The last Week In Politics has seen round 5 of negotiations with the EU over Brexit, the government come under severe scrutiny over their rollout of Universal Credit, the government also decided that to attract foreign investors post-Brexit, they are going to build a £100 million yacht for the royal family, this had been dubbed the 'royal Brexit yacht'.
In Spain, the Catalunya president said they would delay action on referendum pending negotiations, in France, Macron's popularity wanes slightly. Donald Trump became the first sitting US president to speak at a hate group's summit and Brazil passed a series of controversial electoral reforms.
UK news and Brexit
The rollout of the Conservative flagship welfare reform policy, Universal Credit, has been a disaster. The single benefit designed to simplify six other benefits into one has seen the costs rise from £2 billion to £12 billion, issues with project management and the IT systems and the 6-week waiting period for the first payment cause many people to fall into debt and in worse cases even homelessness. However, to add insult to injury, it was revealed that the government helpline that the poorest in society need to call to deal with the mess, charges 55ppm.
Round 5 and the final phase of the first stage of Brexit negotiations took place and Michel Barnier summed up where they are in his speech by saying 'We worked constructively this week.
We clarified certain points. But without making any great steps forward'. The major sticking point is the financial settlement and in response the government have appointed a 'minister for no deal Brexit', a position designed to create a contingency plan in case the government can't walk away with a deal.
Senior Tory ministers, reportedly including Boris Johnson, have been pushing plans to build a brand new £100m luxury Royal Yacht for the Queen.
The plans involve getting private firms to pay for a large proportion but it would cost £10 million a year of taxpayer money to maintain, in 1997, the Labour government scrapped the royal yacht due to the expensive annual running costs. This comes after £369 million is to be spent on Buckingham Palace yet the Conservatives voted against lifting the public sector pay cap due to being 'too expensive', further proving austerity is an ideological attack on the austerity is an ideological attack on the poorest..
World News
Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan President, declared that the region had "earned the right" to independence from Madrid. However, he told the parliament in Barcelona that he would seek negotiations with Spain to take the heat off the political stand-off. Nine public sector unions were engaged in a one-day strike to protest Emmanuel Macron's cost cutting labour reforms. Schools, hospitals and transport were affected by action taken by unions. Donald Trump addressed the Value Voter's Summit, a group who have been labelled a hate group and consist of evangelical Christians. The group are known for their hate speech against the LGBTQ community.
Brazilian president, Michel Temer, signed through controversial electoral reforms that include suspension of all publications denounced for promoting hate speech or spreading fake news from social networks and smartphone apps.
However, the law doesn't require that the information needs to be proved to be fake or slanderous before suspension. The Congress also approved the creation of an electoral fund, which will provide public funds for the election. Additionally, a barrier clause will restrict advertisement time for parties which fail to achieve minimum requirements: either to have 1.5 percent of votes in at least nine states or to elect representatives in nine states. The requirements will gradually increase until 2030. This will restrict the growth of smaller parties.