All hail the courageous few who stand up against injustice, as Conservative MP Heidi Allen did to Osborne

Whether expressed by MPs, magistrates or bishops, the instinctive feeling that something isn’t right is striking

Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, Heidi Allen, criticised the cuts in her maiden speech in Parliament this week

People are always dissatisfied with the government of the day. Every now and again, however, there is a special quality to the unease that merits attention. This is such a moment.

For some who object also take a stand that requires either courage or sacrifice. See the case of Heidi Allen, a new Conservative MP, and the maiden speech she gave in the House of Commons on 20 October during a debate on tax credits. She disregarded the convention that controversy should be avoided on such occasions; you are supposed to introduce yourself to the Commons by saying nice things about your predecessor and your constituency and leave it at that.

But, courageously, Allen launched a full-out attack on the Government’s tax credits policy. Her speech is worth examination.

She began by saying that her decision to become an MP was a recent one. “It was the Tottenham riots of 2011 that shook me from my comfort zone. Night after night, my television showed me a country that was falling apart – my country – with social breakdown and an economy on the verge of collapse. I felt so strongly that I had to step forward and lend a hand.”

So Allen is not one of those members of Parliament who have done nothing but politics all their lives. She didn’t start off in a party research department or friendly think-tank, then move on to become a special adviser to a government minister until her party steered her towards a safe parliamentary seat. The only thing that would shake those sorts of apparatchiks from their comfort zones would be losing an election.

Allen is completely different. She has a degree in astrophysics and until the general election she was the managing director of her family’s manufacturing business, started by her parents in 1978.

In her speech, she went on to observe that she did not care whose fault it was that the country had ended up with a bloated welfare state. But, she added, she did know one thing: “It is not the fault of the recipients of tax credits... if we want to change those rules, we have to support the people through that change. This is not a spreadsheet exercise. This is not a Budget document on a piece of paper. We are talking about real people – working people.”

On hearing this searing criticism of George Osborne, seasoned political observers would say that Allen’s chances of promotion are precisely nil. But if she is as wise as I think she is, she will be saying to herself: let the chips fall where they may.

Magistrates are choosing a different way to show their profound of dislike of government policy. Some of them are sacrificing their jobs and the prestige that goes with them by resigning. Their problem is a new policy that requires alleged offenders to make a payment towards the costs of running the courts that try them. Richard Monkhouse, chair of the Magistrates Association, said: “Our members have expressed concerns about the charge from the outset and it shows the strength of feeling when experienced magistrates resign from the bench because of it.”

One of these is George Lyons, a magistrate in North Tyneside. He wrote a resignation letter to the Magistrates Association’s magazine in which he warned that the charge puts pressure on people to admit crimes they have not committed in order to avoid a larger fine. In an interview with his local newspaper he said: “It certainly wasn’t an easy decision to step down. I wish I was still there.”

He regretted leaving a role he loved. Who wouldn’t? Magistrates are well-respected pillars of their local communities.

“It all came out of the blue,” added Lyons. “It was just through a letter that... we found out the new legislation was coming in and what levels the fees would be... It was just three weeks before it was due to come in... I looked and I just didn’t like anything about it. I just didn’t feel comfortable.” That instinctive feeling that something isn’t right is striking.

This same emotion can be found in the Bishop of Portsmouth’s speech in the House of Lords debate on tax credits. I know bishops well enough to rate his words as being unusually strong: “I say to the Government that these proposals are morally indefensible”. They “blatantly threaten damage to the lives of millions of our fellow citizens”.

Then in Monday’s newspaper, my colleague, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, wrote a splendid column commenting on the embarrassment that many people felt when they saw last week how the British government “kowtowed” to President Xi during the Chinese state visit. The word kowtow is particularly appropriate here. It comes from the Chinese word that describes an act of deep respect shown by kneeling and bowing so low that one’s head touches the ground. As Steve Hilton, once a close adviser to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, commented at the time: “China is a great and special country that we should be happy and proud to engage with. There’s only one problem: it’s run by a bunch of cruel, corrupt, communist dictators.”

Cameron and Osborne are offending British standards of behaviour: you don’t kowtow to anyone. You don’t load the burden of balancing the budget onto the backs of the working poor. Nor do you charge the wretches who come before the magistrates with the costs of running the justice system. These are not the British ways of doing things. And so we see how long periods in ministerial office coarsen the mind.