Quote of the day

Lady Stowell, Tory leader in the Lords, defending the indefensible during the debate on tax credits:

“Let me be clear,” Stowell said. The only clarity thereafter was that she would rather be anywhere but where she was. Even though David Cameron had specifically ruled out cutting tax credits before the election, Stowell assured the Lords everyone had assumed they would, so it was perfectly reasonable to sneak them through on a statutory instrument – and even if they hadn’t it would be a constitutional crisis if the Lords were to vote for a fatal amendment, even it wasn’t actually fatal. As long as everyone was reasonably nice to the Conservatives and didn’t do anything worse than express regret about her party’s incompetence, she could give her word that the chancellor had promised he would have a rethink and come up with something a bit better in the next few days.