Politics this week has seen continued unrest from the public over Grenfell Tower, the power-sharing talks deadline passed for northern ireland, the debate on tuition fees has continued with the man, Andrew Adonis, who was Tony Blair’s head of policy when they were introduced and convinced Blair to set the cap at £3,000, admitted that they need to be scrapped. The G20 has been going on throughout the weekend and The Sun buried a huge story about housing.
Globally, North Korea have been busy, Emmanuel Macron has been outlining his plans for France, Donald Trump visited to Poland prior the G20, trouble continues in Venezuela, Italy created more ‘codes of conducts’ for NGO’s in response to the refugee crisis and ISIL are facing significant losses.
UK politics
The government have sent in a task force to take control of Kensington and Chelsea council after its dire response to the Grenfell Tower fire. This was after they had already relieved them of their duty to support the victims and the leader had resigned. However, residents are still unhappy with some refusing the alternative accommodation offered because they have been either worse conditions than before or further away in different parts of the country. There has also been uproar over the appointment of a former retired judge to head the inquiry, with residents angered over the lack of consultation with them.
Northern Ireland’s problems continue after talks between Sinn Fein and the DUP broke down and the deadline passing yet again.
The leader of Sinn Fein, Michelle O’Neill, placing the blame squarely at Theresa May’s ‘confidence and supply’ deal with the DUP to prop up her failing government.
This week it was revealed by the housing and homelessness charity Shelter, that approximately 320,000 homes remain unbuilt despite receiving residential planning permission.
These ‘phantom homes’ contribute to artificially high prices in the housing market. Developers sit on vacant land to keep the supply low, which maintains the high prices. The Home Builders Federation blame the slow progression of planning permission and claimed Shelter’s analysis was ‘ideological driven’. In fact, Shelter analysed information from the Department of Communities and Local Government, along with other data and allowed a one-year gap between the go-ahead and build completion.
The G20 summit 2017
Global leaders met at the annual G20 summit that has been fraught protests, with the fewer turning violent after cars were burned and shops ransacked. There was a lot of talk before of the decreased role the US would be playing in the summit because of Donald Trump pulling them out of the Paris Climate Agreement, which has been central in talks with 19 of the 20 countries reaffirming their commitment to tackling climate change and 18 prioritising it.
The two nations who have been left behind are the US and the UK, this was after Theresa May decided to not include it in her four key objectives. Further highlighting the UK’s dwindling global influence. Much less has been made of the actual talks within the G20 but expect more highlights to be reported within the next week as the G20 ends and commentators can digest all the information.
A lot of the focus has been on Donald Trump, who even ‘stepped out’ for a moment and allowed Ivanka Trump to take his seat for a while, this garnered much outrage but world leaders welcomed Ivanka’s presence. The G20 has the potential to do much good in the world, unfortunately, the system we live in doesn’t allow them to stray much further from the path itself and we are largely governed by those who don’t want radical change.
World news in brief
Emmanuel Macron set out his priorities with amendments to the constitution, notably bringing in a form of proportional representation. With prime minister, Édouard Philippe, focusing on expenditure cuts and stated planned tax cuts would be delayed, however, he did also announce a costly plan to improve and overhaul France’s infrastructure.
Donald Trump’s visit to Poland was widely welcomed by supporters of the county’s ruling party. They see him as kindred spirit as the Law and Justice party (PiS) are a right-populist party who oppose the EU’s refugee policy.
Venezuela’s political unrest intensified after supporters of the president stormed the National Assembly and assaulted opposition lawmakers. North Korea tested a ballistic missile that appeared to have a long enough range to reach Alaska, despite Trump insisting they would never be allowed to develop such technology this year. Finally, ISIL’s power in the Middle-East is dwindling with Iraq’s government poised to take control of Mosul, 3 years after the caliphate seized it and in Syria, American backed forces entered Raqqa, the caliphates capital.
