in a few hours. it follows president trump's decision to pull out of an international agreement aimed at curbing tehran‘s nuclear ambitions. the other signatories — britain, france, germany, russia and china — say they remain committed to the nuclear deal. republicans and democrats in the united states are making some of theirfinal appeals to voters, two days before mid—term elections widely seen as a referendum on the trump presidency. the current and previous presidents are addressing campaign rallies. mr trump has been stressing his tough line against immigration. floods have killed 12 people on the italian island of sicily, including nine members of a single family. a week of extreme weather has now been responsible for the deaths of 30 people. now on bbc news, the week in parliament. hello and welcome to

the week in parliament. our look at the week in westminster and beyond with all the boring bits taken out. in this week's programme, drama as mps vote on the budget. this is the first time a member of the government has resigned during the votes on a budget as a direct result of the chancellor's policies, thank you. are we ready for brexit? the clock is ticking. we've only got five months left. if there is no deal, surely you will have done, it should be one of the top priorities to doing a security assessment. did you hear the one about the chancellor who wanted to be a comedian? spreadsheet phil makes way for standup phil. the new mandatory business rates relief for public lavatories. so that, so that local authorities can at last relieve themselves.

it's the way he tells them. more on politicaljokes later. but first, it's become a modern tradition that budgets tend to unravel, think of george osborne's pasty tax or the omni shambles, or gordon bram's problems with his iop tax rate. philip hammond was cheered by conservative mps for bringing forward income tax cuts and finding money for health, schools and potholes in england. but within days minister, tracy crouch had resigned over his decision to delay curbs on high—stakes gambling. one expert said the budget itself was a bit of a gamble with its loosening of the purse strings. austerity is coming to an end, discipline will remain. austerity is coming to an end, but discipline will remain and that is at the clear dividing line in british politics today. the reality is that whatever

the chancellor claims today, austerity is not over. and far from building a strong economy, eight years of austerity has damaged our economy, delayed and weakened the recovery and endlessly postponing fixing the deficit. after the chancellor sat down away from the cameras in the public gallery, women who have been told they have to wait longer for their state pensions staged a protest prompting and applause from the labor and smp benches as the deputy speaker tried to keep control. stamp due to reserve tax, blacklisted securities and a connected persons, motion number 49, be to back—up... applause order! cheering i must say it's disappointing

in some respects that the speech of this afternoon was affected by a protest in the gallery, but let me say this. we all recognize that what we saw today was very much the spirit of the suffragettes. we on this side of the house understand the suffering of the women born in the 19505 that have been betrayed by this government. mps then began to digest the budget amid claim and counterclaim of the end of austerity, who was right? the treasury committee brought in a referee. you described the budget as and i quote, the largest discretionary fiscal loosening of any fiscal event. speaking with a yes or no answer, does that not equally to the end of austerity? it depends on what you mean by austerity. that's not a yes or no answer. no, because as i say, you know, it's not a yes or no question. it wasn't austerity,

but the future of fixed odds betting terminals, that cause the government the biggest political headache. ministers had already announced plans to reduce the maximum stake from £100 to £2. but that cut was expected to happen in april of next year, not six months later. within 2a hours, the lords and the church of england were on the case. these machines are predominantly found in the poorest of areas, the research is quite clear, it's causing huge poverty. on top of that, the estimates are that something between one and two people everyday are committing suicide for gambling related reasons. by thursday at the westminster rumor mill suggested that tracy crouch the sports minister whose brief included gambling was thinking of quitting. labor forced and urgent question in the comments. what this amounts to mr speaker is of the promise made

by his two predecessors, sanitary estate, it's a betrayal of the government own three year review, that was meticulously conducted by the member... the culture secretary denied there was a delay. but it was also right to consider planning to reduce the effect of the job losses for those working in betting shops on the high street, and allowing time for that planning to take effect. it also has be recognized, that right does this change is, money for public services coming from the use of this has to be replaced or public services will have less funding. that failed to pacify his critics. don't give me warm words, give me action. april 2019, we cannot lose any more lives because of these dreadful, dreadful machines. only a few were prepared to defend the policy. these are not the first most

dangerous forms of gambling, they're the fifth most dangerous form of gambling and can i suggest to him that he does take into account the losses that will be suffered on the high street in terms ofjobs for men and women and young people who also will suffer poverty and also the losses to the horse racing industry. later as the budget debate neared its conclusion, afterfour days, a former conservative leader made an 11th hour plea. i wonder under the taking, date time for the finance bill we will certainly return to this. i don't think it's an issue for the finance bill, but i certainly am happy to discuss it with my honourable friend about what more we can do. within minutes, mps had approved a budget and tracy crouch had left the government. getting a hug from labor's carolyn harris who broke news of her resignation. can the chancellor confirm to the house that this is the first time a member of the government has resigned during the votes

on a budget as a direct result of the chancellor's of policy? thank you. that may not be the end of the story. labor will try to get cross party support to force a vote on the policy in the weeks to come. now, how prepared are we for brexit? it's currently the most asked question by mps on a variety of select committees. it's fair to say that quest for answers is having a mixed success rate, immigration minister had a bruising encounter with the home affairs committee on tuesday, they're trying to find out whether employers will have to check the immigration status at eu migrants if there is a no—deal brexit. i'm still struggling to understand this time next year as opposed to five years' time, but this time next year, will there be any change as to who has a right to work here or not? yeah, because we will have brought

forward the future immigration system and eu citizens will not have an automatic right to work in the uk unless they've been through the same processes that we are going to apply to the rest of the world. we are very conscious that this is an enormous challenge, and the question is do you wish us to discriminate against those eu citizens who have absolutely every right to be here and work or should we have a pragmatic approach and make sure that we implement a system as part of our future immigration system whereby eu citizens who are coming in for more than it does it have to go through the same process as everybody else. ok, i'm just still really baffled... perhaps senior officials could help the minister out and leave her left baffled. surely we have a right to know whether or not there's going to be less security information available to our border force officers when making a decision on whether or not to let someone in the country. sorry, the answer is that doing all that we can to mitigate the potential disruption... i'm sure you are, i'm sure that

you will be doing absolutely everything you can to mitigate these risks, but what i want to understand is what is the scale of the risk is surely parliament has a right to know this information. it's probably better for me to come back to the committee. it strikes me that part of the answer to your question can only be known once we've actually had the conversations necessary we find ourselves in opposition, says the sort of things that they're talking about it involved interpol and bilateral arrangements in terms of... you've only got five months left. if there's no deal, surely you have done, it has to be one of the top priorities to do a security assessment of what the consequences are of no deal at the border. but if the government is less than well—prepared, what about parliament? brexit means brexit it also means of legislation for the government to get through the comments and the lords by the lords by the end of march next year, ruth fox is the director which monitors these things

so you don't have to. well there is two big legislative objectives that it has to bring in series of bills, to prepare ourselves for life outside the eu, said things like agriculture bill, about immigration and we also need a bill to deal with the withdrawal agreement if that's what we get later this year, and there is a whole level of other legislation known as statutory instruments which need to be passed by the 29th of march, the government estimate something in the region of 800 — thousands of them, to prepare a statute body of law for life outside the eu. that sound a huge work load how will they get all that done? it's a lot, and at the moment they will have to, i think change the sitting times possibly in the new year. it all depends on whether or not we get a deal, if we do get a deal that the time frame may extend

and we will have transitioned and implication period of some of this legislation we will be meeting by the 29th of march. the problem is, whilst we don't know whether we'll get a deal, we have to prepare for it in legislative terms. but at the moment, that doesn't really seem within parliament to be that pressure on that timetable and the worry is that a lot of it will get back up from december through march. when you talk about the statutory instruments, almost in a technical weight by changing a word here, and i were there, so that's possibly not a big deal. some of it is, i mean what might seem technical and not a big deal to you and i, if you are a farmer how the registration of your livestock is regulated for example, who you are accountable to in regulatory terms, that would matter. for some of these issues have quite important consequences in terms of who the power comes back from europe and the regulation

coming back and where it's going to reside in the uk does our big political policy decisions. and members of parliament need times to scrutinize that and the concern is running now and march that the time for that is getting compressed. as you say big political decisions, no effective government majority apart from with the support of big dup and mp5, how does the government actually get these through, can they be nodded through as statutory instruments or will that create a bit of a fuss? no, they can't nod them through. i mean, these 800 to 1,000 have to go through a parliamentary process and, in fact, when they agreed the european withdrawal act in the summer, they agreed to a new scruitiny process that enables a committee in the house of commons, specially set up for the purpose, to scrutinise a significant portion of them and decide whether they should be upgraded to a higher level of scrutiny. so, in terms of process, there is time that's needed to do

it, but also we are expecting some of these instruments could be 150 pages long, according to the department of the environment. wow! so, mps and parliament's lawyers need time to look at the detail, as well, to ensure that they are correct and they're happy with them, so that is the biggest problem — it's time and it's space to do the scrutiny, but of course we're up against that 29th march deadline, which creates difficulties. and we can follow all this on your snappily entitled statutory instrument tracker on your website. yes. i mean, the hansard society, we've been examining statutory instruments from before brexit and the scrutiny of them has been long problematic. brexit has really brought the issues to the fore and what we're doing is tracking the data so we can see the progression that the government is making and, at the of october, they had only brought forward 105 of the at least 800 they need, so they're only about 13% of the way there.

that gives you some sense of the scale of the problem. it does indeed. ruth fox, thank you very much indeed. a quick look now at some other parliamentary moments in the item we called the round—up. peers complained they‘ re being kept in the dark over the brexit negotiations. it is extraordinary that we find ourselves in the situation where michel barnier is briefing meps almost daily and sharing draft texts, when select committees in westminster are kept in the dark. mps on the environmental audit committee got some sustainable fashion tips that may surprise you. the base layer garment, which i have had since i was 20 years old, believe it or not, i'm 48 now, so that is still perfectly functional. is it m85? no, it's not m&s. it's another brand. it's perfectly functional

as an outdoor product and works really well, as well as it did back then. it's made from plastic. i've got the equivalent garment here, which i really like because it's really soft and it's natural, but this is full of holes now. and mps on the transport committee found out why young people don't use buses. apparently, tickets and how to pay for them are rather confusing. the embarrassment factor was one of the key barriers. "do i need to have the right change?" "will i know where to get off?" "will i make a fool of myself in front of my mates?" and this is all the stuff that we, as an industry, really need to make very, very clear. now, he's been known as ‘spreadsheet phil‘ or even, sarcastically, ‘box office phil'. philip hammond has tried to live down his less than exciting image with jokes at his own expense, but in his third, and possibly last, budget, the chancellor of the exchequer turned to lavatory humour. yes, toiletjokes. new mandatory business rates relief for public lavatories,

so that local authorities can at last relieve themselves. groans. for the convenience of the house, mr deputy speaker... groans. ..and without wishing to get unduly bogged down on this subject... groans and laughter. ..this relief, the house will be interested to know, that this relief... well, at least i'm demonstrating that we are all british, aren't i? and he's not the only politician who has tried a bit of comedy, with predictable results. this report does contain some flashing images and some terrible jokes. and, of course, one other big event happened in my life this year. the one the media was most interested in. my nosejob. 27th july. they even give it a name — ed nose day.

i want to get back to my hotel room to watch strictly. do you watch it? of course you do. it's a well— known truth that every lib dem activist fancies himself in sequins. now, the problem with this series, though, i think, is that edwina currie just isn't a patch on our vince, is she? no, i think we need vince back on. well, what is it about politicians and comedy? a few hits and misses there. let's talk to ayesha hazarika, who has worked in both worlds of politics and comedy. let's look at philip hammond's budget. leave the budget aside, what about his timing and delivery? i thought they were pretty grim, to be honest. i thought some of the puns were absolutely terrible! i'm very disappointed he didn't get the classic pun which is ‘all cisterns go'. i mean, if you're doing

a toilet kind of thing, i'm available, phil, if you need me, just give me a call. i kind of thought... i think these budget speeches, these set—piece speeches are very difficult, because there are lots of content in them and often you need these moments to try and lighten the mood and sometimes a good joke in politics is excellent because it really cuts through everything and it can make quite a powerful point, but these felt slightly gratuitous. it felt like a bunch of advisers were sort of thrown into a room and told to come up with the best toiletjokes that they possibly could. and even he seemed to slightly lose confidence with his delivery, so i'd have to say, i would probably give that a one—star review. and what is it, what does make a good political joke? what works in an audience like the house of commons or even a party conference, as we saw there? well, you're right. they're the two key places to try and land a good joke as a senior politician. i think you need a couple of things. first of all, it does need to be funny, but i think it also has to be authentic to the person making thejoke. i wrote for a number

of different politicians — gordon brown, harriet harman, ed miliband. they couldn't have done the same material. i think the mistake that sometimes politicians make is you get a text message from a senior politician going, "can you text me a joke immediately?", that they can just crowbar into their speech. it has to sound like it's something they would say. it has to sound authentic, notjust to their voice, but to their character and to their politics and, also, there has to be a truth behind it. you're not a stand—up comedian in politics, you're notjust standing up, making random, surreal odd jokes, you're trying to make a political point or score a political win, so i think the bestjokes in politics have got a real sting of truth, so people are laughing because the joke is funny, but it's funny because they think, "yeah, that is on the money with what's happening." you've written for very different politicians. why is it that some politicians can carry it off and others are sarah teather? poor sarah! i have to say, i am very supportive of women in comedy, but even i was, like, "aargh, make it stop, make it stop!" i think confidence is a big thing.

and that's all so what stops, i think, a lot of women trying humour, but actually one of the people i worked for who nobody thought was funny, but actually did some brilliant jokes in the house of commons, if i do say so myself, was harriet harman. so, i think part of it isjust having the confidence to give it a go, knowing that sometimes, particularly at the beginning when you're trying jokes, they possibly won't work particularly well, but you have to just keep testing them, keep trying them. don't do something that feels completely out of your character, as i said before, completely out of your comfort zone. but i think it is important to try, but you have to think, not going for the really obvious things. you have to think about linking it to who you are and the political point you'll make. and also, self—deprecation is normally a very good tool in political communication because sometimes if you've had a bad thing happen to you, but you make the joke at your own expense, it makes you look stronger and it blunts the attack coming from your opponent, as well.

you're on tour at the moment. it looks like you've got a new warm—up act. phil hammond's available! spreadsheet phil! he's going to be amazing! this is the new cross—party politics that we've all been yearning for! good luck with that. thank you. ayesha hazarika. so, what's has been going on in the wider world of politics this week? with our countdown, here's carol hall. at five — if counting sheep doesn't work for you, nicky morgan has another suggestion. this session is actually being broadcast, so should you suffer from insomnia and watch bbc parliament in the middle of the night, you may find yourselves being broadcast. at four — wes streeting warns a panel of economics experts against the dangers of crossing some bbc parliament viewers. i would just say that lots of pensioners watch bbc parliament, so i hope you've got good security at home! at three — the tallest statue in the world was unveiled in india this week and it's a 182—metre high

tribute to a politician, independence leader sardar patel. at two — in plymouth, a crowdfunding campaign was launched aiming to raise a statue to nancy astor, the first female mp to take a seat in parliament. and at one — the rapper formerly known as kanye west announced that he is stepping back from politics. ‘ye‘ says he wants to focus on creativity. carol hall. on wednesday, the choirs of the uk parliament and the german bundestag held a joint concert with the southbank sinfonia in westminster hall to mark the centenary of the armistice which ended the first world war. it's a great honour for me to stay here and i think it's a very important symbol that our choirs sing together. we were enemies during

the two world wars and now we are friends since the end of the second world war. it's very important to stay together. choral music. now for the tale of a prime minister, a painter and the myth of perseus. arthur balfour was a young and wealthy tory mp when he asked his friend, the pre—raphaelite artist edward burne—jones, to decorate the drawing room of his london home. as a new show at tate britain reveals, it proved an epic project. the perseus cycle is one

of burne—jones's great achievements. itjust shows the sheer ambition of his vision, in wanting to produce something on this scale and in such detail. burne—jones insisted that the room be completely redecorated, so he tore out all the fitments, put in wood panelling, blocked out the windows and put some coloured glass in some of them and designed the lighting, so you'd have this dim light, so the figures would flicker and move across the wall. he wanted to create a totally immersive experience. so, he was working on the perseus cycle at the same time he was working on other projects, so the whole process or evolution was incredibly slow and balfour had to be very, very patient. in the end, burne—jones completed four of the oils, but we are able to recreate the whole ensemble because he produced cartoons, highly worked out cartoons,

for each scene within the cycle. after burne—jones's death, they came into balfour's possession, and we do know that he displayed them at the state dining room at 10 downing street, the fourfinished oils. you canjust imagine the impact they would have on people coming into the room. and the edward burne—jones exhibition is on until february at tate britain. it's only a short walk from the commons, so you might see some mps popping in on their short halfterm break. that's it from the week in parliament. thank you for watching. bye for now. hello. england has been treated to the

northern lights overnight. this front continues to bring outbreaks of rain and that will be slowly eating away from northern ireland through the morning and things dry across wales in south—west england. further outbreaks of rain will push across scotland. behind it, some bright and sunny spells. temperatures between ten and 15 celsius. up to 15 or 16 for the south—east of england. in the evening, some western parts of scotla nd evening, some western parts of scotland we could pick up some patchy rain. dry with some clear spells. it is a mild day. this mild airon spells. it is a mild day. this mild air on southerly winds as we go through tuesday, and it dated us for much of the week. yes, it is mild in the week ahead at it will be windy and they will be some rain at times. that is all from me. goodbye. welcome to bbc news,

broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is duncan golestani. our top stories: american sanctions on iran's oil industry are due to come into effect in two hours' time. final rallies before the american midterm elections — president trump says it's all about immigration. the bibles they carried — 100 years after the guns fell silent, we remember the role of religion in the first world war it only counts the cost of the week of bad weather. —— italy.