Just a few figures to contemplate about Lords Reform.
68 of those who took part in the two-day debate (just on two thirds) were ex-MPs, and a few more were existing or previous councillors, and yet the prevailing mood seemed to be that elected politicians are always somehow less independent and responsible than appointed ones. A curious reflection on their previous experience, surely?
65 of those who took part had been nominated to the Lords since 1997, when the incoming government clearly stated its intention of creating a more democratic, elected House. Since then, of course, all three parties have regularly reiterating this commitment. It can scarcely be a huge surprise to these Peers that their life sentence may turn out to be limited.
And finally, those who think that my good friend Lord Lipsey is the only numerate Peer, might like to look at my own post on this subject. Unfortunately, he did not contribute to the debate so I was not able to ask him whether he had fully taken into account the fact that any elected Senators would have to pay tax on their salaries, while (of course) existing Members have tax-free allowances.
I’m sure many readers come to the conclusions they do even after reading your previous post, as it assumed an unrealistically low salary, and makes no mention of pensions or expenses.
Even if Lord Lipsey’s figures are exaggerated and neglect to consider net cost after tax, the difference in cost he calculates is so large that, even after making these allowances, the conclusion would be the same.
I thought Lord Jopling made an fine contribution when he talked about the de facto party list system that is already in place. It was also rather disheartening when he had to press his point about the perfectly good precedent that was set with the reduction of sitting herediaries, and how this could be quite easily applied to the life peers too … He said something along the lines that all party groups know full well which of their numbers are ‘past it’ or ‘not pulling their weight’ ~ and, for daring to utter this plain truth, there were rumblings of disapproval ….
Two pointers:
1(a) Britain as a ‘first-world developed democracy’ bears two high resposibilities, and thereby has long been insidiously-building two ‘debts’, to the non-first-world Peoples; for the over-destruction of Earth’s Lifesupports both renewable and non-renewable such that the Global Economy now needs one-and-a-half Earth’s-worth of stock, resources, commodities and goods just to support the present Population of 7 billion.
1(b) Add up the human-livings (£200 per week = one sufficient and legitimate human-living, say) that have been drawn/given to each individual in Britain for (say) the last 50 years, not forgetting that under this particular topic we are scrutinising the Income of each Peer.
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2. Scrutinise the expertises-and-results from the two Parliaments over (say) the last 50 years, for their practical-on-the-ground progress, results, failures, and costs, in the light first shone for us by St Thomas Aquinas (still sadly and badly overlooked, many in the critical professions do think)
“Unlike his contemporary Neo-Platonists, Aquinas acknowledged that the human intellect can form concepts about sensible things only if it has sensible experience of those things …”
(“Saint Thomas Aquinas: On Law, Morality, and Politics”; edited by Baumgarth & Regan, 1988, Avatar, Cambridge. page xvii):
Which to my mind is saying loud and clear that
“Persons in Governance need to have not just an expert intellect, but first-and-foremost a complete life-and-survival-struggle-on-the-ground-in-the-wild-or-on-the-battlefield, before their intellect can safely construct legislation and have it put into peacefully constructive-enforcement. (Copyright:J.S.D.Miles; please)”.
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Surely one of our main democratic governance-tasks has always to be the finding, the publishing, and the safe-inclusion-in-both legislation and constitution, of the Truth, the Whole Truth, and nothing but The Truth ?
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So with a party list system would what would happen to cross-benchers?
An independent party “list”?
If it’s the Jopling de facto party list (selected from current peers), then yes – as happened in 1999. Such a list makes much more sense if the members on the list are limited to the independent bench (who know each other) rather than the far wider public candidature.
Twm’s post appears to directly follow MilesJSD’s;
so
Since the Crossbenchers de facto would/should/could be occupying the ‘fulcrum-middles,centres, and connectors’,
whilst the contesting-parties occupy the ‘high/low/special/esoteric, Vital-Ground(s)’
there could hardly exist such a thing as “independence”; eh ?
Disinterest; impartiality; yes.
Yet at the vote a position has to be taken by each individual member
either abrogatively as in party-politics and voting
or individually
as in say ‘abstention’:
in which latter case the individual will have been putting forward and/or supporting factors and argumentation that the parties and/or majorities of other Crossbenchers have been knocking-back (?)
(any-body else getting a bit ‘lost’ by now) ?
0839F240611.JSDM.
Twm O’r Nant ~ Crossbenchers would also choose a number of ‘sitting’ peers from among their numbers.
This little crew of yours is so hideously incestuous you need a rethink!
Time for a proper clear out and some new blood with a lot more go in it.