Clear the bar!

Perhaps it's just a reflection of the better education they may have received than those who attended what Alistair Campbell termed 'sink comprehensives' where many an able child may have sunk without trace.

I suppose one could have termed many of the last Labour administration as priviliged; and although Jeremy Corbyn too led a fairly priviliged life - good for him for now getting to the top of the Labour Party despite his abysmal results at school. It took time but he made it.

They did not choose their birth but they have definitely used it to line their pockets and those of their friends, not the workers, which is all pretence.
Cameron was asked six times today whether anyone would lose out and he refused to answer it, because he knows that the poor will still lose out, but not as abruptly as next April.

'The government launched a “rapid review” led by Lord Strathclyde of how MPs can be given the “decisive role” over key financial decisions on Tuesday, following the government’s Lords defeat the previous day over plans to cut tax credits. Strathclyde said on Wednesday the Lords had acted “wrongly, deplorably and unnecessarily”.

Bryant asked Grayling in the Commons: “Does the leader see no irony at all in getting the House of Lords to review the financial privilege of the House of Commons and for that matter [a review by a] hereditary peer?”

He pointed to an instance in 1999 where a Conservative-led Lords voted down two statutory instruments proposed by the then Labour government, a move Strathclyde defended at the time, describing the convention that prevented peers from doing so as “dead”.'

Even when the government finds themselves on the back foot and want a review into the Lords, they can only think of asking a hereditary peer to run the review. Privilege can only think of privilege.

I think everyone will agree that no one can help their family background whatever it happens to be or where their parents choose to send them to school? so why this constant sneering emphasis about posh boys as if they themselves chose their birth and early life to deliberately place themselves a cut above other people. I believe some socialists also come from privileged backgrounds, even JC didn't exactly have a deprived start in life, a beautiful parental home, a grammar school education, not really working class credentials, but the rest of don't use that particular part of his life that he can hardly be held responsible for as a stick to beat and ridicule him. So why do you people constantly do it to G.O and D.C, even to the point of mocking G.O's original christian name. It's irrelevant and frankly mindless.

Out of all that just the elitist background jumps out at you rar. Lying and lack of compassion just to be expected then.

(See my post of 17.40 which was of course completely ignored by durhamjen, even though it was in response to hers of 17.37.)

Yes. Well said, rosequartz.

Which is why it's important to reduce a bloated welfare state.Just important to do things in a fair manner.

Very true!

They should be phased out, but not before the wages go up

I just wonder about what sort of society has been created that is so dependent on welfare benefits.
It is a long way from the welfare state envisaged in the first place by the pioneers of the 'New Society'.
I am sure those whose vision for the future would be horrified at so many mothers struggling to bring up families on their own - not because of widowhood due to WW2 but because they had been abandoned or through choice and are now relying on the state to supplement low wages as they try to feed and clothe their families. The CSA was useless in pursuing errant fathers for a fair share of their income to support those children they brought into the world.

Nor was its intention to subsidise greedy landlords charging high rents.
Or to support employers by subsidising wages.

That assistance for the unemployed (for whatever reason), disabled and sick is an essential part of a caring society goes without saying.

It is not just the tax credit system that is in a mess - it's the whole of society.

Boris Johnson is just as elitist, but he opposed the way the tax credits were being phased out. They should be phased out, but not before the wages go up.

Back to elitist backgrounds are we?

Of course DC and GO are two of the cleverest men in Britain. They have successfully played down their posh elitist background, convinced the electorate they can sort out the economy and that they care about the poor and underprivileged whilst introducing legislation that made them suffer, at the same time as they handed tax breaks to their richest mates. "It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all"

There is a worldwide slump in growth.

Just as some people defend GB's handling of the economy and blame it all on the bankers, then some posters will look at the present economy and see that it is not due to GO's handling of it - unfortunately if China sneezes the rest of the world will catch a cold.

By the way, the government has already been defeated 20 times in the House of Lords since May.

www.parliament.uk/about/faqs/house-of-lords-faqs/lords-govtdefeats/

A list of other defeats from 1974 onwards.
No constitutional crisis. If the government had played fair and not tried to get it through the way it did, there would have been changes under scrutiny from the commons, but the Lords would not have been able to change it.
They lied and cheated and got caught.

'In this entire article there is not the glimmer of an understanding that higher living standards depend fundamentally, not on welfare provision, but on individual and national wealth-creation and competitive success in the free, now global, market.

Income redistribution to the least well-off (i.e. robbing Peter to pay Paul), in all its forms, including tax credits, is counter-productive when it significantly impedes wealth creation and competitive success.'

'The policies and rhetoric around the drive to cut the welfare bill show the persistence of a 19th century approach to relieving poverty known as “less eligibility”. In a similar drive to today’s reforms, the Poor Law was amended in 1834 to reduce what was seen as its unsustainable cost. It was argued that the “first and most essential” condition of poor relief was that those receiving it should not be better off than the poorest of workers.

The reason given was that otherwise it would be more attractive to be part of the “pauper class” than to work for a living. The Conservative government’s plans to reform welfare are justified in very similar terms. And yet the emphasis on rewarding hard-working people has been contradicted by their attempts to cut tax credits – and the Lords' vote reflects this seeming injustice in the plans.'

I often thought it. Good to have it confirmed.

No, it was it was very effective. Of course they know, and so do I and the rest of Parliament. The poor will suffer more cuts. They have no intention of saying so,- just like they lied before the election.
Nelly Well we have waited for 5 years and no sign of any success yet.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/28/david-cameron-tax-credits-refuses-to-say-plan-leave-people-worse-off

No it wasn't. It was sensible. It showed everybody that Cameron has no idea about the problems that those claiming tax credits have to face.
If they do not know now, they should do. They are trying to deflect again.

These are the people that were voted in because they were supposed to be able to run the economy. By making millions of people worse off? By getting rid of the steel industry?
By putting DWP advisers into food banks?

It was idiotic of Corbyn to use up all his questions at PMQ's today banging on about the same thing.. How can DC or Osborne possibly know at this moment what they will announce about the tax credit changes, too early to say.

No, not tongue in cheek, it was a serious interview, and I think you will find that the Chancellor will get the economy straight. Let's just hope we don't get another Labour government to wreck it again, as throughout history this is what they have persistently done.

Cameron is now trying to suggest that if the tax credit cuts are not made than other things must suffer like NHS, police etc. As if cuts are the only option. How about not reducing corporation tax, how about re-looking at inheritance tax? There are many options not just the ones Cameron is trying to sell.

Of course we know that the truth is that the poor will suffer after next April. Osborne is banking on the fact that the voter will have forgotten this by 2020.

Why did he ignore everyone who warned him that he was clearly going to hit the poorest workers worse?

£1500 worse off. How can they do that, and how can they still not say that they will ensure that the poorest will not loose at all after next April.

Still no good at running the economy though.

In an interview with the Guardian to mark the upcoming release of his book After the Storm, Cable says the chancellor is “engaging, a good listener, and highly intelligent".

Doesn't sound tongue-in-cheek to me...

niggly I assume Cable was talking with his tongue in his cheek

A sound economy is certainly what we all want - nowhere near it yet and year on year getting worse.