House of Lords
Posted on 03/13/2010 10:58:08 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Plans to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a 300-strong, wholly elected second chamber are to be unveiled by ministers in a key political move ahead of the general election.
Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, is this weekend consulting cabinet colleagues on a blueprint which would represent the biggest change to the way Britain is governed for several decades.
House of Lords
The proposals, which have been leaked to The Sunday Telegraph and which are expected to be announced soon, would sweep away centuries of tradition and set ministers on a collision course with the current 704-member House of Lords, which is resolutely opposed to having elected members.
Ministers are ready to announce their plans, which follow years of fruitless cross-party discussions and several votes in the House of Commons, in a bid to wrong-foot the Tories with polling day less than two months away.
Labour's plan is to provoke elements inside the Conservative Party to object to the reforms – which would allow it to paint David Cameron as wedded to old ideas of privilege.
The proposed changes also follow various House of Lords-related controversies, including the recent furore over the admission by Lord Ashcroft, the Tory deputy chairman, that he was a "non-dom."
Members of the new-style chamber will have to be both UK residents and domiciled here for tax purposes.
Current peers have also been the subject of a large number of "sleaze" allegations over their expenses. Lord Hanningfield, the Conservative peer, appeared in court last week charged with theft by false accounting, alongside three Labour MPs.
Under the government's proposals, members of the new chamber would be able to be subject to a US-style "recall ballot" which would disqualify them for incompetence.
The plans would see all members
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I believe there was some talk of that a number of years back but the decision at the time was that the Queen was a tourist draw.
Maybe the House of Lords should abolish the House of Commons before the House of Commons abolishes them.
Obama wants the WH to be the House of the One True Lord.
“Members of the new-style chamber will have to be both UK residents and domiciled here for tax purposes.”
Sounds fair.
The first rule of Communism: abolish the concept of private property.
Stupidest thing Ive heard in years. Centuries of tradition chucked in the dustbin for five years in power. I hope this move backfires. The labour libs are going to be exposed as dirty chancers.
This is what you get when you don’t have a Constitution, have an all powerful parliament, and a figurehead sovereign with no real power. When these people are done, Great Britain will no longer be great. It won’t even be independent. It’ll just be the westernmost state in the EU bureaucracy. Eliminate the House of Lords to make Brussels supreme.
They’ve been talking about doing this since I was a kid. But the fact of the matter is that I do find the part where some members of the The Lords inherit their position completely distasteful. OTOH, it’s been one of the few things that has kept the UK from a full-gate spring to something to the left of pure socialism. I suspect if Labour is successful, it will spell long-term problems for the Tories.
From what I understand from the British folks I’ve talked with, the parliament really isn’t responsive to what the people want. I was on the computer one night with someone who said the police were outside watching his house, knowing he wanted to come out and smoke, and they it was illegal for him to smoke on his front porch.
But their system of government doesn’t allow for candidates to be elected over specific proposals, he said.
Now if any reform they have does that, I think it would be a good thing. I really can’t think the direction Britian has been going, with people arrested for defending themselves agains violent crooks in their own homes, is what the British want.
“…replace it with a 300-strong, wholly elected second chamber…”
I can see this is not going to end well; wait for the butt boys of Islam to gain control.
An elected uper chamber might start clamoring for an equal status to the Commons. The only power the Lords has right now is the ability to delay legislation.
We have an elected upper house and no shortage of corruption either.
In fact I’d put our corrupt “lords” up against theirs any day. They’d beat them by a furlong in bribes received and favors handed out.
The only true throttle on them is an actual threat of physical force, and we’re just not quite there yet. There is no fear of losing elections. If they do lose, they become lobbyists and rake in the same dirty money they did before.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely (John Dalberg-Action, 1st Baron Acton, of course).
The House of Lords currently has almost no power so it’s an utter waste of time and money for them to exist. Basically they are a pointless debating society.
Back when they did have power it was disgusting that they did because it was a council of nobles who have no right to rule by virtue of their damn birth.
Not too long ago they kicked most of the hereditary nobles out leaving only a small percentage of them. So it’s mostly made up of “life peers” appointed for life for various vague reasons either on the advice of the PM (some as a reward for fundraising) or some stupid appointments commission made up of current lords.
So basically it’s like having the President or some Senate committee choose new Senators. Utterly ridiculous.
There’s a good argument that there should be an upper house to check the power of the House of Commons. If Britain is to have an empowered Upper House it must be elected to have the legitimacy to have power over legislation. I hate to agree with Labour but they are absolutely right to pursue this. They should have done it 10 years ago.
Critics say this current plan would suck cause it would just be a new house of career politicians (good point) as opposed what they have now with some technocrats with “expertise” on various issues.
That brings me to the other option favored by another party that I hate to agree with, the Lib Dems, they want to abolish the upper house.
I say anointed technocrats have no right to legislate no matter how much the media may love the idea. Let the “non-partisan” technocrats run for office and win if they can. There should be an elected upper house with real power or no upper house.
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