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UK Parliament to be Made Redundant?
caluml writes "The Guardian is reporting that the current UK government is trying to sneak a new law though in an innocuously named bill called 'The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill,' which would get rid of that pesky, interfering need to put laws to the Houses of Commons and Lords to approve. There is already the Parliament Act that can be used to force laws through, which was used recently for the hunting bill. " The original coverage is a bit old but the bill is still being tossed around in parliament. The text of the bill is also available via the UK Parliament website.
This is because the Lords have been traditional conservatives, in regards to the administration of government in Britain. That is, they have been a barrier to the kind of radical moves by "New Labour" that characterize the revolutionary and unrepresentative executives of Bush in the US, Howard in Australia and Harper in Canada.
They wish to preserve the legacy of representation and rule of law that are initiated with the Magna Carta, and succeeding 800 years of parliamentary rule. In fact, many of the Lords see this as a part of their personal heritage. It is a definition of "conservative" that has been sadly neglected in much of the English-speaking world over the last half-century. As an old Whig of the Fox/Hobhouse school, I applaud the credibility and veracity of Ancien Regieme Tories in this principled position.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Anything that goes through the parliament act will generate enough publicity for the public to kick up a fuss about it if they don't like it anyway.
The public kicks up a fuss about LOTS of things, but they never get listened to. For example: Iraq, ID cards, school reforms...
The ID cards bill has been rejected by the Lords again and again, because frankly they're sane. But my understanding is this act could well be used to force it through, to the detriment of everyone.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Well, this is (theoretically) why the monarchy still exists, unfortunatly, too many people have no respect for what power the sovereign has. She can refuse to sign this bill into law, even if Parliament passes it. Too bad she probably won't as that will trigger a constitutional crisis and put the Queen into a political position which they tend to try to avoid.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
The UK parliament has been redundant for a long time.
Back in the days of Margaret Thatcher, huge parliamentary majorities were won on minority votes thanks to the first past the post, 3 party system. If I remember rightly, Mrs. T held a majority in excess of 300 MPs with only 40% of the electorate voting for her. Tony Blair commanded about 35% of the vote when less than 50% of the electorate turned out.
With a three figure majority and the back-benches filled with career minded sheep, the government can get pretty much anything they want through so the new law is just icing on the cake. What worries me more is the sort of people they hang with. According to the treasury web site, the following are being flown in by Gordon Brown, the next Prime Minister, to give advice on business in New Britain:
Bernard Arnault, Chairman and CEO, LVMH
Lord Browne, Group Chief Executive, BP
Dr Jean-Pierre Garnier, CEO, GlaxoSmithKline
Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation
Sir Ka-shing Li, Chairman of the Board, Hutchison Whampoa Ltd
Sir Terry Leahy, CEO, Tesco
Sir John Rose, CEO, Rolls Royce
Robert Rubin, Director and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Citigroup Inc
Lee Scott, President and CEO, Wal-Mart
Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Group
Meg Whitman, President and CEO, eBay
James Wolfensohn, Special Envoy for Disengagement and Former President of the World Bank
Yep, that's right. In order to improve the business environment for entrepreneurs and encourage opportunity among the lower classes, Brown is freighting in a convicted monopolist and a horde of bankers and fat-cats some of which are heads of corporations that have been criticised for predatory and/or unfair practises. Hmmmm.. Can't wait 'til the advice starts flowing. "Well everyone, what's the best thing to encourage competition in business"? Patents for everything and tax cuts for the exceptionally rich? Sure thing, no problem now that I can push it through Parliament without a proper debate. Seat in the House of Lords? Two million to you guv but make it untraceable, know what I mean?
Sick country man, a really sick country.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
Rubbish.
History has shown that whenever a rag tag army gets together during a militaristic dictatorship, it would be *behind* the dictator, and in fact often culpable of the worst of his crimes. When the at least disciplined professional troops or policemen would decline to be involved in an atrocity, a crazed volunteer bunch would be willing to lend their imaginative efforts.
The first thing such governments do is to turn people against each other. Letting people have guns is meaningless, because the gun owners are the ones who form the militias, and who gets rewarded by the government with the powers to keep the rest of the population in check. Armed mobs of civilians swept the Nazis into power, and then they organised clubs to train the youth in military tactics. Armed and anarchic mobs of students conducted the cultural revolution. Ordinary people, equipped with weapons the state handed out, conducted the Rawandan massacre. When was the last time there was a totalitarian state where the people would rebel - if only they had the guns to do so?
Until people stop being idiots who will buy into any and all propaganda they find, guns in the hands of the majority are just as likely to be tools of oppression as they are liberation.
Arguably so, but at the moment, only a small proportion of the Lords are hereditaries (parent is forgetting the Lords reform over the last few parliaments). The rest are appointed, and not a few after having given large sums of cash to the Labour Party - but that's another discussion.
The balance of power, however, is held by approx 160 independent Lords - no party alignment. And by and large, they do a very good job, and refuse to be treated as lobby fodder by the Government with its powers of appointment to powerful ministries.
It's some comment on the current state of affairs that an unelected body with a proportion there by heriditary right is doing a better, more transparent, more thoughtful job than the elected one...
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
If you want a proper house of review (and you should) then you bloody well elect one.
Actually, the whole house of review concept was always meant to be a non-elected body.
One of the major checks and balances built into the US constitution was that the Senate was unelected. They founders thought it would be a huge error to have both houses elected--the point of the Senate was an unelected body that was separated from politics. (Which is why certain types of decisions pass through the Senate--such as the approval of judge appointments.)
All that became horribly messed up by the direct election of Senators. Since they are now directly elected, but still have powers that were granted to them based on the idea that they weren't directly elected, they've completely disbalanced the system. (The only thing that makes the Senate work as a house of review is the fact that the constituency borders, since they're states, cannot be artificially gerrymandered. It'd be cool if they were elected in a different system, a change I'm open to.)