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UK's House of Lords Speaks To Voters Via YouTube, Blogs
PHPNerd writes "In a bold move to connect with the next generation of young British voters, the House of Lords has launched a YouTube video series that will detail what it does and make it more accessible to the younger generation. It accompanies an experimental blog in which various Lords write about political issues and can receive feedback from anyone around the world. The article quotes spokesman Owen Williams saying, 'We're trying to engage with younger people and people who may not be interested in politics. We looked at YouTube because it appeals to people outside the political elite.' Is this doomed to failure, or should more governments be doing something similar?"
They also tend to be rather better than the Commons in terms of serving the people (they have often voted against legislation that undermines civil liberties, for example), because they are far mroe independent from the executive.
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The House that has in recent years so often tried to foil the plans of the government to erode the rights of citizens is a useless anachronism?
"Represent US rather than them"
I would argue that everybody should be represented in the house of Lords. And in general the people who are appointed have either held power or are well versed in 'speaking truth to power'. Together they make up a broad political cross-section of society that is largely driven by the priciples of science and law, it's quite amazing sometimes to sudenly hear a politican make sense and express doubt when they have been freed from the schackles of party policy. I would also argue that the US copyright regime and a large spontaneous US festival in the 60's should not be on top of their agenda.
IMHO setting up shop on youtube is an excercise in transperancy (others may see it as propoganda), either way there are plenty of old farts from the 60's like me who use it, and transperancy (or access to all propoganda's if you like) is always a GoodThing(TM). OTOH the second life thing sounds like an experiment with 'the new media' that was sold to someone without a clue, I would expect better from THoL.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Not for now.
Speaker blocks moves to put parliament on YouTube
"Footage from the chamber and committee rooms are only available subject to a licence which is issued by the speaker.
Martin will not allow material to be available on web sites such as MySociety and YouTube for fear of manipulation, according to deputy commons leader Helen Goodman.
"The licence stipulates that material must not be hosted on a searchable web site and must not be downloadable," she said."
MilkMiruku
Erm...what? I don't know where to start...
Let's go with;
Firstly; rank and privilege are actually not respected by the majority here.
The British consitution, as it stands, establishes the supremacy of both Parliament as a whole and the Commons within Parliament. The English Civil War(War of Three Kingdoms), Act of Settlement and Glorious Revolution firmly cemented Parliament's control over the monarchy. The Commons controls the finance and inheritance of the Crown. The Crown retains the theoretical ability to veto, but otherwise it truly is a constitutional placeholder. The supremacy of the Commons within Parliament is established by the Parliament acts of 1911 and 1949, allowing it to pass laws without approval from the Lords. The Lords now is relegated to the role of, effectively, saying "are you sure you want to do that?"
I think the Lords is anachronistic, but a house independent of the masses seems to work well. After all, the masses who apparently yearn for freedom from government and want to hoist the black flag are about 70% in favour of the state detaining people for 42 days without charge.
Admittedly I can't think of anything more Socialist than that, but I'm not sure how you're combining the threads of anarchism and socialism, which are self-evidently like oil and water as far as political theories go, so I don't really know where you're coming from. If I had to choose between the two, I'd choose anarchy, but I'd rather have a system that works.
You've got to be a troll, because only a troll could deliberately misunderstand the way the British Parliamentary system works so badly. Where's my (-1, Wrong) moderation option?
Pirate Party UK
To expand on this -- the British system of "constitutional monarchy" with House of Lords and House of Commons has been in existence and working fairly stably for over half a millennium. If it was such a terrible, terrible idea, and doomed to failure by neglecting the needs of the common man in favour of putting wealth and power in the hands of only a privileged few, one would expect that it would have been overturned by bloody revolution by now, wouldn't one?
I challenge you to name a country which has had a single governmental system for an equal amount of time, without revolution or major constitutional reforms.
Consider that having a wholly unelected chamber might be a good thing, allowing longer-term problems to be actually dealt with rather than merely wallpapering over the cracks well enough to get to the next election.
Pirate Party UK
Sock puppet: be my guest!
The UK is the most stable democracy on this entire planet, so I think we've got a pretty good idea of what works and what can go wrong.
But the point is partly that the Lords are NEVER beholden to anyone's favours to get elected.
Under your system, I think we would see a rush of "retirements" and a great many underhanded deals of the type "You elect me and I'll elect you".
If someone is known to be too much of a freethinker, NO ONE in the Commons (except the candidate himself) would wish him elected to a body that could thwart the Commons' will.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The House Of Lords do a lot of good in protecting the rights of ordinary people, among other things. In theory I'd be against them, but they seem to show a great deal more common sense, and lack of cronyism and corruption compared to MPs. Compare and contrast live feeds from Parliament and the Lords - the latter are polite and intelligent, the former are seriously depressing.