To serve, not to Lord it over us

There is a good case that for much of the last few months, the Government has been focused on areas primarily of concern to the bogeyman of the ‘metropolitan elite’ but of the issues that often get bundled together, House of Lords reform is actually a very pressing matter for anyone with an interest in democracy.  Of course, plans to table bills for economic growth are important and for people who never vote but are interested in how they put food on their family’s plates, political reform is not worth the breath with which it is uttered.  But these are straw man arguments.  Would opponents of making the Lords more accountable really wreck budget bills jut to hold up the reform process (surely hastening their exit from a position of power) and, if people are constantly treated with cynicism, how will they re-engage with the ballot box?

Around the world in mature democracies, the antediluvian upper house is a laughing stock, run along the same lines as the Vatican City and taking both chambers into account not so different from Burma/Myanmar – how embarrassing.  Yet, of course, there is a certain streak of politicians who have no shame – for them the taste of power is all.  When Julian Brazier, Conservative MP for Canterbury, dismisses the reform as a side issue that should be dropped, at one fell swoop he is trying to not dilute his prerogative and also feathering his bed, hoping no doubt to be on the gravy train of political appointment to the House of Lords.
Peter Oborne, usually so sagacious, is contemptuous of changes to the Lords, deriding such a prospect as pointless.  He stated that, “Its structure may be irrational and quaint, but this unelected institution has done far more for British liberty than the House of Commons over the past two decades.”  Again, we return to South-East Asia, as the same could be said over the last two years by the civilian crony government under the Burmese generals.  How can we lecture Thein Sein on democracy with our own ridiculous constitutional arrangements?  The reign of King John resulted in the Magna Carta, so why not return to the divine right of kings?  His argument is more rotten than any borough.

I thought David Cameron was very clever after the Queen’s Speech in appealing to all parties in driving through changes to the Lords.  If Labour joins with dissenting Tories in either House, the process will stall and the prime minister can point out that the Labour party are violating their own manifesto promise for political point-scoring.  Ed Miliband might be cheered by his MPs but he would suffer a big reputational hit among progressives who might vote Green for the future in protest.

Talk of putting it to a referendum are by those who hope to kill it off.  The failure of the AV plebiscite and the general rejection of having mayors are proof that referendums are inevitably affected by other concerns other than that on the ballot paper.  It is not just confined to the UK.  When France voted to reject the European Constitution in 2005, a large part of the negativity was to give Jacques Chirac a good kicking (as Nick Clegg was to suffer with AV).  I’m sure in ancient Greece when people put a stone into one vase or the other, on their minds were other ideas rather than focusing on the proposal at hand.  Such dishonesty would have exercised Plato as he fulminated against the system that forced his mentor, Socrates, to death, yet if Socrates was never brought to trial, would Plato have cared about the iniquities of democracy?

A fully elected (and smaller than the Commons) upper chamber would be preferable.  French and American political scientists must be astonished, as they learn in their university days that bishops (the Lords Spiritual) are allowed a direct part in political decision-making in Britain.  However, an 80% elected chamber is better than nothing (and create an inertia towards 100% of members being elected).  The chatter that this will lose valuable experience is nonsense if vested interests can be defeated.  Proportional representation on party lists will allow the ‘experience’ of the Lords to be largely retained.  It would also permit ex-members of the Commons to receive political patronage as well.  Changing the name to the Senate House or Senate is gratuitous gimmicky – it makes us different to retain the name of both our upper chamber and those who populate it.

As to a democratic upper chamber conflicting with the House of Commons, there is already a fair amount of resistance to Coalition proposals, such as the Health and Social Welfare Bill.  The battles fought over that were of World War One-attrition levels and left the Health Secretary badly damaged.  Also, other bicameral parliaments in mature democracies don’t seem to have too much of a problem apart from where extremists have captured one of the chambers (I’m thinking of the Tea Party who have no interest in governing, just blocking with bile and hatred).  Of those who argue this, they really have no clue outside their parochial mindsets of how democracy can be organised.

There will always be people who oppose such change just as there are luddites in football who are against the introduction of at least goal-line technology.  They stick to what they know for they perceive some sort of advantage to their cause.  History leaves them behind in the dust to bite it.