What a strange week this is becoming. And I love a strange week.

It started with Spurs beating Bournemouth. Oh, that was nice.

Then it continued with George Osborne getting his tax credits proposal rejected by the House of Lords. An ‘unelected house’, no less. Having the sheer audacity to overturn the democratic House of Commons. How dare they!!! But dare they did. The first time that House has ‘interfered’ with financial planning since 1283 when Ethelred the Priapic tried to impose a tithe on mobile phones. Or whatever. The Lords interfering doesn’t happen often. But it is kind’a their job to act as a reviewer of intended policy.

As it happens, George Osborne is right in wanting to abolish the tax credits. They’re stupid and very very expensive. When Gordon Brown introduced them (what? 6 years ago? 7??) they cost 1.1 billion quid. Last year that had risen to 30 billion. And its a credit for lowly paid individuals. And has thus become a subsidy for horrible employers to encourage them to keep wages as low as possible. Because the government will top it up. If they raise wages those workers would lose their benefit. So they don’t. And everyone’s happy. Except those of us who pay for it. The employers should pay higher wages themselves, then we wouldn’t need a tax credit. Ok, not quite so simple, I grant you. Some jobs can’t justify higher wages.

But George went too far. He needed to bring the changes slowly, to ease people out of them. Not just ‘ok mate, we’re taking £1300 a year off you as from tomorrow, even though you only earn £18,000. Tough shit’. Its not nice. It doesn’t exactly appear ‘caring’ or ‘benevolent’ in any way. And appearance is everything. A conservative government can’t ever appear to hit the poor. Not in such a big way.

Then last night the world turned upside down.

Arsenal lost to Sheffield Wednesday in the Capital One Cup. Didn’t just lose to the low-league club, but 3-0. That’s a big one. And losing players to injury won’t please them much either. Time for Wenger to start bemoaning the ‘lack of depth’ in his squad. The same squad he steadfastly refuses to increase every summer on the basis that he doesn’t need to.

And Chelsea lost at Stoke. Not quite such an upset as Chelsea are losing to everyone at the moment. But I fear for Jose Morinho. He’s now totally insane and the loss of his job, albeit with the inevitable 25 million pound pay-off, might push him over the edge. Time for his meds.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx