The House of Lords

[????]

Come on then. Whose gonna start?

[JohnL]

It's our constitution even if it doesn't exist.

otherwise they couldn't do it.

Will that do for starters ?

[*Bob*]

Have they been lauded* as heroes by Owen 'Frank Sidebottom' Jones yet?

*all of a sudden

[Otta]

It shouldn't even have come to this. What this whole tax credit thing really shows is that it's a nonsense, on a big issue, to tow the party line. A substantial number of Tory MPs seem to have concerns about this particular issue, and yet they've all voted for it in the commons. Had they spoken up more in the house, and then voted accordingly, we never would have reached this entirely predictible mess.

Lords has needed revamping for years, funny how only now the government is saying "hang on a second".

What would be an absolute disaster for democracy would be if the government now cram Lords full of new Tory peers (and I would honestly say this about any party)so they can just force everything through.

[Ridgley]

What Otta said

and now Caesar /Osborne is trying to save face.

[Blah Blah]

I too agree with Otta. I watched the whole Lords debate on catchup last night and the arguments were well thought out and completely destroyed all of the governments claims on constitution. Osborne took a risk and has been caught out. He should take it on the chin and move on.

[Salsaboy]

First against the wall when the revolution comes. After Dale Winton of course.

[LuLu Too]

As an upper chamber, the HOL is entertainingly archaic. I mean, what's with the Lords Spiritual in this day and age? Even if one of them now is a woman... Still, time for an elected upper house.

But well done Lords and Ladies on shafting Osborne. Shame though about the tampon tax!

[legalbeagle]

These cuts weren't in the manifesto, but worse, in the run up to the election Cameron expressly stated that they would not happen. Bleating now about fairness and the constitution seems a tad hypocritical. The argument "We are elected, it is our will and thus the will of the people" is a little dodgy when you lied to the people to get into power.

Good on them, I say. At least someone kept the government to a promise...

[????]

*Bob* Wrote:

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> Have they been lauded* as heroes by Owen 'Frank

> Sidebottom' Jones yet?

>

>

>

> *all of a sudden

Nope but Billy Bragg loves their noblesse oblige

[Blah Blah]

Yes and what I find particularly galling is the parade of Tory MPs who claim that Cameron didn't say that, or that even though he said that, the announced 12bn welfare cuts that were in the manifesto make the lie ok. Time and time again they were asked where those cuts would come from and refused to answer. Even more annoying are those conservative MPs who didn't have the backnone to vote against the cuts in the House of Commons. A bunch of arrogant and spineless liars who can't stomach being pulled into line by people who actually have a moral conscience.

[????]

It's absolutely terrible politics especially in the light of having a genuine opportunity to be the party of working people. And Osbourne is often meant to be the political brains. Economically, in the long term, the rational to reduce reliance on tax credits makes sense but taking a grand off the lowest paid workers dos suggest no touch with reality. I can almost imagine them not really getting the value of a grand to the poor. Meanwhile the pensioners get 2.5% rise, itself a result of a political mistake by Gordon Brown when doing something that made economic sense. Osbourne knows he's got to balance the books this time round or he's dead meat and possibly the Tories, although with Jezza they have a chance even if they fail - the result is he'll go for these unpopular decisions as early as possible.

[Jah Lush]

The Osbourne family on the fiddle. Plenty of tax credit for them. Cunts!

http://i1369.photobucket.com/albums/ag237/jahlushhead/untitled_zps87zm2gia.png

[hpsaucey]

Jah Lush Wrote:

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> The Osbourne family on the fiddle. Plenty of tax

> credit for them. @#$%&!

>

> http://i1369.photobucket.com/albums/ag237/jahlushh

> ead/untitled_zps87zm2gia.png

Where's that from??

HP

[????]

Private Eye

[miga]

They committed themselves to "balancing the books" (with Labour's backing). They can't/won't cut pensions. They can't/won't cut child benefit. Meanwhile (pensions, baby boomers etc.) the welfare bill keeps on increasing. Not many places they can find the mythical ?12bn. Rock and a hard place.

[miga]

Stole this from a great blog.

[Otta]

???? Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> It's absolutely terrible politics especially in

> the light of having a genuine opportunity to be

> the party of working people. And Osbourne is often

> meant to be the political brains. Economically, in

> the long term, the rational to reduce reliance on

> tax credits makes sense but taking a grand off the

> lowest paid workers dos suggest no touch with

> reality. I can almost imagine them not really

> getting the value of a grand to the poor.

> Meanwhile the pensioners get 2.5% rise, itself a

> result of a political mistake by Gordon Brown when

> doing something that made economic sense. Osbourne

> knows he's got to balance the books this time

> round or he's dead meat and possibly the Tories,

> although with Jezza they have a chance even if

> they fail - the result is he'll go for these

> unpopular decisions as early as possible.

Totally agree with this.

Although Billy Bragg did say that he has issues with the Lords, he's not all of a sudden their biggest cheerleader to be fair (and I'm not a devoted Bagg follower).

[Blah Blah]

I agree too ???? and prety much with everyone else.

They made committments to some groups to secure votes and it's coming back to haunt them (and I think part of the problem is that they didn't expect to win the election and have to deliver half of them). The stupid thing is that I don't think anyone disagrees with the principle that the Tories are promoting, just the process of delivering it. It's like having a good idea and then pissing everyone off to the point that no-one thinks it's a good idea anymore :D

I absolutely agree ??? that Osborne has shown great niaivity in his rush to balance the books. He puts himself under a pressure that is very hard to deliver when so many people are trapped in low wage, insecure jobs. There does seem to be a huge disconnect whne it comes to what people on the breadline are going through.

He could slow down cuts and look to reducing the deficit in a rational way rather than clearing it. At the same time he seems completely ignorant to some of the causes of hardship, like rent inflation for example. Balancing the books is more than just getting public spending into the black. It's also about making sure what people earn is enough to live on, and that the costs of living are kept in check where possible. Heseltine the other day had the nerve to say to the steel workers losing their jobs that it was a good time for them to lose them! Two million new jobs (700,000 of them zero contract) has not seem a 2 million reduction in the unemployment figures. Most of those jobs have just replaced other jobs lost through cuts and market forces. Cameron has nothing to boast about.

And they think we are all too stupid to understand any of it.

[Loz]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> Two million new jobs (700,000 of them zero contract) has not seem a 2 million reduction in the unemployment

> figures. Most of those jobs have just replaced other jobs lost through cuts and market forces. Cameron has

> nothing to boast about.

Actually, Blah Blah, the stats show a pretty good picture for Cameron.

From Full Fact https://fullfact.org/live/2015/apr/employment_facts-42729

Employment since 2010

Since the three months prior to the last election, two million more people are in work. This splits up into:

- 0.6 million self-employed, 1.4 million employees

- 0.5 million part-time, 1.5 million full time people in work

- 400,000 fewer public sector employees, and 2.3 million more private sector employees. The most recent figures only go up to December 2014 so aren?t as up to date.

- It?s not possible to say how much of the increase came from people on zero-hours contracts.

But, according to Full Fact, there are only 700,000 zero hours contract in total (or 2.3% of the total), so I rather doubt they are all new ones as you claim. I'd say the actual number of the 2m new jobs that are zero hours would be more in the area of about 50,000, but that is just extrapolating from the 2.3% figure.

https://fullfact.org/economy/election_2015_jobs-43422

Also, the "2 million new jobs" figure comes from the election, and covered the period when the coalition was in power. When they started in 2010, the unemployment figure was 7.9% and by the time of the election this year that was down to 5.6%. But, you are correct in saying that 2m has not come off the unemployment figure - that dropped from 2.5m to 1.85m.

(Source for that is a sodding big spreadsheet from the ONS website).

[Blah Blah]

I know better than to argue with a sodding big spreadsheet :D

[Jeremy]

miga Wrote:

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> They committed themselves to "balancing the books"

> (with Labour's backing). They can't/won't cut

> pensions. They can't/won't cut child benefit.

> Meanwhile (pensions, baby boomers etc.) the

> welfare bill keeps on increasing. Not many places

> they can find the mythical ?12bn. Rock and a hard place.

I think the problem for a lot of people is that they have a hard time reconciling cuts to welfare with Cameron/Osbourne's commitment to cut taxes. Surely if the priority is to balance the defecit, then we should all be doing our bit... but clearly this is not the case. The whole "austerity" line is essentially a tool they're using to push through their ideology of low tax, low welfare, small government.

With a credible opposition, this could have been their "poll tax" moment!

[Jah Lush]