Thursday, November 30, 2006

House of Lards

: :

Well, it is the great shame of Blairism, the shame that dare not pspeak its name - when they had the power and capacity to completely rewrite the consitution, the Labour government - you know, the one that takes pride in rolling across its own members, against public sector workers, of riding roughshod over public opinion - timidly decided to make Houe of Lords reform peicemeal.

Officially this was, they said, because necessary though constituional change was, they had more important legislation they needed to pass and couldn't waste time on a fight in Parliament. this was, of course, an entirely bogus and specious argument.

With that majority they could have launched a new House within weeks, rammed it through at the begining and then got on with progress with a gleaming new upper chamber - had they so wished. ALternatively, they could have pulled the Lloyd George Manoeuvre and just created a couple of Hundred more peers to ensure the passage of legislation.

They chose the quiet route because radical reform wasn't really an option. They want the power of patronage - that they used to great effect with the ever corrupt Lord David Sainsbury (Millions given to the Party, and only a seat in the Lords and a ministerial post in a sector his family business is connected to, nice). An illegitimate House of Lords can be brow-beaten by the government of the day, while stillbeing a place of patronage and sinecure.

Bottom line iswe don't need a second chamber, the concept is inherently undemocratic, and only ever exists as a means of curbing the popular will. And now Labour plan's to just let the current situation drag on for the rest of their political life-times - even the dreaded hereditary peers will remain.

First and foremost they are concerned with managerialism - as with their local government reforms - democracy is a poor looser under New Labour.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home