Slashdot Mirror
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?"
I wonder if we can expect other branches of the government to follow suit?
We are the members of the House of Lords
And what we're laying down won't make you bored.
We debate the shit the House of Commons proposes,
But we ain't no rubber stamp like some people might supposes.
Loose lips lose spit.
I welcome our new YouTube over^WLords.
Connecting to them pesky youngsters has been tried before. It didn't turn out so well.
For your information.... the House of Lords is not an elected body, it consists of members who have been given the priviledge (with a very few now who have inhereted it).
Some might say that this is a problem because it's not representative. However, unlike an elected body it's free to make decisions on their merit without the worry of being popular. i.e. it doesn't have to pander to the current tabloid whims.
Also, it has the advantage of having a large number of non-partisan members who aren't on the political party leash, many of which are experts in the fields of business, science and the law.
The main purpose of the House of Lords these days is to put a brake on all those stupid, popularist, knee-jerk bills the current encumbent party tries to force through. Of course, they don't like this and are hence trying to "reform" the house and make it weaker.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
I would not only encourage young people in Britian to watch youtube, but to also have more tea parties.
Love,
American Nerd.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
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.
YouTube videos would seem to be entirely consistent with the English constitution, according to Bagehot:
"The fancy of the mass of men is incredibly weak; it can see nothing without a visible symbol, and there is much that it can scarcely make out with a symbol. Nobility is the symbol of mind. It has the marks from which the mass of men always used to infer mind, and often still infer it. A common clever man who goes into a country place will get no reverence; but the 'old squire' will get reverence. Even after he is insolvent, when every one knows that his ruin is but a question of time, he will get five times as much respect from the common peasantry as the newly-made rich man who sits beside him. The common peasantry will listen to his nonsense more submissively than to the new man's sense. An old lord will get infinite respect. His very existence is so far useful that it awakens the sensation of obedience to a sort of mind - the coarse dull, contracted multitude, who could neither appreciate or perceive any other."
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't knock it. Australia has Senator On-Line received a mere 8000 votes, but an interesting concept. http://senatoronline.com.au/ Our (well, I am British as well, but cannot vote there as I am not resident) upper house is elected of course.
If they try to "make it cool" in an attempt to make it accessible, it will fail and be quite embarrassing (see HoL rap above!).
If they make it accessible by speaking plainly, relating the issues to how they affect young people, Britain, and the world, it might have a shot at moderate success. (particularly if they show it in schools)
In any event, if executed halfway decently, I believe they should be commended for trying, regardless of the outcome.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
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?
are they coming out in defense of this huge fraction of their populace or are they towing the line from the house of commons?
/. about the happenings in britain, they give even less a crap about people's digital liberties there than they do in the US, and that says something.
you know from my post that i'm american, but from what i've been reading on
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
uugh, never mind, it appears slashdot's new discussion system isn't properly indicating parent posts without actively digging : /
Still, my response to you is relevant
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
anybody that rickrolls them will be spending 42 days at her majesties pleasure tho.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
"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.
Next we'll have an "iConstitution"
For some reason I have a sneaking feeling that we will have been better off BEFORE this "iConstitution"...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I've often wished that governments and politicians would use a blog system like Slash. Contentious issues are so prone to all the problems slash was designed to deal with - think how good it would be!
Hopefully this is the first step in that direction.
I wonder if slash is up to the task of handling such contentious material? Politicians and their "offices" can be so viciously manipulative sometimes...
A nice summary, but you forgot one other factor; because positions in the Lords are not dependent on party privilege, it is more or less impossible for a chief whip to force the Lords to toe a line because kicking them out of the party damages the party more than the Lord/Lady. As such the party structure in the Lords is what it used to be in the commons; a convenient system of shorthand labels for broad factions within an individualistic populace.
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.
It's not just the House of Lords. Here are two YouTube videos of Sir Norman Fry (of the House of Commons) explaining a few things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72ZO6w0rl6Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF6eRIAA6mE
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
use a Wiki to allow laws to be written
I think the grandparent meant it more like "we need someone to make our votes/decisions for us"...
Yes, but it's also a concept begging for a raid by 4chan....maybe it's for the better that they weren't elected ;)
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
The great thing about being a non-elected lord is that you don't have to do and think vile things to get elected. Perhaps it's a sad fact, but true. Years ago, there was a police attack on a number of really quite harmless hippies in Wiltshire. Unfortunately a member of the Lords was passing by on his motorcycle, observed the whole thing and reported it to the Lords. The outcome was not pleasant for the police. I am quite sure that a local elected politician would not have rocked the boat in this way.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
We used to have an appointed body that did that sort of thing in the U.S., called the Supreme Court.
They don't make the decisions, the House of Lords cannot create or pass laws. All they can do is approve or reject bills that are sent to them by the House of Commons. If they reject a bill, the Commons can modify it or not as they see fit and send it back again. A few years ago the Parliament Act was passed to give the government a means of forcing a bill through when the Lords repeatedly reject it, although I don't know the details of it.
To be perfectly frank, at times the Lords is the only thing standing between us and yet another stupid, knee-jerk law that would do more harm than good. If you've been following UK news lately you'll have seen a number of instances of bad anti-terror laws being abused to do things including making sure families are in the right area for the school they want to send their children to to enforcing local rubbish disposal rules.
Oh, and none of the Lords are self-appointed; some inherited their titles from their parents, while these days most are awarded them by the government.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
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
Mod parent up.
Unfortunately, it also seems to lead to a rather nasty strain of eliteism. Check out this indictment of referendums. Yeah, I kid you not, the guy thinks referendums are on principle a bad idea because the result can depend on how you phrase the question.
To support this he uses the one of the weakest arguments I've seen for a long time - that based on "surveys" (uncited) if you ask people whether they want an elected second house, they say yes, and if you ask people if you want an expert and independent second house they say yes, so whether you have an elected second house depends on how you phrase the question. The implication is clear - people are sheep and are subject to the whims of a clever question phraser. Why the proles would abolish us if only they were asked in the wrong way!
In other words, if you ask people two unrelated questions that are not correlated (what arrogance, to assume that being elected implies not being expert or independent), people might say yes to both of them. Oh noes!
It's pretty sad that I see sharper and more solid arguments on Slashdot of all places. If this is the quality of argument they make then maybe they should be scrapped!
If they want to connect with todays generation they should fund a new Spitting Image series. At least people could name politicians during the years it was on the air.
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
Seriously, this is like the fifth time I've seen this on /. Sure, for a time flash support wasn't too great with Linux, but who is so annal about open standards that they won't use a free and multi-platform service like flash. OSS and commercial software both have the right to exist you know.
Anyway, its a good idea for the lords. They have a major image problem and need more programs like this to correct it.
Actually, the British Monarchy has a very nice web site at http://www.royal.gov.uk/ and a YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/theroyalchannel.
Sock puppet: be my guest!
Well since Lords are appointed for life what ends up happening is that the current government is watched over by the Lords appointed by the last few governments. It works pretty well. Many of the Lords appointed by the current government are seen in the House as sock puppets and don't get a lot of respect.
I suggest you to go to that blog and read a few entries yourself. I haven't noticed any attempts to "make it cool" there from the first glance - only serious and rather in-depth comments on interesting political issues.
Actually, the House of Lords is not such a bad idea, except for the heredity thing. For one thing, it's the only way somebody who's not in the idle rich to participate in politics. It's the elected bodies around the world that are bastions of elitism these days, except it's economic elitism.
Now, a House of Lords that was selected by an open lottery, rather than a hereditary one, would be an interesting idea. Maybe you'd require some level of educational attainment, say make it open to anybody with an advanced degree.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Or rather, I wouldn't be surprised if one did.
The unelected house of lords appears to be contributing most of the good governance of the UK whilst the elected house of commons is contributing most of the crappy stuff.
If we can't fix our system of government (the main probably being we lack a proper head of state, leaving the head of government with excessive powers) then how can we convince younger generations that democracy is worth it?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
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.
The UK Lords may send their dry message via youtube, but only American Judges send pr0n.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Oh yes the more they try and make it "cool" the more they might become a laughing stock rather than getting the message across then it will end up being satirised on one of our television shows and that will ice the proverbial.
Let's hope it does have a positive effect as too many youngsters do not have a clue about politics and either don't go and vote or go and vote for the one with the weirdest name / nicest colour badge etc.
Personally I use messenger to get my kids to come for their tea and it works a heck of a lot better than shouting them!
Got any more exploding carrots? Sleep is a symptom of coffee deprivation
Anarchism and Socialism are hardly like oil and water; most respected branches (that is, not the ludicrous "anarcho"-capitalism and the like) come under the branch of social Anarchism, and Anarchism has much shared history with communism (despite the communists habit of shooting us -.-)
What I wouldn't do for the ability to mod "-1, Plain Wrong"
Firstly, most of these people are titled, e.g. they've been awarded that status by the monarchy. Knight of the British Empire and that sort of thing. Secondly, they're not self-appointed. Did you even read the above comments before posting?
And it's for i386 only, at a time when 64bits processors are almost standard.
Thus forcing 64bits Linux users to either use an additional unsupported layer to adapt it into 64bits browser, or to switch back to a 32bits software.
There's no flash on the iPhone.
There's no flash on the PS3/Linux.
There's no flash on most PDAs.
There's no flash for anything else except i386. Not for any of the various embed processor you may find on modern internet tablets.
All those alternate usages have to either get blocked because they lack flash and the websites' designers didn't think of an alternative possibility ; or they have to use 3rd party plugins like Gnash or SWFDec.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Oh they are titled are they? Oooooo, by a monarchy of the british empire. So lets see, this is a tough one, umm, lemme think, oh, I know, I want to be a lord, but I don't want to "self appoint" myself, hey, I'll ask my buddy joe monarch to do it. ya, that's the ticket. heck, all the little people out there will not catch on. And what is it with accepting a Monarchy? I mean common, to accept class status by blood? that is dark ages crap! It's bad enough we have a president thos *Thinks* he is a king, but to have a system where there really IS a king? By blood line no less! That is disgusting! Stop defending the people who control you! think for yourself!
Ya know, it's bad enough living in the states where the vast majority of the populace is leading the world, slipping into an IQ pit. I was hoping that maybe folks in other parts of the world could actually discern the difference between "what you've been taught" and what is really going on. Oh well, join the puppets.
It's plain and simple, LORDS, get it! LORDS! Get it? Oh, change it, house of emperors, house of Gods, house of Mohomands, House of Enrons! Is this getting through to you?
Ok, let me simplify this. You see, you've been told that a "Lord" of the house is not a deity, just a guy, you know, doing his job. but then why did they not call it "the house of regular Joes?" Hmmm, cuz you want to associate your self with a LORD, Get it!!!!
So here is some advice. If you get to a place where you are really important, you call your postion or group "the house of Saints" or someting like that. You see, it give you status, just by the association of "Sainthood. /p?
Anyway, remember, you are down here and they are up there. then it all makes sense. enjoy
The parliament act was created in 1911 and update in 1949 - admittedly this government has used it 3 of the 7 times it has been invoked, but it was not recently passed. The Lords can and do introduce bills, although by tradition not financial bills. They are mainly used for technical non controversial bills as you cannot use the parliament act to force through acts introduced by the Lords
Since we're talking about the House of Lords, does that mean that they're preparing YouTube videos with the Queen as the intended audience?
Firstly, the monarchy wield essentially no power, so that point is moot. Of course there are people who think we should get rid of them, and some of their arguments are fair enough, so I'll give you that one.
So far as the House of Lords goes, you seem to be thinking that "lord" means "deity". Maybe you've only heard the word being used to describe Jesus; I don't know. To British people however, it doesn't imply that we are treating these people like Gods and it carries no religious overtones, so calling someone a Lord certainly isn't considered the same as calling someone a Saint. It's merely a title that we use and noone sees anything wrong with it.
I hope this has cleared things up for you a little. I can see perhaps that it would be a little confusing for a foreigner, but surely it's more important to try and understand that to insult? I also think it's important to remember that different words have different meanings to people from other cultures; we're not all from the United States after all.
This is what is hard to understand:
And the Commons votes to increase surveillance of people through cams.
The Lords opens its own doors to cams.
I mean isn't this a paradox?
The people who need NOT be concerned about people do the best for them. And the bastards that need to heed to people trample upon them and get re-elected.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Where are you from that the assumption is arrogant? I definitely live in the "sad but true" part of the world and would like to come there.
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
That's a challenge you can't meet, either. It has most definitely not been 500 years since the last major rebellion in the UK. The Glorious Revolution was in 1688 and there were continued uprisings from that up until the mid-18th century. And since that time, a large portion of the country has actually led a successful rebellion and formed a new republic. That's Ireland in case you're confused.
But in this context Lord *means* "politician" (in as much as sitting members of the House of Lords can ever be called politicians). Why should they not call themselves Lords? Is it egotistic for a senator to call themselves a senator? After all, 'senator' is also synonymous with power and authority.
"So the government gets to choose who will watch over the government?"
All the parties represented in the Commons put forward candidates for a Peerage in proportion to the number of seats they hold. They are often party politicians but not always -- for example Mary Warnock was made a Baroness and Life Peer in 1984 after her work chairing the Committee of Enquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology. As a member of the House of Lords she has been instrumental in shaping the legislation that has helped make the UK a world leader in cloning and embryology research.
I wasn't sarcastic about House of Lords, but rather about the way the GPP defends the fact they are (undeniably) undemocratic institution (regardless whether they are doing any actual harm or good).
In true democracy, there are no "populist" proposals. Either majority of people wants the proposal, and then it should be accepted, or majority doesn't want it, and then shouldn't. People can hear the expert opinion, but the final decision is theirs. If you don't like that, you don't like democracy, plain and simple.
I admit, I vigorously oppose anyone who doesn't
want democracy, because I believe it's the best system (though there is also empirical evidence). Not just to date, I can't imagine it to be any fairer.
And frankly, I am allergic to that word "populist", because every time the government wants to shove something through our throats, it calls the opposition that way. Also, please do not confuse that with "populist politicians" - it is a valid term for someone who breaks promise that he will act on behalf of the majority.
And maybe, maybe, it is House of Lords who is actually being populistic (= acting in the interests of majority), because the proposals of government that GGP mentions may be disagreed with by many people.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Really.
it is the best excuse to envolve the youth in the political rivalry.they should probably write a book on xcuses.an xcuse pls: i want to sleep in my history class what can i say to my teacher? ummm maybe that i was listening her with my eyes closed.what say . politicions should not bring there messy affairs to blogs pls.and by the way what are they doing beeing huddled on a computer when they should be campaining outside.
Locking people up for whatever time is nothing to do with Socialism, as it is nothing to do with economic liberalism. However, if anything, those on the political left are far *less* inclined to lock people up without charge.