Reforming House of Lords
- Thread starter Mr Blob
- Start date
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
It doesn't if the PM has the same leverage over his party's candidates as tey do over prospective parliamentary candidates for the Commons.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Yep. However much the way the upper chamber is meddled with, the functions of the upper house will stay the same - they won't suddenly be gifted with powers to directly contest the powers of the Commons, just retain those powers that the Lords has.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
With the amount of booze in the Palace of Westminster, the place will pop off like a Molotov cocktail!
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I don't see how it will, as an 80% elected house, "benefit our class" either.
Mr Blob
Well-Known Member
gosub
~#
was advocated by Jeremy Clarkson in his Sunday Times column last week other than that am coming round to it, as long as it isnt in Stoke
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
It's as good as any other time and place.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Stoke is perfectly good enough for politicians, I tells ya!
I certainly didn't read it there (a combination of firewall and both Clarkson and Murdoch being cunts). Is jury service ruled out for those who've done time (Jeffrey Archer, Conrad Black, John Taylor, Paul White, etc)?
Idaho
blah blah blah
An elected upper house with party endorsement/ticket not allowed. Kind of a nonsense. But there you go.
Alternatively have it a nominated body but demand a minimum nomination criteria.
God knows. If we want to get to something democratic, best not start from where we are now.
Alternatively have it a nominated body but demand a minimum nomination criteria.
God knows. If we want to get to something democratic, best not start from where we are now.
moochedit
Mr Mooched It
One problem i could think of with the jury service idea is that (in many cases) people who had to travel a long way to the parliament wouldn't want to do it, so assumming it was based in london, the upper house would be mainly londoners.
youngian
Well-Known Member
I'd like to see a strong US senate type committee system with proper supoena powers. So I definitely wouldn't want a bunch of amateurs (who'd be worse than feeble commons select committees) interrogating the likes of Bob Diamond or Rupert Murdoc,h but some hard arsed inquisitors.
Secondly us 'members of the public' think we know it all about politics (along with football management and running the health service) when in reality we would be out of our depth and have rings run around us. The Lords already has plenty of windbag part-timers like Alan Sugar who make next to zero impact even in a party system.
A House of Lords debate is also a good opportunity to see what reactionary oddballs sit on the Tory backbenchers, who will come up with the most fanciful constitutional nonsense to retain an hereditary chamber.
Cid
Proper break this time
Serious criminals are disqualified for life, various others disqualified for 10 years after serving their sentence.
There are problems with jury service that would probably be more challenging in the HoL; firstly its role is fairly technical (and increasingly so with loads of new bills pinging back and forth), fundamentally you need to be able to understand what a bill is actually saying, what its implications are, how it should be worded and where legal issues may arise. In a trial you have advocates presided over by a judge (with expert witnesses where needed) guiding the jury, adding that apparatus to the processes of getting a bill through could make the whole system too slow to be functional.
Most jury service is fairly short; protracted murder investigations or lengthy fraud trials may get a lot of attention, but they're fairly rare. Bills usually take months to pass and you don't really want to switch the people examining them half way through, so there might be problems with the length of time people serve for.
Unelected, that's all you need to know. How can it be democratic when these people can just turn up for the attendance money? Sure some are professionals but mostly they are people who are delaying (considering?) the will of the elected majority, that you put to represent you there in the Commons. That in itself is tricky, as most of the elected partiess that have gone on to form a government have got in with less than 50% of the total votes since the last war.
But lets go the full circle. If you are lucky enough to vote for a party that has secured a mandate with less than 50% and is delayed by the Lords, it goes up to another unelected place. Royal Asent may just be theoretically a signing of each bill by the Monarch, but technically to quote Walter Bagehot (English Constitution 1867....ok not exactly,but), her postion is to Encourage,Warn and Advise.....
Just remember that parties do or don't want these reforms due to their own boundary or conservatism in their make up. Any delay in total reform means that your vote is ultimately being handled by someone who has got there through hereditery means (please dont read that as being all the members are bad or not professional) what matters is that ultiimately its your right to elect and not to be fobbed off by outdated practices. I am not sure sure about today, but in the recent years The Lords were able to initate Bills (like statutory instruments) without your say at all! OK minor bills but surely it's the principle here?
But lets go the full circle. If you are lucky enough to vote for a party that has secured a mandate with less than 50% and is delayed by the Lords, it goes up to another unelected place. Royal Asent may just be theoretically a signing of each bill by the Monarch, but technically to quote Walter Bagehot (English Constitution 1867....ok not exactly,but), her postion is to Encourage,Warn and Advise.....
Just remember that parties do or don't want these reforms due to their own boundary or conservatism in their make up. Any delay in total reform means that your vote is ultimately being handled by someone who has got there through hereditery means (please dont read that as being all the members are bad or not professional) what matters is that ultiimately its your right to elect and not to be fobbed off by outdated practices. I am not sure sure about today, but in the recent years The Lords were able to initate Bills (like statutory instruments) without your say at all! OK minor bills but surely it's the principle here?
Cid
Proper break this time
Depends what you mean by competent. But anyway, it's unlikely that their only qualification was ancestral equine policy, at the very least sitting for several years is going to give you experience of how it all works... Also, as I said, it's increasingly technical; the last 10 years (14 really) have seen pretty big changes in the volume of legislation and the requirements for clarity/consistency. I'm not disagreeing with a jury based second house btw, actually think it's a pretty good idea, but there are problems with it which need to be properly thought through. Simply replacing the current house with short-term (say 1-2 months) jury service wouldn't work imo, you'd want the same people working through one bill and it's simply not enough time to get your head around understanding legislation... If you regard the role as purely technical you could have smaller groups working through it with parliamentary draftsmen, but if you want to retain the check on parliamentary power that might not work (and, after all, there's no point in a second house if you don't have that). You could lift the courtroom wholesale and have it on an advocacy basis, but who are your advocates? who presides etc? Longer term service with training might work, but cost might be an issue (current members aren't salaried, the sitting allowance is pretty good, but only when they sit), and removing people from normal life obviously would.
Gmart
Well-Known Member
There is a definite need for a second chamber to review legislation. It is too easy to just introduce new laws rather than fix issues which come up. With a stronger, more accountable HoL, we might be moving to a more normal constitutional set-up.
So The HoL will become a more effective check on power.
So Labour should support this bill, rather than playing party politics with it. Our system gets few enough chances to change it.
I would prefer to see a more complete republican program from Labour as the Opposition, but this bill at least makes the HoL mostly elected, thus putting a default democratic principle as the status quo.
This is the first opportunity for change which might make the HoC more accountable to the people. It doesn't go far enough - I would like to see no religion and an Athenian option to give greater and more direct democracy.
So The HoL will become a more effective check on power.
So Labour should support this bill, rather than playing party politics with it. Our system gets few enough chances to change it.
I would prefer to see a more complete republican program from Labour as the Opposition, but this bill at least makes the HoL mostly elected, thus putting a default democratic principle as the status quo.
This is the first opportunity for change which might make the HoC more accountable to the people. It doesn't go far enough - I would like to see no religion and an Athenian option to give greater and more direct democracy.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Programme motion withdrawn
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Let me guess, they did the wrong thing for the right reasons?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
which means the whole thing is fucked, cos the tories'll talk it out.
Well done Nick, another cracking fuck up
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