Top story: Leave it out, Boris

Good morning – it’s Warren Murray bringing you the big stories of the moment.

Boris Johnson has doubled down on the Leave campaign’s discredited suggestion of £350m extra a week for the NHS after Brexit. “There was an error on the side of the bus. We grossly underestimated the sum over which we would be able to take back control,” said the foreign secretary in an interview with the Guardian.

The UK’s weekly gross contribution to the EU would rise to £438m by the end of a post-Brexit transition period, Johnson claimed. But he admitted all that money would not go to the health service. “As and when the cash becomes available – and it won’t until we leave – the NHS should be at the very top of the list,” Johnson said. The shadow Brexit minister, Matthew Pennycook, said Johnson had no shame after parading a “bogus claim” during the referendum and now inflating it.

In further Brexit news, EU outsider Norway is raising ructions against the UK gaining special trade concessions, while Theresa May is facing toughened demands from Brussels about a transition period – including the continuation of freedom of movement, a right to settle for EU citizens arriving up to 31 December 2020, and an EU veto on Britain doing trade deals with non-EU countries.



Voice of sweet anguish falls silent – “As capable of expressing a delicate sense of yearning in her forties as she had been nearly a quarter of a century before.” Alexis Petridis puts it well in his appreciation for the Cranberries frontwoman Dolores O’Riordan, who has died suddenly aged 46. O’Riordan’s body was found at a Park Lane hotel where she had been staying while in London for a recording session.

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In Britain the Cranberries’ 1993 debut single, Linger, initially flopped, but after the band’s success in the US, the album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? went to No 1 in the UK charts. In recent years O’Riordan had spoken about having bipolar disorder, the trauma of being sexually abused as a child and how she was deeply troubled by the Cranberries’ fame. We’ve compiled five of Dolores O’Riordan’s best performances.

Disaster of ‘rip-off privatisation’ – Questions are swirling about the government’s apparently lax oversight of its major outsourcing contractor Carillion before it collapsed on Monday, leaving thousands of British private-sector workers unpaid from tomorrow. Fire services are on standby to deliver school meals in some areas and up to 30,000 small firms are thought to be owed money by the sprawling company. It has emerged that in the three months leading up to its liquidation Carillion was not overseen by a crown representative, which usually happens when a government supplier has financial difficulties. The Cabinet Office minister, David Lidington, has told parliament the government will continue to pay those among Carillion’s 19,500 UK staff working in public-sector jobs, such as NHS cleaners and school catering, but thousands more in the private sector face being cut loose. Jeremy Corbyn says Carillion’s collapse proves it is “time to put an end to the rip-off privatisation policies that have done serious damage to our public services and fleeced the public of billions of pounds”. Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, said: “The government has mismanaged contracts so that fat cat bosses are able to get away with millions, hedge funds are able to make millions, while their jobs are at risk.”

Alarm over fire-prone dryers – An estimated one million tumble dryers at risk of catching fire remain in use in UK homes because of a “flawed and poorly” resourced safety regime for white goods, MPs have warned. A select committee says it is unacceptable, two years after the dryers made by Whirlpool were found to have a fault that has resulted in at least 750 domestic fires in the UK. Whirlpool has faced criticism for not recalling the machines, which were sold under several brand names – instead leaving customers to request repairs. MPs say the government should establish a single national product safety agency to enforce action in such situations.

Iceland endorses Plexit – If you are shopping in the frozen grocer and bump into Theresa May don’t worry, you have not missed another snap election. Iceland has joined the PM’s campaign to rid Britain of plastic waste. Iceland says it will only be using pulp-cardboard trays and paper bags on all its own-brand products within five years. (Let it be ever remembered that the briefing came up with “Plexit” before anyone else.)



Lunchtime read: The baby-raising secrets you can never know

“It is why humans have ‘parenting’: there is a uniquely enormous gap between the human infant and the mature animal.” Plenty of room in that gap, says Oliver Burkeman, for a startling array of advice books to proliferate.

But does the real secret of parenting lie between the covers of tomes like The Baby Book or Secrets of the Baby Whisperer or The Happiest Baby on the Block or Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child or The Contented Little Baby Book? A clue: “Almost every human in history has been raised without the insights of almost every book of parenting advice ever published.”

Sport

Johanna Konta’s fifth visit to the Australian Open provides her with the best chance yet of a breakthrough win at a grand slam, and there was little to suggest in her efficient 6-3, 6-1 win over the American Madison Brengle on day two that she is going to waste the opportunity. Maria Sharapova, meanwhile, returned to Melbourne Park for the first time since serving a doping violation ban and received a warm reception from the crowd before seeing off Germany’s Tatjana Maria in straight sets, 6-1, 6-4.

Manchester United took advantage of Manchester City’s defeat at Liverpool to close the deficit to 12 points with a 3-0 win over Stoke City. It is still a chasm but José Mourinho and co will feel better and the club will be boosted further should they secure Alexis Sánchez, with them now firmly in pole position to do so. And LeBron James has spoken about the corrosive effects of racism – and aimed criticism at Donald Trump – on Martin Luther King Day.

Business

Asian shares have pushed higher, erasing early modest losses, while the euro stood near a three-year peak on rising expectations that the European Central Bank could pare its monetary stimulus.

The pound traded at $1.379 and €1.124 overnight.



The papers

It’s day two of our new format, which we continue to shamelessly promote here – but it does look nice ...

The front of the Guardian leads on the Carillion crisis and the scramble to save jobs after the collapse of the massive company. The FT also highlights the story and says ministers are struggling to contain the fallout, reassuring staff working on public contacts that they will continue to be paid (those privately employed are not so lucky). The Times says the collapse leaves taxpayers with a huge bill running into the hundreds of millions of pounds. The i goes with the same line. The Mirror highlights the “fat cat” pay of the Carillion bosses and the fact that tens of thousands of workers will suffer.

The Sun leads on the case of Poppi Worthington, the 13-month-old whose death five years ago has been the subject of a coroner’s inquest. So does the Telegraph, which says the toddler’s mother has urged the CPS to re-examine the case and her husband’s role in it. Lastly the Mail says the supermarket Iceland is to become the first chain in the world to remove plastic packaging from all its own-brand products.

For more news: www.theguardian.com

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