FlyTheNest

Tuesday's vote will be interesting to say the least. While all the talk has been about government concessions in actual fact all they've done is offer the bare minimum and kicked the can down the road for a year or two. It's not the government who've caved, it's a significant enough chunk of the rebels if we're to believe the reports about how many of them have been mollified.

Absurdly we're now in a position where amendments to the bill won't be published before Tuesday's vote, meaning MPs will have to vote without knowing what they're ultimately agreeing to.

We were told on Thursday that all the Labour chairs of select committees had agreed to back the government but on Friday Debbie Abrahams, who chairs the Work and Pensions Select Committee, told the BBC, "The concessions are a good start, they are very good concessions and they will protect existing claimants*. However there are still concerns about new claimants. It would not be right for me not to do anything just to spare the prime minister an inconvenience."

So we just don't know.

What I do know is multiple charities and pressure groups will have spent the weekend contacting MPs pointing out how paltry the concessions actually are so I guess we'll see how stern the rebels' resolve really is.


*Sadly this is far from being true

Also for anyone thinking you need to go to Alaska or Scandinavia for it to be light all day during the Summer here's a picture I took on the way home from the pub last night about 11.30.