Last night's edition of NEWSNIGHT is well worth watching again. About a third of the way in Jeremy Paxman has a rare outing to the Tate to see the Hogarth exhibition as a taster for a discussion on Lords reform with the superb Baroness Helena Kennedy and the smugger than smug Lord Lipsey (who they managed to caption as Lord Livsey at first). Kennedy completely skewered Lipsey and it was a delight to behold.
After this piece David Grossman followed up the Colin Challen/Ed Balls cronyism story. This internet telly downloading thing is beginning to catch on, isn't it?
Note: This programme won't be available after 10.30pm today
19 comments:
Iain, Personaly I can't see the need for any reform of the House of Lords what so ever. i thought it was fine as it was. It tried to stop the poll tax, it has tried to stop the worst of the anti terror legislation.
It is doing what it is supposed to do.
The only thing you could do is repeal the parliament act and codify the Salisbery convention.
It works, leave it alone. (Unless we want to bring back all of the heriditory peers in which case I agree).
Arthurian Legend also has something on new Labour incompetence today...
After seeing the National in the spring I took my daughter to the Tate Modern in the summer and we walked around [the few] galleries, whilst I explained the the art history to her.
"Where have all the pictures gone?" she asked.
Lipsey was poor, and Kennedy wiped the floor with him, but that does not weaken the basic concern with a 50% elected and 30% politically appointed Lords - the party machines will strengthen their hold over the Upper House, limiting its desire to do what the heavily-whipped Commons is almost always constrained from doing: comment upon and revise policy and legislation on the basis of evidence and experience rather than in the interest of politically partisan objectives.
It's not a surprise that Tories think the old House of Lords was fine - it was soft on Tory governments, but defeated Labour governments all the time. The idea that one party should have a perpetual massive lead over everyone else in one chamber of the legislature is absolutely unacceptable. Especially if the Parliament Act is abolished. Benedict's proposed solution is legislating for permanent Tory control of Britain regardless of the views of the people.
I suppose, Benedict, you are aware that the Joint Committee on Conventions reported that the Salisbury/Addison Convention should not be codified?
David Boothroyd - I think you will find that the Lords was as great a critic of legislation under the Thatcher and Major administrations as it has been under Blair. That might be interpreted as negative, but it could also be seen as a group of people, however eccentically they arrived there, considering themselves more beholden to the public interest than to political parties' main aim of gaining and retaining power.
Was the Lords as great a critic of Tory legislation as of Labour? Have a look at http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/notes/snpc-03252.pdf and crunch the numbers. Rank them from lowest to highest.
0.58 defeats per month in the 1970-74 Heath government.
0.92 in the 1979-83 Thatcher government.
1.03 in the 1992-97 Major government.
1.26 in the 1987-92 Thatcher/Major government.
1.29 in the 1983-87 Thatcher government.
Then:
1.86 in the 1974 Wilson minority government.
2.20 in the 1997-2001 Blair government.
5.21 in the 2001-05 Blair government.
6.24 in the 1974-79 Wilson/Callaghan government.
All Labour governments were far more likely to see the Lords defeat them than any Conservative government.
I'd much sooner trust the hereditary peers than an 'elected' or 'appointed' group. After all, do many people trust their 'elected' MPs, or think they display anything in the way of personal integrity (or ability, for that matter)?
Frankly the hereditary peers have little to lose when it comes to decisions of conscience. They are much less likely to exhibit the appalling bias of some appointees, or the slavish following of party line by the elected parliamentarians.
I'd also like to see much more reporting of the daily events and debates by the Lords, who have always served as a decent counter-balance to the sort of extremist nonsense we see emanating from the Commons.
David Boothroyd
Defeats per month is a meaningless statistic, as the number of bills changes every month. You should be looking at the total number of bills submitted by each governmentand the total number of defeats. Blair's government has churned out thousands of bills. What percentage of those have been defeated by the Lords?
Swift - I've averaged out the number of defeats per month over the whole period of a Parliament, so the number of Bills is irrelevant. The Lords don't reject Bills outright, they just pass wrecking amendments.
Challen-Balls story is (a) a pile of bollocks and (b) was in the papers more than a week before hitting Lord Dale's blog ... you also neglect to point out that the Newsnight piece included Challen saying he had had no offer of paid or unpaid work from Brown/Treasury etc, though I coincide that may be a bit weaselly.
Newsnight also revealled quite persuasively I think that the author of the allegedly figmental report was referring to a one off conference which Challen was to help on soon, rather than an alleged nice little earner in two or three years time.
Once again I ask Iain: do you believe all supporters of the party of government should be put on a job freeze for the duration? For 12 years, or let's hope 20 years??
And aren't the Tory snouts in trough shown by the RMI of a whole different quantum than that from other parties, excepting Blunkett's £3,000 a week for witterings in The Sun and all that lolly for the duff book.
David and Swift:
Interesting stats David. But Swift does have a point. The number of bills is a factor. And I don't think working this out would undermine your principle. There is a pattern. But probably a littel less pronounced.
David Boothroyd:
Those numbers are irrelevant in the case of the Blair government because the makeup of the House of Lords post 1999 was rebalanced to remove the bias. Therefore it is impossible to compare the eras.
Besides, you could always argue that the Tories just had better policies... (though I wouldn't bother opening that can of worms personally).
Incidently I saw Newsnight at it was toe-curling. No doubt they intentionally picked a Lord who would not represent his case well. The BBC's leftwing bias strikes again.
The case for an unelected House of Lords is far stronger than it is for an elected one. If only someone with credibility would stand up for it.
MMMmmm...Baroness Helena Kennedy, not only hugely intelligent, commendably impartial, compassionate and with a an admirable courage in sticking up for justice and human rights, with that gorgeous hair and delicious Scottish accent, well, listening to her just makes me melt,- she's lush!
Paxo was probably making the most of being able to travel by taxi in the daytime, before the 'clampdown' on the presenters' expenses [see the BBC 'Editors' Blog and related story in the Grauniad..
The number of Bills is utterly irrelevant because (a) the same reform could be accomplished with a multitude of one clause Bills or a single 400-clause Bill; (b) once the issue is decided in a single division, the Lords then agrees all associated issues without a division.
Martine: the Labour Party has removed an advantage that the Tories used to enjoy, but it has not given itself any advantage. There are those who argue for the return of the hereditaries on the grounds that they defeated the Tories as well: as I have shown, this is bunkum for the Tories were defeated far, far less often.
I can't open Newsnight on my Mac.
Is this a BBC plot against Mac users?
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Iain, I couldn't disagree more. Of course Lipsey was a little off the wall but on the whole he did a good job defending the Lords, which he admits needs reforming. His comments about the generally poor quality of MP's and the generally better Lords is quite true.
Kennedy on the other hand was like a little dwarf bobbing up and down grinning like the smug lawyer she is.
No, you got this one wrong Iain.
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