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The House of Lords ; a fine bunch of lads

Well done to the House of Lords. Britain's unelected upper chamber is something of a representative lottery. It contains random religious figures, business leaders, law lords, and a jury of those who have achieved in their professions or who were simply born into a tradition of service. It should not work. It should be a democratic disgrace.

Yet the Lords is in fact more representative than the elected House of Commons. If you want to find ethnic minority legislators, women in large numbers, or indeed just anyone with any professional achievement or common sense to their credit, don't head for the Commons. Go to the Lords. It is not stuffed to the gills with the media and political class. It is deliberative; and anyway, election never necessarily guaranteed sense. 'Straight' politicians therefore can be relied upon to hate it.

Over the past few years, the insulation of the lords from any electoral pressures whatsoever has been a boon. Sometimes the lords can only force the government to think again, for instance over daft ID card schemes or the ultimately successful attempt to let Members of the European Parliament pretend that they are elected by the introduction of a list system that elects their parties.

Sometimes, the Lords and Ladies can do more. Yesterday, they played a blinder. They threw out and killed the mad 42 day detention-without-charge scheme of the government.

There is precious little legal case for 42-day powers of detention. The dog's breakfast served up by the government, reminiscent of the South African Sabotage Act of 1963, was a terrible effort. It was nowhere near as tough as the 41bis section of the Italian code (the mafia rule that applies to convicted criminals) whilst being, simultaneously, an appalling assault on civil liberty. Greek theological disputes about the dual nature of Christ involve less mental twisting.

The government's assurances about it being restricted to terrorism rang utterly hollow given the application of terrorist laws to subjects as diverse as what is put into household rubbish bins and what is allowed out of Icelandic banks.

If the government had really wanted to be tough on terrorism, it could have allowed questioning after charge, which would have made the state make its case at a hearing first. It would not simply have thought of a number, doubled it, and claimed that anyone who opposed the government was weakenening the country by not allowing magna carta to be used as a lighter for a prosecutor's herbal cigar.

The government has responded with a plan 'B'. The proposed scheme is to hold emergency legislation in abeyance until there is actually an emergency. That in itself is a result too.

I used to think that the House of Lords should be abolished. I am now coming to believe that the men and women on the red benches should really be running the country. God help me--what on earth is going on?

Comments

David Lindsay said…
We need a new second chamber, but it needs to be as good as the old one. Democracy and liberty are not the same thing. But they are both important. Anyway, I'm not sure why the New Labour types (of all parties) over on things like Harry's Place are complaining: this is now a House stuffed full of them and theirs. Yet even they could see the problem last night. (Although the Government has not been "forced into a humiliating climbdown", or anything like that. Rather, Parliament has done what Parliament is supposed to do. Just for a change.)

We need equal county-based representation (as the hereditaries were in theory, and very historically) regardless of population, parliamentarians with only national responsibilities (life peers), representatives of moral and spiritual values in general and of our Christian heritage (still professed by at least seventy-two per cent of the population) in particular, both party figures (reflecting the breadth within each party and, if you like, its Lager) and Crossbenchers, terms of sufficient length to guarantee considerable independence and reflectiveness, no provision to remove the whole Senate at once, powerful Committees with powerful Chairmen, and procedures that serve, like all the foregoing, as checks on majoritarian tyranny, which is as bad as minoritarian tyranny.
2:24 pm
Martin Meenagh said…
OK. Thank you for the comment, David--but why the cult of novelty? You seem to be suggesting a slightly changed House of Lords. Ripping a country's history away from it is traumatic--you wouldn't be for a removal of the monarchy, so why for a removal of a fairly cool title like 'Lord'? Senators belong in republics, I think. I like the Irish use of functional constituencies. In the English case, what would constitute a county in your mind, and could they be equal?

Hope all is well
11:25 pm
David Lindsay said…
The House of Lords has already been filleted, so we either move towards wholesale reform or we keep the bizarre elected hereditaries, complete with their eye-popping by-elections. Sad, but true.

Titles could still be conferred, of course. In fact, they could even be so on an hereditary basis again.

And I have in mind the English ceremonial counties, the Scottish lieutenancy areas, the Welsh preserved counties, and the Northern Irish counties, a total of 99 units.

Let each elect an equal number, with each of us voting for one candidate and the requisite number declared elected at the end.
4:18 pm
David Lindsay said…
There are of course Senators in Canada, Australia and certain other Commonwealth Realms.

Meanwhile, see http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.com/2008/10/i-peoples.html
3:49 pm
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