My American friends and relations always express amazement at our British obsession with the weather … until, that is, they experience its vagaries. In so many parts of the US, and indeed in so many other continents, the pattern is both predictable and slow to change. Not so here.
However, we do seem especially prone to being caught out by these rapid changes. My wife and I joined some other family for a weekend in Iceland. After visiting a vast icy wilderness, various geysers and swimming in an open air thermally heated pool, we left Reykjavik in brilliant sunshine. It reflected on several inches of snow but with cleared roads and pavements. Icelandic Airways transported us back to Heathrow without problems. And then it began to snow, so I had to slide into work here in the Lords.
So much for “global warming” (now renamed “climate change”) and the preparedness of Westminster City Council.
Meanwhile, the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw and the Deputy Leader of the House, Chris Bryant, seem to be indicating that the Constitutional Renewal Bill will be rescued from the deep freeze. Why not add full scale Lords reform to the Bill and get the job done?
I gather the lord’s speaker had to walk six miles to get into the lords yesterday!! (I heard her on the woolsack talking to Lord Bassam). Now that’s what I call commitment, when most London workers turn back Lady Hayman fights on. I am not at all convinced of an elected House of Lords. The House should remain appointed!
Election would be bad for many reasons:
A It puts up the cost of government as these elected people will want a full time salary unlike the present system of expenses in the lords.
B MP’s do not want elected peers running around their constituency doing there job for them.
C The house at the moment works very well and carries it job out far better than the commons in holding the government to account. So why change a good system to a bad system
D At the moment the constitutional balance is right i.e. the lords will give way to the commons as it has democratic power, if both houses are elected and one disagreed it will shake up the whole parliamentary balance of the lords giving way to the commons, as the lords will start challenging the authority of the commons.
E Most peers at the moment are people who have had career which can aid society and the legislative process, such as they have worked in many varied carriers and are not professional politicians.
F if the house is elected it will become dominated by the party whip as elected peers will feel obliged to keep their constituents happy and vote down the party line, which gives power to the whips. While at the moment most peers vote in a more conscious manner, which is much more healthy!
G Small reform is what is needed in the lords to make it better such as tightening up the regulation on outside interest. Letting the lords speaker have more power in debate so peers don’t waste time wandering off the subject. Allowing the Lord’s Speaker to call people to speak in the chamber unlike the organised chaos which take place at the moment in question time.
Thanks to “Tory Boy” for his thoughtful and succinct comments. I too walked a fair distance to work here on Monday, and even later in the evening there were 170 Peers voting: 85 in one direction and 85 in the other, as it happens.
However, your response to the all-party support for more radical reform of the Lords suggests that you have not yet examined the White Paper “An Elected Second Chamber: Further reform of the House of Lords.” This comprohensive set of proposals – backed by the leadership of all three parties in both Houses – seeks to answer all the misgivings you raise. The Conservatives were full engaged in this process.
In particular it develops specific safeguards to prevent any repetition of the worst party/whip dominance on the Commons, and ensures effective continuity, better individual representation and independence of judgement amongst Senators. It also provides for proper accountability and penalties, which are so sadly lacking in the current House, based as it is on life membership and Prime Ministerial patronage.
I suggest that all those who want to retain the present House shoudl at least read this White Paper in full.
The house above all should not let its members be called Senators I hope you will get rid of that ridiculous American idea straight away. The problem is though with an elected house the members will want to impress their constituents and get onto the front bench or into high positions on select committees. Although the later is done at the moment without the party machine I bet by right foot that the whips will jump in there and start taking over. I have the previous white paper the House of loss reform 2007. However I would appreciate a hard copy if a kind peer would pay the expense of posting me one free of charge! As I am a poor humble student of politics!
Tory Boy: if you send your snail mail adddress to Lord Tyler at House of Lords, London SW1A 0PW I will happily oblige !
As I understand climate change — the general effect is to warm the Earth but you can have “local”[1] cold spots. Other changes could be changing the direction of prevailing winds/sea currents, altering the season start and end times. Overall it would make most places warmer, wetter and more windy but not everywhere.
I’m showing my age now but it reminds me of the winter of 86.
[1] On a global scale.
Sorry, the last sentence should read:
The current cold snap reminds me of the winter of 86 (though we didn’t get that much snow up in Newcastle this week).
Is it really necessary for everyone to follow up every bit of cold weather with “so much for global warming, eh?!” as if local variations in weather were somehow anything like evidence against a gradual (in human terms, although startlingly fast in geological terms) change in global climate?
If all it took was a single cold winter to “disprove” global warming, it would probably also take an amazingly hot summer to “prove” it. But since there’s one of those happening simultaneously in Australia, with resultant fires killing over 200 people, I think it’s safe to say that local single-year seasonal variations can be generally ignored unless you’re a climate scientist who knows what you’re on about.
Flippancy can seem an awful lot like ignorance sometimes.