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The main duties of the Lords are to impart wisdom and delay bills. On the whole this is a good thing, and it is unclear what benefits will come from being democ
by seabee 14y ago
The main duties of the Lords are to impart wisdom and delay bills. On the whole this is a good thing, and it is unclear what benefits will come from being democratically elected.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoI'm torn on the Lords. In theory they are completely wrong, in practice I only see them doing good things.
- excuse-me 14y agoThink of them as a bunch of people selected at random - rather like a jury. Nobody argues that juries should be elected, or selected by the police.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoI actually rather like the idea that a small part of the Lords should be selected entirely at random.
- excuse-me 14y agoThat's what hereditary basically does
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoLet me clarify. Randomly selected such that over time they will represent all walks off life, backgrounds, regions, ages, faiths and so on. Heredity as it is (or rather was) favours white, male (many of the titles couldn't be passed to women), upper class, privately educated, wealthy, christian individuals.
- davidwtbuxton 14y agoI think I am more in favour of the un-elected House of Lords than you are, but I rather liked the proposal in the recent draft that elected Peers serve for 15 years. Having long terms would make them less influenced by the political wind (I would hope). http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201012/jtselect/jtdraftref/284/28405.htm#a24 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201012/jtselect/j...
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoWhat I'd like to see along with that is that a third of the chamber would be elected every five years so it never moves too wildly.
- FuzzyDunlop 14y agoHowever, it's fairly clear what one of the downsides would be: media manipulation. Allowing Rupert Murdoch and his media empire an even tighter grip on UK parliament would be nothing but a terrible thing.