So tonight the Labour Party tweeted this:

It’s a lie.

There were three votes in the Lords tonight on the Tories’ planned cuts to tax credits. The first was a Liberal Democrat amendment, called a “fatal” motion, which as the name suggests would have completely killed the plans. So worried were the Tories about it that David Cameron threatened to flood the Lords – which currently does NOT have a Tory majority – with new Tory peers if it passed.

Labour abstained on the amendment, which as a result failed by 99 votes to 310:

Social media exploded with rage, but Labour reacted angrily:

Murray was referring to the second and third motions, which rather than killing the cuts voted to ask the government to delay them and “protect” claimants on low incomes for three years. What exactly was meant by those changes was clearly explained by the Labour baroness who’d put forward the third amendment.

In other words, rather than the cuts having been stopped and the Tories being forced into an incredibly controversial and difficult gerrymandering of the second chamber:

– Anyone who becomes eligible for tax credits from now on will suffer the cuts immediately, without any three-year “protection”.

– Anyone already on tax credits will still suffer the cuts, but they’ll pay them through reductions in Universal Credit rather than tax credits.

– The total final amount of cuts will actually be HIGHER than those planned by the Conservatives.

We fully expect that spontaneous demonstrations and rallies from low-paid workers cheering Labour’s heroic intervention are breaking out in the streets even as we type this, as the grateful poor celebrate losing more money in a slightly different way to the one originally proposed. We’re off out for a look.

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Previously in this series:

The Abstainers

Return Of The Abstainers

The Abstainers Go Fracking

In Bed With The Abstainers

The Abstainers: Abstain Harder

Excuses Of The Abstainers