hello, good afternoon. a local council has ta ken hello, good afternoon. a local council has taken the rear steps of fitting in measures. northamptonshire county council were protecting vulnerable people. jeremy corbyn said austerity was causing chaos and local government. jane frances kelly reports. northamptonshire county council's new headquarters cost £53 million and was opened just last year. but the building could be up for sale soon to help the authority balances books. it is now banned all new expenditure, although services safeguarding honourable people will be rejected. staff pay will be u naffected. be rejected. staff pay will be unaffected. the leader of the council blamed cuts handed down to it from central government. we have beenin it from central government. we have been ina it from central government. we have been in a perfect storm of huge increases in demand for our services, at the same time significant reductions of funding

from central government. we have been seen to government says 2013-14, we been seen to government says 2013—14, we could not sustain all services with the level of reduction infunding. services with the level of reduction in funding. the council said rising demand for adult social care services had driven much of its £10 million overspent on this year's budget. cuts under consideration are library services and bus services. what more evidence do we need. austerity is unleashing chaos across oui’ austerity is unleashing chaos across our country. squeezing our local authorities and putting jobs and the vital services they deliver, at risk. experts say northamptonshire's position is probably due to a number of factors, some particular to the county but it could indicate a wider problem. ministers and civil servants will worry that

northamptonshire is a leading indicator of something that could happen more generally. we have had eight years of cuts to council budgets, a far greater impact on them sign —— fancy the nhs and welfare budget. the question is how far you can welfare budget. the question is how faryou can go welfare budget. the question is how far you can go with that policy before it begins to produce results like this. the implications for communities and northamptonshire are due to be discussed at a council meeting later this month. government inspectors have been invited to find out if the council have been conducting its finances properly. a prominent conservative mp has upped his criticism of civil servants. in orderfor the uk his criticism of civil servants. in order for the uk to his criticism of civil servants. in orderfor the uk to remain in the european union's customs union. jacob riis mood —— riis mood told us today that treasury impact ——

forecasts were politically influenced. with the referendum and eu the treasury has gone back to making forecasts. it was politically advantageous for them for them in the past. it is the same for them i'iow. the past. it is the same for them now. i think they are misleading the figures. to use a figure -- grzelak fiddling the figures, he thinks it is deliberate? yes, he does. it is the second time in a week questioning the impartiality of civil servants, trying to undermine their warnings about the brexit. this is more thanjust their warnings about the brexit. this is more than just a their warnings about the brexit. this is more thanjust a row their warnings about the brexit. this is more than just a row about a backbench mp to —— challenging figures. he leads an important section of conservative mps on whom theresa may's future as mp may depend. that could block those opposed to any form of staying in a customs union with the eu after brexit. that subject will be discussed at key ministerial

meetings this week. theresa may has ruled out staying in the customs union but is open—minded about another customs union. he could be seen to put pressure on theresa may ahead of a crucial week in which we may find out more about our future relations with the european union, but also if people do not like what they hear, theresa may's future as prime minister. the government has announced a package of financial support for small companies affected by the collapse of the construction company carillion. the british business bank will allocate £100 million in loans. customers worried about repaying mortgages will be offered help. thousands of suppliers we re offered help. thousands of suppliers were left without payment when they went into administration last month. the director of the fbi has defended its work after a classified memo was released accusing it of bias against president trump, and abuse of power.

the memo — written by republican members of congress — says the fbi got permission to wiretap one of mr trump's advisers in 2016 by using unsubstantiated evidence which had been paid for by his political opponents. the memo is out. a controversial document of the russian investigation is released. they are the headlines that tell of a vicious fight at the heart of the united states government. for president from, his decision to release a memo of accusing the fb eye working against him isjustified. it is a disgrace what is happening in our country. far of his opponents this isa country. far of his opponents this is a president and republican parties who have engineered a political stunt. under attack, the head of the fbi is to fight. addressing his staff, christopher ray said... the memo written by republicans

describes a politically biased justice department and fbi. who were determined to ensure donald trump lost the election. they got a warrant and someone lost the election. they got a warrant and someone in the trunk campaign using opposition research, paid for by a democratic party and hillary clinton campaign. this was due to the alleged links with russia. it has put relations between the white house and fbi at her new law. with worries of a constitutional crisis. dennis edwards, the former singer of the temptations has died at the age of 74. he temptations has died at the age of 7a. he sang on the group's memorable hits, including papa was a rolling stone. papa was a rolling stone. and when

he died. was he left me was alone. papa was a rolling stone. dennis edwards and the temptations. it is tempting to predict the outcome of the six nations rugby. with that and the six nations rugby. with that and the rest of the sport is mike russell —— mike bushell. how to pick a winner today. the wales and scotland teams will be arriving, into the tunnel at the principalility stadium around now, greeted by the welsh hymns, but that will be nothing compared to the noise when they kick off this this years six nations, in less than an hours time. the cauldron isjust beginning the cauldron is just beginning to bubble here. from the stadium wall,

it says it is not a sport, it is what we live for. this is notjust 80 minutes, it is a lifetime. this gives you some sense of rugby and the match. the welsh team might need every decibel of encouragement, every decibel of encouragement, every ounce of emotion, it is a very experimental well side. every ounce of emotion, it is a very experimentalwellside. so every ounce of emotion, it is a very experimental well side. so many players out injured. that will be a recurring theme throughout the course of the six nations. scotland, optimism, having competed with new zealand of the art and beating australia. their top court as a player who was famed for his unpredictability and they have attacking players, slayer in the bones and the best tactic for wales might be to keep the ball away from stuart hogg in particular. we will see how long that scottish encouragement and ink courage that lasts. —— optimism. england played france. england are in italy on

sunday. it may well come down to england versus ireland in the final weekend. whoever ends up winning this match, they will be starting off the tournament and looking upwards. thank you, joel. what annoys. that is before kick—off. live in cardiff. both of those matches live on bbc one. manchester city can go 18 ppoints clear at the top of the premier league, if they can win at burnley, and the champions in waiting, are indeed in front it took them

just 21 minutes to find an opening, carved beautifully by danilo, the brazilian defender. it's approaching half time in the early game in the scottish premiership. it's goalless so far between kilmarnock and celtic, but the league leaders suffered an early blow losing defender dedryck boyata to injury. a win will see brendan rodgers' side go 1a points clear at the top of the table. there's a spring in the step of the british david cup team, ahead of today's doubles rubber, in spain against spain. jamie murray and dominic inglot, play with the tie at 1—1. it followed the heroics of debutant cameron norrie, who produced the performance of his life to beat, roberto bautista agut, who's 91 places higher in the world rankings. he only turned professional last june and this was his first ever professional match on red clay. andy murray tweeted this was one of best results ever. ijust looked at my forehand the whole match and thought i was tougher than the guy through the whole match. physically had some problems in the end but i was really pumped with my efforts, it's given me lots of confidence. my first match on clay

so i'm just stoked. jamie murray and dominic inglot play in the doubles rubber later today and its live on bbc two and the bbc sport website from 1 o'clock this afternoon. that is all the sport now on a very exciting afternoon ahead. the next news on bbc one is at the later time of seven o'clock. goodbye until then. hello again, you are watching the bbc one —— we've seen news channel. more now on the government's offer of a package of financial support for small companies hit by the collapse of the constructing and services firm, carillion the state—backed sir vincegable; saidmlnistersdgadt it's far too late.

i mean, for goodness' sake, i mean the government knew about the trouble of carillion months ago, which is why it was feeding it contracts. it should have been aware there was a supply chain. i setup the british business bank several years ago in the coalition. in order to... this is what will be providing the guarantees? and the question is why on earth wasn't it mobilised much sooner. but i think there is a deeper problem here. i mean one of the fallouts from carillion is that large numbers of small and medium—sized companies, which are very well run, are going go down. it's already happening, it's a sort of crash in slow motion. one of the reasons is that carillion was not observing the government requirement that you pay your suppliers. a lot of these small companies were lending money to carillion, they were on a 120 day payment period. and that should never have been tolerated. just on this question of taking up the offer. a least one company has told us privately that it won't do it and suspects other companies won't do it. it's going to take the risk but it says that others will be worried that

if they are seen to take up these offers, their customers will then think, ortheirsuppliers will think, ah, maybe they are in trouble. and then that could actually damage them, almost to take the help that's on offer. well, there is a confidence issue and the problem is that, you know, you have got a complex supply chain, much of which depends on credit worthiness, and i can see their problem. but the british business bank was set up several years ago to provide credit to small business. it is already doing it. it happens indirectly through peer—to—peer lending and other platforms. so i would hope that, actually, companies take full advantage of it. that's what it's there for. six people have been injured after a gunman opened fire in the central italian city of macerata. local media reports that the shooter took aim from his car window, targeting a group of people who appeared to be migrants from africa. the gunman has been arrested. many gps feel undervalued, unable to provide safe care and want to quit theirjobs,

according to research with doctors who have left the profession early. nhs england has promised an extra five thousand gps by the end of the decade, but recent statistics suggest the service is continuing to lose doctors. the government insists it has the highest ever number of gps in training. northamptonshire county council has imposed emergency spending controls as it faces "severe financial challenges". the notice bans all new expenditure at the council, with the exception of statutory services for protecting vulnerable people. last month the government said an inspector would look into allegations of financial failings at the authority. it is believed to be the first such notice issued in more than 20 years. the labour leaderjeremy corbyn has been speaking at his party's local government conference in nottingham and he blamed tory austerity cuts for the situation in northamptonshire. this conservative government has sent our public services

spiralling into crisis. after nearly eight years of conservative government, councils have lost 50% of their funding from central government. and yesterday, we found that tory—run northampshire council is effectively bankrupt. what more evidence do we need? austerity is unleashing chaos across oui’ country, squeezing our local authorities and putting jobs and a vital a little earlier tony travers at the london school of economics told me that the cut in central government the overall fall is spent in funding will be less than 50%. it is a big change. for that, many fine will be less than 50%. it is a big change. forthat, many fine —— councils find themselves near the

edge. the question is which councils will get to the edge first. northamptonshire council have signed to have done that first. is there anything particular about northamptonshire council and why they have found themselves at the start of the queue? they have a low council tax take. it was baked into the system by capping, they have been capped for years. it is hard to increase at night. compared with neighbouring authorities, northamptonshire probably has a low tape from council tax. against that, the neighbouring authorities, many not in different circumstances, are not in different circumstances, are not new the edge. the investigation that the housing secretary has put in place will reveal some of this, we will find out more. it is politically awkward for the council, —— government, it is a conservative romp council. they cannot have an

argument with their own party. what do you think it is about the kind of stability of local government finances in england? we have seen councils now under these kind of pressures for eight years. i think the question is how much work and that goal. the government has protected the nhs, protected welfare and most of pensions and so on and so on. and most of pensions and so on and so on. that has put on extra pressure for council services and the government has had to step in, aduu the government has had to step in, adult care with funding. if the government continues to push local government continues to push local government funding down, we will get more of these northamptonshire council cases. it is easy forjeremy corbyn to pick it up and have political fun with that. 0ligarchs suspected of corruption will be forced to explain how they fund their luxury lifestyles in britain. the security minister, ben wallace,

has told the times that he wants to crackdown on criminals and fraudulent politicians who use britain to launder money gained through corruption. earlier i spoke to dal babu, a former chief superintendent at the metropolitan police. he explained some of the thinking behind the new ‘unexplained wealth orders'. i think what they want to do is establish where people have got their money, and if you have £50,000 or more, that's probably not going to affect the majority of us, then they want to have the opportunity to ask people were they got that money from. actually it could apply a lot lower than oligarchs but that is really what looking at, people who are the international super wealthy who often choose to live in this country. absolutely. ben wallace's interview in the times was very much about the oligarchs and the big headline was, "we are coming after you." it would be interesting to see what substance there is nothing this because what we have to remember, there are lots of oligarchs, many of them own football clubs here, many of them are a legitimate business people here, but there is a thread

of individuals, if people have been watching the bbc mcmafia series, they will know there are afraid of individuals who are conducting affairs in a sort of unlawful way, and the difficulty is, i was speaking to the cab driver on the way in and he was saying you would be surprised how many people there are, they live a parallel life, huge excesses, huge extravagance. but in terms of what the minister says, what i would be interested in is what resources are put in place. these people are sophisticated individuals. they will have accountants in place. lawyers. lawyers, yes. bitcoins. you trade in bitcoins, that crypto currency, all of this goes under the radar. i would be very much interested in what resources are in place to deal with this. you mention mcmafia, which a lot of people have seen on bbc one, and the interesting thing about that is that it is based on a factual account by the distinguished journalist misha glenny, and they have fictionalised the stories he uncovered. there is clearly something here.

the question is, i suppose, whether this is really about cracking down on the money, following the money, as they say, whether there is some politics in this. clearly there are more tensions now with russia and there have been for many years with britain, and you could argue that people have lived here for many years, completely unmolested by the system because, in a sense, the british didn't really want to pick a fight with russia. are we a bit more interested, do you think, picking a fight with the russians? it is a double—edged sword, because on one hand as we look at brexit, as we leave the second—biggest world market, we need to be looking at how we trade elsewhere. 0n the one hand they want to be open to russia and on the other hand they want to be standing up and saying, "you can't ride roughshod here."

we have seen putin has done that across the world. so i think it is very interesting what actually happens here. let me bring you some breaking news, the deputy leader, angus robertson. he has announced he is stepping down with immediate effect. mr robertson lost his parliamentary seat at westminster. he remained deputy leader, he is a long—standing prominent figure in the party. he became an mp in 2001. long before that, extraordinary election result in 2015 when they took most of the seats in scotland. they lost some of them last year, including his own. but mr robertson, who i see as the never16 but mr robertson, who i see as the never 16 c —— has been theirfirst

16 years. is leaving. thanks to all collea g u es 16 years. is leaving. thanks to all colleagues and constituents of 17 yea rs of colleagues and constituents of 17 years of public life. it has spread an honour to serve as... will forward to new chopperjantjies —— new opportunities. my eyesight is not good enough to be to tell you what is in the letter. my colleagues will be going through it with a fine tooth comb to find out if they can find what is the background to his decision. it is somewhat unexpected. he says he regrets leaving and will obviously find out in the rest, and the rest of the day goes on, what makes have those regrets and the decision to go. in some ways it will bea decision to go. in some ways it will be a blow for his party. he has been

such a prominent figure, he is one of its most formidable public speakers. he took over when alex almond stop being the party leader, became first minster at westminster. angus robertson, deputy leader of the snp, former mp for moray, stepping down from politics, it seems. a father whose three daughters were among those abused by the former united states gymnastics team doctor larry nassar has apologised, after trying to attack him at a court in michigan. nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison last month, after more than 150 women testified that he had sexually abused them. nada tawfik reports. to my parents, thank you for all your love and support through all of this. throughout larry nassar‘s sentencing hearings, women have shared their horrific tales of abuse at the hands of the disgraced doctor. on friday, the testimonies continued, with the heartbreaking account of the margraves family, whose three daughters were all victimised.

after hearing two of his daughters recount their ordeals, randall margraves asked for a turn to speak as a distraught father. i would ask you to, as part of the sentencing, to grant me five minutes in a locked room with this demon. i have a feeling... would you do that? that is not how our... yes or no? no, sir, i can't do that. would you give me one minute? you know that i can't do that. that's not how our legal system... well, i'm gonna have to... the chaotic and raw moment showed the guilt and pain that parents and families are still struggling with. believing the father had suffered enough, the judge said he would be released without charge. there's no way that this court is going to issue any type of punishment given the circumstances of this case. at a press conference afterwards, the margraves girls defended their father. it is easy to get caught up when

emotions are running high. he reacted in a way that i feel most fathers would have done and probably wanted to do in a situation like this. after reflecting on what happened earlier, my father is remorseful. randall margraves said he was not a hero, but the real heroes were his girls and the other victims. if it wasn't for all the brave girls and women that have come forward before now, i don't know if my family could have come forward now. the case has inevitably sparked numerous investigations into why michigan state university, where he was employed, along with usa gymnastics and the us olympic committee failed to stop him. nada tawfik, bbc news. lady gaga has cancelled the last ten dates of the european leg of her world tour, because of "severe pain". shows in london and manchester are among those affected. in a statement posted on twitter she said she was devastated, but needed to put herself and her well—being first.

the singer has fibromyalgia, a long—term condition which can cause pain all over the body. some of her fans have travelled from as far as brazil and denmark to see her on her uk dates — and are disappointed. i save money all the year for this. i don't blame her. the same way it hurts so much. going back home without seeing her again. it has been five years. the first tour that has been cancelled and i have no idea. and booking flights and trains for hamburg and cologne and berlin and london and manchester. you were going to see all of the dates that have been cancelled ? yeah. earlier, music business journalist eamonn forde told me that lady gaga will have thought very carefully about cancelling her tour dates. it clearly won't have

been ta ken lightly. and with any major tour like this, artists will obviously have to have tour insurance or cancellations and obviously health is one of the big issues, particularly when you are going on a world tour that might stretch for 18 months. so artists will have to have an independently verified medical check to ensure that they are match fit, that they can actually go on tour. because it is an incredibly draining experience for artists, in terms of the travelling and in terms of the actual performance on stage every night. and also around that is a huge infrastructure. there are hundreds of people involved. anyone will have to mitigate against that with insurance. and any cancellation for health issues will have a knock—on effect for other insurance, so it will increase the premium. but nobody would go on tour in this day and age without having insurance to compensate for or to cover when things unfortunately like this happen.

which are incredibly rare. most artists fulfil all of their touring obligations. so it is increcibly rare for an artist to cancel a tour or postpone a tour for health reasons like this. members of britain's winter olympics team are beginning to arrive in south korea, with just under a week to go until the start of the games. there are 59 competitors — britain's largest ever contingent at the games — and leading the medal challenge is short track speed skater elise christie. she's the favourite for gold, having won the overall world championship title in 2017. she's been speaking to our reporter david mcdaid. this is the least christie, she is the best short track skater the uk has produced. she is a world record holder, a triple world champion and she is great britain's best hope for a gold medal at the upcoming winter 0lympics. tell us how it all began for you? i started as a figure

skater when i was really young, seven. and then i transferred over because i kind of... we did raise a week after i started, it was a fun race so i won a selection box of chocolates were winning that race. after that it was short track. she is one of those kids, you can show has something and she picked it up. she had a natural ability. she is a very special athlete, but four years ago she nearly walked away from the sport she loves. i have had a lot of abuse on the internet. it has meant tough. what is like to get a death threat. i don't think most of us will tha nkfully don't think most of us will thankfully experience that. don't think most of us will thankfully experience thatm

happens to you, you believe that person and those people are genuinely threatening your life. it becomes very scary. i spent six months after feeling scared of being in my house on my own are going out on my own, just because so many at once made it feel so real, even