Dead duck reprieving a moribund chamber

Charles Kennedy proved a shrewd judge again, when he predicted that House of Lords reform in this parliament was highly unlikely and so it has proved.  For sure, the Labour Party put tribalism above principle and opened up themselves to the charge of hypocrisy by voting for the tenets of Lords reform and then against a reasonable timetable for it, all to discomfit the Government preferring that than to remedying an embarrassment.

Yet Labour, all the same, could be seen as having been exceptionally shrewd.  The nastiest part of ‘the nasty party’ chose to sign the death warrant of their cherished boundary reform (which would have badly hurt Labour’s chances of winning the next election) by refusing to assent to making the upper house less of an anachronism.  If the Tory rebels and their right-wing partners in the media believe Lords reform is a constitutional indulgence that cannot be tolerated when trying to right the economy, the same applies to boundary reform of constituencies.

The Liberal Democrats have a sliver of moral justification rather than merely trying to limit the extent of the evisceration of their parliamentary party in 2015.  For the Coalition agreement did state ‘seeking consensus’ on Lords reform and the Tory rebels, emboldened by the right-wing newspapers and their ‘king across the water’ Boris Johnson, rejected a compromise out of hand.  They would have no truck with it instead of giving the veneer of being reasonable and attempting a half-hearted effort at agreement before voting against their own Government. 

Why?  Because they are Thatcherite fanatics, desiring a utopia that will never occur.  If the economy was motoring along instead of spluttering like a stalled gear change, burnishing the credentials of Team Cameron and Clegg, they would be roundly condemned as boondock bumpkins by opponents and acting precipitously by friendly sources.  Instead, they are lauded as heroes by the inbuilt right-wing majority in the press, as if they were Maquis striking against an oppressive, tyrannical regime.  They are fellow travellers of the Tea Party (people basing themselves on a mythical reading of history trying to institute a mythical future) and, depressingly, a lot of the Tory refuseniks are from the 2010 intake, meaning they will mouthing off their intemperate views in the Mother of Parliaments for a long time.  Interestingly, given the American Revolution of 1776, Tea Party activists of today should fight Tories of all hues tooth and nail.