** The views expressed herein are the views of one person, and not neccesarily those of the Conservative Party - Parliamentary or Constituency.**
I have just watched the BBC's Question Time in Salisbury.
From what I can gather, all three mainstream parties are clamouring to remove heredetary peers and move to a wholly elected House of Lords... needless to say I am horrified. Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and now William Hague (hopefully soon to be our Foreign Secretary) calling for the Upper House in the bicameral parliament to be made fully electable by the public.
So now we see that MP's; whilst righting the lack of checks and balances in one area (MP's Expenses) are now trying to remove the checks and balances in another.
The House of Lords exists to act as a check and a balance to the government and parliament of the day. Peerages in the past have been given as hereditary so that when the Government trys to force through legislation that is only there to "please the electorate" and not for the good of the nation in the long term, the Lords can take time to think on, reccommend changes to and if neccesary overturn this legislation without worrying that the electorate will rebel against it.
The House of Lords of twenty years ago was a righteous and respected institution. And yet, after merely twelve years of a "New" Labour government we are seeing them misusing emergency measures to push through "popular" laws (such as the Fox-Hunting ban which only really had <50% of the UK populations support) and hereditory peers are being replaced by Life Peers, and now we are apparantly considering a fully elected upper house.
I am admittedly in the minority - even within the modern Conservative Party, and I accept that the House of Lords needs to change. If I were to chose how to change it I would say that Her Majesty the Queen should chose from a list of people given to her by the Government after every General Election and that no more than 10 Lords be replaced at any one time, but an elected house will just result in more partisan and "popular" laws being passed, just one more step toward Americanisation... which I am sure we do not want. How long before everyone is calling to join a Federated States of Europe... I wonder...?
- Benjamin Brooks's blog
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27. February 2010 - 20:17
I've just strolled on here by accident so HI:)I don't mean to be rude but a lot of what you have just said sounds a bit silly. 'the Government trys to force through legislation that is only there to "please the electorate"' isn't this exactly what democracy is? Power should be in the hands of the people. 'and not for the good of the nation in the long term' who is to say what is in the interests of the nation? Surely not a group of upper class white males who can't in any way relate to the majority of the country. Fair enough it might be a bit tricky having two elected bodies but it has to be more fair than having one and another that is composed of people with titles. 'I would say that Her Majesty the Queen should chose from a list of people given to her by the Government after every General Election and that no more than 10 Lords be replaced at any one time' SERIOUSLY? We didn't have a whole civil war just to let the monarch decide what happens. I would like to hear more about what you mean by 'Americanisation'. ANYWAY.. keep writing :)