There was a time, in my relative youth, when I supported the House of Lords concept.
The idea being it was staffed by people who didn't need the job and who could be relied upon to be as impartial - as ever that may be possible for a politician, particularly an unelected one.
However, as the years have passed, the number of these bought and sold sinecures has dramatically increased as have the overall numbers of the House of Lords.
The power of Prime Ministerial patronage has been so totally abused down the years, with cronies, former aides, donors and party hacks being given this preferment - FOR LIFE - with no opportunity for me or anyone else to vote them out.
There are currently 772 of them, with around 25 of these being churchmen (should that be 'church-people' I wonder) and I can see no justification for these latter having the powers to redraft legislation.
As for re-treading David Cameron, as for ennobling Sadiq Khan - I mean, REALLY???
And so Starmer demonstrates the literally sick-making reality via his hypocrisy.
There is absolutely a case for a second chamber, but no case whatsoever (IMHO) for an unelected one.
Whilst believing we have far too many politicians altogether - (we ran the entire British Empire with significantly fewer than we have today) - I believe the current HoL should be changed into an elected Chamber of some sort; at the very least it would give the UK elector SOME sort of say in its content. That would also limit the term, which we know is being abused to the tune of nearly 400 quid just for turning up for a few minutes each day! If elections were staggered so as not to coincide with the GE dates, we would also be able to retain much better oversight of our governments when they decided to ignore the promises they had made on the stump.
Like you, I recall a time when the House of Lords could be relied upon to bring sense and sensibility to the more outlandish legislation emerging from the Commons. Sadly I suspect that an elected upper chamber would serve only to either endorse proposals from their party colleagues in the Commons, or alternatively reject those of opposing parties.
Yet an elected second chamber would have electoral validity and so it would inevitably compete with the HoC. Border disputes would become commonplace. That would not add to our governance.
It is easy to break but much more difficult to make and the past 30 years have been spent breaking.
The US is a Republic with a directly elected executive President. The UK has a parliamentary system so the dynamics are very different. Each country has its traditions and governance arrangements but all rules and laws depend on everyone adhering to them in spirit as well as technically.
The USA has seen what happens when a political party and its allies in the media and the courts declare total war on a particular candidate, president and administration.
I am sure we cannot continue with the HoL as it has become as a result of gross abuse by the successive leaders of the old parties. Just what a replacement or evolution should look like I do not think I know yet. The membership and party imbalance has become so great and politics so polarised that new solutions will have to be thought about.
If we were to have an elected HoL there would have to be limits on its power to try to stop competition with the HoL. Bad faith politicians might still reduce parliament to a battleground unable to pass legislation. Any election should be on different constituencies and different days that the HoC elections. Former MPs and NGO officials etc should be barred from office there for some years after leaving their former role.
We have an elected lower chamber whose validity is a function of FPTP and no other; it has no wider mandate given the turnout, a manifesto rejected by the vast majority of the electorate irrespective of the turnout. The second chamber has been used and abused since 1911, and Starmer has not resiled from that one iota.
I agree. The big changes have been that the two (at times two and a quarter) parties used to collect over ninety per cent of the vote. As a result FPTP voting was a reasonable approximation of public will. Now the old parties are despised but use the sorts of methods oligopolistic or monopoly businesses often use to keep out a new competitor.
I think it would be a mistake to rush a material change in the voting system until we see whether the old parties are displaced and how the voting falls afterwards. If a change were to be made I favour a version of the German one so proper constituency MPs continue while top-up MPs to get nearer to proportionality should not be at the whim of the leaders but according to their individual performance.
As far as the Lords is concerned, I agree but the changes since Blair have been different in character. Up to that point even whipped peers were very independent and often very well informed. They used to defy the governments of their own party quite often.
Now we have a second chamber wholly comprised friends of recent usually still living former PMs. That is unacceptable. But what to replace it with. That is a big question not suited to this post, I think.
Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if a change in leadership is going to do anything helpful for UKoGBaNI. Maybe go back to the Magna Carta (or we'll freely donate our Declaration of Independence as an alternate foundation), and re-build systems for actual governance for a new start.
Happy to be corrected, but it appears the resistance to change in the HoL might have seized control of the process had they accepted change was inevitable.
There was a time, in my relative youth, when I supported the House of Lords concept.
The idea being it was staffed by people who didn't need the job and who could be relied upon to be as impartial - as ever that may be possible for a politician, particularly an unelected one.
However, as the years have passed, the number of these bought and sold sinecures has dramatically increased as have the overall numbers of the House of Lords.
The power of Prime Ministerial patronage has been so totally abused down the years, with cronies, former aides, donors and party hacks being given this preferment - FOR LIFE - with no opportunity for me or anyone else to vote them out.
There are currently 772 of them, with around 25 of these being churchmen (should that be 'church-people' I wonder) and I can see no justification for these latter having the powers to redraft legislation.
As for re-treading David Cameron, as for ennobling Sadiq Khan - I mean, REALLY???
And so Starmer demonstrates the literally sick-making reality via his hypocrisy.
There is absolutely a case for a second chamber, but no case whatsoever (IMHO) for an unelected one.
Whilst believing we have far too many politicians altogether - (we ran the entire British Empire with significantly fewer than we have today) - I believe the current HoL should be changed into an elected Chamber of some sort; at the very least it would give the UK elector SOME sort of say in its content. That would also limit the term, which we know is being abused to the tune of nearly 400 quid just for turning up for a few minutes each day! If elections were staggered so as not to coincide with the GE dates, we would also be able to retain much better oversight of our governments when they decided to ignore the promises they had made on the stump.
Not that I hold out much hope.
Like you, I recall a time when the House of Lords could be relied upon to bring sense and sensibility to the more outlandish legislation emerging from the Commons. Sadly I suspect that an elected upper chamber would serve only to either endorse proposals from their party colleagues in the Commons, or alternatively reject those of opposing parties.
Yet an elected second chamber would have electoral validity and so it would inevitably compete with the HoC. Border disputes would become commonplace. That would not add to our governance.
It is easy to break but much more difficult to make and the past 30 years have been spent breaking.
Imagine the USA with an unelected Senate whose membership was appointed for life by each sitting President.
The US is a Republic with a directly elected executive President. The UK has a parliamentary system so the dynamics are very different. Each country has its traditions and governance arrangements but all rules and laws depend on everyone adhering to them in spirit as well as technically.
The USA has seen what happens when a political party and its allies in the media and the courts declare total war on a particular candidate, president and administration.
I am sure we cannot continue with the HoL as it has become as a result of gross abuse by the successive leaders of the old parties. Just what a replacement or evolution should look like I do not think I know yet. The membership and party imbalance has become so great and politics so polarised that new solutions will have to be thought about.
If we were to have an elected HoL there would have to be limits on its power to try to stop competition with the HoL. Bad faith politicians might still reduce parliament to a battleground unable to pass legislation. Any election should be on different constituencies and different days that the HoC elections. Former MPs and NGO officials etc should be barred from office there for some years after leaving their former role.
Pretty much agree with all of that.
We have an elected lower chamber whose validity is a function of FPTP and no other; it has no wider mandate given the turnout, a manifesto rejected by the vast majority of the electorate irrespective of the turnout. The second chamber has been used and abused since 1911, and Starmer has not resiled from that one iota.
I agree. The big changes have been that the two (at times two and a quarter) parties used to collect over ninety per cent of the vote. As a result FPTP voting was a reasonable approximation of public will. Now the old parties are despised but use the sorts of methods oligopolistic or monopoly businesses often use to keep out a new competitor.
I think it would be a mistake to rush a material change in the voting system until we see whether the old parties are displaced and how the voting falls afterwards. If a change were to be made I favour a version of the German one so proper constituency MPs continue while top-up MPs to get nearer to proportionality should not be at the whim of the leaders but according to their individual performance.
As far as the Lords is concerned, I agree but the changes since Blair have been different in character. Up to that point even whipped peers were very independent and often very well informed. They used to defy the governments of their own party quite often.
Now we have a second chamber wholly comprised friends of recent usually still living former PMs. That is unacceptable. But what to replace it with. That is a big question not suited to this post, I think.
Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if a change in leadership is going to do anything helpful for UKoGBaNI. Maybe go back to the Magna Carta (or we'll freely donate our Declaration of Independence as an alternate foundation), and re-build systems for actual governance for a new start.
Happy to be corrected, but it appears the resistance to change in the HoL might have seized control of the process had they accepted change was inevitable.