It’s time to end this farcical peer show
THE House of Lords is too often regarded as a sort of odd and unnecessary appendage to the way we are governed. In fact it is the upper of the two Houses of Parliament which comprise our bicameral legislature and democracy. As such all its members are among our legislators and we are entitled to a certain merit in those men and women. Do we get it? That is increasingly debatable.
The Clegglet, behind the mask of “reform”, wishes virtually to abolish it, calling for 80 per cent of its members to be elected and paid senators. Conservatives and Labour regard that as a reform too far, which was why David Cameron saw no point in wasting more Commons time on a Clegglet motion that would never become law. The midget’s response was to renege on his pledge to endorse boundaries reform to give us fair constituencies.
But reform is defi nitely needed and this is underlined again by the appointment of yet another 30 more peers. There are now 836 of them and it is not just standing room only in the chamber with the red benches but no room at all, sitting or standing. This has been going on too long. Each prime minister, trying to get a voting majority, just crams more and more cronies into the Upper House.
Merit is not required, just the certainty that they will pack the desired voting lobby when summoned. In short, lobby fodder. The public deserves better than that and at 836 the whole shebang is getting ludicrous.
Regardless of party advantage the numbers have to be capped and only the cream of the cream retained. There is a simple method: this is for Her Majesty to decree two categories of peer. Those awarded the honour of a title, which they can wear with pride, and those who staff the working committees where the real legislative job is done, who attend the debates, speak and vote.
The second group should be no more than 500. Of those, 150 could be the hereditaries and “ex- offi cio” members: the bishops, Chief Rabbi, Senior Imam, Law Lords, former chiefs of defence staff etc. The remaining 350 should be chosen from the votes of the entire House voting as an electoral college, charged with seeking the very best of their number.
That was how the remaining 92 hereditaries were selected from the 750 13 years ago and it worked. If you get the best of the best you get three things. One is people who will
MORE LUNACY OVER OUR FOREIGN AID
YET another scandal looms over the always- simmering outrage about the way our aid money is spent. It now seems that some of this money, dragged from our pockets by excessive taxation, has been pumped into the police of Belarus, a vicious and cruel dictatorship, to increase border patrols and guard dogs.
True, we did not donate it to that end. It was part of that segment of British foreign aid administered by the Europe Aid programme, ie frittered away by the EU on our behalf. We are ( unwillingly and unknown to many) a major contributor to this Brussels- based quango. In all Europe Aid receives £ 1billion from the Department for International Development, meaning foreign aid.
More than 40 per cent of our aid is actually distributed through third parties. David Cameron was in Brussels again this week to “discuss” ( some hope) the downsizing of the EU’s choking bureaucracy. So here is a prime issue he could insist on: British aid abroad should be 100 per cent administered by the British crown and no one else. WE are often told there is no place in modern, youthful Britain for old- fashioned, fuddy- duddy things. Like dignity. On the one hand we have the wife of Speaker John Bercow: six feet of middle- fi nger- raising disgrace. But that’s OK, the luvvies tell us, the “yoof” of the country like that sort of thing. Do they really? The one lady who never loses her dignity is a certain Queen Elizabeth. And the polls show that young and old – especially the young – deeply respect and appreciate her.
And on the subject of dignity have you not noticed the torrents of tears that seem to be expected as a matter of course on TV “reality” programmes? Britain’s Got Talent, The X Factor, the ruddy Bake Off … it’s all the same. I can understand tears for a soldier brought home wrapped in our fl ag, for the body of a child run down by some swine who did not even stop, for a lifelong canine companion dying on the hearth rug. But a fl at souffl é? A broken pie dish? Being voted off after a useless performance?
It now seems to be the mode to burst into fl oods if you win and the same if you lose. We used to grin if we won and congratulate the winner if we lost. Dry- eyed. Of course, we walked tall in those days and the world knew it. actually show up and work, not just using the place as a taxpayersubsidised club and affordable canteen, swanning around with nothing to offer but nodding- dog mediocrity. The second is a body of men and women with brains, centuries of hands- on experience of the real world and shrewd common sense – so rare in high places nowadays. The third is people prepared to take an oath and abide by it. That oath is to legislate for the good of the country as they genuinely see it and not as the whips instruct them.
And fi nally fresh appointments should be limited to the deathretirement rate. That way we would get 500 worth having instead of the present football scrum. It is just a question of having working peers and nominal peers.