Of course the UK parliament is entirely elected and unappointed
(, Wed 15 Feb 2017, 19:49, Share, Reply)
There's literally no point in having two elected houses.
If you're gonna have a second house, it must by necessity be selected via a different method than the first in order to not suffer the same disadvantages.
I never really understand why people object to the Lords in general.... certainly hereditary peers need to get to fuck, and I don't really see what bishops have to do with anything. But in principle having an unelected house, representative of the recent political and social history of the nation, who are not beholden to the populist whims of a relatively uninformed public, and who are not desperately attempting to win a popularity contest, is actually a bloody good thing.
(, Wed 15 Feb 2017, 20:16, Share, Reply)
You make a good case, except for the fact that there is no limit on the number of them.
Currently we have 750 odd. I'd say that's way way too many. And the 300 quid they get simply for signing in is way way too much. Expenses should in some way relate to participation.
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Prufrock Lucifer, son of the morning!, Wed 15 Feb 2017, 20:29,
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Yes, the details are the issue here....
but they should be easy to sort out. The expenses nonsense is clearly daft, but I see no problem with the number so long as expenses was linked to participation.
Regardless, I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bath water.
(, Wed 15 Feb 2017, 20:51, Share, Reply)
Well the devil is in the detail.
The Lib Dems have 98 peers. Seems massively over the top to me given that they only had eight MPs elected in 2015, and nearly 1.5 million more people voted UKIP than voted Lib Dem. UKIP have three peers.
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Prufrock Lucifer, son of the morning!, Wed 15 Feb 2017, 21:00,
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That seems fair though, in relation to how long they've been around...
So far UKIP is a flash in the pan, so has almost no representation in the Lords. If they prove to have some kind of permanent relevance then their share of Lords seats will be increased.
You don't want the Lords to be populated by the latest fads... equally you don't want the Lords to be DE-populated by the latest fashionable hatreds.
(, Thu 16 Feb 2017, 16:17, Share, Reply)
I respectfully disagree.
They have only existed since 1988 after a merge. Their best ever performance in terms of MPs was 62 in 2005. This was only because the Tories were in complete disarray and people weren't that keen on Gordon Brown. They have always been a fringe party with a tiny grassroots base that picks up the floating voters that can't face the Tories or Labour. They have never been a serious political force, but for about ten years were a large fringe party. In 2010 when they got their largest ever share of the popular vote they actually lost about half a dozen seats. They are made up of lightweights and losers. They are hugely over represented in the Lords. They haven't been around long and have achieved fuck all, unless you believe the myth they were a moderating influence on the Cameron administration. Which is bollocks.
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Prufrock Lucifer, son of the morning!, Thu 16 Feb 2017, 18:15,
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The house with the only real power, the Commons, is entirely elected. The Lords is, rightly, pretty irrelevant.
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Prufrock Lucifer, son of the morning!, Wed 15 Feb 2017, 20:31,
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I'm all in favour of hereditary peerage.
It's a genetic lottery. Some random guy who just happens to have a great great granddad who saved the kings life gets to check democracy. He may be bright and serious. He may be a mong. But he has a different perspective and probably wants Britain to be around for another 1000 years so his great great grandchildren can wear ermine and claim a couple of hundred quid for going up to London.
Life peers otoh are the political failures, toadys and bunce-mongering scum of the earth.
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The Ann Coulter Fan Club Babylon is burning at, Wed 15 Feb 2017, 20:58,
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There is the valid issue of retaining a sense of fairness though.
I agree that a genetic lottery isn't actually that bad as selection tool, but you can't deny that to the majority of people it just seems unfair to be selected in that way rather than on some kind of perceived merit. The public need to feel confident that they're not getting screwed over and that is a difficult idea to sell with hereditary peers in this day and age.
You make an a good point regarding how we DO select most Lords currently though. It's a bit jobs-for-the-boys as it stands. Possibly it ought to just be done like Jury service... whenever a slot becomes available we could just randomly select someone from the electoral roll. The risk is that you end up with Lords with a diminished capacity to understand the issues and legislation put before them, as they're now checkout ladies from Asda instead of businessmen, politicians, cultural icons etc.
(, Wed 15 Feb 2017, 21:32, Share, Reply)