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The Turkey’s Christmas

May 17th, 2011 Posted in Electoral Reform by

House of Lords Reform is dull. Witheringly tedious. It’s like debating the the ethics of slavery 200 years after abolition. You have to be quite odd, indifferent, or self-interested to believe either have a place in the modern world.

That is not to say many individual peers are not lovely, intelligent, gifted people who provide their expertise to the country at little cost relative to their market value.

But that is not the point. That is also true of the bulk of talent in the NGO, political and voluntary sector. In no other sphere of public life do people expect a paid job for life in order to use their experience to read some papers and comment on them.

The notion further that anyone should be entitled to public office by dearth of their ancestor’s utility to a dead monarch, or leadership of a Church built on the consequences of a woman-hating mass murderer’s prediliction to looting, is absurd.

The job most peers do is akin to that of Special Adviser, i.e. bringing an understanding of politics and policy to the business of Government. That is not unimportant, but the UK doesn’t need 800 indentured Spads.

300, as the reform proposes, is still rather a lot for a country of 60 million people. The United States with 300 million manages fine with just 100 Senators. But it’s a step in the right direction.

If further like former Liberal Leader Lord Steel you wish your contribution to the state not to be “politicised”, then get a proper job and join the civil service. That surely is the traditional place to pretend you are impartial whilst making political decisions.

As to the details of the electoral system, terms of offices, whether or not the powers of the Chamber remain unchanged, the Commons should accept almost whatever it takes to get these turkeys to vote for Christmas. Once mostly democratic, further reform would come easy.

As things stand it looks unlikely that even the Coalition’s quite modest proposals will find a majority amongst the Spadocracy. To which, unless they come up with their own vaguely democratic proposal, the only response should be to play hardball with the Parliament Act and public debate.

The Lords are vulnerable to publicity. Like the Queen their power rests in people either not understanding or not caring what it is they do. Resist too hard and Government can go to the country. That Yes campaign would be far stronger that the coalition in favour of AV.

Resist further and the Commons can over-rule them, or resort to the old Lloyd George threat to create enough ‘temporary’ peers to win the vote.

Either way this is a fight Nick Clegg can lead and win. It’s time the anti-reform turkeys got a good stuffing.

3 Responses to “The Turkey’s Christmas”

  1. Sarah Says:

    Great post. This was quite good.


  2. costermonger Says:

    I do not believe in wasting political capital on a project doomed to failure. Far better, to seek the reform which has some chance of success, and deals with the HoL along the way. I am speaking of UK federalism. The West Lothian Question is a running sore, and scottish independence can be trumped by establishing a proper federal structure with a parliament for each nation with domestic responsibility for legislation and finance. A federal UK parliament would deal with Foreign Affairs and Defence and internation matters. The HoL would be redundant and could be abolished. There is a large body of the Conservative Party who would support this. Why Liberals should opposed is beyond me. But, of course, Labour would lose their Labour bastion – but english labour voters would support such a reform. So come on Mr Clegg, grasp this nettle and solve (1) The WLQ, (2) Scottish Independence, (3) The HoL all in one go.


  3. stephen johnson Says:

    The Lords needs to be reformed
    The form of election and structural makeup must be different for the Commons
    The independent element of the Lords must be retained

    The broad political makeup of the House of Lords should reflect the overall party political makeup of the country, so Peers should be elected rather than appointed by political parties/party leaders.

    The form of election has to be quite different from the election to the House of Commons since they are two very different bodies with different constitutional roles.
    The House of Lords is a revising chamber for legislation put forward by the Commons. Their view should be national, not local, so there is no reason to have small constituencies.

    The House of Lords should be populated with people with a wide range of experience, and achievement behind them. They also need to understand the legislative process. A track record of making party political donations should be ignored.

    Firstly, an Independent commission should vet all potential candidates to decide if they have the necessary qualifications. These approved candidates should be identified as sponsored by a political party or Independent.

    Secondly, Election should be by closed Party List, but because Independent Lords are an important element of the revising chamber, in addition to the different political parties being on the ballot paper, the people should have the opportunity to vote ‘Independent’ to elect peers from the ‘Independent list’ prepared by the independent commission.

    This is a proportional form of election. The electorate would not need to make judgements about the individuals. Individuals would not need to campaign. The political parties would have some involvement in who becomes a Peer. The element of Independent peers would be as great or as large as the public sees fit, as would, conversely, the number of party political peers.

    Peers should serve a 15 year term with one third of the House elected each 5 years. This could coincide the European elections, or possibly with a General election, if the 5 year fixed term Parliament survives. 15 years allows peers not to have to worry about re-election, but accountability should be there with a recall mechanism.

    This form of election has not been proposed for the Commons, and it is unlikely that it ever would be, so choosing Closed Party List as the method would not pre-empt or affect any future electoral reform changes for the House of Commons, and would make the distinction clear between the two chambers.