Radio 4’s top headline this morning was ‘Calls are growing for reform of the House of Lords’. It’s not often that happens. Neither reformers nor reactionaries may relish the means of this meteoric rise to the top of the news agenda, but we have to face the simple fact that the public do not believe…
Baroness Murphy has already commented on the allegations in The Sunday Times made against four peers. Both the Leader of the House, Baroness Royall, and the Leader of the Opposition, Lord Strathclyde, have said that the allegations are such as to justify an immediate and thorough inquiry. The House has in place the mechanism for…
My husband Mike rushed in with the Sunday Times this morning to point out the horrendous headline claiming that four Labour peers had been recorded as willing to receive cash in exchange for placing amendments or ‘working on’ ministers to amend a bill favourably during its passage through the Lords. I read the article with a torrent of emotions…
As regular readers will be aware, the House of Lords is a self-regulating chamber. The Lord Speaker has no powers in the chamber. The House collectively is responsible for order. No one has to catch the Speaker’s eye in order to speak. If you wish to speak in a set-piece debate, you sign up in advance. …
This week’s quiz entails identifying three peers: Peer 1: I entered the House of Lords when I was 25; I have served in the House for more than forty years; I am a dentist and a bandleader. Who am I? Peer 2: I served as a special assistant to a Prime Minister and as head…
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, stated this week that The House of Lords is more ethnically diverse than the Commons. This is another factor that demonstrates the increasing importance of the Lords in British politics. He asserted that Parliament was “at the pumping heart of our democracy”, but that the…
Just whenI was getting a little optimistic about the changing leadership roles in the Taliban I discover another horror story. On Monday in north west Pakistan they blew up five schools. They have now destroyed 180 schools and,of course, banned education for girls. The Taliban are getting more control in this area of Pakistan which…
More bad news from Russia. Yet another human rights activist has been shot in a well used public street in daylight. The murderers never seem to get caught. It’s impossible to have any real confidence in the police and judicial system in Russia. Tragic.
With Barack Obama being sworn in today it seems a good moment to give ourselves a small pat on the back for being the least racist country in Europe and also for the House of Lords being more diverse in its ethnicity and disability than the Commons. I have always known that racism in most of…
