This week’s public debate about the role of faith in Britain today has thrown up some curious myths about the Church of England … and indeed about the presence of 26 of its Bishops in the House of Lords. I am a practising Anglican (trying to improve) but I have been firmly committed to disestablishment…
I have been fascinated with the way words have been used – some would say misused – in the Lords Reform debates of recent weeks. No doubt both sides have been guilty. Some of the reformers have got very muddled up in their descriptions of the proposed electoral system. Some of the opponents have tried…
In my Stevenson Lecture at the University of Glasgow in January, I addressed the claim that election of a second chamber necessarily constitutes the ‘democratic’ option. This is often advanced by proponents of an elected second chamber as if it were self-evidently correct. I argued that it is not necessarily the democratic option, a point to…
An article in the Guardian today by Lords Adonis and Tyler about the true nature of the House of Lords today is worth reading. I’m afraid their descriptions of current peers are well observed. That’s why we shouldn’t fear an elected second chamber. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/26/lords-reform-overdue
