House of Lords Reform
- Thread starter Gmart
- Start date
tony blair was very upfront about the fact that he wanted a cultural revolution
and culture is huge, it permeates everyones lives on so many levels, so maybe he's the new dictator, someone who saw how important culture was and used it to gradually to effect everyones lives on so may levels so that eventually we give up all our freedom
and culture is huge, it permeates everyones lives on so many levels, so maybe he's the new dictator, someone who saw how important culture was and used it to gradually to effect everyones lives on so may levels so that eventually we give up all our freedom
untethered
For industry & decency
iguzza said:
The process started long before Blair. He just took the crowning glory by consolidating the end of the process. It's really the "long march through the institutions" - the gradual capture of the establishment by eroding it from below.
Have you been reading Peter Hitchens's The Abolition of Britain, by any chance?
untethered
For industry & decency
iguzza said:
In between what?
The general idea is that when you control significant cultural institutions such as education and the media, within a generation people don't even realise what's happened and what's changed. Then you can do pretty much what you like without anyone having the ability or even the language to challenge it.
untethered said:
bollocks with your general idea, don't pretend that this general idea wouldn't be achieved without repressing huge amounts of people by using the police and the law, there would be alot of people who are scared but once they aren't scared then this path of control would be destroyed, and ultimately this path is doomed
untethered
For industry & decency
iguzza said:
It's not my idea. I'm entirely opposed.
It seems a credible description of what's actually happened.
untethered
For industry & decency
Azrael said:
The US edition has an extra chapter that was omitted from the UK edition on the advice of the publishers. I think it is the one on homosexuality, but I can't consult it as my copy is on loan to my dodgy Tory brother at the moment.
Still, second hand copies are available on Amazon etc.
It'd be good to see a follow-up documenting the whole Blair era.
definitely, i struggle to vocalise how the new labour party is repressing me and my friends and family, but the fact that there is lots of cameras in the uk looking down at me makes me less likely to criticise the government and the police
now just imagine for a minute that the new labour party wasn't in power and we all voted for someone who isn't david cameron ( lets hope if he does get in, he isn't a dictator type person) then that person ( who could be hitlerish) would have the power - thanks to the new labour party- to imprison us all without trial, send us to cuba, track us via cctv cameras while we walked and drove from a to b, arrest us while we walked innocently down the streets, make teenagers go indoors after 9pm, and generally institute a dictatorship thanks to the policies that the new labour party have made law
now just imagine for a minute that the new labour party wasn't in power and we all voted for someone who isn't david cameron ( lets hope if he does get in, he isn't a dictator type person) then that person ( who could be hitlerish) would have the power - thanks to the new labour party- to imprison us all without trial, send us to cuba, track us via cctv cameras while we walked and drove from a to b, arrest us while we walked innocently down the streets, make teenagers go indoors after 9pm, and generally institute a dictatorship thanks to the policies that the new labour party have made law
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
I own the US edition as it happens. That chapter was subsequently included in the UK paperback edition. Which is now out of print for, we are told, being "too controversial". (Presumably paleo-conservatism is more controversial than the string of books denouncing western capitalism and advising us how to overthrow the state.)untethered said:
I'm not surprised the publishers asked him to admit said chapter from the first-run. It's one of the laziest, most blinkered attacks on homosexuality I've ever seen. Now Hitchens has changed his tune and started saying that "no civilized person" can oppose legalising "private homosexual acts". It seems his "timeless Biblical morality" isn't so immune to the moral zeitgeist as he would like to think.
The rest of the book isn't much better. His views on the proper way of learning history in schools (a "timeless story" beyond dispute, apparently) are especially laughable.
untethered
For industry & decency
Azrael said:
It did sound like self-serving twaddle, admittedly.
Azrael said:
Like any true conservative, Hitchens sometimes finds it hard to reconcile principles with pragmatism. In the end, though, he seems to have come round to a common sense position and I admire his lack of dogmatism for doing so.
As a former Communist, he's not afraid to examine his own positions and say when he's been wrong.
Azrael said:
Without my copy, you have me at a disadvantage there. However, I seem to remember that part as being one of the most resonant. If we lose our history, we lose our culture and our destiny. There seems to have been a concerted attempt to make that happen.
rhys gethin
New Member
junius said:
Under the present system the democratic party has been destroyed, the MPs have been made ineffective (like the Cabinet) democratic local government has been severely limited, the civil Service has been frightened to death and the unions castrated. The result of this is that all legislation is a mess - it is thought up by rich journalists in back rooms and pushed through without serious discussion. The result has nothing to do with democracy, working class or otherwise, and anyone who has worked anywhere for long knows it. Give them a chance to say so then.
The kind of system I put forward would at least delay the Blairite idiocies until people had time to THINK. And if they thought of getting rid of the Monarchy or something, well, it is probably an advance on the politics of anti-hunting. Onwards and upwards!
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
[
I'm a conservative, and although I'm honestly baffled by the concern about homosexuality (banning it was deeply cruel and morally indefensible) Hitchens is of course entitled to his views. I often find his opinions interesting, but they're shot through with condescension and moral certainty that ensures they'll never be read much beyond people who agree with him.
I thought A Brief History of Crime was much better BTW. (His simplistic view of a monolithic "left" aside.)
He never admitted he'd been wrong though: the chapter heavily implied, but didn't state outright, that decriminalizing homosexual sex in private hastened Britain's moral decline.untethered said:
I'm a conservative, and although I'm honestly baffled by the concern about homosexuality (banning it was deeply cruel and morally indefensible) Hitchens is of course entitled to his views. I often find his opinions interesting, but they're shot through with condescension and moral certainty that ensures they'll never be read much beyond people who agree with him.
I agree absolutely. I'm reading history at university. Which makes me aware that historical opinion is constantly evolving, and not some fixed mythology to bind together the proles. Hitchens's book reeked of aristocratic paternalism, which again got in the way of his more sensible and original views.
I thought A Brief History of Crime was much better BTW. (His simplistic view of a monolithic "left" aside.)
Coincidentially, I just watched the film Sylvia, Now both people in that relationship were very talented, however Sylvia Plath became a feminist icon and Ted Hughes was a feminist villian, so as you were just expressing both of them were culturally defined
at the time though before her death Sylvia Plath was inconsequential and only famous after her death but if she had been male then she would have been celebrated as Oxbridges best poet
as you say history constantly evolves.
at the time though before her death Sylvia Plath was inconsequential and only famous after her death but if she had been male then she would have been celebrated as Oxbridges best poet
as you say history constantly evolves.
Gmart
Well-Known Member
Some input from another media
I especially like the idea of moving the government to Lancaster. Brilliant!
Any other ideas? I'm surprised that this hasn't caused more discussion. After all it would seem to be very important.
What should a second chamber be for?
How are we going to elect it?
What powers needs to be at the local level and which need to be dealt with at a large level, even larger than individual countries?
I especially like the idea of moving the government to Lancaster. Brilliant!
Any other ideas? I'm surprised that this hasn't caused more discussion. After all it would seem to be very important.
What should a second chamber be for?
How are we going to elect it?
What powers needs to be at the local level and which need to be dealt with at a large level, even larger than individual countries?
Lords solution
I've given this a lot of thought.
There is no conceivable justification for a chamber not being fully elected. The problem is to create a chamber that does not simply duplicate the Commons, with all its faults. I propose this.
A fully elected, small senate of 62 members, serving 7-year terms. The senators would represent the different countries of the United Kingdom proportionally by population (England 51 members, Scotland 5, Wales 3, Northern Ireland & Overseas 3). Each senator could propose legislation. They could have party identification, but there would be no official whips and no Cabinet positions: it would be purely a legislative body, not answerable to the executive power. For a bill to become an Act of Parliament, it would have to pass both houses, but in the Senate it would have to have a majority of votes in each region in order to pass. There would be a decennial review of the number of representatives based on population changes.
What would this achieve? Well, it would provide a small body of people who would have a strong incentive to work with each other to develop legislation in the interests of the whole of the United Kingdom. In the Northern Ireland & Overseas territory, the one unionist or one republican representative would usually have to work to win the support of the Overseas representative in order to secure a regional majority (60% of the population of the Overseas territory would come from the Isle of Man, Jersey, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda). It would make legislation as a whole harder to pass, which would be no bad thing. It would provide an effective check to prime ministerial power. Each senator would have more than ten times the power of an ordinary MP to actually change things.
I've given this a lot of thought.
There is no conceivable justification for a chamber not being fully elected. The problem is to create a chamber that does not simply duplicate the Commons, with all its faults. I propose this.
A fully elected, small senate of 62 members, serving 7-year terms. The senators would represent the different countries of the United Kingdom proportionally by population (England 51 members, Scotland 5, Wales 3, Northern Ireland & Overseas 3). Each senator could propose legislation. They could have party identification, but there would be no official whips and no Cabinet positions: it would be purely a legislative body, not answerable to the executive power. For a bill to become an Act of Parliament, it would have to pass both houses, but in the Senate it would have to have a majority of votes in each region in order to pass. There would be a decennial review of the number of representatives based on population changes.
What would this achieve? Well, it would provide a small body of people who would have a strong incentive to work with each other to develop legislation in the interests of the whole of the United Kingdom. In the Northern Ireland & Overseas territory, the one unionist or one republican representative would usually have to work to win the support of the Overseas representative in order to secure a regional majority (60% of the population of the Overseas territory would come from the Isle of Man, Jersey, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda). It would make legislation as a whole harder to pass, which would be no bad thing. It would provide an effective check to prime ministerial power. Each senator would have more than ten times the power of an ordinary MP to actually change things.
...and to deal with the West Lothian question:
Very simply, the Commons would become purely an English chamber, just like the other regional assemblies.
Legislation applying to one of the regions only (England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland & Overseas) could be proposed only in the regional assembly (in the case of English legislation, the former House of Commons), but would after passing the assembly have to be passed by the Senate before becoming the law of that region.
Conversely, legislation applying to the whole of the United Kingdom could be proposed only in the Senate, but would then after passing the Senate have to be ratified by each of the regional assemblies before coming into effect.
I don't much mind where the Senate would reside, but I'd be quite happy if it were outside London.
Very simply, the Commons would become purely an English chamber, just like the other regional assemblies.
Legislation applying to one of the regions only (England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland & Overseas) could be proposed only in the regional assembly (in the case of English legislation, the former House of Commons), but would after passing the assembly have to be passed by the Senate before becoming the law of that region.
Conversely, legislation applying to the whole of the United Kingdom could be proposed only in the Senate, but would then after passing the Senate have to be ratified by each of the regional assemblies before coming into effect.
I don't much mind where the Senate would reside, but I'd be quite happy if it were outside London.
Gmart
Well-Known Member
I am not against moving towards a more localised system away from London, and dealing with bigger issues only at the European level. However i would like to see a combination of appointees and electees ideally. Random appointees who could become elected if they do well would introduce a common man element to this issue which is needed to revive interest in being a citizen in the UK.
Also i would like to have more freedom on a European level to deal with the valid criticism of that institution not being democratic enough. We already have MEP's of course but i would also like to see the freedom to have a referendum if enough people want it. This would mean that if one could get enough signatures then the political establishment would be forced to listen to the people. For example if the people in Catalonia in north-east Spain really wish to have autonomy, then they should vote on it, and if they achieve a quorum, they should get what they want. That would solve the undemocratic problem there too. The only people left over would be those who are against being in Europe 'coz they're not like us', and they can eff off to the National Front!
I would also like to see an extension of the Mayor system which seems to have been stopped at London. And a movement of all the major institutions to other cities in the UK, not London.
Also i would like to have more freedom on a European level to deal with the valid criticism of that institution not being democratic enough. We already have MEP's of course but i would also like to see the freedom to have a referendum if enough people want it. This would mean that if one could get enough signatures then the political establishment would be forced to listen to the people. For example if the people in Catalonia in north-east Spain really wish to have autonomy, then they should vote on it, and if they achieve a quorum, they should get what they want. That would solve the undemocratic problem there too. The only people left over would be those who are against being in Europe 'coz they're not like us', and they can eff off to the National Front!
I would also like to see an extension of the Mayor system which seems to have been stopped at London. And a movement of all the major institutions to other cities in the UK, not London.
I think it's a bit confusing for me to refer to people chosen by lot as being "appointees".
Truthfully, though, I feel that if the electoral system is not leading to the election of people who are representative of a broad spectrum of social classes and ethnicities, then I would prefer to address the prejudices that lead to that unrepresentativeness rather than try to offset it using a separate system. After all, a lottery system could easily produce, by random chance, representatives who were entirely upper middle class...
Truthfully, though, I feel that if the electoral system is not leading to the election of people who are representative of a broad spectrum of social classes and ethnicities, then I would prefer to address the prejudices that lead to that unrepresentativeness rather than try to offset it using a separate system. After all, a lottery system could easily produce, by random chance, representatives who were entirely upper middle class...
I think it has weaknesses as well as strengths.
I would like the representatives in the upper chamber to have credibility independent of central party control, because I believe that such representatives would do the best job of providing a check to the will of the executive. I fear that randomly selected representatives will be more easily pushed around, because someone randomly selected has no more of a political base than a winner of the National Lottery. We wouldn't tend to consider a National Lottery winner to be a better potential representative by virtue of his good fortune.
In ancient Greece, where they did select by lot for some offices, the representative so chosen derived credibility from the cultural belief that they were the choice of God. I don't think that representatives so chosen in modern Britain would benefit from the same cultural belief. The testimony of ancient Greek political writers suggests that randomly selected judges were uninformed about the law and easily swayed into violating it by plausible attorneys, but ancient Greek political writers themselves tend to have a bias toward aristocratic rule, so it's hard to determine what the real state of affairs was.
I would like the representatives in the upper chamber to have credibility independent of central party control, because I believe that such representatives would do the best job of providing a check to the will of the executive. I fear that randomly selected representatives will be more easily pushed around, because someone randomly selected has no more of a political base than a winner of the National Lottery. We wouldn't tend to consider a National Lottery winner to be a better potential representative by virtue of his good fortune.
In ancient Greece, where they did select by lot for some offices, the representative so chosen derived credibility from the cultural belief that they were the choice of God. I don't think that representatives so chosen in modern Britain would benefit from the same cultural belief. The testimony of ancient Greek political writers suggests that randomly selected judges were uninformed about the law and easily swayed into violating it by plausible attorneys, but ancient Greek political writers themselves tend to have a bias toward aristocratic rule, so it's hard to determine what the real state of affairs was.
Greg,
Don't mischaracterize what I was saying. Remember, I'm contending that the system should be infinitely more open to people from all walks of life than it is now. Just because I am not a fan of the particular mechanism to do that that you favour doesn't make me a fan of "keeping the proles down".
The ideal, for me, is an electoral political process where anyone has the opportunity to seek to act as a voice for their community. I don't see how selection by lot gives a representative the credibility to serve as that voice, whereas winning the votes of a majority of your constituents certainly does.
Don't mischaracterize what I was saying. Remember, I'm contending that the system should be infinitely more open to people from all walks of life than it is now. Just because I am not a fan of the particular mechanism to do that that you favour doesn't make me a fan of "keeping the proles down".
The ideal, for me, is an electoral political process where anyone has the opportunity to seek to act as a voice for their community. I don't see how selection by lot gives a representative the credibility to serve as that voice, whereas winning the votes of a majority of your constituents certainly does.
rhys gethin
New Member
zion said:
Since the electorate will know nothing about you but what is presented by your propaganda, they are essentially voting for PR and Advertising. Is that good?
PR and advertising have to have something to work off. Granted, when you advertise yourself then you aren't presenting yourself warts and all - but it's the other candidates' responsibility to make sure the electorate knows the other side. The aggregate efforts of the candidates can then produce a reasonably accurate picture of what the candidates are like.
Here in the US, this process is gravely threatened by the floods of money brought to the process by some candidates. But it remains the case that people here tend to know much more, good and bad, about their local representatives than people in Britain do.
Here in the US, this process is gravely threatened by the floods of money brought to the process by some candidates. But it remains the case that people here tend to know much more, good and bad, about their local representatives than people in Britain do.
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