The long ascendency of democracy is reaching its zenith, and with it will come the final purge of the nobility, reflecting the triumph of modernist legitimacy and merit over the ancien regime notions of hereditary rights, privilege and honour. Even today, the ancient House of Lords Spiritual and Temporal remains the most distinguished body of collective human achievement and wisdom anywhere in the world, despite the corrupting handywork of "cash for peerages" Tony and his like-minded predecessors. It is lamentable that with an 80% or 100% elected Lords the quality of that great chamber will surely decline, and become beholden to special interests, opinion polls and spin doctoring in the process. Gone will be the independence and wise countenance of the last of the great noble gentlemen. In its place will come the grandstanding, power grubbing politicians and all their loathsome baggage. Having destroyed the Second Estate and all of its inherited glory, they will now surely feast their eyes on the First.
UpperHouseDate: Ben Russell writing in The Independent, manages to smear the entire noble history of the Lords by citing eight ignoble examples over a 1,000 year period. I could come up with eight examples from the House of Commons this year alone! Loathsome, worthless degenerate!
Is there a solution? Besides prayer, I mean.
ReplyDeleteThis vote was largely meaningless, and one should not take the result at face value.
ReplyDeleteThe members of the House of Commons do not wish to see a rival chamber, equal in stature to the Commons by virtue of the fact that their selection method is “democratic”, and thus "legitimate". The Government (and MPs) would prefer to see a weaker subservient chamber that can be subverted by the Parliament Act whenever the need arises.
Thus, the Government’s preferred “reform” option was to retain a sizable appointed element to replace the hereditary Peers. By selecting the Government's least favoured option (100% elected), MPs have essentially kicked the process of Lords reform into the long grass, using a Johnny Wilkinson sized boot.
I also oppose most of Blair's reforms to the h=House of Lords. It is disgraceful
ReplyDeleteWither the house of lords - please. and the unelected senate in Canada as well
ReplyDeleteThe Senate, yes, but not the Lords, which has an entirely different and noble tradition. The stars are really lining up for Prime Minister Harper on almost every issue in Canada. Now he can say see, they're even reforming the Lords of Parliament, so what possibly can be the justification for having an appointed upper house here.
ReplyDeleteI am no fan of what has happened to the House of Lords, through constitutional reforms, since and including Parliament Act 1911.
ReplyDeleteWhen Winston Churchill – while having no regrets about his stand on the bill that became Parliament Act 1911 – spoke in 1947 against what was to become Parliament Act 1949, further eroding the powers of the upper house, he explicitly stated that it was good "we" thought of not abolishing Their Lordships' absolute veto against bills "extending the life of Parliament".
What good is that if "the other place" is changed beyond recognition?
Precisely, JKB. The Westminster tradition requires its members to maintain a Westminster disposition, and because they increasingly haven't, the whole system is being radically altered. A fully elected House of Lords changes the whole centuries long dynamic. It changes everything.
ReplyDeleteMy opinion on this matter is summed up in a maxim, that human history is divided into two phases:
ReplyDelete"What would it hurt?"
"How was I supposed to know?"
Invariably, chastisement in the second phase is the great corrective upon which we fickle men rely.