All the Fuck-Ups the Government Tried to Bury On the Last Day of Parliament

If you've ever watched Prime Minister's Questions, you'll be familiar with the sight of MPs behaving like children. Similarly, the last day of Parliament is a lot like the last day of the school term. No detentions and no chance of seeing any teachers for weeks means zero accountability; a chance to get away with doing whatever the hell you want.

As a kid, that might mean bunking off after lunch or egging Jamie Richards from the school bus. As an MP, it's a golden opportunity to publish all the bad news you want without being held accountable. Essentially, ministers know they won't have to face any questions until the autumn and are hoping everyone will have forgotten about them by then.

This tradition is now so well established that the last day of Parliament has come to be known as "take out the trash day", a phrase first coined by writers of The West Wing. At a time when every single public service is on its knees and the government is in disarray, this was a vintage year for taking out the trash. Here's what got dumped in the bins.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson published a report condemning human rights abuses in 30 countries. Unfortunately, Britain has spent the last few years selling billions of pounds worth of arms to six of these countries. Notable examples include Saudi Arabia, which executed 153 people last year, recently arrested a woman for wearing a miniskirt and is currently racking up civilian casualties in a war in Yemen. In the last two years, the county has accumulated receipts for £3 billion of arms from Britain.

The number of crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales has risen more in the last year than at any time in the last decade. Between April of 2016 and March of 2017, the total number of crimes recorded by the police rose by 10 percent, to almost 5 million. Some of the largest increases have been seen for violent crime, which on the whole is up 18 percent. Gun crime rose by 23 percent, knife crime by 20 percent, robbery by 16 percent and sex offences by 14 percent. On the bright side, ONS head of crime statistics John Flatley said improvements made by the police in recording crimes could be one reason for rising crime figures. Then he added: "We believe actual increases in crime are also a factor in a number of categories." Oh.

Meanwhile, a Home Office report revealed the number of police officers has fallen to its lowest level since comparable records began in 1996. Year-on-year, police numbers dropped 0.7 percent, to 123,142 across all ranks in England and Wales. The Police Federation said rising crime was "no coincidence" and described the service as being "on its knees". Steve White, chair at the Police Federation, said: "What more of a wake-up call does the government need?"

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For years the government has been promising to electrify railway lines in Wales, the Midlands and the North of England. Apparently, electric trains are faster, more reliable and more environmentally friendly. Sounds great! Except the project's just been scrapped, so none of that's happening. According to Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, this is actually good news, because all that construction work was going to be bloody tiresome and now we won't have to put up with it all. If you're looking for a prime example of the kind of shit politicians think they can get away with before switching on their out-of-office and leaving for the summer, this is it.

Accounts for the Department for Exiting the European Union revealed just how much the government spent fighting a court case in relation to Brexit. Remain campaigner Gina Miller went to the Supreme Court to demand that MPs were given a vote on whether to trigger Article 50, kickstarting the two-year process of leaving the EU. The government lost the case – and more than a million quid.

Last year the government commissioned a report into the state of post-16 maths education, and the findings are now in. According to Sir Adrian Smith, the man who wrote the report, England is unusual in that most students don't continue studying maths all the way up to the age of 18, and we should probably do something about it. Unfortunately, that's not really an option for about ten years. "My clear conclusion is that we do not yet have the appropriate range of pathways available or the capacity to deliver the required volume and range of teaching," he said. Oh, and in other news from schools, the number of permanent expulsions is up 15 percent on last year.

The organisation that monitors the activities of former ministers revealed a rise in the number of individuals taking jobs in the private sector after leaving ministerial roles. According to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, 52 former ministers received advice on taking jobs outside Westminster last year, up 60 percent on the year before. They included former Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, who enquired about taking nine appointments, a tally that makes George Osborne look like he's been a bit lax sending out CVs recently.

@mark_wilding