The House of Lords broke no constitutional conventions in referring back Osborne’s vindictive tax credit cuts. The Tories and their media supporters are talking utter garbage on the question. Taking Britain’s appalling “constitution” for what it is, the arcane rules of procedure were not breached.
Ever since David Lloyd George and Herbert Asquith forced, by threat of massive creation of peerages, the 1911 Budget through and with it the start of National Insurance and the demise of the workhouse, there has been a convention that the Lords do not oppose or amend Finance Bills.
But the tax credit cuts were not in a Finance Bill. Osborne instead tried to sneak them through by statutory instrument. This is secondary legislation whereby a Minister signs off laws under powers delegated to him by primary legislation. Secondary legislation gets much less parliamentary time and committee scrutiny. If Osborne had put the tax credit proposals in a Finance Bill, as they certainly should have been – it is Osborne who was breaking parliamentary convention here – rather than sneak them under the table as secondary legislation, the Lords would indeed not have been able to stop them without breaching constitutional convention. Which just goes to show it doesn’t always pay to be a weasel.
Osborne is hoist by his own petard.
Aah, Tories say. But there is another convention that the Lords do not block secondary legislation.
They are making that one up. There is no such constitutional convention and there are plenty of examples of the Lords blocking secondary legislation. There is a huge quantity of secondary legislation, thousands and thousands of laws – ministers continually are signing off legal changes.
But the entire basis of the secondary legislation is that parliament has delegated to ministers, in Acts, powers to sign off uncontroversial matter. This can be, for example, the detail of regulations needed technically to enforce primary legislation, and the occasional updates needed. Only a very low percentage indeed of secondary legislation ever gets queried by the Lords, but that is not because of a constitutional convention. That is because most of it is dull stuff. But when the government abuses its authority and tries to smuggle vital changes through secondary legislation, the Lords not only has the constitutional right to challenge this abuse, it has the constitutional duty to do so.
I wish they would do it more often. For example, when the Labour Party used Westminster secondary legislation to cede 6,000 square miles of Scotland’s sea to England without parliamentary scrutiny.
Finally, there is a constitutional convention that the Lords do not oppose manifesto commitments on which a government has been elected. But the Tories rather carefully did not put tax credit cuts in their manifesto, and indeed in campaigning said they would not do it.
The British constitution is appallingly undemocratic. The fact that an undemocratic chamber has fended off a proposal from an undemocratic executive which gained the votes of only 37% of the voting electors, is not a blow struck for democracy. It is however a temporary victory for human decency in mitigating an attack on the poor.
It is also an achievement for Jeremy Corbyn. Nobody can truly believe that Labour peers would have been organised to do this under Yvette Cooper or Liz Kendall.
UPDATE Wings Over Scotland has a very different take on the Labour Party performance. That the Labour Party was not radical enough to go for the “fatal” option I am afraid I find unsurprising. It remains a deeply conservative institution. But I had not previously encountered the argument that 90% would lose the money from universal credit anyway, and it is stunningly cynical. But on close consideration, I cannot work out what it means. Either there must be some additional cut to universal credit, or that those who lost tax credit could have regained it on universal credit anyway. If anybody could explain that one further, I should be grateful.
I see it is being reported that Andrew Lloyd Webber was flown in from New York first class paid for by the taxpayer to vote for the government.
Can anyone confirm this?
Watching Osborne’s interview with the BBC news was humanizing.
At one point I actually thought the snivelling little git was going to stamp his feet & burst into tears especially when the interviewer inferred that he’s now damaged goods.
I hope Jeremy Corbyn will raise this specious Tory act at EVERY opportunity over the next five years viz…
“You pulled wool over the of the the British public, you didn’t set out the cuts in your manifesto and only defeat in the Lords stopped you.
How can the British people trust you for another 5 years?…Bastards!”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34644262
The Lloyd Webber allegation is the Sun’s. Interestingly…
In 2009, he publicly criticised the Labour government’s introduction of a new 50% rate of income tax on Britain’s top earners, claiming it would damage the country by encouraging talented people to leave. (Wiki)
Fortunately, this was later repealed, and only the talentless* Andrew has found it necessary to spend a lot of his time in the US. And his cash somewhere else…
http://greenlanterngroup.co.uk/blog/offshore-tax-avoidance-scheme-could-result-in-tax-bills-for-1600/
*The Dutch composer Louis Andriessen commented that: “There are two sorts of stealing (in music) – taking something and doing nothing with it, or going to work on what you’ve stolen. The first is plagiarism. Andrew Lloyd Webber has yet to think up a single note; in fact, the poor guy’s never invented one note by himself. That’s rather poor” (Wiki)
Pop went the weasel
someone’s got their Medical garters in a twist, if docs without borders wear such frippery,
after Kunduz, one wouldn’t expect this from the coalition:
from The Guardian
in fact, bearing in mind these next Canadian and North Korean stories – one wouldn’t expect the Western coalition to target Médecins sans Frontières at all:
http://www.msf.org/article/ukraine-msf-strongly-refutes-false-allegations-levelled-media-humanitarian-committee-donetsk
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20151027000196
and
?
The government might have been defeated but the state hasn’t.
Ah yes. The Pentagon’s Missionary Spy Network.
https://theintercept.com/2015/10/26/pentagon-missionary-spies-christian-ngo-front-for-north-korea-espionage/
It was over 100 years ago that Professor A. V. Dicey put The Liberal government through the wringer over the Finance Bil,l and the military opposition to Home Rule in Ulster, and little has been done since to clean up the band-aid solution, only made worse by packing the Lords with all kinds of nobodies.
‘Confessions of an Economic Hitman’ John Perkins
Craig – some info on the changes vis a vis UC from the moneysavingexpert website:
Tax Credit and Universal Credit reductions, plus tougher qualifying criteria
From April 2016, the maximum amount of income a household can earn to be eligible for the full amount of Tax Credits will be reduced, from £6,420 to £3,850. This means if you earn more than £3,850 in a tax year, the amount you’re eligible for will fall. Additionally, for every £1 you earn above this, you currently lose 41p of benefit. Under the reforms, you’ll lose 48p of benefit.
For those entitled to Child Tax Credit only, the maximum amount of income a household can earn to be eligible for the full amount of Child Tax Credit will also fall from £16,105 to £12,125 from April 2016.
Families who have a third or subsequent child after April 2017 will also not receive Additional Tax Credit or Universal Credit support for this child. For more on how these benefits currently work.
In addition, those starting a family after April 2017 will no longer be eligible for the family element in Tax Credits, nor will new births or new claims be eligible for the first child premium in Universal Credit. See our Tax Credits guide for more on how the current system works.
Universal Credit work allowances will also be reduced – to £4,764 for those without housing costs, £2,304 for those with housing costs and will no longer be awarded to non-disabled claimants without children.
Support provided to families who make a new claim to Universal Credit after this date will also be limited to two children.
The following groups will be exempt from the changes to universal credit (UC): Those moving from tax credits to UC; those who come to UC after less than six months off benefits (tax credits or UC); or any new claims from those already on UC, automatically required by new household formation (e.g. a lone parent with three children who forms a couple with someone not currently entitled to UC).
Third or subsequent disabled children born after April 2017 will continue to receive the disabled child element and severely disabled child element in Child Tax Credits and the equivalent in UC, but not the child element.
Multiple births such as twins or triplets will be treated as a single birth.
Additionally, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) have said they will work together to ensure that women who have a third child as the result of rape, or other exceptional circumstances related to an abusive relationship are protected.
Child Benefit will continue to be paid at the same level for all children.
The IFS says these cuts to Tax Credit and Universal Credit will affect just over three million families, who will lose an average of just over £1,000 per year.
It should also be noted that UC has the same conditionality as JSA and other out of work benefits. These did not apply under tax credits.
Any family with children aged 3 or over will be set an income floor under which conditionality will apply. Income floor = 35x mininum wage per hour for single parent households and 70x for two parent households.
So, if you are a family with a couple of kids – who aren’t necessarily at school yet – and one of you works 35 hours at minimum wage and the other 15-20 hours at minimum wage, you will be subject to the JSA regime of work-focused interviews, forced applying for jobs for more hours, and failure to comply will see your UC sanctioned.
Oh, and capital regulations also apply to UC. So if you have £6k saved in an emergency fund (or indeed, in an ISA intended for retirement because you don’t have a workplace pension and, after the scandals, you don’t trust pension companies) – your UC will be reduced. The DWP will also have the right to scrutinise any spending of any savings you may have if that spending may have kept you under the £6k threshold. Only “essential” spending allowed.
I do remember the Tories getting exercised about the ‘nanny state’ under Thatcher. Who’d have thought they meant to replace it with the prison warder state?
‘essential spending’ being buying yourself a new nuclear submarine, maybe? Come on, Osbo, let’s have a look at that trust fund before we give you a 10% pay rise….
Tony M
27 Oct, 2015 – 5:52 am
I understand that for a finale, (Lord) George Ffoukes – The Lanarkshire Lark – diverted their Lardships with his particularly harrowing repertoire of bird impressions, accompanied by Helen Liddell on the spoons. Next week for a special treat, the less shy shire Tories will drag themselves up to the House, to put on their own version of the ‘Kids from Fame’.
In the Commons that evening it was Bingo night, bingo-caller Bercow was the MC, Osborne scored a single line. The snowball carries forward to next week, with the top prize, a set of Lily of the Valley toiletries still up for grabs.
__________________
Soooooooo funnnnneeeee!
The Tony-come-lately, trying so hard to impress just might benefit from taking a long-course in English Literature to getting anywhere near success. But, then again, humour isn’t something that you can teach.
The BBC article at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34644262
has now been changed 8 times.
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1036490/diff/5/6
The heading is now:
Tax credits: George Osborne ‘to lessen’ impact after Lords defeats
George Foulkes. One of the nastier Scottish Red Tories.
Sniping away at the SNP on his Twitter.
https://twitter.com/GeorgeFoulkes
And like Murphy, he loves Israhell.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Labour_Friends_of_Israel
He thinks he is rather clever with words. Not.
‘He is a strong supporter of the Iraq war and has described Tony Blair’s conduct of the war as clearly intentioned, carried through brilliantly and resulting in much improvement for the people of the country. Commenting on Sir Christopher Meyer’s testimony to the Iraq Inquiry in 2009, he described the inquiry as “a procession of primadonnas and the usual suspects grandstanding for the TV”.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Foulkes,_Baron_Foulkes_of_Cumnock
BLiar gave him his peerage.
Murphy was PPS to Helen Liddell when she was Scottish Secretary.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2078122.stm
She became British High Commissioner to Australia and was succeeded by Valerie Amos.
Brown gave her her peerage in 2010. The Scottish Labour mafia in action, now a busted flush.
I imagine this will be of interest to the commentators on Craig’s blog:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/27/yes-campaign-blogger-wings-over-scotland-stuart-campbell-fined-spending
So the fat greedy unelected troughing b*stards at the House of Lords make one right decision, for a change, and delayed the Commons for now, from cutting Tax Credits.
Reading the national press and listening and watching the media, you’d thought the HoL save Britain from the nasty Commies.
What will Osborne do? Well he’ll find some way around it, by going back to the drawing board and coming out with a plan that robs the less fortunate as the Jihad on the poor must continue.
“At this point you lose all credibility as a serious political commentator and demonstrate your credentials as a Nationalist propagandist and hate preacher.”
___________________
Part 1.
In 1999 Westminster moved Scotland’s Marine Boundaries from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Carnoustie. Illegally making 6000 miles of Scotland’s waters English.
Scottish MSP’s who belong to the parties who allowed this order must be ashamed of this order or worried of the affect it will have at the Holyrood election. Should enough Scots be made aware of this dreadful decision.
The shocking thing about this secret order is that it was not openly discussed in the Commons, passed by the house of Lords and then passed by a very select Labour and Liberal committee in the Scottish Office.
One wonders if, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the First of Scotland, knew how undemocratic this order was before she signed it ?
This unjust act secretly passed, without the consent of the Scottish People took approximately 15% of oil and gas revenues out of the Scottish sector of the North Sea taking £2.2 Billion out of the Scottish economy. This lost revenue is more than the proposed £35 Billion Scottish budget cuts for the next 15 years (£2.16 Billion per year)
This order was passed on the grounds of Scottish and English fishing rights.
Why then did Hamish Morrison, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation chief executive, say that although the boundaries became law a month ago, the federation had not been informed about the decision and there had been no effort made by the government to consult with the organisation on the matter.
This is the as-yet unexplained and secret action by Westminster Order in 1999 to move Scotland’s marine boundary from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Carnoustie. To this day this lost Scotland 6,000 square miles of the North Sea, nodded through at the time by the feckless and treacherous Lib/Lab arm of Westminster based in Holyrood.
http://www.oilofscotland.org/scottish_politics.html#Scotlands_marine_boundries
The Scottish Adjacent Waters Boundaries Order 1999.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080516173733/http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991126.htm
Part 2.
HENRY McLEISH has been revealed as the man who ”quietly moved” England’s North Sea fisheries boundary 60 miles north.
Scotland has a long history of traitors and Mcleish, along with just about every Secretary of State to Scotland Lord Robertson, Lord Foulkes and many others too numerous to name.
The SNP and Liberal Democrats last night joined fishing leaders in calling on First Minister Donald Dewar to explain why McLeish gave away Scotland’s legal rights to 6000 square miles of prime fishing waters to the English.
Gordon Wilson, an SNP candidate in the forthcoming European elections, claims the alteration to the fisheries boundary is ”strategic” in nature and sets a dangerous legal precedent.
Wilson is holding a conference in Aberdeen tomorrow to express outrage at the move which he says amounts to the English ”robbing us of our waters”.
Wilson added: ”If it had been land rather than water which had been robbed in such a fashion there would have been an uproar.
”This carve-up has been done under the guise of devolution and it is a threat to our rights under Scots law. Scottish fishermen fish between 80-85% of the waters which are affected and are now suddenly subject to English law.
”This area has been removed from Scottish jurisdiction … it is a dangerous precedent.”
Wilson said he was investigating whether the boundary shift would affect ”other activities”, such as oil and mineral exploration which take place inside the marine area.
LibDem Euro candidate Robert Aldridge said he was ”very concerned” about how the alteration to the boundary ”had come about”.
”It has been quietly done and seems to have bypassed any democratic process,” he said. ”It has broader implications for democracy which are quite worrying.
”We will be pressing to have this looked at again with a public examination of the reasons for the boundary change which has been implemented.”
The former boundary between English and Scottish waters ran due east from Berwick to a median line between the UK and Norway. But a new ”demarcated” limit has been created 60 miles further north at Carnoustie.
The new boundary has been drawn up under international maritime regulations to identify a zone within British fishery limits for which Scottish ministers will be responsible in the future.
The boundary shift was established by an order carried out at Westminster under the Scottish Adjacent Boundaries Order (1999).
The order was passed by the House of Lords and the Committee on Delegated Legislation on March 23, but was not openly debated in the Commons.
It was moved by McLeish – then a Scottish Office minister and now a senior member of the Scottish Cabinet – and reportedly received minimal opposition from a committee containing three other Scottish MPs – Tam Dalyell, Sir Robert Smith and John McAllion.
A Scottish Office spokesman said the change in the fishing boundary – which did not come to light until early last week – was necessary as a result of Scottish devolution. However, the spokesman could not explain the constitutional logic of the boundary alteration.
The spokesman said the area, which now comes under English limits, would be policed by Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food protection vessels rather than the Scottish Fishery Protection Agency.
“In 1999 Westminster moved Scotland’s Marine Boundaries ”
Which boundary was moved? The only boundary prior to 1999 was the legal jurisdiction boundary and that is still in place right where it always was.
The latest episode of ‘The Empire Files’…
Noam Chomsky & Abby Martin: Electing The President of an Empire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBZLnfKSa_k
(there’s a story behind the delayed broadcast of this episode, but I’ll get into that another time)
Mark Golding.
I’m afraid it’s true.
Andrew Lloyd Webber reportedly flew in first class from New York on Monday in an ultimately pointless attempt to bolster the government’s numbers in the House of Lords ahead of the tax credits vote.
Lloyd Webber, worth an estimated £650 million, was recorded as voting against Baroness Hollis’s motion to delay the bill for three years.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tax-credits-andrew-lloyd-webber-flown-in-from-new-york-in-attempt-to-salvage-tory-proposal-a6710301.html
FYI
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/01/scotlandengland-maritime-boundaries/
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/09/the-stolen-seas/
On Medialens
30% cut to sick and disabled benefits to go through House Of Commons today – where’s the outrage?
Welcome media coverage of the disgusting tax credits cuts yet barely a mention of this latest cut to the most vulnerable.
This article rapidly disappeared from the front page of The Guardian website:
Charities urge ministers to drop planned cuts to work support allowance
George Osborne plans to cut �30 a week from ESA, paid to claimants forced to give up work through illness or serious accident
Patrick Butler Social policy editor
Tuesday 27 October 2015 06.03 GMT
More than 60 national charities have called on ministers to drop controversial plans to cut �30 a week from the benefits of claimants forced to give up work through illness or serious accident, arguing it will make it harder for them to get a job in the future.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/27/charities-urge-ministers-to-drop-planned-cuts-to-work-support-allowance
/..
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1445943840.html
Rep of Scotland,you can’t have read the article you posted. So,it is not true,then, Mark Golding.
C’mon Fred nail this RoS character, if for no other reason than that he is a complete and utter B O R E.. And a total waste of space here, like the examples above.
Frankly who gives a fuck if 6,000 miles of sea went here or there? Btw, i’m presuming that’s square miles. And other than some red tape shit, I can’t figure out why this non-Scottie RoS arse is getting all exercised about this.
“Frankly who gives a fuck if 6,000 miles of sea went here or there? Btw, i’m presuming that’s square miles. And other than some red tape shit, I can’t figure out why this non-Scottie RoS arse is getting all exercised about this.”
Because to some people that isn’t sea it’s territory and it’s at people with that mentality the propaganda is aimed.