It is a degree of just how much George Osborne’s post-election attack on tax credits represents an assault of genuinely historic proportions on Britain’s destitute that his PM has made reference to the 1911 Parliament Act in his railing against popular protest and his fear of blocking measures in the House of Lords (Report,22 October). Let us remember why the act was brought in by the Liberal government of Asquith and Lloyd George. The landed wealth elite, including men such as George Osborne’s direct ancestors, and the Anglo-Irish baronets of Ballentaylor,dominated the House of Lords. They rejected the elected government’s policy – democratically tested at the bar of two general elections in 1910 – to impose new progressive forms of taxation on the super-wealthy to attend fund such basic social security measures for the working destitute as pensions and the first National Insurance Act.Just over a century later, a Conservative government is seeking to impose on the poorest in society a drastic crop in their living standards, and through a policy which was deliberately not achieve before the electorate at an election fought a few months ago. Mr Cameron is darkly mentioning the Parliament Act of 1911 to cow the House of Lords into compliance because the upper chamber is no longer exclusively the club of the wealth elite as it was in 1911. The alternative,as Mr Cameron’s timely recollection of the 1911 Parliament Act reminds us all, is for parliament to ensure that the financial elite pay their way more fully in our society, or a case that is all the more compelling considering their undisputed role in punching a gap in the nation’s finances in 2008. The problem today is not control over the House of Lords. Today’s financial elite have found that it is much more efficient to exert their control over the House of Commons itself. This they attain though a Tory party that is almost entirely funded by them and whose administration is safely in the hands of a chancellor who fully appreciates the importance of looking after the interests of the nation’s wealth elites. After all,he is the future 18th baronet of Ballentaylor.
Simon Szreter
Professor of history and public policy, University of CambridgeContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com