, graphic cigarette-style health warnings should be added to bottles and cans of alcohol, says the Royal Society for Public Health, which argues pictures of bowel and breast cancer would help people stick to the newly lowered recommended alcohol limit of 14 units a week. And a study has found that weaning your teenagers on to alcohol is not acceptably bohemian or wise parenting. “All you are doing is giving your permission to kids to drink,” said Richard Mattick, a University of New South Wales professor, whose research linked parental supply of alcohol to higher rates of problem drinking.
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Trump’s move on Mueller – It has been reported overnight that Donald Trump tried last June to fire Robert Mueller, the head of the Russia investigation. The president was thwarted by the White House counsel who said he would quit rather than carry out the order.
Separately, the US president has proposed a path to citizenship for roughly 1.8 million undocumented child migrants in return for cracking down on other immigrant categories and the establishment of a $25bn “trust fund” to build his border wall. The 700,000 so-called Dreamers would be among those included in a scheme to make them citizens in 10-12 years. Democrats unfroze the federal government’s funding on Monday in return for the prospect of immigration reform to help the Dreamers.
And a certain amount of toilet humour has ensued after it emerged that the White House asked the Guggenheim for the loan of a Van Gogh painting. The museum’s chief curator declined but offered to send over a gold-plated toilet instead.
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‘Their days are numbered’ – The billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros has given an apocalyptic lecture denouncing Google and Facebook as a menace to society. If left unchecked, he said, they could give rise to “a web of totalitarian control the likes of which not even Aldous Huxley or George Orwell could have imagined”. “The internet monopolies have neither the will nor the inclination to protect society against the consequences of their actions,” Soros said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “That turns them into a menace and it falls to the regulatory authorities to protect society against them … Their days are numbered.” Expect more fun from Davos when Donald Trump speaks later today.
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Similar shape – A plagiarism dispute has erupted over The Shape of Water, the Oscar-nominated film from Guillermo del Toro telling the story of a laboratory cleaner who befriends a captive sea creature. Fifty years ago, the Pulitzer-winning US playwright Paul Zindel’s story Let Me Hear You Whisper was made into a TV show – it’s about a cleaner who bonds with a captive dolphin.
The two plots are remarkable in their similarities, including the setting of a secretive research laboratory. “We are shocked that a major studio could make a film so obviously derived from my late father’s work without anyone recognising it and coming to us for the rights,” said David Zindel, who runs his father’s estate. Fox Searchlight pictures said Del Toro had “never read nor seen Mr Zindel’s play in any form … If the Zindel family has questions about this original work we welcome a conversation with them.”
Lunchtime read: How schools push the screen drug
Earlier this month the children’s commissioner for England warned that children starting secondary school face a social media “cliff edge” of cyberbullying and pornography. But that has not tempered the government and “ed tech” industry’s determination to put yet more tablets and laptops under pupils’ noses, writes Eliane Glaser.
“Companies don’t want children who learned PowerPoint aged 10, they want employees who know how to think from first principles,” Glaser argues. “Most coding classes only teach children to assemble pre-made building blocks; Silicon Valley executives send their own kids to tech-free schools. It’s old-school solutions that really work in the classroom: good teachers, plenty of fresh air and exercise, and hands-on exploration of the real, physical world.”
Sport
England’s top order spectacularly collapsed in the fourth one-day international against Australia to leave the tourists to recover from 8-5, the third lowest score in ODI history at the fall of the fifth wicket. Our live coverage continues at time of writing. Kevin Pietersen has signalled his desire to be involved in coaching the England cricket team on the eve of his final match for the Melbourne Stars in Australia’s Big Bash League.
Baroness Sue Campbell, the FA’s head of women’s football, has defended the “massive global search” that resulted in Phil Neville’s controversial appointment as the manager of England’s female team. José Mourinho has extended his Manchester United contract by a year to at least 2020 but there was confusion over new signing Alexis Sánchez and whether the player had inadvertently missed a doping test during his transfer from Arsenal. England have adopted cold war military tactics to guard against the kind of embarrassment suffered as a result of Italy’s approach to the rules of engagement during last year’s Six Nations. And Tiger Woods marked his return to PGA Tour action after a 12-month absence with a level-par 72 at the Farmers Insurance Open.
Business
Shares have been modestly higher in Asia, recouping losses from earlier in the weeks. Investors will be watching for Donald Trump’s comments later today to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The pound has been trading at $1.416 and €1.141 overnight.
The papers
The FT leads with Philip Hammond’s softened words on an even softer Brexit: “Hammond reignites Tory discord by urging ‘modest’ Brexit changes”. The Guardian says that Theresa May’s leadership is under threat amid the Brexit row. The Times goes with the prime minister’s rebuke to her chancellor for his speech at Davos.
The Mirror has an emotional front page with a picture of Dame Tessa Jowell, who has brain cancer, and the headline: “Let us live with cancer not just die from it”. The Sun has a report (which we are yet to confirm) that the British holidaymaker Laura Plummer, jailed for three years in Egypt for importing a large number of prescription drugs, is set to be released. The Mail’s main story is a demand for more information about what it calls a meat scare in which millions of possibly tainted meals were served to people. The Telegraph splashes with the headline “Russia is ready to kill us by the thousands” – words it attributes to the defence secretary, Gavin Williamson. Lastly, the i leads simply with “Trump to visit Britain this year”.
For more news: www.theguardian.com
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