Labour and Tories in first direct conflict on Twitter over Tory plans to limit child tax credits to lowest earners
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By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982
Commentators often pontificate over how the web will affect political campaigning during the general election. Will it affect how parties communicate with the media, or the electorate? Will online organisation give one party an advantage over the others?
Today, for the first time, Labour and the Tories entered direct combat over Twitter, with the official @UKLabour account and @SamuelCoates, the Tories’ new media guru and former Cameron speechwriter debating the merits of the parties’ respective policies in tweets to one another.
At 1pm this afternoon, @UKLabour tweeted:
How many families will be hit by Tory plans to restrict Child Tax Credits to families earning £31,000 or below? #AskGeorge
@SamuelCoates replied:
Lies: http://j.mp/ciVBA6 RT @UKLabour How many families will be hit by plans to restrict Child Tax Credits to families earning <£31,000?
@UKLabour responded, saying:
Read the IFS Green Budget p168 – http://tinyurl.com/ybh7trt
@SamuelCoates then said:
we’re committed to the £50,000 level
To which @UKLabour wrote:
Was Hammond wrong on £400m saving on factcheck today then? http://bit.ly/bHtYqs
Seeimngly flummoxed, Sam Coates didn’t reply for an hour, but @UKLabour persisted:
No response on that one?
@SamuelCoates has now said, simply:
Our policy is clear. You (whoever you are) are just scaremongering.
@UKLabour responded instantly, saying:
Either keep Child Tax Credit level at £50K or save £400m but you can’t do both.
The Tory policy is not clear — the IFS have said the Tories’ child tax credit plans, if they intend to save £400 million, would limit child tax credits to families earning over than £31,000 per year between them. The report @UKLabour referred to shows that families on modest and middle incomes would have to lose out for Conservative plans to add up.
IFS research was originally cited by George Osborne as confirmation that his plan to cut child tax credits would only mean ending support for families on combined incomes of over £50,000. In January, when George Osborne’s sums were called into question by Treasury data, the Tories said:
“Our estimates that this policy would save £400m were verified by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies”.
However, the IFS’ Green Budget report spells out clearly that to reach the £400 million in savings that George Osborne said his plan would raise, the Tories would need to cut support for all families earning over £16,000 each.
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