BF2S Forums The House of Lords - A Question for the Brits

(insert cricket noises here)

Well, I forgot the time differences involved.  Most of them are asleep right now, but I'm sure they'll respond by morning. 

Tbh im bloody thankful for the house of lords, if it wasnt for them Tony Blair would have taken away all our rights. The house of lords seems to actively actually vote in the way our populous wants.

lol just got back from a night out, now eating some anti hangover pizza while watching BSG.

usmarine wrote:

ATG wrote:

I think there's a good reason why we told king george to eat our shorts.

because we dont like hot tea or wigs?

Or bad teeth.

^^   lulz/win ^^


i hereby take back every bad thing I ever said about you.

ATG wrote:

^^   lulz/win ^^


i hereby take back every bad thing I ever said about you.

Is it me or did the world just skip a beat?

Last edited by LividBovine (2009-03-02 20:18:28)

The House of Lords is currently:

- A waste of space
- Marginally better than nothing at all

The original principal of appointing people who either owned most of the country anyway or had had long political lives through election actually wasn't too bad, they didn't owe anybody anything and could do what they thought best for the country.

The UK needs a proper second house to maintain a democratic balance, its a colossal problem not having one, same as having the Queen as head of state who can in theory veto parliament but in practice never does.

Essentially the UK is a currently single house democracy with first past the post elections, which is not right.
Whoever is PM has total power, pretty much.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2009-03-03 04:07:43)

The house of lords works brilliantly. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand it.

Turquoise wrote:

In studying the governments of other countries, I've always found the House of Lords in the British Parliament to be a strange legislative body.  I know with the American system of government we have problems with electing people that often turn out to be criminals, but despite how ignorant the general public can be, I still find that it's better to have legislators that are elected.

Originally our Senate was not a directly elected body, but thankfully, we changed that quite a while ago.  I suppose the question I have for our British members is: Why not make the House of Lords a directly elected body?  I understand that the U.K. likes to uphold its traditions, but doesn't it seem a bit antiquated to still have half of your legislature appointed by the Queen?

I mean, I know we have some antiquated systems as well (like the Electoral College), but there's at least an open debate on this.  I haven't really heard much debate about the House of Lords.  Of course, I realize that, since I don't live in the U.K., I might be missing out on the discussions concerning this.

I am aware that the House of Commons held some votes concerning reforming the House of Lords so that part of it would be elected, but instead of having them vote on it...  why not just hold a referendum, so that the people can decide for themselves if they think the House of Lords should be directly elected?

Anyway, what do you guys think?

From my knowledge you are correct in noting that the convention of the queen appointing Lords still exists. People may think it is a little outdated and to a certain extent I agree but the quality of Lords actually appointed is usually very high. The Queen wouldn't usually appoint any old bafoon to partially take control of the legislative body and instead those who are appointed are very well educated with a lot of experience with legal issues. Members of Queens Council (QC's) are very often elected and generally when a barrister holds that position you know they've been around for a long time and know the case law like the back of their hand.

The UK has a very centralized judiciary which obviously means they have some very qualified judges and barristers who have risen through the ranks to the Court of Appeal. Again this generally means that the Lords are of very high quality.

The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 (I'm pretty sure it's 2005) aims to create (I think it's actually supposed to be implemented this year) a Supreme Court that is completely reformed to emphasize the constitutional requirement of the separation of powers. I'm also pretty sure that peerages will cease to exist and that elective bodies will now be in charge of appointing supreme court judges.

The House of Lords is currently:

- A waste of space

I disagree greatly with this statement especially since the House of Lords now have responsibility of upholding the Human Rights Act 1998 in the UK.

usmarine wrote:

ATG wrote:

I think there's a good reason why we told king george to eat our shorts.

because we dont like hot tea or wigs?

wikipedia wrote:

The wearing of wigs as a symbol of social status was largely abandoned in the newly created United States and France by the start of the 19th century, although it persisted a little longer in the United Kingdom.

So you did like wigs once, fgt

The house of lords is goverments rubber stamp, if they think the goverment is trying to bully laws through the house of commons they often will send it back for consultations, as they have done with the terror laws in this country several times especially with the amount of time a suspect can be held with out charge or trial.

Last edited by smuder201 (2009-03-03 11:41:43)