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I enjoyed this one and finished without visiting the forum.
Knowing that Everyman is fond of alliterations and noticing the 6,7, 1a was my first in. I then found the other two to match which got me off to a good start.

Chrise, if you look in Collins it says:

PLURAL NOUN

problems or misfortunes

He's responsible for many of the country's ****
the causes and cures of Britain's economic ****
an option that would cure all his ****

I’m not defending the clue, but in the absence of any better suggestion I expect it to be the solution

And I do agree the singular/plural clash is clumsy

Thanks Quisling, your answer is correct (the app gave me a green tick) and the parsing much simpler, I’m glad we cleared that up!

Hi Rossim, I was the same, this grid and the 6,7 in 1a is a dead give away of the alliterative intent. I made a list of the previous 6,7 1a answers over the last year or so hoping it might lead to some secret code, but I guess not…

R rabble rousing, B bunsen burners, C cruise control, M murder mystery, S secret service, G get the giggles, C county council, P pyjama parties, L liquid lunches

Any hints on the parsing of 4d will save me a lot of head scratching,
Baton? staff? Running?

anagram (running) of the 3 5-letter words

Thanks Buddy. I had not realised running was the indicator. Doh!!

Late post, but I found this very straight forward, and pleased with myself that I completed it without a visit to the forum.

I did it upside down. Completed the bottom half before bed, then finished off just now after a lovely river walk this morning. LOI 1a as I'm not familiar with the phrase

I agree with quisling, that's how I got the answer.

15a & 22d made me smile, but my COD is also 13d

Yeah didn't find this too hard although I had 14A wrong (I had Boris Johnson's favourite word instead).