To think the House of Lords should be abolished

[Blackcelebration12]

It stinks really - the speaker of the House of Commons has made comments on how many peers Boris has created this year and how dodgy it all is.

Loads created including Ian Botham because he supported brexit, A Russian billionaire and today Cruddas who is a Tory party funder - Boris bypassed all the committed saying no to him. 52 this year.

Why should an unelected Cricketer get to have views on our democracy after supporting leaving the EU because of unelected people allegedly interfering in our democracy. Cronyism at its worst.

It’s totally stinks to high heaven and aibu to think it should be abolished?

Are you proposing total abolition or replacing it with something else?

@WrongKindOfFace maybe something more denocratic that involves actual elections!

Rather than a cricketer getting a lifetime peerage and £300 a day of tax payer expenses for being someone’s mate 😬

I am not opposed to the idea of an unelected chamber, particularly as populism results in poor politicians - there has never been a less capable government, and having the Lords enables greater scrutiny, amendments, freedom to oppose Whip without fear of loss of career/re-election etc. But I would like a way of appointing Lords that only enables the most distinguished and capable people to be admitted; not mates, funders and cronies.

I not against a different second chamber but given the current government, brexit etc. would you really trust 'the people' to be able to provide a sensible second house?

@BiarritzCrackers

I am not opposed to the idea of an unelected chamber, particularly as populism results in poor politicians - there has never been a less capable government, and having the Lords enables greater scrutiny, amendments, freedom to oppose Whip without fear of loss of career/re-election etc. But I would like a way of appointing Lords that only enables the most distinguished and capable people to be admitted; not mates, funders and cronies.

Exactly this. The Lords is so important, provided it is filled with capable people... Though having said that, there's apparently a lot to be said for sortition, which is where representatives are chosen at random from the population (similar to jury service - or, like in Ancient Athens, chosen from a subset of the population). It seems that without the pressure of scoring party-political points and worrying about the next election, people make decisions in a better way, and work together more effectively.

maybe something more denocratic that involves actual elections! You'd have to think hard about this. At the least stagger the elections for the two houses, otherwise you'd just have, in effect, a giant House of Commons. Perhaps retain the lifetime membership -when elected you're in for life, or at least until dementia - otherwise you just get the short term thinking that you get in the Government. And not first-past-the-post, otherwise you continue our current system where the government is the party supported by between 30 and 40% of the electorate. And you'd have to work out how to avoid people being chosen on the ability to produce sound bites and the support of the wealth rather on knowledge, experience and being a decent human being.

Have you watched the documentary about how the Lords works?

It's very good and will help you be more informed on what the Lords does, how someone becomes (and stays) in the house and how they see their role.

@Twizbe where is the documentary? I'd be interested.

[quote melisande99]@Twizbe where is the documentary? I'd be interested.[/quote]
I think it was BBC and called something like Meet the Lords. I saw it being shown on London Live a while ago as well.

Thanks @Twizbe !

I don’t like the cronyism, but think a second chamber is a good idea - the Lords have offered valuable reviews and oversight of proposed legislation over the years.

I wasn’t averse to the hereditary approach - but it should be an independent chamber.

Would be opposed to elected lords - would be no different to the HoC

OP you missed one aspect, it should be the number of men who Mr Johnson has ennobled, another example of his misogyny.

Earlier this year 32 men, 4 women. Now 5 and 3 making 37 and 7. Plus four male cross benchers.

Labour this time 2 men and 3 women.

The last thing I would want would be an elected house of Lords. Few enough people are engaged enough to participate in a general election, can you imagine the turnout for a House of Lords election?

I'm not entirely satisfied with the current system, I feel that some reform could be needed. But the House of Lords does have loads of capable, sensible people in it who have contributed greatly to our democracy. They keep the house of Commons in check.

@BiarritzCrackers

I am not opposed to the idea of an unelected chamber, particularly as populism results in poor politicians - there has never been a less capable government, and having the Lords enables greater scrutiny, amendments, freedom to oppose Whip without fear of loss of career/re-election etc. But I would like a way of appointing Lords that only enables the most distinguished and capable people to be admitted; not mates, funders and cronies.

Quite agree

@melisande99 a selection of the general population I am not up for as I think what you want is a good mix of knowledge and decision making ability, wouldn’t want to rely on my next door neighbour for this (see Brexit)

I am all for an unelected second chamber but the selection needs reform.

Ah, the House of Lords 😄 funny how so many brexiters don't give a single shit about those unelected lawmakers 😊

I can see the benefit of an upper chamber to hold the government in check. I don't think they should be directly elected as they would just represent the government of the day. I would abolish hereditary peers and prevent the current government from stuffing the chamber full of cronies.

There should be a sound reason for choosing who is in the Lords and not just donors and friends. Judges, social workers, doctors, nurses, teachers, charity and community workers just for example.

@partyatthepalace I know what you mean, but when people are in a structured decision-making process like that, it's completely different to a Brexit-style referendum where each voter apparently had a different expectation of what Brexit meant, to the extent that they (or anyone in government) had even thought about it at all. Interestingly, there was an unofficial Citizen's Assembly held soon after the referendum (by some university or other body, not by the govt), which recruited a representative sample of the population (including 52 leave/48 remain) to discuss what Brexit should look like. The Brexit that this group came up with was extremely soft, nothing like what you would expect if you did a quick vox Pop without the issues being explored and discussed. In fact, looking at the results, one doubts that many out of this group would have even voted Leave had they gone through a similar process beforehand.

It's a bit like the way that people make real decisions at work, as opposed to how they make consumer choices.

YABVU

No, I actually really hate the idea of two elected houses.

Elected representatives are very important, which is why an elected house with MPs responsible to their constituency (not their voters) are important. however, the nature of needing to be reelected every four years and being part of the party machine creates certin problems that we are all very familiar with. Lack of long term thinking, a tendency to populism sometimes, MPs sacrificing the interests of their constituents to those of the party.

The non-elected house does a lot to balance that, and you can see it in the kinds of political activity they engage in, the way they contribute to the development of good legislation. Often they are much better at long term thinking and considering the consequences beyond the interests of the party, and also cross-party work which is important.

One of the things that is less visible to most of us in the political process is the work around development of legislation. That is at least as important as the later debates and passing or defeating it. Both houses do a lot of significant work in that area and if the upper house was full of people worrying about being elected, I think you'd see their ability to do that work was compromised.

Agree @Blackcelebration12 it's elitist, classist and does not help with democracy.

@SmallYappyTypeDog

I can see the benefit of an upper chamber to hold the government in check. I don't think they should be directly elected as they would just represent the government of the day. I would abolish hereditary peers and prevent the current government from stuffing the chamber full of cronies.

There should be a sound reason for choosing who is in the Lords and not just donors and friends. Judges, social workers, doctors, nurses, teachers, charity and community workers just for example.

The difficulty with outlining how to choose such people is that it will inevitably reflect the biases of whoever lays out the requirements.

As it stands now, it is meant to be notable people in some walk of life. So who chooses who that means? The PM? The queen? The population? All choices seem to have problems.

The non-elected house does a lot to balance that, and you can see it in the kinds of political activity they engage in, the way they contribute to the development of good legislation. Often they are much better at long term thinking and considering the consequences beyond the interests of the party, and also cross-party work which is important.

Oh. So much this.