Friday favourite 71

With the House of Lords looking certain to remain unelected this week's Friday favourite could only feature one artist - the only Lord who has sought a public mandate and according to Wikipedia has gained 15,657 votes in his political career.

It is, of course the late lamented Lord Sutch.  Sutch has been arguably more successful than the Liberal Democrats in changing the UK - his campaigns (once considered 'loony') have included votes for 18 year olds and all day pub opening.  I've met him twice before his tragic suicide and all I can say is if only Nick Clegg had his mojo...

Lib Dems should rethink Lords reform...

Now that any prospect of democratising the House of Lords has disappeared for the foreseeable future - thanks to a combination of out of touch Tory backswoodsmen and Lib Dem peers like the increasingly confused David Steel and the smugly authoritarian Alex Carlile, the Liberal Democrats should have a complete rethink on their approach to the Lords.

It is clear that there will always be - despite manifesto commitments to the contrary - a blocking minority in the Commons to any reform that gives the Lords the legitimacy of a public mandate.  And there is always going to be opposition from the less than noble Lords who see it as a comfortable rest home for the terminally self interested former politicians who make up the vast majority of its membership.

Given these constraints there seems to be only one way of getting rid of the democratic excrescence that means that laws are made by people - however worthy - who are unelected.  That is to call for the abolition of the Lords.

The Lib Dems should now propose a unicameral Parliament instead of trying to reform an unreformable Lords.  It kills stone dead the two arguments that caused this attempt at reform to be dropped - the primacy of the Commons and opposition to the proposed electoral system. 

No Lords means no elections and the Commons remains prime.  It also ends the sinecures for people like Steel and Carlile - allowing them to dissappear into the obscurity they deserve.

The party should listen to Judy Steel (not her husband)...

The excellent Andrew Page's Scottish Liberal blog reports more indescretion by Judy Steel - following from the revelation she had a pink jaguar tattooed on her shoulder for her 70th birthday.  This time she declares she will be voting 'Yes' in the referendum on Scottish independence in 2014 - unlike her husband.

It is of course her husband - David Steel - who has disloyally and foolishly lead the opposition to Nick Clegg's Lords reform proposals from the red benches and provided succour to the 91 Tory backswoodsmen in the Commons whose intransigence appears to have scuppered the whole reform agenda.  And it doesn't take a huge amount of imagination to work out what the still radical Judy might think about that.

The fact that influential Scottish liberals - like Judy Steel and Andrew Page are prepared publicly break ranks over the constitutional conservatism of the Scottish Lib Dems is a good sign.  Shortly after the annihilation of the party in last year's Scottish general election I wrote:

"...Michael Moore again allows the party to be seen to be on the wrong side of the debate and trying to illiberally block the expression of the will of the Scottish people.

The way back for the party in Scotland can only be by steering a distinct liberal path that recognises the liberal elements in the nationalists (and the easy willingness of both parties voters to interchange their votes at Holyrood/Westminster levels). Aligning the party with the forces of constitutional conservatism was the wrong decision in 2007 and is even more so now." 

At the moment the party has nothing distinctive to say on the big constitutional issue and is seen as an ajunct of the Tories on the economic ones - a recipe for disaster in 2015.  So a more organised campaign by Scottish liberal home rulers for a yes vote - as Andrew is trying to create - will only be a good thing for the party north of the border. 

Give the Lords reform rebels what they want

It was always the case that just ten days was always going to be far too short a period of debate for proper consideration of the Lords' reform bill.  Some of the proposals in the bill are deeply flawed - like the single 15 year term limit (an invitation to sloth and inactivity) - but its thrust is generally in the right direction.  It is unacceptable in a democracy for lawmakers not to have a public mandate and the sooner we move to an elected chamber the better.

So the coalition needs to listen to the views of the bill's opponents, the Labour party and others and adapt the proposals accordingly.  It also needs to timetable a lot more time for debate.  So instead of MPs breaking up for a near two month break over the summer - why doesn't the coalition recall them and use this time to allow the extended debate the rebels are demanding?

A period of silence from Lord Steel would be welcome...

Newsnight carried a debate this evening between a Conservative MP and Liberal Peer on Lords' reform.

One argued for a democratic chamber elected by Single Transferable Vote as promised in his party's manifesto. The other said his party's manifesto was wrong, the primacy of the Commons was vital and said that reform should be limited and evolutionary - carrying on the baby steps started by the Parliament Act in 1911.

The former, of course, was the Conservative MP and the latter undemocratic prevaricator was Lord Steel.

It is available on i-player here.

Lord Steel was MP for Roxburgh South West 1906-1910.