I encountered some 120 teachers of A Level politics and citizenship courses yesterday, brought together by the excellent Parliamentary Education Service. I was nominally leading a discussion about the work of the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, but their questions naturally took us much wider, taking advantage of my previous experience as Chief Whip and Shadow Leader in the Commons. A very lively debate ensued, covering all aspects of the current inadequacy of the representative democracy in this country. On the basis of this evidence 120 Sixth Forms must get some really provocative, stimulating and enlightening debates.
I wondered later whether any of these teachers – or their students – have come upon lordsofthe blog, and – if so – whether they had found the discussions here useful? Perhaps somebody can report back?
Fifteen year old American here. I love reading this invaluably insightful blog and following parliamentary and political affairs in our two countries. The writing here has enhanced my knowledge of the Lord’s affairs and I look forward to new blog posts.
Pt 2 (the first comment accidentally went through)
While I am not a sixth form student, I will be in the future if I get my way. If not, I am looking forward to studying a political subject in university. Drawing from the political erudition of the blog’s authors makes reading the posts a worthwhile experience.
If it’s not including, as basic as well as lifespan-available, Holistic Individual Human Development enablements, subjects and curriculum*
then it is neither truly educational nor by any means whatsoever “excellent”.
————
* please see list recent lists contributed to other Lords-of-the-Blog blogs
e.g. “Awareness Through Movement” (Feldenkrais);
“The Centering Book” (Hendricks);
“Wisdom of the Body Moving” (Hartley);
“Mindset” (Dweck);
“Six Thinking Hats” (de Bono);
“How To Win Every Argument” (Pirie);
both “The Thinking Body” (Todd 1937) and “The New Rules of Posture” (Bond 2011);
and the ‘Perceptual Self-Control’ work published by leading researcher (WT Williams) which together with the Dweck team’s work shows the traditionally dominant (‘domineering’ would be a better descript)
Positive & Negative Reinforcement Theory & Practice to be not only inferior but contrastingly inefficient, destructive and life-demeaning.
I think it would beneficial to have a larger variety of Lords posting from whom your readers can learn. Esp. Lords who have specialised in certain field recently, i.e. education, broadcasting, corporate things.
Thanks for the suggest johnns this is something I am working on at the moment – which would be your top topics for discussion? Any names spring to mind?
Beccy (Hansard Society)
This touches on my suggestion at the birthday party to encourage blog postings on each Bill passing through the Lords so we can learn what they are and provide feedback on them. That’s the sort of thing that could usefully be done by guest bloggers, especially if they have a particular interest in the subject matter.
Hi Beccy,
I commented further up on this thread and would like to kindly support johnns’s suggestion. I am a year 10 student who has an interest in diplomacy and politics, alongside a deep desire to study at a selective university.
Consequently, the Lord who best fits these interests is Baron Patten of Barnes, who in his former capacities as an MP and as Governor of Hong Kong, has made lasting marks in politics and diplomacy. Of course, he has contributed to the press as Chairman of the BBC, and to education as chancellor of Oxford. Perhaps hearing from him will be interesting.
Maybe Lord Waldegrave, who has made a contribution to education for people closer to my age. Baron Wei, perhaps, would have unique thoughts on being the youngest member of the House.
Thank you for your work in establishing and maintaining this blog. I think it is (along with the entirety of the House itself) an indispensable resource for the public. I look forward to further familiarizing myself with this Web site and the members who post on it.
Best wishes,
N. Z. (my name can be assumed from the e-mail address)
NZ and Dave H thanks for these suggestions – trying to put them into practice now….
No hairdressers
No mechanics
No road sweepers
No accountants
Just lots of lawyers, failed MPs kicked out by the electorate.Lots of people there for shagging, by descent.
Combine that with no democratic control…
It’s not a chamber of expert. That’s a complete myth.
Even if you had representation from all areas of UK life, would you want the car mechanic deciding on medical bills? That’s the current set up in the Lords. People with no expertise in the area, deciding on matters beyond their expertise, with no come back if they get it wrong.
Lord Blagger, a typically confused comment: would you welcome a representative who is a car mechanic, or not?
Believe it or not, most people have more than one skill and will have more than one hobby or interest whilst holding down a job and enjoying a full family life. If this surprises you, try it out. For inspiration, check out the current list of APPGs:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmallparty/register/contents.htm
I copied this from Lord norton’s personal blog. I wrote it a coudle of days ago.
**
From my point of view, no matter how one is clever enough to scoot around the fact, anyone who fears election, as Gordon Brown did, fears it because they instinctively know they are likely to be unelectable.
More than that, a man or woman who doesn’t have the wherewithall to stand up for their beliefs and allow their abilities to be open to scrutiny, doesn’t deserve to be a mover and shaker in a democracy. This cannot be considered a democracy if the rules of that system are flouted. Just the way so many of you repeatedly claim our EU is ‘undemocratic’ because it is felt they are unelected. When in fact they are far more democratic than the House of Lords as they face scrutiny of election every five years. Why you want to hang on to this style of government is in order to place those who are ‘not fit for purpose’ in positions beyond their ability to manage.
We are infiltrated beyond reason by a hierarchy of incestuous appointments and those who take up positions because of birth, cronyism or nepitism, this has to stop. And it has to stop because it creates a level of innefectual robots, who have little interest in what would be good for the nation and too much interest in what would be good for them. And this is now so blatantly obvious to any, exceptt the totally illiterate, unless change is made substantially, the public will lose any respect or interest in the mechanism of their government than they already express.
**
Lord Blagger, for a start there are quite a few accountants, Baroness Noakes for example.
Choose any 800 people at random, and it’ll be easy to find professions that aren’t represented. However, there are people who’ve worked in the motor trade in the Lords, as there are furniture salesmen, farmers, probation officers, plenty involved in the retail trade or manufacturing.
Yes, they are mostly people who have worked at a high level in those sectors, but isn’t that what you would expect? There’s a reason the chief executive of a company is usually someone smart with a lot of expertise and experience who has excelled and reached the top, not a 16-year old apprentice straight from his GCSEs. Don’t you think the Lords should comprise people who have reached CEO level?
I’ve said it before, but there’s no reason a hairdresser couldn’t sit in the Lords. Of course, he or she would be someone with decades in the trade, and probably the owner of a successful chain of top salons. The late Vidal Sassoon could have been a candidate.
I suspect we would get the same effect with Vidal Sassoon now as we have with lots of current Peers. For example, they have lost one Peer for 20 years. Can’t find him. Probably in a cupboard somewhere.
My views are we shouldn’t have a Lords. We should have all the electorate deciding on the final passing of a bill. The electorate should either vote directly, or nominate a proxy to vote for them if they don’t want to make the decision themselves.
No need for a Lords when every hairdresser can have a vote.
As for Noakes. An accountant in the Public service. So much for commercial experience. So much for accounting too.
The reason the UK is in the mess is because of people like Noakes running an accounting system that doesn’t conform to standard accounting practices. ie. Leaves off all the really big debts.
My personal view is that is fraud. Now if you can get Noakes to come and debate why leaving her civil service pension off the books is good accounting practice, good luck. You won’t get her. They don’t want it discussed because it lets the cat out of the bag as to the real mess in the UK.
I don’t think it’s necessary to reach CEO level, there are plenty of people who excel in their field but who have no interest in leaving their field to become a CEO, and the world is a better place because they keep using their expertise. I’m happy to be an engineer, I leave the stuff I find boring to others because they find it interesting.
No confusion at all. It’s you who are dolally.
You don’t have any hairdressers or car mechanics in the Lords. The same is true for vast numbers of professions in the UK. So the claims that the Lords is jammed packed with expertise is twaddle.
Now for the other part. I take it that you have surgeons, lawyers, decorators, taxi drivers all on retainer? No doubt you’ll get the taxi driver and all the others to offer advice during an operation to the surgeon.
If you do not understand that argument, I’ll give you the simpleton version. No one in their right mind would give the taxi driver a say in their operation. The same applies to the lords.
So would I welcome a car mechanic as a lord? No. We have over 800 too many peers. I want no peers at all.
That saves 2,700 pounds a day, times the 400 plus who turn up each day. Around 600 million pounds over the term of a parliament.
Given the fuss over 20 million of pasty taxes, its time has come.
No more jobs for politicians that the public don’t want, or can’t get rid of.
PS. What are you doing about Lord Taylor? Are you going to kick the criminals out of the Lords
And again I copied it from Lord Norton’s blog as I didn’t want to write it twice.
**
Lord Norton:
The suggestion you make, as I understand it, is Reform of the House of Lords. You cannot do both, keep it as it is and reform it. If it is to be of any use to the country, it must be elected as the nepitism it suffers under is out of control.
Playing around with we have so many wonderful people there to change the fundamental system would lead to difficulty, is of no consequence. They are not of the people. They are appointed by those of you who are already in the system and have been for eternity.
And if it was working so well with all these wonderful experienced people, why are we, as a country in such a mess? And no matter how you try to work around that, makes no difference to the fact that Parliament was not fit for purpose as it did nothing to avert the disaster it must have been aware it was creating. Either way you look at it, this leaves our government, as a whole, unfit for purpose.
We can only have a new and clean beginning once we begin to dismante what has taken place within. The same way Parliament can easily dismantle the welfare state and is doing so, it can also dismantle a not fit for purpose system of government.
And, as I write, even Europe is coming to terms with its unaccountability.
**
Dear Beccy
A good topic of discussion will be: 1.Should laws be codified in Great Britain?What do lords think about codified laws?
Nazma FOURRE
Before any further Peers and Moderators are employed on this public e-site
the existing ones all need to come up-front, familiarised, competent, and ‘note-perfect’, in
A. The Three Princip[les of Good Communication and Honest Argumentation
1) Clarity: State your topic and case clearly, unambiguously, and without any enthymeme (ommission of vital fact or factor).
2) Charity: Recognise any good intention in the submission from another participant.
3) Self-Correction: Retract or correct your submission wherever it is shown to be misinformed, omissive, equivocal, unclear, uncharitable, or otherwise wrong.
B. Be practised in Method III Cooperative Problem Solving.
C. Be practically, hands-on skilled from Civilisation’s Workplaces*
and
D. Be practised, transparently sustainworthy as an Earth-citizen (living within the Earth’s Lifesupportive Means), and as an established emulable lifestyle-leader in the Lifeplace*.
* Workplace = where you are employed and paid, as owned and ruled by The Employer, for the standard 25%-timeframe
Lifeplace = where you spend your non-workplace 75%-timeframe, spending the money given by your Workplace Employer, sleeping, communing with friends, family, neighbours and the world-at-large, and living individually**
** = alone, in essential privacy, such as ‘just me and my hobby*** or life-educational or self-developmental practice or study-time’
*** = but ‘just me and my hubby’ would be ‘family’ and ‘social’, not ‘lone individual’ timeframed.
———
(and there is further apposite issue needing to be raised)
would you welcome a representative who is a car mechanic, or not?
If his hands were clean it would be ok.
Wasn’t Nuffield a car mechanic?
Dear Lord TYLER
In order to comment dear lord, we need to have the full topic of your discussion with those teachers and students and I shall appreciate if you could be kind enough to post it on the blog.
However it does not seem to me that any of those students or teachers have been on this blog.Forgive me dear Lord, if I am wrong.
God bless the United kingdom. God save the QUEEN.
Nazma FOURRE
Dear Lord TYLER.
I strongly do think that there is a strong need for laws to be codified, in the United Kingdom and not to be based only on jurisprudence.A codified system of law will enable the judiciairy system the freedom to change or modify laws accordingly to circumstances , operating then on a jurisprudential reversion, which means that magistrates are not bound to follow the reading of the jurisprudence itself as each decision is different.
The second avantage of a codified system of law is that the language of the legislator is mostly vague and the judges need to construe laws accordingly to circumstances which may not fit in other cases found in the jurisprudence. Classified and codified laws will help magistrates, to construe, and to interprete laws, easily namely when the language of the law is vague.
God save the QUEEN. God bless the United Kingdom.
Nazma FOURRE
.
Some really interesting comments – and exchanges – but I would still like to know whether there are any politics teachers, or students, who are regular followers of this blog. If so, what do you find useful, and what you find more useful?
Dear Lord Tyler ,
Unfortunately I am not a student of political sciences nor am I a teacher but that does not mean that I cannot appreciate the political sciences of your gifted talent and for the good job you are doing in the house of Lords.I find it useful the proposals you are laundering and the way you are keeping us informed about the forthcoming proposals through your blog . I shall have to go through all the themes of your blogs to give you my point of views on any related subject . I promise I shall comment dear Lord if I have all the topics you covered.
God bless the United Kingdom. God save the Queen.
Nazma FOURRE
1. If I have no say, I have no responsibility.
2. Voting for a representative who lied about what they were going to do, has no recourse.
3. Voting for a representative who kept secret what they were going to do, isn’t democratic
4. Voting for a rep who doesn’t do what they promised isn’t democratic.
5. Having to vote for the unacceptable to get rid of a thieving MP isn’t acceptable
6. Not being able to get rid of a peer, unacceptable given that they won’t get rid of them.
7. Having to wait 5 years to get rid of an unacceptable government isn’t democracy
8. Having to vote for a package, rather than individual issues, isn’t acceptable.
9. Unequal rights. eg. MPs exempting themselves and Peers too from money laundering regulations, investigations by the tax man, unacceptable. All should be equal.
Assuming you mean “politics teachers or students”
yes
I count myself a student of politics & other disciplines
but androgogicly self-regulated, extra-murally, not-registered as a market-competitive career-builder or jobseeker*
My study-shelves contain a wide range of learning-material,
practically all of which are arguably parts of or influences-upon Politics
for instance
1) “The Fall and Rise of China”: a DVD 48-lecture course by UCLA Professor Richard Baum of international note and expertise;
is not just ‘horse’s-mouth’ history but contains reasonably disinterested and well-formed Political Problems of a world-wide nature.
———–
Also on my shelf are works by
Prof W.Powers on “Perceptual Self-Control”;
Prof C. Dweck on ‘Fixed’ as distinct from variable or ‘Change’ mindsets (title “Mindset”);
Prof D. Kahneman (Nobel prize), on System 1 and System 2 thinking (title “Thinking, Fast and Slow”);
from which I glean that the reason you are getting no response from the Teachers and Students your blog seeks to connect-with, is that they are dominantly “Fixed” mindset specialists;
which (by definition) makes them avoid such challenges as
“wider questions”
“very lively debates”
“covering all aspects”
and
“current inadequacy of representative democracy in this Country”.
—–
* = I already have a ‘job’ and ‘career’ as a would-be Democratic-Earth-Citizen; supported by State Lifesupports, Allowances, or ‘Benefits’.
(I give way)
I already have a ‘job’ and ‘career’ as a would-be Democratic-Earth-Citizen; supported by State Lifesupports, Allowances, or ‘Benefits’.
==============
So I take that to mean your on benefits? ie. Living off other people’s money. Is that right?
That’s the point at which democracy fails, when the number of voters receiving benefits and wanting to keep them outnumber those working to provide them. You get a steady decline as the workers realise they’re losing out because more of their hard-earned cash is being taken from them in taxes (all democratically imposed, of course) and decide to switch sides.
Not quite. That’s just the symptom of the lack of democracy. Remember that those paying, and those receiving have had no say in those payments.
You are never asked about taxes. You are just asked who you want to make the decisions.
ie. We don’t have democratic control over decisions.
In the case of the lords, we have no democratic control at all.
@DaveH:
Wrong. Where democracy fails is when those who have too much say, because they are non tax payers, to the point of te ridiculous, are the ones the State depends on to the fill the coffers. The top 1%.
For example, the wealthy who dodge tax by using off shore companies, those who dodge tax by running their income, expenses and all other parts of their private lives through a company, and by so doing pay little or no tax. Those who don’t pay their lawful VAT. Those who are given a low tax benefit, because they are a giant company or corporation. These ridicuously low income tax level cheats the population out of what they owe them as part of our Western civilized society.
People who are high up on the income scale getting paid excluding taxes. Bankers and so on. If you put that altogether, the welfare benefits return to pennies in comparison to these highly ludicrous scams that successive governments have made legal.
And as you are so turned on by the idea of reducing benefit to those is need, have you been in touch with your accountant or solicitor to have them write a legal notice from you stating, should you fall on hard times, you will make no applications for any kind for benefit from the State or by asking for assistance because of your demise? That would be the honest way to put your money where your mouth is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-LjL2yyVZo
And here we see a couple of guys concentrating on how to rid us of this crock we find ourselves in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV5Ju18A8Ow
And here is how the rich do it. Although this clip refers to the US it is pretty much the same here, only our guys don’t reveal their fat cat status the way the yanks do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfnSaL__o40
And of course the charity scam the rich use to pay less tax or no tax at all.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17664893
Time to rethink this whole mess and return to the days of 98% suitable taxation or we will end up like Greece. They didn’t pay their taxes did they?
The rich have got away with murder on this taxation lark and its time to roll the tide back to the days when we could afford the necessary benefits we have increased with rampant immigration, which seemingly is to continue. So, the poor can’t pay for all these people entering the country, and business tells us it needs more, so, tax them to pay for the lines we see queuing everywhere for our beneifts. Housing and school system, NHS, etc.. Politicians want to exploit the people then let them tax those who claim they benefit from it.
SO you think the UK should tax BMW on their world wide profits?
After all they trade in the UK, we must have the lot.
What about Germany taxing Rolls-Royce on their world wide profits, because their engines are used in planes overflying Germany?
Get real. The problem isn’t taxes, the problem is governments spending too much and having vast debts hidden off the books.
End result is your taxes aren’t going on services, they are going on debts. At some point even you will realise what the rich have realised. The cost of government is too much.
So, the poor can’t pay for all these people entering the country
Of course they can’t. Neither can the middle class, or the rich. The reason is the wrong sort of migrant. 11K a year per person is what the government spends. To break even each migrant needs to earn 40K a year plus whilst they are here. That’s not happening. So the poor have to compete, and they can’t/won’t.
And of course the charity scam the rich use to pay less tax or no tax at all.
So you think the government should tax charitable giving?
The real problem for the government is that its desperate for cash. Then they hate the idea that individuals might want to help society and cut government out of the loop. Why do you think that anyone giving vast sums to charity are evil tax dodgers?
I live off the one-human-living that I am still paying taxes for my Nation-State to control under Constitution & Law of the United Kingdom;
therefore I am living off my own money,
(and some other people are living off my money, you for one)
and some yet other people are truly benefitting from the way I apply* this my monetary living
(though perhaps not you)
* apply = maintain myself happy, healthy, citizenlike and environmentally-supportive, including declaring knowledge and know-how, that I still accrue by peronal right-effort-expenditure, with whomsoever has ‘ears to hear’
via http://lordsoftheblog.net
http://www.lifefresh.co.uk
http://www.minorityofone.net
and random chatting with likeminded or like-spirited folk in pulic gathering places, and on ‘buses or sometimes a local train …
===
Now, Blagger,
explain clearly and honestly why you chose
1) to avoid the main rational points I raised
2) to “torpedo” me for “bludging off other peoples’ money”, and being “on benefits” ?
You need to note that being Disabled, Sick, Out-of-Work or otherwise disadvantaged
is not a matter we “benefit” from;
it is a “lifesupports” essential, pure and simple.
========
Before attacking me personally, you should go back and read my earlier submissions, as well as comprehend any good-intention in my present submissions;
then come back and tell out
whose lifesupports you are living off ?
I already have a ‘job’ and ‘career’ as a would-be Democratic-Earth-Citizen; supported by State Lifesupports, Allowances, or ‘Benefits’.
==========
From that comment, I read that you are using money from other people. I don’t know how to read that in any other way.
I’ve no doubt that your beliefs are honestly held. I’ve never said otherwise. I’ve just pointed out, reading between your jargon, what you really want. Contradict me if its otherwise.
1. You want to take money from people who earn it, to give to other people. The consequence if people don’t want to give up their money is that you will want the state to use force (violence) to get it.
2 You need to note that being Disabled, Sick, Out-of-Work or otherwise disadvantaged
is not a matter we “benefit” from
The argument that the majority now believe is that lots of those claiming these benefits aren’t disabled, aren’t sick, or aren’t able to find work. They have choose to exist off money taken from others.
@LB:
I suppose you include the man on disability who was in a coma and had his benefits removed because he didn’t fill in his form in time. they declared him fit for work.
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/01/20/disability-man-in-coma-declared-fit-to-work/
This shows you what a deliberate set up this is. They are claiming people with long term illness unable to move from bed are fit for work. Yet, three weeks early they confirmed the same person was unfit for work and should lose their job.
This is fraud. Whoever in paying this organization gets wishes fulfilled. Ian Duncan Smitth should be sued for this, he set it up, he is ultimately accountable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKeEyhF1FRI&feature=related
And the real cheats. Lets look at them. They are the ones who are the benefit cheats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o4H91rIwpQ
And how they do it and spend it, including those in government.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oElLtJ00Po
The man in a coma just shows how bad the government is at running things.
No, my case is based on different evidence.
1. The number of people who were disabled was 1 million (Thatcher era)
2. The number now claiming disability has rocketed to 1.5 million
3. The number who don’t meet the test when they turn up is large (not the same percentage as those that win on appeal either.
4. The number not meeting the test isn’t the same as the claimed fraud level either.
So where have these 500,000 disabled come from? Well the jargon is disguised unemployment. People moved from unemployment to benefits to get the unemployment figures down.
That’s fraud by the state.
So on the question of ATOS and the test.
What is your test for disability and how does it differ from the current set up?
For example, if you say, the GPs should decide, we all know what the problem is there. The GP doesn’t directly pay, so signing some off for benefit makes for a quite life. The evidence is that people GPs signed off aren’t passing the current test.
GPs shouldn’t test because of that conflict of interest. They should treat the conditions, not determine benefits.
Lord Blagger says of my previous rationale and self-disclosure:
“I don’t know how to read that in any other way… (but that you are living off other people’s benefits)*”
I just spelled it out for you; I am still paying taxes, so I am living off my own monies;
but when I was employed I was also ‘living off other peoples’ efforts too;
and some other people were living off my efforts (and probably still are having to).
You need to distinguish in your thinking, and argumentation, between what one-human-being needs
and what one-human-being does not need
e.g. we each need £140 per week as a sufficient lifesupports-package**;
whereas no-one, not even Fred Goodwin, Rupert Murdoch, The Queen, Charles, William,
Germain Greer
Who’s-Who-Ever
needs
multiples of that sufficient human-living, amounting to such phantomasgorically-obscene
inflations as a £2 million salary and a £1 million bonus on top per year, guaranteed even if the Job has not been fully done according to Requirement;
and amounting to overpaid Royal, Peerage, and ‘Captains-of-Industry and Civil-Service’ classes accruing £££billions of ‘private capital’, and costing, spending and wasting
£billions on non-essential luxuries, ‘jobs’-(for the ‘boys’), and junk.
Again face it: the real bottom line is that every-one is living off efforts, productivity and monies made and often suffered by others;
but the Intolerable-Issue is that far too many are deluded into believing they, as one-human-being, are “earning” and “entitled to” more, many more, human-livings than one, from the Common Purse.
Sir Fred Goodwin was (probably still is, and with no hope of ever repaying what he is still over-drawing) one such deceived and deluded individual.
And I have to suspect that you Lord Blagger are another such over-drawer from the Common Purse i.e. drawing significantly more than the legislated sufficient human-living (income) of £140 per week/no-assets.
I have revaled my ‘hand’.
Now reveal yours:
What amounts have you been living off, in assets and income, and from whose efforts ?
Are you going to try wriggling out of it again ?
for instance by claiming that your income is ‘private’ and always the result solely of your own efforts and hard-work ?
whereas mine is ‘public’ and the result of my individual bludgery and criminality-against-people-and-state alike ?
————-
* conversely it is overpaid people who are wrongly and excessively “benefitting”, whereas underpaid disabled, sick, or otherwise impaired and disadvantaged people are not in the least “benefitting” from their condition.
So instead of ‘benefits’ it is more honest, straight and mind-functionally clear to think of welfare-payments as ‘lifesupports’.
———
** The UK sufficient one-human-living has been set by the Government (Conservative coalition with the LibDems) at £140 per week;
but many of us lower-income-experienced workers and citizens think that £300 pw would be a more real-life-oriented support.
Dear Lord Tyler,
Be our teacher dear Lord TYLER as I am sure that we shall have a lot to gain from your expertised knowledge and gifted talent as a Lord. Teach us politics and your experience as a Lord or any subject where you intervened in the House of Lords. Be our teacher on this blog .I am sure you are a good one .
God bless the United Kingdom. God save the QUEEN.
Nazma FOURRE
“Is Anybody There ?”
We brush shoulders every day with humans wherein “nobody home” seems to have become a popularly common mindset.
I can not believe that no British political or citizenship teachers and students are ‘listening’
why do they not respond openly ?
——–
Walter de la Mare in “The Listeners” cries out with increasing lone anguish:
“Is there anybody there ?”
finally having to smite on the moonlit door even louder
“Tell them I came and no-one naswered,
That I kept my word” he said;
but
“Never the least stir made the listeners,
‘Though every word he said
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake”;
“Aye, they heard –
his foot upon the stirrup
And the sound of iron on stone;
And how the silence
surged softly backwards
When the plunging hoofs
Were gone”.
———
“Tell them we gave our today
That they might have a tomorrow”
but an icy cold stone silent and unresponsive ‘tomorrow’ ?
That’s British democracy ?
Ughgh !
Dear Lord Tyler,
Knowledge is power and power is knowledge, the eternal frame of a gifted life to be taught to move in this fast growing expanding world.Still the urge for intellectual feeding of this expanding knowledge has never ceased from people who have the same cultivating mind spirit, the reason why the thirst for knowledge comes from a fenced yard with a common sharing instructive background highly supported by the Lords of the blog and thanks to Hansard society which is maintaining the high quality debates on this site.
From what you said dear Lord regarding the questions which were asked to you,by the students and teachers, no matter have they visited the House of the Lords’ blog or not, you must feel proud that those students and teachers are having a vested interest in your job as a lord , knowingly you are contributing in the ruling of the United kingdom through the voting of laws.
I am sure that each one of us here on this blog, should owe you respect and pay tribute to your talent for the difficult task you are doing .
It would be difficult for us to confirm whom from those students and teachers visited the House of Lords Blog as technically it is not possible for us to do so. I would suggest you contact the hostering society of the house of Lords blog which might be at a better position to answer to your queries.
I strongly agree that the reforms act of the lords should be modified. I had the opportunity to express myself in two of Lord Norton’s blogs related to this subject.
“Nobody is in”. We are all here dear Lord, ready to learn what you want to share with us regarding further reforms and your every day job.”Nobody is in”. We are all awake for this memorable share of your experience as a Lord.
God bless the United Kingdom. God save the QUEEN.
Nazma FOURRE