Episode 10 - 28th April 2017

Off the Cliff

Today is Ed Balls day, the day we all join hands and remember the time a person had a User Interface failure when using website Twitter dot com. After the bumper news day yesterday we are left with a rather smaller docket today.

Stories of the Day:

• University fee increases pushed through before the election The Higher Education and Research Bill had faced a large number of amendments in the House of Lords, but a series of compromises has seen the legislation passed by Parliament before shutting down for the election. The legislation had been intended to make higher fees dependent on improved teaching. But this element will now not be implemented until 2020-21 - and until then universities can make inflation-linked increases without any link to quality. Fees will increase to £9,250 this year. Student loans to pay for the higher fees are already going to be subject to a sharp increase in interest rates - rising from 4.6% to 6.1% from the autumn. A framework for measuring teaching quality is to be introduced, but the link with fees will not come into force for another three years.

• UK drawing up post-Brexit sanctions plan The UK is urgently drawing up new laws that will enable it to continue imposing sanctions on foreign countries after Brexit, the BBC has learned. Ministers began consulting on the plans last week after officials realised most of the powers to apply sanctions will disappear when the UK leaves the EU. The government hopes the move will allow it to continue to adopt sanctions alongside other members of the bloc. As a member of both the United Nations and the EU, the UK is obliged to implement any sanctions that either body decides to impose. These tend to involve travel bans, asset freezes and restrictions on finance and trade. But crucially, the UK uses European law to implement most of these sanctions, regardless of whether they originated at the UN or the EU.

• Brexit: Tusk says UK trade deal not a priority European Council President Donald Tusk says agreement on "people, money and Ireland" must come before negotiations on the European Union's future relationship with the UK. (Once again rebuffed, once again Theresa May is hounding after Trade before anything else and then accusing the EU countries of arraying against her)

• Crowdfunding the election: How to pay for snap campaign Expanding use of crowdfunding for election campaigns, particularly for the fringe parties and independents. £500 deposit to stand, refundable if you receive 5% of votes cast. Nothing new, but a new era of visibility of the practice and a higher level of spread and normalisation due to the wealth of crowdfunding platforms and social media. Still subject to Electoral commission rules and pressures - must be over a minimum amount from from a permissible source, otherwise it must be returned within 30 days or fall foul of rules. (Kickstarter with a $10 book this is not!) More a curious trend than actual news!