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The EU is the only hope we have to balance the power of the city. What can a government of only 60 million, where one house is not even democratically elected,

The EU is the only hope we have to balance the power of the city. What can a government of only 60 million, where one house is not even democratically elected, do against the might of world's finance system?

Dobbs 12y ago
I'm not sure what the fact that one house is not democratically elected has to do with anything? The point of an upper house is that it is supposed to be impartial to the whims of the voters. In the USA we originally had an appointed Senate and still to this day have an appointed Judicial system. Should supreme court judges be elected? I have to say as a quasi-outsider (English raised in the USA) that more often than not I'm extremely impressed by what comes out of the House of Lords. For example their recent statement on the EU's right to be forgotten.
- maaku 12y ago
  As an American ("no taxation without representation!") I've always... admired the House of Lords. They are able to say and do things which no elected politician can, and provide a sort of stabalizing feedback to the UK's parlimentarian system. Not unlike the relationship of the American congress with the appointed-judege court system. I was sad when I found out that the House of Lords is in the process of being reformed, with membership moving from peerage to either elected or elected-appointed positions. I fear that this won't end well for Britain :(
  - robhu 12y ago
    Unfortunately it's not clear they will be around for all that much longer. The Lib Dems had a 'reform' bill that would have made the House of Lords largely elected. It failed only because the relationship with the Conservatives fell to pieces at key time. A lot of people think that an unelected House is anathema still.
  - toyg 12y ago
    The role of a second parliamentary chamber is hotly debated across the West at the moment. Countries where both houses are elected and enjoy equivalent powers (like Italy or the US) complain that this arrangement slows down lawmaking, in an age where everything else is actually speeding up. Countries where the second chamber is not elected, like Britain, experience a certain unease: they wage war oversea "to bring democracy", and then half of their lawmaking is in the hands of a completely undemocratic body with dubious legitimacy. Countries where the second chamber actually represents different bodies from the electorate (like Germany) seem to have found a pragmatic third way, but then this chamber ends up over-representing certain interests (in Germany, local ruling classes and their nests of semi-private special businesses), which again is not really democratic in nature. I think we'll have to learn again why balance is required in matters of such importance, and we'll probably have to learn it the hard way. The major supporters of "streamlined" government have always been tyrants and oligarchs, after all.
    - maaku 12y ago
      > Countries where the second chamber is not elected, like Britain, experience a certain unease: they wage war oversea "to bring democracy", and then half of their lawmaking is in the hands of a completely undemocratic body with dubious legitimacy. What is sad about that unease is that it has everything to do with the objecter's mind and nothing to do with the state of the world. "Does it work? Is there any alternative that is better?" <-- That is all we should be asking. But I'm too cynical a person to ever hope for consequentialism in politics.
      - toyg 12y ago
        > Does it work? [...] <-- That is all we should be asking. The problem is, how do you define "working"? Who defines it? The Victorian Empire "worked" perfectly well for the ruling classes; less so for Indians and lower classes. That's where the absolutist coherence of "one head, one vote, in all matters" comes in; but in practice we know the idealistic approach doesn't always result in smooth sailing, so we introduce elements of moderation here and there, and then we bang our head against the wall of doubt -- is this counterbalance too anti-democratic? Should we really stop people from shooting themselves in the foot, or is there a deeper horizon where such an outcome could be desirable? Etc etc. That's the open-ended question of constitutional studies.
  - bcoates 12y ago
    It's a shame that everyone's so insistent on democracy without having any creativity about it. Athens had the right idea -- create a set of objective standards for people qualified to serve in the upper house, then draw lots and whoever loses gets the job.
  - gaius 12y ago
    The Lords do something which no elected politician can do: look further ahead than the next election. Regardless of the exact mechanism, a functioning country NEEDS this capability.
- greenpinguin 12y ago
  Not democratically elected = easier to corrupt. The previous leader of the Lords OWNES his own lobbying company! Cameron suggests him as Britain's EU commissioner, and it was only then that the EU parliament had to force him to sell the stakes in it for him to be an acceptable candidate. This guy was running the house of Lords for years!!! In which democracy is that acceptable??? How is being in political power and a lobbyist for industry at the same time NOT a conflict of interest??
gaius 12y ago
Can you imagine the Germans talking like that about their car industry, or the French about cheese? We don't need to "balance" the City. We need to take the gloves off and do what we can with the last remaining world class industry we have.
- greenpinguin 12y ago
  Of course Germans question the power of the car lobby! The problem in the UK is that you destroyed the diversity of your economy in the eighties! The car industry is powerful in Germany but so are many other industries! The UK has sold it's soul to finance, even reforming schools and universities for that one purpose. George Osborne himself says for the UK to prosper in the longterm the economy needs to be rediversified!

Dobbs 12y ago

I'm not sure what the fact that one house is not democratically elected has to do with anything? The point of an upper house is that it is supposed to be impartial to the whims of the voters. In the USA we originally had an appointed Senate and still to this day have an appointed Judicial system. Should supreme court judges be elected? I have to say as a quasi-outsider (English raised in the USA) that more often than not I'm extremely impressed by what comes out of the House of Lords. For example their recent statement on the EU's right to be forgotten.

maaku 12y ago
As an American ("no taxation without representation!") I've always... admired the House of Lords. They are able to say and do things which no elected politician can, and provide a sort of stabalizing feedback to the UK's parlimentarian system. Not unlike the relationship of the American congress with the appointed-judege court system. I was sad when I found out that the House of Lords is in the process of being reformed, with membership moving from peerage to either elected or elected-appointed positions. I fear that this won't end well for Britain :(
- robhu 12y ago
  Unfortunately it's not clear they will be around for all that much longer. The Lib Dems had a 'reform' bill that would have made the House of Lords largely elected. It failed only because the relationship with the Conservatives fell to pieces at key time. A lot of people think that an unelected House is anathema still.
- toyg 12y ago
  The role of a second parliamentary chamber is hotly debated across the West at the moment. Countries where both houses are elected and enjoy equivalent powers (like Italy or the US) complain that this arrangement slows down lawmaking, in an age where everything else is actually speeding up. Countries where the second chamber is not elected, like Britain, experience a certain unease: they wage war oversea "to bring democracy", and then half of their lawmaking is in the hands of a completely undemocratic body with dubious legitimacy. Countries where the second chamber actually represents different bodies from the electorate (like Germany) seem to have found a pragmatic third way, but then this chamber ends up over-representing certain interests (in Germany, local ruling classes and their nests of semi-private special businesses), which again is not really democratic in nature. I think we'll have to learn again why balance is required in matters of such importance, and we'll probably have to learn it the hard way. The major supporters of "streamlined" government have always been tyrants and oligarchs, after all.
  - maaku 12y ago
    > Countries where the second chamber is not elected, like Britain, experience a certain unease: they wage war oversea "to bring democracy", and then half of their lawmaking is in the hands of a completely undemocratic body with dubious legitimacy. What is sad about that unease is that it has everything to do with the objecter's mind and nothing to do with the state of the world. "Does it work? Is there any alternative that is better?" <-- That is all we should be asking. But I'm too cynical a person to ever hope for consequentialism in politics.
    - toyg 12y ago
      > Does it work? [...] <-- That is all we should be asking. The problem is, how do you define "working"? Who defines it? The Victorian Empire "worked" perfectly well for the ruling classes; less so for Indians and lower classes. That's where the absolutist coherence of "one head, one vote, in all matters" comes in; but in practice we know the idealistic approach doesn't always result in smooth sailing, so we introduce elements of moderation here and there, and then we bang our head against the wall of doubt -- is this counterbalance too anti-democratic? Should we really stop people from shooting themselves in the foot, or is there a deeper horizon where such an outcome could be desirable? Etc etc. That's the open-ended question of constitutional studies.
- bcoates 12y ago
  It's a shame that everyone's so insistent on democracy without having any creativity about it. Athens had the right idea -- create a set of objective standards for people qualified to serve in the upper house, then draw lots and whoever loses gets the job.
- gaius 12y ago
  The Lords do something which no elected politician can do: look further ahead than the next election. Regardless of the exact mechanism, a functioning country NEEDS this capability.
greenpinguin 12y ago
Not democratically elected = easier to corrupt. The previous leader of the Lords OWNES his own lobbying company! Cameron suggests him as Britain's EU commissioner, and it was only then that the EU parliament had to force him to sell the stakes in it for him to be an acceptable candidate. This guy was running the house of Lords for years!!! In which democracy is that acceptable??? How is being in political power and a lobbyist for industry at the same time NOT a conflict of interest??

gaius 12y ago

Can you imagine the Germans talking like that about their car industry, or the French about cheese? We don't need to "balance" the City. We need to take the gloves off and do what we can with the last remaining world class industry we have.

greenpinguin 12y ago
Of course Germans question the power of the car lobby! The problem in the UK is that you destroyed the diversity of your economy in the eighties! The car industry is powerful in Germany but so are many other industries! The UK has sold it's soul to finance, even reforming schools and universities for that one purpose. George Osborne himself says for the UK to prosper in the longterm the economy needs to be rediversified!