Parliament may be in recess but that doesn’t mean all politicians are off on holiday, nonetheless, Theresa May has taken this time for a 3-week holiday whilst most other politicians will spend it doing more work with their constituents. But there have been several announcements that include the ban on new diesel and petrol vehicles by 2040 and Liam Fox stating the UK could be ‘open’ to the idea of downgrading food standards in the UK in a bid to secure a trade deal with the US.
Donald Trump continues to try and distract the world from his collusion with Russia during the presidential election.
The EU issues a warning to Poland and rejects talks with Turkey, whilst Macron’s government makes their first intervention in the private sector.
UK news
Liam Fox announced that the UK could seek to downgrade food standards in a bid to secure a trade deal with the US. He said that the UK would be ‘open’ to the idea of importing chlorinated chicken. The American Farming Association have said any deal must see the UK relax bans on chlorine chicken, hormone beef and genetically modified crops. Current EU law says that poultry cannot be disinfected using chemicals. Boris Johnson has backed the plan but environment secretary, Michael Gove, is against the idea along with his predecessor and commons leader, Andrea Leadsom.
The government have announced plans to ban new diesel and petrol vehicles from 2040 in a bid to combat toxic air pollution levels. Approximately 40,000 deaths a year can be attributed to air pollution (Fullfact, 2016), however, the figure is an estimate and it could even make smaller contributions to the reduction of individual’s lifespan.
Meanwhile the government have been dealt a blow after the Supreme Court ruled that the tribunal fees, introduced by the coalition government in 2013, were unlawful. They were introduced to reduce the number of malicious and weak cases, but this led to an overall reduction of 79% and discriminating against those on middle and lower incomes as well as women.
The Conservatives have also passed off an EU directive as their own legislation. They announced that they would be banning credit card surcharges from January 2018, the legislation builds on an EU directive which will be at risk once we leave in 2019. Meanwhile they have announced the plan to increase the retirement age to 68. U-turned on their pledge to give children free school breakfasts, and two MPs, Peter Bone and Christopher Chope took turns to ‘camp out’ and flooded parliament with around 70 bills, none of which are likely to be made into law but it means that other important bills won’t get heard until a later date.
World news
In the French commune of Séméac, residents built a wall around a disused hotel that had been bought by the government to house 85 migrants who have fled the warzone that has engulfed the Middle-East.
Emmanuel Macron’s government intervened and bought a French shipyard to stop it falling into Italian ownership. The EU meanwhile have issued Poland with a formal warning over plans for the control of the judiciary to be given to the president and the justice minister and they have also rejected a request from Turkey for new accession talks. The EU have condemned the security crackdown that followed the attempted coup in 2016.
Meanwhile in America, Donald Trump has issued a ban on transgender people serving in the military, citing costs. However, estimates put transgender spending at 0.004 – 0.017% of the defence budget with more money being spent on Viagra. Furthermore, after a tense session, the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was voted down by one vote. John McCain got the final vote and audible gasps were heard when he voted against Donald Trump’s bill.
