I’ve been on holiday for the last week, see picture left. Anyone guess where it is? I’ve been following the general mess that the Government has got into over the personal social care issue, the hole gets deeper every day and I’m looking forward to a good old ding-dong in committee next Monday on the Personal Care Bill.
I’ve also been following events on line and was struck by Janice Turner’s recent piece in the Times ‘Just a better class of stink’ at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/janice_turner/article7025683.ece
advocating an elected upper house rather than the ‘patronage’ one we have now. Clearly she’s forgotten about the House of Lords Appointment Commission and the fact that the Commons is elected but somehow got into an even greater stink than the Lords but never mind, her arguments are worth listening to on the grounds that it is spurious rhetoric that catches the public imagination.
Of course we could apply the same arguments to other walks of life. Brain surgeons for example, why don’t we elect them? They are accountable to a public service the NHS for their work, or most of them are; I’ve always thought it would be fun to have a go at that, the brain is a fairly small object to get to know, surely anyone could do it with a bit of help from one of those pop-up books and a Black and Decker? There must be A Ladybird Book of Neurosurgery for beginners? I don’t mind putting myself forward for election. (On second thoughts the Black and Decker would be best for orthopaedics). And my local postman, why shouldn’t I elect him? We could have a beauty parade of would be postmen who could give a presentation on why they especially fancied being a postie in this village rather than say Thorpe Abbotts down the road. And we could elect to most other jobs come to that. Why don’t we? Because we want the most gifted, experienced and hard working people who inspire confidence, will be excellent at their jobs and move the field forward. And that’s the same for a brain surgeon and a postman. If you move from an appointed to an elected system, or even move half way down the route as Senior Police Officer appointments are now ‘elected’, you have to be sure that those on the short list are all fit for purpose. Election systems in some universities for senior appointments are predicated on the assumption that the shortlist will be vetted in advance to ensure all are qualified. The problem in politics that we have few ways of judging the motivation, competence, skills, intellect, political nouse or common sense of the candidates. Most people don’t go to hustings, political meetings or even read much about the candidates. Those little leaflets that come through the door are pretty opaque. We already have a Commons where there are too few really able MPs and no obvious way that’s going to change. I feel an elected upper house will come and I shall probably vote for it; the tide of history is pushing us in that direction; but I do not delude myself it will be a more effective second chamber. Meanwhile we should get on and change what we can now to improve how we function.
Naming the .jpg file rather gives the game away – by sight I’d thought it was a Greek island.
“(On second thoughts the Black and Decker would be best for orthopaedics)”
Considering the ‘tools’ they do actually use in some surgery the difference between a blacksmith and a surgeon’s instruments can seem pretty small!
If you have an excess of “gifted, experienced and hard working [Postmen] who inspire confidence” could you point them in my direction. When it snows mine seem to vanish!
“I shall probably vote for it; the tide of history is pushing us in that direction; but I do not delude myself it will be a more effective second chamber.”
Voting for an option you believe is worse, a depressing analysis.
Isn’t it the case that most people in a general election are voting for the ‘least worst’ rather than the ‘best’? No wonder turnout has gone down.
That looks like Papagayo Cove in the Canary Islands. It has a distinctly volcanic look to the surrounding rocks.
On the subject of election or appointment, what about birth? I would argue that the Lords as it was before Tony Blair did his half-job of breaking it was probably as good as it is now.
I am opposed to an appointment system without safeguards, otherwise it is too easy for a Prime Minister to pack the Lords to get his (or her) own way. Limiting political appointments is a necessary requirement of such a system to stop it being abused.
If an elected chamber was to replace the present system, then, as I’ve said elsewhere, elect members for a fixed five-year term and have 20% of the seats become vacant each year. An elected chamber should be the equal of the Commons, able to block legislation and raise funds, because it would have equal democratic accountability.
I’d abolish the concept of the whip in the Lords – each member should be free to vote with conscience, not party affiliation. For any sheep in the chamber, it wouldn’t be too hard to follow your designated leader, so why have the sheepdog chasing? This bit comes from seeing Government MPs in the Commons stand up and oppose government measures in debate and yet still vote with the Government at the end.
I would oppose a compromise of part elected, part appointed chamber (ignoring the present situation with elected hereditary peers because they’re elected from within their own group and are effectively appointed by that group). Either have the cake or eat it, not both.
Anyone that votes for elected Lords is misguided imho.
We need independence of party to scrutinise legislation. As I stated to another poster if we had elected Lords at a similar time to Labour gaining power there would be no scrutiny, just the whips and legislatures view.
There is absolutely no point in having an extension of “The Commons” and that is all an elected Lords would be.
Limit the numbers, MOT the brains annually, pay them a reasonable wage, taxed,keep the independence but heaven help us don`t elect Politicians to fill the House. !!!
Democracy is representation of the people by the people, for the people. Under those circumstances Brains Surgeons would be operating on themselves; postmen delivering their own post to themselves, and so on.
It just would not work.
I don’t think Black and Decker would work either, unless you migrate to the USA where they are the most popular tool.
It would have to be Bosch.
Election by patronage to patronise, does not seem quite as bad on that basis.
The Ladybird book of Brain surgery for beginners is a must have, for the Soldiers on their way to Afghanistan, to deal with the enemy. One bullet serves all.
Election of the HofL has been on the cards for more than 100 years now, and apart from the elected hereds, there has been no progress.
The problem is one of the opposing interests of the Rule of One.
I do not see it as a problem. The French have been perfectly happy with the Duc De Paris
as pretender, for more than a century and a half, and he serves his own interests as well as always. Lord Speaker is fine by me.
The picture is Lulworth Cove. You should have called in. One other person in very highest office does so, in passing, bless’im!
Good grief, never want to see an elected upper house.
One reason is that it would simply fall victim to the same disease as the commons – getting stuffed with think-tank manufactured professional politicians, none of whom have any expertise outside of politics.
I’ve always felt that the Lords is a fantastic method of sneaking in some reason into the political process, people who have spent their lives doing something non-political, and have good expertise they can draw on, I would not want that replaced with self-serving party hacks.
Obviously, safe-guards need to be put in place to prevent abuse.
“stuffed with think-tank manufactured professional politicians, none of whom have any expertise outside of politics.”
The average tenure of membership for MPs in the commons was at one time about 7 years. That may have increased by a few months since 1997 since so many Labor members have held on to their seats for grim death.
Not that many members take their seats in their 30s, so they must have plenty of “outside” experience, a misplaced definition if every there was one in political chambers, although debating day in day out is a killer
for some people. Not having expertise is surely no disqualification for political representation?!
A completely different PR method for a second chamber, which would probably be necessary, would give a different air to its business as well.
I want people making decisions to have more understanding of the issue at hand than I could.
Understanding how to debate, is not the same as understanding what is being debated.
I’m mostly complaining that there seems to be a standard route into (and out of) politics – get a job inventing policy from some institute or other.
I realize that this is the House of Lord’s own blog but I must say how glad I am that the consensus seems to be against an elected House of Lords. A supreme parliament without an internal appointed safeguard would scare me senseless.
http://www.governing-principles.com
BM: Croft, smart move, never thought to look at the jpg name. I thought it was Papagayo but wasn’t sure; spent many a relaxing vacation in Playa Blanca staying in the Casa del Sol apartments when the family was younger, a lot younger. Especially liked to sit and people watch in the bay cafes whilst watching the Fred Olson ferry come and go. It was very much a German resort in those days.
We stopped going, so did the Germans and Swedes because it became too commercialised by mainland Spaniards. Plus Canarian potatoes the accompaniment to every dish was replaced after the Brits invaded in large numbers by the ubiquitous side of fried chips. I’m afraid it dragged down Lanzarote’s culinary delights for what they were worth.
It was in Fuerteventura across the way and half way up a mountain that for the first time we met somebody wearing a pith helmet. He happened to be a Brit and I simply had to ask if I could hold his hat which I did. It was so light in weight, I was amazed.
As for the Lords Appointment Commission, its chairman Lord (Michael) Jay of Ewelme GCMG is a strong advocate of an fully elected house. I wonder if he has read the blogs prospectus for such a house. Be sure to tell him it one exists if you bump into him.
We all know Lord Norton is good and the House Magazine thinks he is the best thing since sliced bread but will he ever loose his edge or will you for that matter? Would you ever want a change? Brain surgeons are not elected but they elect the members of the board to the professional institute they belong to just as you do.
Looking at the irritable nature of your prose it seems you have come back with ants in your pants or should that be sand from Papagayo beach?
The only system of election I’d approve of for the Lords is one you sort of hint at. Instead of nominating, say, four new peers, the Appointments Commission would nominate 20. The public would then vote for the four they most want to see in the House. Parties shouldn’t come into it. There could be a Labour vote, a Conservative vote, etc. with the numbers of each determined by the percentage of votes in the general election, plus a sizeable proportion of independent crossbenchers. Election would be for 15 years with no chance of re-election.
Of course, this won’t happen. If the Lords is elected, it’ll be under a list system that favours the cronies of the big parties, and end up being a carbon copy of the Commons or worse.
Jonathan’s ideas there are rather interesting, but if it were all done by an appointments commission then the Appointments commissioners would be an all powerful body themselves, which I can tell you, they ain’t at the moment.
It would certainly be one way.
but somehow got into an even greater stink than the Lords
The stench is there just as much as the commons.
In the Lords case it justs that those who weren’t fiddling their expenses have got away with it by the expedient of having their mates let the off.
Here’s the evidence, and I’ll pick on one Lord because he’s the one we have the most evidence in the public domain, Lord Rennard.
“In view of the assurances by Lord Rennard about the change in his circumstances and the time he spends in Eastbourne, and in the absence of any definition of ‘main address’ in the current guidance to the House of Lords’ Members Expenses Scheme, I have come to the conclusion that I should not uphold the complaint,” wrote Mr Pownall.
Note the important bit about not having a definition of main address.
Now explain to everyone here why you should be able to claim for a second home when you have no defintion of a second home?
If you get away with it because of no definition of main home, why should you be able to claim for a second home when you can’t define what it is?
ie. It’s like the commons, except its worse.
There are two types of Lords, those on the fiddle, and those who’ve left the door to the bank open to let them take other people’s money.
As for the schemes, none of them address the real issues.
1. How do we get ride of corrupt politicians if the Lords and the Commons will not clean out the Augean stable?
2. How to we deal with the political corruption that is patronage?
3. How do we as the electorate get to voice our control over the issues?
4. How do we deal with politicians lying?
5. How do we deal with politicians doing things not in their manifesto, and not doing things they promised?
6. How do we stop politicians shafting future generations with debts and liabilities?
eg. Unfunded pensions. Taking NI and spending it not investing it. eg The proposed tax on dying to pay for social care because they have blown everyones NI in the past
7. How do we deal with politicians theiving to pay for their mistakes?
e.g. You know that promise about your state pensions, we’ll because we’ve run out of cash we’re going to raise the retirement age by 5 years. At 5K a year, we are taking 25,000 pounds off you.
The expenses is just the canary down the mine.
The fact that the Lords haven’t controlled their own spending, and likewise the Commons. That the overseeing function of the Lords has also failed on this one issue, and the complete lack of redress, gives absolutely no reassurance on other matters you have overseen anything.
As a check on the commons, you’ve failed.
So can the Lords be reformed to deal with any of these issues?
1. We could cut its size down to 100. US senate size.
2. We could abolish you and go single chamber. We would still get the same mess from the commons, but over the next parliament we would save upto 770 million pounds. Not to be sniffed at.
3. We could go for giving the electorate control.
a) Right of recall
b) Referenda by proxy (because its very cheap)
These deal with the issues above in a clear way
“And we could elect to most other jobs come to that. Why don’t we? Because we want the most gifted, experienced and hard working people who inspire confidence, will be excellent”
The noble baroness is clearly imbued with the spirit of elitism, exclusivism, paternalism and patronage for which the HofL was always been renowned.
“The problem in politics that we have few ways of judging the motivation, competence, skills, intellect, political nous”
Enthusiasm for the nation state is the main qualification. How would it be in a parliamentary democracy if those with the gift of the gab were excluded from being elected simply because that is their only skill?
“Now let me see if I can find a qualification in Yack! Ah! There it is! the very place the University of the Palace of Westminster!”
The very purpose of breaking the nonsense qualification monopolies promoted by the Privy council, would be the finest purpose of a non-qualified person, and a fine one indeed.
The question raised by the Baroness is a false one. The header should be:
Election? NO! Appointment? No!
Abolition? YES! A single chamber parliament for this 21st century.
“Abolition? YES! A single chamber parliament for this 21st century.”
NO! I want a safeguard, I want someone to write, email, talk to when legislation is put that is bad or wrong. I want a second chamber that can hold Government to account when they are elected on manifesto`s they do not stick to, when they appear to implement bills bought forth by foreign industry not in the good of the people.
I want a knowledgeable person to state changing a word can mean an innocent won`t be convicted. I want someone to state clearly the World is round when all others state flat.
I want someone to hold the Government to account when the people are misled by the gab, such as we will let all ethnicities be members.
I have no doubt Gareth will feel I`m wrong, that my knowledge is flawed, it`s a good job I`m viewed as one of the cleverer people of my class imagine how the others may vote ! Just because the people vote for something, they are led to believe is right doesn`t make it so and quite often they learn to their cost.
Elections are like free trials without the ability to uninstall.
I go along with this – a second chamber is required to give oversight and careful consideration to a Bill, removing loopholes and restricting the powers of government to the minimum necessary[*]. It must be immune to packing by the government in power, in order that it can do that job properly and must be sensitive to the fact that the elected government does have a majority and so should not obstruct properly-defined legislation without good cause.
[*] I consider that the Lords has been failing in this respect, given some of the awful stuff that has passed into law in recent years.
BM: On the subject of Personal Social Care, the so called ‘death tax’ and how this care is to be funded.
Right now yours or indeed bloggers ‘death taxes’ have already been paid notionally; when a pension fund ceases to pay out, any residual value as I understand it is taken up by the Treasury under the Bono Vacantia rules which their web site describes as:
“Bona Vacantia” literally means vacant goods and is the legal name for ownerless property that passes to the Crown. We administer the estates of persons who die intestate without known kin and collect the assets of dissolved companies and failed trusts.”
Let the Commons come clean and say what the value of these revenues is. My thinking is that they are substantial and could fund if not in part what is being proposed.
When it comes to the state pension its value too is notional in that it exists as a ledger entry on the Treasuries accounts for any given fiscal year. When this pension ceases to be paid a contra entry is made to the ledger to remove its liability. However, this is not as straight forward for the state second pension that might be invested in stocks, gilts or other tangible assets.
Again, the residual value of this fund passes to the Treasury upon death.
Now National Insurance: its revenue is part of the Treasuries financial plan for any given fiscal year. Towards the end of the year a forecast of revenue is made for the next fiscal year and on the 6th April it becomes the plan for that year. This plan has a nominal amount set as a target for NI income; any surplus is then taken into general taxation.
The incentive here is for the Commons to deliberately understate the target so as to subsidise general taxation. It is also encouraged to raise the upper earnings limit so as to reinforce general taxation, the house normally opposes this. What should be happening is that the surplus, a thing of the past, should be set aside as a ledger entry to fund this so called ‘death tax’ as a current liability.
“”Bona Vacantia” literally means vacant goods and is the legal name for ownerless property that passes to the Crown”
By no means all vacant goods pass to the crown.
If a property becomes obviously ‘bona’ and obviously ‘vacantia’ to solicitors or estate agents the general principal is to grab and claim by possession, occupancy and adverse possession.
Indeed if it is a property, the deeds of which are in the possession of the portfolio of the
solicitor without being their title deed in any way, they would most certainly have the ‘right’ to the bona and the vacantia.
Assets held in the city in the form of mutuals, friendly societies, industrial and providents, etc, or Public companies are rather a different thing.
I think I am right in saying that, even after recent changes in the law, to the time lapse of adverse possession regulations, which applied to a certain group of chattels/goods.
Gareth Howell: Let say you retire and your pension fund value is 100k and is used to buy an annuity. The interest from the annuity is what comes to you by way of a pension income.
Lets say you are the sole survivor of marriage and then you die. What happens to the 100k?
I’m suggesting it goes to the Treasury by way of Bona Vacantia and represents a ‘death tax’. You understand this to be different, please explain.
elected second chamber? NO
second chamber as safeguard? YES
my preference: bin all these life peers (too many political hacks – I mean no offense to the contributors to this blog, ahem); keep the bishops and 200 hereditary peers. A further 250 peers to be chosen by lot on a rotating cycle – you do a five or maybe ten year term during which you are paid a salary modest by the standards of those who usually walk the corridors of Westminster, but definitely worth signing up for if you are an ordinary person (£40,000, double the average household income, sounds sensible to me). And you are paid only if you are active in the House – someone who turns up for 50% of the time when there is work to be done gets paid 50% of the annual wage. Reasonable travel expenses, and budget accommodation for non-home counties people, are the only expenses allowed.
Anyone with a British passport can volunteer to be a peer, except prisoners and children under 16.
The bishops and hereditaries would make sure that the drawn-by-lots peers learned quickly how the House works and what it’s role is.
Now _that_ would be a second house in which the politicians were held to account by the people.
An entirely Electronic second chamber; otherwise abolition!* The requirements for an electronic membership would be all the perquisites for being viewed, read and heard online.
The Lord speaker would control the split screen with all the attending members video links visible.
*I say that! The Estonian Chancellor(?)/finance minister told me with some pride in 2000, that they had held their first entirely electronic referendum including the use of mobile phones.
I learn that the recent cyber attack on Estonia’s banking system was organized by A Russian school boy of 16.
Keep the bishops!! What!
The last thing we want is some moralising grumblers making everyone live by their antediluvian standards.
Thank you all for your very entertaining comments. Senex I’ll respond to your care funding suggestions in a separate blog. Meanwhile can I encourage you back to Lanzarote? Playa Blance is improved again I understand. I have steadfastly refused to go on the grounds it would be filled with riff-raff and fish and chip shops and Irish pubs and was delighted to be proved wrong (there I go being a snob again). Canarian potatoes are back on the menu. Yes the pic was Papagayo. Croft, I thought I’d hidden the jpeg name and I’m still trying to work out why it appeared right when I placed it left!
I’m accused by Gareth Howell of elitism and I happily own up to that. I believe in elites; I believe in a meritocracy; that’s not at all the same as exclusivism, patronage or paternalism.
Jonathan, I like your idea of the Appointments Commission assembling a short list for voting quite a lot. Otherwise the election choice will be controlled by the parties again.
BM: Yes, we long to return to Lanzarote, one day and to Playa Blanca and NO you are not being a snob just somebody with good taste; its good news for the mamma’s y papas as a side issue.
Gareth Howell is a socialist so everything to him is elitist. I’m going to touch upon what ‘best’ means in terms of constituencies in a blog piece with Lord Tyler on the role of an elected house.
I posted on Lords Reform here:
http://lordsoftheblog.net/2010/02/21/phoenix-rising/
There are some really good ideas being put forward here, the difficulty I have is actually believing that anyone is listening.
Baroness Murphy,
“Clearly she’s forgotten about the House of Lords Appointment Commission and the fact that the Commons is elected but somehow got into an even greater stink than the Lords but never mind, her arguments are worth listening to on the grounds that it is spurious rhetoric that catches the public imagination.”
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, and given that Janice Turner is being tongue-in-cheek, I think that is a little harsh. I mean, the giveaway is when she talks about ‘hand moving to forelock..’.
If you really are going to put the boot into the election process [which is fair enough] you might at last concede the flipside by visiting an unqualified son of a former dentist to show that the ‘hereditary’ principle is still an anomaly as well.
Of course, I concede you may not support that, but the fact is that the 92 are still there. And whilst that isn’t the worst thing in the world, one can understand why it puts some people’s backs up.
Name for the House of Lords Appointment Commission..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/regions/wales/8525898.stm
And a rare example of an ‘on-topic’ post from me..