The House of Lords
I used to, a few years ago, rate Stephen Pollard and think his political articles represented an interesting mix of radical reforms. Now I realise he is just another right-wing conservative (and presumably soon Conservative) hack, with comments such as:"For all its oddities, the Lords was not broken: it was a fine revising chamber. So, because it wasn't broken, the government started fixing it. As a result of those changes, it is now broken, with a membership which is widely derided. And, because it is now broken, it is being left alone."
It was not a fine revising chamber. It was our only revising chamber, and so it was better than nothing. Hundreds of examples of well intended but poorly thought out bills show that. For example, on the poll tax, after an inconclusive debate over whether the Lords had any role at all (it can't debate money bills, the Local Government Finance Bill however was not a money bill) the House voted on an amendment to relate the poll tax to 'ability to pay' (which might have saved it, and Mrs Thatcher). Lord Denman, the Chief Whip in the Lords, 'moved heaven and earth' (to quote David Butler in 'Failure of British government, the politics of the poll tax') and obtained one of the largest divisions in history, 317 votes against the amendment, with the highest turnout (at least then) in living memory of Tory backswoodsmen. The rebels, led by the scarcely believable Sir Tufton Beamish were routed.
To quote Butler's conclusion:
"Whereas in most federal constitutions, and some others, the second chamber has a special role to play in reforms with constitutional implications... the House of Lords is incapacitated from playing any meaningful role...for the purposes of most constitutional reforms Britain has a unicameral chamber"
"..in all these respects [voting on revisions] the Lods was acting true to form. Despite the claims of some academics and journalists, the Lords is not an independent minded assembly. For most purposes, the Conservative party has an assured majority and cross-party voting is no more pronounced than in the Commons"
"Donald Shell's comprehensive study of the Lords at work in 1985-6 concluded most of the Lord's work was "minor, technical and mostly drafting amendments to bills'; it is 'reasonably diligent and generally dull, with a whiff of expertise but no real boldness, with conscience but not too much credibility, with a little public profile but no actual power".
posted by Matthew @ 2/21/2004 12:27:00 PM
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