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House of Lords Reform.


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Interesting plan Dave's come up with - in the name of democracy Lords will be elected - but only 80% of them, and not for 15years. Seems they will be elected on a Regional Party List system, similar to MEPs; which means the Political Parties will choose the candidates, to be rubber stamped by the electorate. So basically, the only change from them nominating peers directly (as now), will be the charade of an election, with the same nominees getting in. Not exactly a constitutional revolution. :unsure:

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Some peer or other on the radio saying that he accepted that he was no more suited to the role than anyone else but God had chosen him for this great burden - Pratt!

 

We need a fully elected second chamber - 5 year terms and members able to stand again - or otherwise where's the accountability.

 

 

Until the second chamber is fully elected we have no business calling ourselves a democracy.

 

There has been whinging that there are other things to address - there always are but this is important - it should be a matter of principole that those who legislate should be chosen by the people.

 

Calls to carry on delaying reminds me of a cooment i heard , on the TV, when they were bringing in decimal coinage "they should wait until there aren't any old people"

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The problems with a fully elected second chamber is that if you have a government with a massive majority (such as when Bliar came to power because all the gullables voted for him) the Lords was there as a rein on his egotistical power mad policies.... to some degree.

 

If at the time the Lords was fully elected you would have had a situation where a massive Labour majority in the commons wasn't kept in line by a massive lords majority...

 

There is no easy solution but there has to be some form of limiting of how many seats each party can have

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Simples - knock the numbers down to 100 (not the 300 proposed); elect them on a national Party List system, directly proportional to the total votes cast at a General Election - 1% of the votes = one seat etc. Then seperate the Executive function from the Legislative one, by allowing the Senate majority (HoL) to form the Government. Meanwhile, cut the numbers of MPs by half (down to around 300) by merging constituencies, and save around £40million at the same time! Perhaps a tad too revolutionary and democratic for our political dinasours! :D:wink:

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If the Lords are to be an elected body, they should be fully elected. The only way of doing this in a meaningful manner would be to have a fixed term Parliament, with the Lords elected mid-way through the Commons' term. That way, you stand some chance that the Lords will not simply be a carbon copy of the Commons.

 

Personally, I saw nothing wrong with the old way of having the REAL Lords. Contrary to popular belief, they were not all Tories.

 

But if you object, because you are one of these people who think you are being asked to tug your forelock all the time because some folk have, by accident, been born with more privilege than you have got, we could have a House of Lords made up of people who have won, say, more than a million pounds on the National Lottery. :rolleyes:

 

It would be better than having the political parties have any say in the matter!

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But if you object, because you are one of these people who think you are being asked to tug your forelock all the time because some folk have, by accident, been born with more privilege than you have got, we could have a House of Lords made up of people who have won, say, more than a million pounds on the National Lottery. :rolleyes:

 

It would be better than having the political parties have any say in the matter!

 

 

Not a question of tugging forelocks or wealth, inherited or otherwise, - it's a question of democratic rule by those selected and removeable, vis the ballot box.

 

Interesting your , I assume facetious, remark about the lottery as the historic system has relied on the lottery of the womb.

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The key sticking point in all this is the primacy of the Commons; with two elected Houses, which one has the greater legitimacy? There is a valid arguement for just scrapping the House of Lords altogether; but the arguement for a second ammending or revising Chamber opposes this; but if the Commons has ultimate primacy, what's the point of a revising chamber, if it can be ignored, other than delay? The arguement for the 20% unelected Peers, is to retain the abilty to appoint so-called experts in various fields; well a) experts can be retained by politicians as advisers and B) they could stand for election anyway. The other anomoly will be the appointment (changed to election) of Party hacks and cronies; which a Party system inevitably involves. One suggestion would be to have ordinary members of the public, selected in a similar way to the Jury system, thus acting as the voice of public opinion over Party politics; alas, no way will the politicians allow that to happen! :unsure:

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The problems with a fully elected second chamber is that if you have a government with a massive majority (such as when Bliar came to power because all the gullables voted for him) the Lords was there as a rein on his egotistical power mad policies.... to some degree.

 

If at the time the Lords was fully elected you would have had a situation where a massive Labour majority in the commons wasn't kept in line by a massive lords majority...

 

There is no easy solution but there has to be some form of limiting of how many seats each party can have

 

The problems with a fully elected second chamber is that if you have a government with a massive majority (such as when Thatcher came to power because all the gullables voted for her) the Lords was there as a rein on her egotistical power mad policies.... to some degree.

 

If at the time the Lords was fully elected you would have had a situation where a massive Tory majority in the commons wasn't kept in line by a massive lords majority...

 

There is no easy solution but there has to be some form of limiting of how many seats each party can have :wink:

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Nick, I think for a lot of people it IS a question of tugging forelocks.

But I will modify my suggestions of an upper house populated by lottery winners.

Let it be lottery winners who, after five years, have doubled their money. That way we will have people with some idea of how to handle money and weed out the winners whose first response is to say: "I'm going on a real good holiday" or "I'm going to buy an Aston Martin."

 

The important thing is to get the political parties out of the equation. To change the subject slightly, I see in today's news we have a Labour party chap standing for election to be the new police commissioner. No doubt we will have a Tory and a Lib Dem too. That means people who vote (if many do) will vote on party lines. We want a police commissioner independent of all political parties - and the same is true of the upper house.

Bring back the REAL lords - at least, the ones that have proved capable of remaining solvent!

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So delete party politics and just have 100 citizens selected, like a jury, each year - and they (on behalf of the rest of us) can oversee the the petty party political bickering of the politicians in the Commons?! :wink:

 

wouldn't work.... most working people resent doing their two week jury service as it is; let alone trying to get 100 people to do it for a whole year!!

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Egbert... if I'd won a few million quid on the lottery; the last thing I would want to do is to commit to a full time occupation of being in the house of lords..... unless I could do it from my yacht in the Carribean!!

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