Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Politics & Current Affairs => Topic started by: Anchorman on August 27, 2015, 07:03:54 PM
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The latest batch of 'honours' from the westminster mob brings another 45 unelected waste of spaces into the antidemocratic mess of Westminster.
More vermin in ermine.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dissolution-peerages-2015
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Yep - with you on this this Jim.
I say bin it, and then sort out how we best use our democratically elected people in revised governance arrangements - and while we are at it let us also dispose of the Monarchy.
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I doubt if all of them are complete wastes of space.
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I doubt if all of them are complete wastes of space.
Very much undemocratic, though,
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It is indeed undemocratic.
And will be a nail in the coffin of Cameron's reputation when the history books are written. following the result of the Scottish referendum, he had the opportunity to establish a commission to look at the British constitution and modernise the governance of the United Kingdom in a way which would satisfy the needs of each of its constituent nations.
Instead he he just looked for party interests. What a failure.
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I doubt if all of them are complete wastes of space.
Damned by faint praise
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I doubt if all of them are complete wastes of space.
Very much undemocratic, though,
I'd agree with jeremy. Some of the people in the HoL have extensive knowledge of a whole host of areas of British society, economics and politics, a knowledge that most elected people would sacrifice arms and legs to have.
Does democracy always have to be through elected people? Look, for instance, at a US President's 'Cabinet' - how many of them are elected? Surely, having people who are experts in their fields to advise and fine-tune legislation is more important than having elected representatives who may lack any of this expertise? Jim, if you really wanted to ensure the expertise, rather than blind political allegiance, how would you go about creating an electoral system to provide it? Would you have teachers elect teachers. medics elect medics, geographers elect geographers, etc.?
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Hang on, Hope.
Are you trying to tell me that the unelected house of Lords with its privilage, subsidised perks, and expenses - after the People's Republic of China the biggest legislature on earth - has any right to make, review or pass legislation which can affect my future?
Really?
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Hang on, Hope.
Are you trying to tell me that the unelected house of Lords with its privilage, subsidised perks, and expenses - after the People's Republic of China the biggest legislature on earth - has any right to make, review or pass legislation which can affect my future?
Really?
No, but what I am saying is that having a second chamber which is able to bring expertise and knowledge - often greater than that within the 'first' chamber - to bear in the creation of legislation is often a valuable aspect oif British governance. Does that 'expertise and knowledge' have to be elected? If so, does it have to be elected by the totality of the electorate, or can it be elected by expertise-specific groupings?
I have always fully agreed with the removal of hereditary peers (even if they are then returned to the House on the strength of a particular expertise) and the bulk of antiquated, passed it, MPs.
Remember that many democracies are bi-cameral, and where this is purely based on political allegiance - as it the States, for instance - there is often stalemate between the two houses.
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A second revising chamber - a senate which is elected by the constituent parts of this union (while it lasts) is a good idea.
A chamber composed of a faction of religious delegates from one church in one part of the union, a few inbreds who are there by the fact their parents had sex in the right bed, a lot of failed politicians appointed by political parties, a few celebs and a token number of 'experts' hiring Moss Brothers fantasy robes and pretending they are at King Arthur's court, calling each other 'noble' when more than a few are convicted criminals, does not seem a reasonable way to scrutinise legislation.
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Does democracy always have to be through elected people?
It doesn't have to be - in principle you could organise a public vote on all issues, the ultimate in reality TV! In practice, though, parliamentary democracies are the most common form.
Look, for instance, at a US President's 'Cabinet' - how many of them are elected? Surely, having people who are experts in their fields to advise and fine-tune legislation is more important than having elected representatives who may lack any of this expertise?
The thing is, the President's advisors have no actual power or authority.
Jim, if you really wanted to ensure the expertise, rather than blind political allegiance, how would you go about creating an electoral system to provide it? Would you have teachers elect teachers. medics elect medics, geographers elect geographers, etc.?
Ah, meritocracy, and the endless discussions about a) who chooses what topics need to be represented and b) who chooses what constitutes expertise in those areas.
In theory it's a fantastic system, but in practice it just breeds different special interests, and there would still be group of professional 'administrators' to occupy the central ground in co-ordinating your meritocracy, electing their own kind to be the lynch-pin of the system. Institutionalised politicians.
O.
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Does democracy always have to be through elected people? Look, for instance, at a US President's 'Cabinet' - how many of them are elected? Surely, having people who are experts in their fields to advise and fine-tune legislation is more important than having elected representatives who may lack any of this expertise?
Not a particularly good example, Hope.
The US President's "Cabinet" comprises advisors only. Only the President has executive power. And only Congress can make legislation.
The HoL not only acts as a revising chamber but it can instigate legislation itself.
There is a need for a second chamber, but I think that staffing it through patronage (and by sexual intercourse between a very limited number of people) is a practice well beyond its dustbin date.
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There is a need for a second chamber, but I think that staffing it through patronage (and by sexual intercourse between a very limited number of people) is a practice well beyond its dustbin date.
I'd agree, but the question is - does that body have to be elected in order to have any validity, and if so, how should it be elected. Is it elected by the totality of the electorate, as in a General Election for the House of Commons, which would likely mean that it became just another party-political jousting area or by means of votes within specific groups of society that provided the country with a selection of expertise chosen by their profesional and other peers (apologies for the pun, sort of).
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Does democracy always have to be through elected people?
It doesn't have to be - in principle you could organise a public vote on all issues, the ultimate in reality TV! In practice, though, parliamentary democracies are the most common form.
Look, for instance, at a US President's 'Cabinet' - how many of them are elected? Surely, having people who are experts in their fields to advise and fine-tune legislation is more important than having elected representatives who may lack any of this expertise?
The thing is, the President's advisors have no actual power or authority.
Jim, if you really wanted to ensure the expertise, rather than blind political allegiance, how would you go about creating an electoral system to provide it? Would you have teachers elect teachers. medics elect medics, geographers elect geographers, etc.?
Ah, meritocracy, and the endless discussions about a) who chooses what topics need to be represented and b) who chooses what constitutes expertise in those areas.
In theory it's a fantastic system, but in practice it just breeds different special interests, and there would still be group of professional 'administrators' to occupy the central ground in co-ordinating your meritocracy, electing their own kind to be the lynch-pin of the system. Institutionalised politicians.
O.
Basically true but what would you have in its place?
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Does democracy always have to be through elected people?
It doesn't have to be - in principle you could organise a public vote on all issues, the ultimate in reality TV! In practice, though, parliamentary democracies are the most common form.
Look, for instance, at a US President's 'Cabinet' - how many of them are elected? Surely, having people who are experts in their fields to advise and fine-tune legislation is more important than having elected representatives who may lack any of this expertise?
The thing is, the President's advisors have no actual power or authority.
Jim, if you really wanted to ensure the expertise, rather than blind political allegiance, how would you go about creating an electoral system to provide it? Would you have teachers elect teachers. medics elect medics, geographers elect geographers, etc.?
Ah, meritocracy, and the endless discussions about a) who chooses what topics need to be represented and b) who chooses what constitutes expertise in those areas.
In theory it's a fantastic system, but in practice it just breeds different special interests, and there would still be group of professional 'administrators' to occupy the central ground in co-ordinating your meritocracy, electing their own kind to be the lynch-pin of the system. Institutionalised politicians.
O.
Basically true but what would you have in its place?
When I was younger I was fanatically supportive of the idea of a meritocracy, but the older I get the more and more I find myself agreeing with Churchill on this one:
"Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"
O.
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A second revising chamber - a senate which is elected by the constituent parts of this union (while it lasts) is a good idea.
Agreed. Why couldn't we have an elected senator / sheriff for each county.
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A second revising chamber - a senate which is elected by the constituent parts of this union (while it lasts) is a good idea.
Agreed. Why couldn't we have an elected senator / sheriff for each county.
Because the Tories, in a misguided effort to try and end Labour one-party rule, re-organised Scottish local authorities.
Were one senator* returned in each local authority within this rotten union, Scotland wouuld have a disproportionately high representation.
* - 'Sherrif' in Scotland, has an entirely different meaning with that in E&W.
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I doubt if all of them are complete wastes of space.
Nor do I.
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I doubt if all of them are complete wastes of space.
Nor do I.
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So you think someone should be able to make laws on your vbehalf regardless of the fact that niether you, nor anyone else, voted for them?
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Your House of Lords drafts laws? I thought the Commons did that and the Lords goes over it and wastes time and money. We are about done with our second chamber but constitutionally we can't kill it unless all provincial governments agree. Plus opening the constitution is a bad thingy in Canada. We DON"T like doing that because of the demands that will be made by Le Belle province.
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A bill can come from either house of Wastemonster, JC.
The undemocratic champagne charlies in the HOL are supposed to be a 'revising chamber'. with the HOC having the final say.
Though the 800 supernumeraries whom no-one elected can - and do introduce legislation, and amend legislation passed to it from the semi-democratic HOC.
So legislation passed by a semi-democratic HOC is changed by a completely undemocratic HOL.
Democracy, British style.
You may like to link to an article from a UK newspaper, the Guardian, which reveals the criminals who can legally vote on our future though no-one elected them, as members of 'her majesty's' hous of peers....
In the forthcoming byelection, nine of the 15 are Conservative, four are crossbenchers (including a Ukip sympathiser) and two are Lib Dem – presumably of the reforming variety that shares, with Labour’s self-abnegating Lords Prescott and Hattersley, the consuming desire to abolish itself. At least one, Lord Margadale, has posed with dead boars. Among hereditaries, such attributes are thought to compare most advantageously with those of pushy “career”, ie, elected, politicians, and with life peers who paid cash for their titles – more on account of appearances than anything else, given the aristocracy’s enduring debt to honours salesman Lloyd George.
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I doubt if all of them are complete wastes of space.
Nor do I.
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So you think someone should be able to make laws on your vbehalf regardless of the fact that niether you, nor anyone else, voted for them?
A bit like the West Lothian question, then. ;)
Incidentally I too would want a completely democratic HofL. The present system, imo, is totally corrupt.
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So does a bill from the Lords have to be passed by the Commons to become law.
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A bill, whether introduced from either pseudemocratic anachronism, goes through three stages before being passed to the other chamber to be debated, rewritten etc. Then the final bill goes back to the Commons - after being changed beyond recognition - to be approved before someone pulls Liz's strings to sign it into law.
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So does a bill from the Lords have to be passed by the Commons to become law.
All laws, regardless of where they have started out, have to complete their stages of consideration in the House of Commons.
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A bill, whether introduced from either pseudemocratic anachronism, goes through three stages before being passed to the other chamber to be debated, rewritten etc. Then the final bill goes back to the Commons - after being changed beyond recognition - to be approved before someone pulls Liz's strings to sign it into law.
" ... after being changed beyond recognition ... " - often by the elected MPs in the House of Commons, Jim. Some of the worst laws that the UK government have passed were ones that weren't changed in either House - for instance: the original Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991, which was amended in 1997, and again in 2014. Even the Scottish Parliament has never passed a law, at least to my knowledge, that hasn't gone through changes whilst in its 'Bill' state.
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At least all acts of Holyrood's parliament were scrutinised by elected members in a proper manner, rather than the 800 strong mess of criminals, unelected political appointees, bishops and a few experts whom no-one elected.
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At least all acts of Holyrood's parliament were scrutinised by elected members in a proper manner, rather than the 800 strong mess of criminals, unelected political appointees, bishops and a few experts whom no-one elected.
Actually, no Parliament scrutinises Acts of Parliament, Jim - not even the Scottish one. A Parliamentary Bill, be that in Edinburgh or Westminister, is scrutinised and passed by the elected MPs or MSPs, after which it is passed to the relevant authority for signature. In Westminster, that is the monarch. In Scotland that is, surprise, surprise, the monarch.
What happens in Westminster (and various other national Parliaments - but not those of Scotland or Wales) is that the Bill is also scrutinised by a second (or higher) chamber. It's final shape still remains in the hands of the primary chamber.
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Does democracy always have to be through elected people?
It doesn't have to be - in principle you could organise a public vote on all issues, the ultimate in reality TV! In practice, though, parliamentary democracies are the most common form.
Look, for instance, at a US President's 'Cabinet' - how many of them are elected? Surely, having people who are experts in their fields to advise and fine-tune legislation is more important than having elected representatives who may lack any of this expertise?
The thing is, the President's advisors have no actual power or authority.
Jim, if you really wanted to ensure the expertise, rather than blind political allegiance, how would you go about creating an electoral system to provide it? Would you have teachers elect teachers. medics elect medics, geographers elect geographers, etc.?
Ah, meritocracy, and the endless discussions about a) who chooses what topics need to be represented and b) who chooses what constitutes expertise in those areas.
In theory it's a fantastic system, but in practice it just breeds different special interests, and there would still be group of professional 'administrators' to occupy the central ground in co-ordinating your meritocracy, electing their own kind to be the lynch-pin of the system. Institutionalised politicians.
O.
Basically true but what would you have in its place?
When I was younger I was fanatically supportive of the idea of a meritocracy, but the older I get the more and more I find myself agreeing with Churchill on this one:
"Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"
O.
But we have an elected chamber this other one doesn't have so much power and is based on expert advice, and we don't need a second one as this would turn into the farce we have in the commons.
The way I would start to deal with the HoL would be to kick out all those who were politicians; all those cronies of Blair, Cameron etc., except those with special expert knowledge in a field other than politics. I would have stricter rules about their conduct and tighten up how and when they got paid.
Those who want it to be elected, have they actually thought how this would be carried out? Would a Lord candidate have a constituency? How would people judge if the person would be an asset and expert in the HoL? They can't even tell when our venal scummy politicians are lying and taking them up the garden path and when they do obviously lie the twatish voters still elect the morons into power!!!
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I doubt if all of them are complete wastes of space.
Nor do I.
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So you think someone should be able to make laws on your vbehalf regardless of the fact that niether you, nor anyone else, voted for them?
But this is true of Quangos. They have executive powers which create statutorily binding rules. None of what they do is seen or approved by our government and parliament. Basically they are dictators.
Then there is the fuck-up of the EU as well!!!
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At least all acts of Holyrood's parliament were scrutinised by elected members in a proper manner, rather than the 800 strong mess of criminals, unelected political appointees, bishops and a few experts whom no-one elected.
If you want a mess and a sick joke just look at the European parliament!!! And you dumbass Scots wanted to be independent of the UK to join that abortion!!!!!!
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So does a bill from the Lords have to be passed by the Commons to become law.
All laws, regardless of where they have started out, have to complete their stages of consideration in the House of Commons.
Can they override the Hol after 3 attempts?
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The Third Reading, in both chambers, is a formal acceptance of the Bill with all amendments. It is then sent for Royal Assent (to the best of my knowledge she doesn't actuall sign them, assent is given in her name - and in Norman French).
The Commons usually has the last word on any legislation.
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Can they override the Hol after 3 attempts?
Not sure that it has to be after 3 attempts. It's referred to as 'applying the Parliament Acts'
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When I was younger I was fanatically supportive of the idea of a meritocracy
I think a meritocracy would be a great idea as long as it is me defining what merit means.
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If you want a mess and a sick joke just look at the European parliament!!! And you dumbass Scots wanted to be independent of the UK to join that abortion!!!!!!
You are Floo and I claim my five pounds.
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If you want a mess and a sick joke just look at the European parliament!!! And you dumbass Scots wanted to be independent of the UK to join that abortion!!!!!!
You are Floo and I claim my five pounds.
You are blind and misguided. Floo would never write such things, she's pro EU.
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If you want a mess and a sick joke just look at the European parliament!!! And you dumbass Scots wanted to be independent of the UK to join that abortion!!!!!!
You are Floo and I claim my five pounds.
You are blind and misguided. Floo would never write such things, she's pro EU.
your comment was in her style though.
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If you want a mess and a sick joke just look at the European parliament!!! And you dumbass Scots wanted to be independent of the UK to join that abortion!!!!!!
You are Floo and I claim my five pounds.
You are blind and misguided. Floo would never write such things, she's pro EU.
your comment was in her style though.
Oh dear, Jeremy, you are getting senile. Many talk in that style here. It's all getting a little confusing for you, isn't it! :( ;)
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The Third Reading, in both chambers, is a formal acceptance of the Bill with all amendments. It is then sent for Royal Assent (to the best of my knowledge she doesn't actuall sign them, assent is given in her name - and in Norman French).
The Commons usually has the last word on any legislation.
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Yep.
Anachronistic claptrap.
What has 'Norman French' to do with the United Kingdom, rather than the English, Parliament?
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The latest batch of 'honours' from the westminster mob brings another 45 unelected waste of spaces into the antidemocratic mess of Westminster.
More vermin in ermine.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dissolution-peerages-2015
The Queen isn't an idiot. I daresay they were the best of the bunch selected and even worse rejected.
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The latest batch of 'honours' from the westminster mob brings another 45 unelected waste of spaces into the antidemocratic mess of Westminster.
More vermin in ermine.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dissolution-peerages-2015
The Queen isn't an idiot. I daresay they were the best of the bunch selected and even worse rejected.
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I never said Lizzie Windsor was an idiot.
I DID say she was an unelected, unappointed anachronistic parasite though.