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The great Lords-Commons standoff Today, of course, the House of Lords gets to decide whether George Osborne’s controversial tax credits curtailment plan will go forward. Because of the way this is being pursued through Parliament, as a statutory instrument, this is a rare occasion when the Upper House can, if it wants to, block a major part of government policy. If this had been part of a finance bill then the House of Lords would have had no power to…

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Huffpost’s Paul Waugh has what appears like a scoop with a report that the House of Lords, where the Tories don’t have a majority, could kill the legislative move to change the tax credits system. This is because the means chosen by Osborne’s team to make this law is via a statutory instrument not new legislation. This has to be approved by both houses of parliament. Waugh writes: “..A rarely-used ‘fatal motion’ is set to be tabled in the House…

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Me for @TheTimes: Cameron must choose. His one nation mission or cuts in tax credits http://t.co/cPIc5UzO7M pic.twitter.com/mLxSYFsSPf — Tim Montgomerie ?? (@montie) October 18, 2015 Remember that George has turned before The headline on Tim Montgomerie’s piece for tomorrow’s Times and his Tweet say it all. The pressure is building for a U-turn. Let’s recall what happened in the aftermath of Osborne’s 2012 “Omnishambles budget”. A whole series of measure from the so-called granny to the pasty tax all got…

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The exchange from last night’s Question Time The above clip from last night’s Question Time has been doing the rounds throughout the day and highlights the challenge facing minsters, particularly Osborne, over his budget tax credits move which is due to come into place in the next couple of months. With Boris and the Sun already pressing hard for change this is an issue that has the potential to hurt the blue team just when everything seemed to be going…

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