NHS ‘rationing’ ops and Brexit turf wars

Brexit looms large, as the papers follow up on the latest turf wars in the cabinet.

The cracks run so deep, says the Times, that the prime minister’s had to cancel preparations for another big speech on Europe.

The paper says she was due to outline her vision of the Brexit “end-state” but has put that on ice, fuelling fears the differences in her cabinet are “irreconcilable”.

The Daily Mail agrees, saying the postponement – or even cancellation of the speech – has raised concerns the government is “paralysed by divisions over Brexit”.

The Daily Telegraph has a two-page interview with the leading Brexiteer, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who says that Brexit and the Conservative Party is more important than Theresa May’s leadership.

He adds that if Brexit is in name only, then people won’t vote for the Tories.

Yet he also gives the prime minister his full support, saying: “may the Prime Minister live forever. Amen, amen, hallelujah, hallelujah, Amen.”

The Guardian has sent its reporters out on the road to take the temperature of Brexit around the country, as it publishes a poll which suggests Britons now favour another vote on the EU by a 16-point margin.

In pro-Remain Bristol, they speak to one man who rather despondently says his dream of buying a little place in the south of France is over.

Attitudes have also hardened in Leave-voting Mansfield, where the paper finds scepticism that the politicians will deliver, because “they didn’t like the answer they got”.

Much space is given to analysing Donald Trump’s speech to the World Economic Forum.

Words like “softens”, “moderates” and “surprised” feature in the Times, with the paper saying business leaders concluded his address was both populist and smart.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Daily Telegraph says Mr Trump was one of three stars of Davos – the others being Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi.

They are “hard line nationalists”, he says, “each harking back to a lost past”. While the EU trio of French, German and Italian leaders “exuded civilised moderation”, he adds, they “no longer command the epoch”.

The Daily Mail says strict rationing rules being used by three quarters of NHS hospitals means patients in need of a replacement knee or hip must have to use a walking stick or wheelchair before they will be considered for surgery.

The paper says patients can be rejected for surgery unless they are judged to be in distress for most of the day, unable to sleep, or continually taking painkillers.

It adds that patients who are told they can’t have an operation are advised to install hand rails at home, perform stretches or buy special shoes.

And the Huffington Post reports that the studio behind the film the Shape of Water – which received 13 Oscar nominations earlier this week – has denied claims of plagiarism.

The website says the son of the Pulitzer-winning playwright Paul Zindel believes the film’s director Guillermo del Toro borrowed elements of his father’s 1969 play ‘Let Me Hear You Whisper’.

However, a spokesman for Fox Searchlight is reported as saying that Mr del Toro hadn’t seen or read Zindel’s play “in any form”.

The 1960s-set film is sees a laboratory cleaner, played by Sally Hawkins, fall in love with a sea creature, who she also then attempts to free.