Yesterday in the House of Lords, the government won two divisions by large majorities, one in normal business hours and one late (almost 11 o’clock). Of course I am happy about that — being a government backbencher, and wanting to see the Academies Bill go through without trouble — but if this is a pattern that continues there will be less and less reason for the government to take the House of Lords seriously: we may talk a lot but in the end we will rubber stamp anything.
In the longer term, this is a matter which will have to be addressed by Lords Reform. Under the last government there was a general understanding that the government should have more members than the largest opposition party, but should overall be in a minority on the political benches. That no longer applies, and I do not immediately see how we can produce a mechanism for an elected house that allows the Lords to exercise effective scrutiny over a coalition government. Keeping members part time, with a requirement that they have expertise to offer, and therefore having a bias towards independence of mind may be the best that we can do.
In the short term, the government’s refusal to involve the backbenches in the House of Lords in the preparation of the draft Lords Reform Bill may sufficiently annoy its own backbenches, so that they become motivated to demonstrate their effectiveness as a check on government. When the Conservatives had a large hereditary majority, their backbenches often found reasons to rebel.
If only all levels of Governance had entrenched win-win-win participatively-cooperative problem solving as both the preparatory basis and thereafter first-resort for Needs, Hows and Costs recognition and therefater legislation-drafting, we would all be home and hosed, instead of the ongoing few filthy rich and ungainly-powered few; my lord.
LL: So what you are saying is that governments from time to time find their backbenchers revolting? Indeed they do!
There was much talk early in the debate about the composition of the committee and about it being unfair. I must confess that the words ‘designed by committee’ and ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ spring to mind. As was pointed out by the front bench, it is a draft bill that will be given pre-legislative scrutiny inside and outside of Parliament and the time to debate it properly will be when it arrives.
It was also pointed out that Parliamentary ‘draughtsmen’ will craft it as though it was a bill about to have its first reading. Its being done differently and there is a very real chance that an elected house will happen, one way or another. The wreckers are on the shore line in their darkest of nights ready lure this bill onto the rocks. I say let the captain and his crew steer the bill to safe harbour and in the light of day, where it can be boarded by all for greater scrutiny.
The role of an elected house was much mentioned in debate as though it would be different from its role now. There IS no difference because the house acts to do what it has always sought to do, to defending the public from the excesses of the executive. The house however is a toothless sentinel and the question is should it be given a full set of teeth or just one tooth at a time; I favour the latter.
Let the house reacquire its powers on a needs must basis and with public consent and let the first tooth be access to secondary legislation in committee.
The Commons treads in murky waters as it invests itself of accountability away from a sovereign Parliament. Can these public bodies speak freely? No! Can they be leveraged by the executive? Yes! Is the Commons on a collision course with the public? Yes, if the house remains an appointed one!
This Balance of Power business is about more than short-term tactics and short-term strategy; it is about radically-reforming, at all levels, to get an All-Round and up-date-ably relevant
(1) Constitution
(2) Governance by Two Houses
(3) Upwards ‘feed’ from both People and Experts.
The People still do not know how to participate in problem-solving, have never been led or encouraged by Governance or by Education to be continuously democratic, and as a result very largely today do not want to participate, but simply to go on abrogating by means of a few simple pencilled marks on a small slip of paper once every five years.
If only the super-well-provided and protected few had seen the long-term wisdom of budgeting much more time to the entrenchment of win-win-win Needs, Hows and Costs participatorily cooperative problem solving, at every level of People, Experts, and Governance Bodies, we should not only not be down in the dumps now but be looking forward to world-respect this time as an highly sustainworthy and exemplary-lifestyling nation.
Instead, this coalition looks already like a protectionist regression, ‘leading’ a similarly protectionist nation of people; avoiding our longest-term as well as immediate Need to become all-roundly competent, resilient, and sustain-worthy.
The Academies Bill is only one symptom of the Parliaments’ and the People’s failure to build all-round resilience and sustainworthiness throughout every level and extent of this British Nation-State.
I fear it is going to result in one huge untidy inefficient and ineffective Bodge and ‘free-for-all’.
The only good thing about having this Coalition is that at least it greatly slows down ‘dictatorially’ bums-rushed legislations, and gives us some chance of coming to terms with all the previous legislations still hobbling both life and work, both people and lifesupports;
while we wait for the new and better-sighted critical-masses of People, Experts and Parliamentarians to form-up, come to a Big New Agreement, and help all we tens of millions of non-critical-mass other folk to in turn ‘see the light’ and follow along, but to follow in an increasingly sustainworthy, resilient and competent ‘marriage’, between People and State.
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(jsdm1145Th0807)
I don’t see how Lords reform, pretty much always code for an elected house, would help. On the recent elections an elected house would have a larger majority in the Lords than at present.
Croft: In the blog’s prospectus for an indirectly elected house political peers’ are elected by their party membership say at the annual conference following a general election.
One might ask what’s the difference between party members as individuals and the party’s executive machine; well party members are the executive’s backbenchers outside of parliament and they most certainly do not always follow their executive’s desires.
The other point is party members are wholly immersed in contemporary society and they most certainly know what’s going on. This contrasts starkly with MPs and peers that fulfil a bureaucratic role within Parliament. Peers are closer to reality than MPs in this respect and its absolutely the wrong way around.
More importantly party members are the custodians of the party prospectus; when MPs arrive in the Commons they immediately take it upon themselves to do what they want at the expense of their party membership. If the party membership was the constituency of peers those peers would most certainly hold the executive to account because in effect there would be two sets of backbenchers at work in the house.
On the subject of the elective method it is always going to be a compromise. FPtP can return a majority but it lacks the legitimacy of proportion. It does however allow whatever party the dignity of its own vote by not sharing it out. AV or PR on the other hand has the legitimacy of proportion but lacks a similar dignity; the contending parties in the political process implicitly agree to coalition because their votes may be transferred to others. The Tories have no truck with coalition as a general principle for them its winner takes all.
The fly in the ointment is that New Labour has demonstrated an ‘abuse’ of power using FPtP and there is no going back to a discredited system. In the debate it was mentioned that only once in thirteen years did the government loose a vote in the Commons or was it the HoL, I forget.
It`s interesting you mention “effective scrutiny” at a time when both BT and Talk Talk are taking to the High Court parts of the Digital Economy Bill which was rushed through at the end of the last Parliament.
It seem`s that cries for reform do not include the farcical “wash-up” which was prime in everyones mind at the end of the last Government.
If your cry is for effective scrutiny I look forward to hearing that you are doing something to counter the abhorrent, ill advised, undemocratic wash-up process.
It’s pretty much what goes on with all the other bills. Most of the changes come from the government changing their own legislation. Actual substative changes from the Lords are very far and few between.
Consider too that a lot of legistlation contains enabling legistlation designed to remove the Lords and the Commons from any part of the process.
All thanks to the lords not doing their job.
Well, it is certainly true that a Lords elected by the party members would be different I’m not so sure how much of if it would be a good thing.
Party members have proven in the past to be (at times) quite unbelievably foolish in supporting MPs when they have done something that has inflicted massive damage on their party. I see little sign that they are more in touch than MPs – members can be the most tribal of all when they think their MP is not backing the government as many backbenchers have found out to their cost.
Consider the voters use of a type of PR at conference when choosing their peer. The implicit coalition this time has dignity because all the players are connected in the contest as one political entity.
Case law has established that a party manifesto is not legally binding upon a political party, nor should it be, so the present system abandons the party member when there is conflict over it. Party members are the life blood of the body politic and to loose members because of this is short sighted but inevitable under the present system.
You talk of party members wreaking havoc, yes they are quite capable of this but it would be nothing compared to what the general public could do under direct elections. Let peers defend their manifestos and work with MPs to resolve a dispute if an act of omission is in the national interest.
When I talk of peers being elected at party conference I mean life peers not hereditary peers. These peers exist side by side with the Monarchy, two peas in a pod, and the Monarchy is not the ancient ‘Scottish’ one where the King was elected by its nobility.
Hereditary peers are the free radicals of the house that are independently minded and often act on perceived injustice and contrary to the whip. It may be romantic but they represent to me the last breath of chivalry and the house would be a cruel place indeed without them.
Roll on the Referendum campaign then?
“designed by committee’ and ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ ”
Cooking a camel then, at the barbecue?
But just think, the next time someone’s accuses the Lords of being ‘elitist’ then you can play them this video..
http://playpolitical.typepad.com/labour_party/2010/07/john-prescott-prepares-to-take-his-seat-in-the-house-of-lords.html
.. even if it is at the price of your argument about having access to the best expertise on a variety of subjects takes a bit of a battering.
But this idea that people keep their titles after they have ‘left’ is hilarious.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7878138/Lord-Foster-quits-House-of-Lords-rather-than-sacrifice-non-dom-tax-status.html
Sort it out…
“Keeping members part time, with a requirement that they have expertise to offer, and therefore having a bias towards independence of mind may be the best that we can do.”
Quite so.
Ask yourselves the simple question,
Why do people want a change in means of electing representatives?
It’s surprisingly simple. Their views are not being represented.
If you have no control over the issues and how they are resolved, you will want change.
The fraudsters in parliament (lords included) will do everything to prevent you having a say. That’s the basic democratic fraud. You can have a say on who is elected, and you might get a bit of a say on what happens if you are in a marginal.
That’s why the Libdems want a change. They want their chance at more influence. To get their choosen into power to implement what in reality the majority doesn’t want. The electorate don’t get a say.
That’s the same reason the Lords won’t abolish themselves and allow the electorate the say. Democracy? It’s for us and not the little people. Plus we would be out of a job.
Carl points out yet another reason. The Lords keep saying, we do a great job at revising legistlation. The DEB and the complete lack of scrutity and willingness to pass it shows that to be a lie.
The point of a referendum is to ask a question, whether simple or complicated, in precise terms, not in the loaded way you suggest.
Democracy is not about personal control over issues, neither does it attempt to parade one person’s view as that of the, big word here, majority.
The first fact to be recognised needs to be that without prior ability-achievement by the prospective empowered, Power will become a weapon in the wrong hands rather than a constructive-tool for the good of every-one.
Empowerment must always be preceded by Expertise-Ability; otherwise it is a very dangerous Usurpery.
The first Usurpery visible in British ‘democracy’, carried on by many not only by as Lord Blagger calls them “the fraudsters in parliament (lords included)”, is the total exclusion of
1. a people-upwards-primary-power to state their Needs, Hows, and Costs-limitations (affordabilities).
2. a Constitutional requirement for
(a) the Civil-Service to faithfully List all those submissions verbatim, and promptly deliver them with Civil-Service’s comments attached, upwards to the two Legislative Houses, downwards to The People (for their edification prior to the active legislation process itself during which the People should continue to bear some further participatory responsibility), and possibly a copy upwards to the Monarch); and
(b) the two Legislative Houses to
(i) receive those people’s needs in their entirety
(ii) scrutinise them and the submitted Hows and Costs-limitations, and also the comments added by the Civil-Service
(iii) begin a pre-legislation Amendment stage in which further submissions back from affected People must be tabled and dealt with prior to the two Legislative Houses proceeding into actual Bill-legislation stages
(iv) proceed with the Legislation process (allowing adequate time and enablement for affected people to make further submissions or re-submissions.
3. secure and trustworthy Democracy-Communication channels between People and Parliament, the Civil-Service and the Monarch; and vice versa; in one-way and two-way modes as appropriate and agreeable to the parties affected;
4. trustworthy reportage by the Media in all these matters.
Merely that
(“) ‘The People’s’ “view” is recognised, and that they “have their say” to which all Parliamentarians must “listen” [but not necessarily faithfully-interpret and ink-in on legislative-proceedings] (”)
is not only a Mockery and Usurper’s insult to The People, but a practical impossibility both to be implemented and made positively-effective.
Consider:
If each citizen were allotted an equal timeframe in which to voice their Need [let alone their ‘views’ on how the whole Nation-State’s Needs are to be legislated] such that every other citizen, as well as the Governance powers-that-be, could hear that voice: the democratically-fair speaking-time, for each citizen among 60 million, would be 2.6208 seconds once every five-years.
{[60x60x24x7x52 = 31,449,600.0] ÷ [60,000,000 = 0.52416] x 5 = 2.6208 (seconds every 5-years)}.
======================
It is clear that only one radical-reform should be absolutely essential; and that is for The People, the Parliaments, The Monarch, the Civil-Service, and the Media to prepare drafts towards Primary-legislation for every-one’s Needs, Hows, and Affordable-Costs to be named, prioritised, and legislated, to the exclusion therefrom of mere wants, wishes, desires and fantasies (which where judged inescapably desirable may follow in successively lower priority and budgeting-totals).
All else is but super-band-aiding.
=====================
(JSDM1948F0907).
“………. in parliament (lords included) will do everything to prevent you having a say. That’s the basic democratic fraud. ”
Looking at Blagger’s cynical approach to politics and parliament it is easy to be emotionally convinced of its accuracy.
The truth is that if you do not follow procedure in any court of law,or its confines, then as a member of the public you will be excluded.
Very little to do with fraud at all.
That is just one point. Next please.
The plan to elect prospective peers at party conference succeeding a general election seems a wise one. That would militate in favour of those prepared to be local party chairmen, and members of the National Executive councils.
I don’t know how that would effect the constituency organizations.
I will take that as an endorsement then. Two peers in the house also support indirect elections, Lord How and Baroness Hooper.
There is wisdom in saying let the captain and his crew steer the bill to safe harbour but I would ask Lord McNally which course does his pilot take him? Is it the way to an indirectly elected chamber or is it the way to a directly elected one.
Or is it that in undiscovered seas his navigator takes him through waters once charted by New Labour and he now adds to the discovery process by making his way beyond this? He will not reply because the captain does not want to go down with his ship.
He is aware of how helpful members of the house wish to be with this bill so let ALL the political parties at their respective party conferences be just as helpful. Let them put a motion to the membership that simply says:
“Does the membership support an indirectly elected House of Lords?”
And do it before the draft bill arrives in the dock.
That is an enthymemical question “Does the membership support an indirectly elected House of Lords?”; and it is also an aggressively-political Closed question my lords.
The question for such a ‘sub-referendum’ should be such as “In what order do you place the following alternatives for the Upper House:
a) directly elected (by The People) ;
b) indirectly elected (by The Government-of-the-Day or by the whole Lower House) ;
c) preparatorily short-listed Abilities, CVs and names of non-politically willing and able candidates (by postal-listing by The People under information successively published by Non-Legislative Expertise, Governance services, and a limited Media)culminating in a postal or polling-station listed-vote by The People. “
(And do all this before the thing gets politicised and devoured by The Big Bankers and the hundreds of thousands of governance-lilliputians in their Pockets).
===============
JSDM1630Sn1107)
What’s loaded about it?
Do you approve, yes or no, this bill?
Why shouldn’t it be about everyone having their view?
The opposite is a small cabal dictating to others what to do, whilst siphoning off money into their own pockets.
Does that sound familiar?
Is this perhaps why you oppose democracy? Namely you want control over the issues, and you don’t want everyone having an equal say.
That pretty much sums up what your and Phillip Norton’s position is.
We can’t allow everyone the vote on an issue because they might have their own opinions.
So much for universal suferage. Lady Tizzy doesn’t want other people being able to cast a vote on an issue.
That’s one heck of a jump of logic, Nick. Explian yourself before I consult my consigliere.
The opposition was great. Some men objected to women having the vote because they believed them to be inferior. It was suggested that women could not think out matters coolly and calmly. Others would not agree to women’s suffrage because they did not want change. Women had never voted before. Why should they start now? A further objection involved property. In 1900, few women were householders or lodgers. If the vote were given to them, then it would have to be given also to men who were not householders or lodgers. At that time political parties were not prepared to do this.
John Ray, The Place of Women ( 1971)
A school textbook from the 1970s
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Same old arguments being trotted out as to why the people who pay for government should have a direct say in what government does.
The central, Mother-Father-Family Issue that is being continuously avoided or strawman’d off the Table is that Government’s Primary and Ultimate Job, Duty and Responsibility is to recognise all the Needs, Hows and Affordaable-Costs of The People i.e. of the Nation that is the sole Raison d’Etre of the Nation-State;
and the subsequent issue is How best to legislate for the peaceful satisfying of those Necessities and Unavoidables.
==========
A serious commenter should give either an unbiased wording of a problem s/he sees, or give a representative ‘nest’ of wordings, in the spirit of the House of Lords’s major claim to indispensability namely that it can provide impartiality not in evidence from the politically competitive and self-aggrandising House of Commons, from the Voting Public, from the Media, or from the Houses of Brussels and Strasbourg and UN HQs.
—————
“Same old arguments…why the people who pay for government should have a direct say in what government does.”
It should be irrelevant ‘who’ pays for government; the absolutely inalienable duty of Government should be to recognise and win-win-win participatorily cooperatively prioritise and legislate the Needs, Hows, and Affordable-Costs of every citizen and citizenry-group, right up to the Nation as the topmost Group.
When Government fails in that singular sine-qua-non Task and Duty, the People or any number of the citizenry within that overall Set, have a natural need firstly to use a direct-say in the peaceful correction of that government, and failing that to progressively rebel including to beyond the point of bloody-revolution.
In place of ‘views’ and ‘opinions’ and ‘say’ in their submissions, some commenters would serve far better by using the term “Needs, Hows & Affordable-Costs” instead.
Then a matter could be taken to any necessary depth, instead of being confined to mere ‘boos’ and ‘hoorays’ from the People-In-The-Gallery, having mere ‘views’, *says’. opinions’, ‘perceptions’ behind wire-netting, bullet-proof, and bomb-proof barriers.
[ Lord Blagger there ? I havn’t made any kind of list of ‘possible-perps’ in this matter, yet ].
===================
(JSDM1418St100710).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w&
feature=player_embedded
John Ray would have approved.
The truth is that if you do not follow procedure in any court of law,or its confines, then as a member of the public you will be excluded.
Not at all. Look at the Atorney General under labour. Not the issue with illegal immigrants and employing them, but the issue with expenses.
That was illegal, until the government change the law retrospectively to make it legal.
ie. Government does not play by the rules you might expect it to.
The same with the Lords in general. Why are we not allowed to see the report into Lords expenses? It has to be very damning to be made a state secret.
In the mean time the troughing goes on.
As for parties electing, why doesn’t the voter get a look in and just party members?
Take female sufferage as the pattern
Women can’t have the vote, they will do as their husbands tell them.
Just the men have a right to vote.
Just the party members have a right to vote on Lords.
hmmmm
The only reason they want an indirectly elected house, ie Parties nominating their favourites to the Lords is that it perpetuates their power.
It also means that they will still control investigations into expenses fraud. ie. It’s parliament investigating their own and nobling a police investigation yet again.
Just as the having the police investigate the police’s crimes is wrong, having the lords investigate their own crimes is wrong, and in particular having the official running the investigation being the same person who administered the expenses system in the first place is even more wrong. The evidence is that the report into this affair is a state secret.
Ask yourself why? No Lord has explained why the report is state secret? Does it involve MI5? MI6? The armed forces? Relationships with other governments? Nope.
Lord Blagger
The challenge is there. Can any peer explain or even justify why we shouldn’t know the details of the report?
It should be irrelevant ‘who’ pays for government; the absolutely inalienable duty of Government should be to recognise and win-win-win participatorily cooperatively prioritise and legislate the Needs, Hows, and Affordable-Costs of every citizen and citizenry-group, right up to the Nation as the topmost Group.
=================
But that’s not the plan is it?
Just watch any political program. The idea is that the rich are denied services because they can pay for them. That is in addition to paying for them in the first place, and way over the top in taxation.
There are of course exemptions. Key workers is/was the word.
ie. MPs get flu vacinations, others don’t.
Lords and MPs inhabit a different world. It’s one where they get the services for free. The drinks subsidies. The housing subsidies. The travel subsidies. Large amounts of protection by the police.
All things denied to the rest of us.
Let’s try to find the enthymemes and the usurperies;, and try to agree something win-win-win to put there instead ?
1. (‘)That’s not their plan(‘): it should and could be Our-Plan ‘though, to begin exponentially growing win-win-win Methodology, both from the People end and from the Monarchy-Parliaments end.
2(a) If one can afford to pay for a service
[because one is being given and is drawing from the Common Purse way-way-way- over the top-top-top in numbers of human-livings]
then that service is not being ‘denied’ to one (Logically. ? )
2(b) ‘That is in addition to paying’ a percentage*, of one’s way-way-way over the top-top-top multiple-livings obscenely-excessive, capital income, in sustain-worthily legislated taxation.
3. Key-, Emergency-, or Essential-services- Workers, few of us would have any root-problem with (?)
4. ‘Lords and MPs inhabit a different ‘world’…they get the services free, subsidised drinks, housing and travel; and large amounts of protection by the Police and by special regulations and legislations (?) All of which are denied to The People or to Non-sitting parliamentarians (and Civil Servants ? and their familes ? and friends ? and impostors ?)’.
5. Remedy # 1 might be to amend that protectionist legislation for the ‘Essential-Oligarchy’ such that it applies only during time of Emergency, Key-work or Essential-service timeframes.
Remedy # 2 might be to introduce a graded protection legislation for the citizen, especially for the Disadvantaged, such that serious-submission and public-voice can be attempted without being liable to prosecution. This should be a similar protection to that enjoyed by members speaking within parliament.
In other words whenever the citizen is seriously trying to be democratic, s/he should be protected by ‘citizen’s-democratic-protection’ (= ‘parliamentary-privilege’).
———————
One can not claim the above to have both spotted and constructively-tackled every enthymeme and usurpery so far in evidence and yet-to-be ‘whistleblown’; but would it not make a better foundation than the rotten one that I think is being pointed-out by quite a number of post-ers , not least by Lord Blagger above ?
* percentage:
should read in the legislation itself ‘percentage of nett amount available after the Needs, Hows, and Affordable Costs of one standard human-living have been deducted from the gross income (as essential-living-costs [NOT including essential job or workplace costs which are Business and not Personal, Living, or Private costs].
==============
Incidentally, why not make the ‘Private Business and Economic Sector’ pay for the training their future workers must be given, beginning with University Costs ?
———————-
Balance-of-Power is not the same as, nor as true as, nor equal to, Balance-of-Ability, nor to Balance-of-Capital-Available.
===========
(JSDM1535Sn1107).
JSDM: I tend to use Word for Windows when blogging so that I can measure using a scientific test the readability of what is being said. This is a major shortcoming in open sourced editors as they lack such a test facility. I assume you are using such an editor?
You are quite correct that my phrased question is an enthymeme [3]. I took your suggested list of questions and subjected them in Word to the Flesch reading test and the scores came out as follows:
Flesch Reading Ease: 0.0
Flesch Kincaid Grade Level 27.4
The reading ease score [1] of 0.0 is ‘best understood by graduates’. The grade level of 27.4 suggests you have difficulties in communicating with people to secondary education level. This score would present you with very real difficulties at a party conference or would count against you in a collegiate election as a specialist.
Your list of questions misrepresents the blogs prospectus for an indirectly elected house which can be found here:
http://lordsoftheblog.net/2009/11/25/putting-our-own-house-in-order/#comments
Now, as to justifying a logically one sided argument: it’s called politics.
If the upper house was to be directly elected by the public as it is in Japan, Parliament would likely see the lower house loose its majority thereby undermining the lower houses ability to govern. It might cause voter fatigue by resorting to frequent general elections especially when coalition was the basis of power. Not a good outcome when tough decisions have to be made.
If the upper house had anything but a handful of necessary appointed peers the lower house would justifiably deny it any real access to the instruments of power such as secondary legislation design or scrutiny. It is illogical that poorly drafted Commons primary legislation should be made good by the HoL only for it to abandon secondary legislation to the same authors that produced the poorly crafted primary legislation in the first place. This offends the dignity of the HoL.
The compromise is to have an indirectly elected house with political peers being appointed by their party at conference shortly after a general election. The HoL would then have a pro rata majority that followed the mix of an elected Commons. The houses elected apolitical expertise along with some hereditary peers would be wildcards to the process and they would need to be won over from time to time.
The non political expertise of the house would be appointed by electoral colleges. This collegiate might simply be comprised of our two oldest universities Oxford and Cambridge. An elected ‘Lords Candidates Commission’ would ensure that an open list of prospective candidates met the requisite standards for both party and collegiate elections to the HoL.
Ref: [1] Flesch Reading Ease
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch-Kincaid_readability_test
[2] US School Grades
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._grade_level
[3] Philosophy 103: Introduction to Logic
Enthymemes: The Elliptical Argument; I(c)
http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/enthy.html
Forgot to cite which online translator:
http://webtranslation.paralink.com/
Intriguingly, I was unable to replicate your readability results, possibly due to using different samples. For example, using only JSDM’s comment here: http://lordsoftheblog.net/2010/07/08/the-balance-of-power-2/#comment-13845
my version of Word (2002) gives a Reading Ease of 13.6, and a Grade Level of 12.0
It being a slow day for me, my mind wandered to the earlier post on the teaching of foreign languages (http://lordsoftheblog.net/2010/07/04/la-plume-de-ma-tante/ )and I copied his comment into a random online automatic translator. The comment was translated from English into French, and then back into English. The results are impressive:
It is a question enthymemical “membership supports an Upper House indirectly elected? ”; and it is also a question Closed aggressively – policy my lords.
The question for such ‘sub-referendum ‘ should be as “ In that order make you put following alternatives for the Upper Home:
a) directly elected (by People);
b) indirectly elected (by the ” government of day ” or by the whole Lower House);
c) preparatorily Capacities court – listed, CV and arranged and able candidates’ names apolitiquement (according to the mail list by People under information successively published by Non-legislative Expertise, services of Government and restricted Mass media) culminating in one list vote of polling station or mail by People. “
(And make all that before the thing is politicized and devoured by the Big Bankers and the hundreds of thousand Lilliputians of government in their Pockets).
Can you immediately spot the differences? This begs several questions…