Were peers right to vote against tax credit cuts?

WELL done the Lords and especially Molly Meacher. Neither George Osborne nor David Cameron has ever experienced poverty and has no idea of the lives of ordinary working folk. Surely when ex-Chancellor Nigel Lawson expressed his concern about this legislation, you would expect them to heed his warning. They didn’t and in their arrogance they are threatening the composition of the Lords. Common sense should tell them that they must think again!

JEAN LORRIMAN, Waterloo, W. yorks. Reading Quentin Letts’s account of Monday in the House of Lords and the tax credit turmoil, it’s hard to believe that in the 21st century such anachronistic and arrogant peers survive. Purge the lot — and that worthless and irrelevant House.

GRAHAM ANDREWS, Bideford, Devon. IN 1909, the House of Lords voted against Lloyd George’s ‘People’s Budget’ (designed to help the poorest) and as a result the powers of the Lords were curtailed and in 1911 the National Insurance Act was passed. Isn’t it ironic that all these years later the Lords have upset the current Chancellor by trying to help the poor in our society?

MERVYN WILLIAMS, Waterloo, W. yorks. SURELY, the Lords’ decision means the end of this unelected political club? a government elected on an austerity ticket has had a proposal passed three times, only for it to be overridden by this shower, who are peers as a reward for party donations or for favours to people in power. now, lots of people will be cheering about what happened, but imagine Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn’s proposals for nationalisation, passed in the Commons, only for the Lords to veto them — there would be public outcry. These people in the Lords collect £300 a day expenses and eat and quaff wine each day, all at our expense and parade about in their ermine robes like some ridiculous medieval pantomime. There are roughly 800 of these buffoons in the Lords, but only 300plus seats — it’s the second-biggest assembly of unelected people outside communist China. We have to get rid of this set-up and have a much smaller, elected modern assembly.

John D. RICE, liverpool. I DON’T know why the Government is complaining about being defeated by the unelected House of Lords. They never seem to complain about being overruled by the unelected European Commission.