With a gossamer Tory majority in the Commons and no majority at all in the Lords, confrontation between the two chambers was always inevitable. Tonight’s defeat over tax credits will be the first of many. But it would be a great error for the Conservative government to choose this as the issue over which to go to war with the Lords.
For a start, their Lordships are right: taking tax credits away from low-paid workers, rather than phasing them out, is cruel and and unnecessary. Next, this was not in the Tory manifesto: the party said they would cut £12 billion but didn’t say how — and had hinted that they would not do it by tax credits.
But also, crucially, this battle threatens to retoxify the Conservatives. What does it say about Tory values? That the party will make a constitutional crisis out of its desire to tear away financial support from low-paid families who had thought that the Tories were on their side? The people who have done everything that Cameron’s government asks of them?
Jeremy Corbyn may well tempt the Tories into hubris, make George Osborne think that he can do anything, pass any law, ride through any media storm.
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