Too many lords a-leaping - the House is full!

The serried ranks of peers

David Cameron has been told by a cross-party group of senior peers that the House of Lords is "full" and he must stop creating new members. The prime minister has created more peers more quickly than any of his post-war predecessors, having ennobled 117 people in less than a year. The trouble is that the House of Lords is now seen as a kind of alma mater for old politicians from the House of Commons. They should be reminded of the late Mr. George Howard of Castle Howard fame. "There's nothing grand about the nobility!", he once said.

It has been remarked that the influx of retirees from the other place has coarsened debate, led to rancorous tones on occasions and even led to animosities. It also means that, a couple of peers short of 800, the House of Lords is packed to the gunwales. This is crazy. The House of Lords was once almost all made up of hereditary peers. Then Blair came along - "Well, yeah, look, but!" - and got rid of all but 92. This was to assuage some kind of democratic deficit he'd imagined in a dream. No doubt as an antidote to his democratic deficits at the ballot box, by being elected on only 20% of the total electorate's support.

The House of Lords works best when it is not interfered with or abused from without. Life peers should be appointed for their expertise, advice they can give. Time-serving is not a big brownie point here. I'm in favour of the House of Lords as it is currently. It is accessible to the general public. Maybe that's why the House of Commons is suspicious? Anyone can write to or communicate with a peer. In fact, not having a constituency makes for a completely different way of dealing with political interaction. There are peers from theatrical backgrounds, farming, educational, scientific, legal backgrounds. Yes, you get that in the House of Commons, but not without a rigid party line being attached.

I think David Cameron should be wary of pushing more in. If it's some odd idea to sink the ship, he might find a mutiny on his hands before that happens. Leave well alone, sir. This ship is built to last!

Life peers no longer to get life!

Keen to keeping the meddling and the messing about with the constitution ticking away, the government has decided to include a measure in a Constitutional Reform Bill for the right of life peers to resign from the House of Lords - something hereditary peers have been able to do since 1963. This is due to go before Parliament on Monday.

The bill will also bring an end to the hereditary principle. The fourteenth Mr.Brown is keen to kick out the last remaining earls, countesses and other "heriditaries" as New Labour mockingly calls them.

It's all a mean-spirited device. I would far rather have a few lords left, like the Earl of Onslow and the Countess of Mar giving sage advice and providing pertinent points about badly-drafted bills than an elected bunch of self-serving apparatchiks. Mandelson and Brown talk about democracy but they have been the worst abusers of democracy this country has ever seen or had the misfortune to endure.

I cannot for the life of me see which life peer would want to resign from the House of Lords in order to fight an election to be able to sit in the House of Commons. The fourteenth Earl of Home resigned his title in order to become prime minister in 1963 but that was because he had no choice in holding his title. Viscount Thurso has not ceased to hold his hereditary title but he currently sits as a Liberal Democrat MP (John Thurso) because he is not one of the remaining 92 heriditary peers in the House of Lords. Life peers had a choice whether to receive the title or not.

Which life peer right now wants to scarper and stand in the general election next year? Finding one would be as difficult as searching for a needle in a haystack. The miscievous Lord Mandelson just stoked an imaginary bonfire with his usual wit. Asked last month by the Financial Times whether he might renounce his peerage and stand again as an MP, Lord Mandelson said, "It's not legally possible to do that. I am trapped. I believe it is for life." The peer, who insisted he was "teasing", added, "Of course, you could always change the law."

Well don't change the law. Leave things well alone and bother yourself with getting the helicopters to Afghanistan. Nobody is going to die because the 2nd Baron Strathclyde is the Conservative leader in the Lords but they will die in Afghanistan if the military advice is ignored for squalid political cheeseparing!

Divide and Rule? Gordon Brown's Britain!

This is a good You Tube presentation from the English Democrats. Our part-time, job-sharing Prime Minister thinks this is all OK. So much for his talk of "Britishness" and constitutional reform! With Jack Straw in charge, it will all end in tears.



Watch it and weep!