House of Lords.

[popgoestheweasal.]

450 members £300 a day each = £135,000 per day = £675,000 a week = 2.7million a month = 32.4 million per year.
if my addy ups are right.
Then we have brussels. house of commons. local counciilors and you wonder where the money goes.

[Julie noted]

popgoestheweasel: I hope you are sitting down....because we have 8oo 'Lords' at the moment, so double your figures! 

I know 4 that have always decried the Lords, one of which called it a place for 'sons of bas**ar*s' (or something similar but meaning the same). Mandelson, Prescott and the two Kinnocks...what hypocrites. 

[popgoestheweasal.]

OMG. 

[The Great Dictator]

We have 650 MPs i believe, you can treble the salary with their expenses total. Even that is a small amount when you look at the amount of civil servants there are to service them.

[Julie noted]

KD; The H of L has become a den of iniquity (similar to the H of C) because of the money grabbing, expense fiddling people being put in there, by money grabbing, expense fiddling M.Ps. 

It may have once been a 'checks & balance' house but now it is simply a place for over the hill M.Ps and ministers to continue their snout in the trough careers. 

Dozens of them simply 'log in', collect their £380 and go back home again.
It is an anachronism that is long overdue close scrutiny....just like Parliament (and our so called 'legal system'...but that's another story).

It needs slimming down (like Parliament) and be made accountable. Will it ever happen? Not a hope in hell. It's like Turkeys voting for Xmas. (Sorry, the season of goodwill). 

[Ryehill]

 The H. of L. has been debased by successive governments which have ennobled their yes men and women. Cameron has created about 120 lords in 2 years. Oddly enough not one of them are members of U.K.I.P.

[popgoestheweasal.]

UKIP what a bunch of spanners that lot are wannabe poititians that no other party would entertain.

[Ryehill]

  If that was the case then that would be a strong recommendation to be made a lord.

[JB]

OK - been a guest, time to comment.

EU legislation - whether it becomes British law or not - is debated and voted on by the European Parliament, not the Commission.  The Commission may draft legislation for consideration, but it's the parliament that passes (or not) the laws themselves.  The Commission's other role is to implement the legislation.  Not so very different from our own arrangement; i.e. government drafts and proposes legislation (with the help of the civil service), MPs debate and pass or reject the laws, the civil service implements thereafter.  And Ministers then make a half-witted attempt to explain what they've just done...

But my point is this - we have directly elected representatives to the European Parliament.  Their votes and their influence are important.  If we don't interact with them and don't take them seriously, it's really our collective fault if we feel disempowered and distant from the processes in Brussels.

[JB]

Well, strictly speaking I'm right that it's not the EU Commission that enact laws - it's the European Parliament.  But no matter.  I think you're taking the whole set of European institutions 'as a piece' - a mistake in my view, but a common enough stance.  The broader point is that democracy works through a range of bodies: our own House of Lords is unelected, but we think it's an important part of our democratic system.  You can add the judiciary, the media, trade unions, voluntary organisations, professional associations, lobbyists, and all manner or othMonkeyer organisations into the mix - they all form part of the matrix of democracy, even if votes are absent or peripheral.  I just think you are trying to impose a very simple (simplistic?) model on how the country members of the European Union should reach agreement with each other.  It's easy to take that line when in opposition, but I'm willing to bet that UKIP would change its tune quickly if they had even a sniff of responsibility.

[Vincent]

The Liberal Democrat case: - After more than a hundred years of debates, cross-party talks, Green Papers, White Papers, Command Papers and a Royal Commission a historic Bill to reform the House of Lords has finally been introduced into Parliament.
Liberal Democrat Peers have worked tirelessly in this Parliament and over many years for the country and the party. These reforms do not challenge the work or talent of the dedicated individuals in the House of Lords, but challenge a tainted system. That is not a controversial belief, it was a promise made by all three political parties at the last election.
As Nick Clegg said: "There's a very simple principle at stake, which most people will agree with and Liberal Democrats have campaigned long and hard for; that the people who make the laws of the land should be elected by the people who have to obey the laws of the land."•   The most common previous occupation for people in the House of Lords is now 'Member of Parliament'.
•   As well as Britain, just fifteen countries worldwide don't elect people to the upper chamber, including Jordan, Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, and Burkino Faso. The only other country in the world where the hereditary element still exists is Lesotho.
•   At the current rate of appointment the House of Lords will expand to more than 1,000 members. Only the Chinese National People's Congress is bigger.
•   In location, age and gender, the system is highly unrepresentative of the UK; there are 10 times more Peers from London than the North East; four times as many members are over 90 as under 40; more than half are over 70; and men out number women more than three to one.
The House of Lords has many fine qualities that are worth preserving. We value the ability of Peers to take the long view, to provide an alternative perspective and to ensure legislation is of the highest standard. Our reforms will ensure that we keep what is good while allowing the people, not the parties, to decide who gets to act in their name.
Tim Gordon
Chief Executive, Liberal Democrats

[steveL]

I disagree with just about all of that.

I see this piece of legislation as producing something even worse than we now have and the reason I think that can be found in something that hasn't quite happened yet - the election of Police commissioners. It's one of those ideas that sounds reasonable enough but quickly goes pear-shaped when put into practice.
Left as a single-purpose election, I fully expect the turn-out for the Police Commissioner elections to be abysmal though we might do rather better in Hartlepool if the Mayoral referendum takes place on the same day.

The reason is simple enough in that people are being asked to vote for people they have no knowledge of - you could say the same for the European elections. In both cases, the process has been hijacked by the existing political parties nominating their own people; any independent candidates are swamped by the resources of the party machines.

In the US, for example, the elections to the second chamber have now been reduced to the role of little more than a giant opinion poll on the incumbent President and his administration. The two houses are more often than not is run on partisan lines which often renders the sitting President as politically impotent.

An elected House of Lords will no doubt go the same way. Candidates will be nominated by the existing parties in elections which will also quickly be viewed as nothing more than massive opinion polls by the media and all based on pathetically low turnouts which should embarass anyone seriously interested in democracy.

It's not the lack of elections which worries people. The elecorate is now so turned off by the antics of politicians that much of the population doesn't even bother to vote any more - the whole process has been hijacked by the established political groups only interested in promoting their own position and influence.

The offer for us all to have to suffer yet more of this corrupt process will not engage anyone. `

[marky]

One thing the HOL currently provides is the ability to appoint people who bring expertise to the process. That's not going to happen if things are changed to where the political parties nominate candidates for election. The HOC is gradually filling up with Oxbridge graduates who follow the graduate/political researcher/candidate route and who have no experience of the real world whatsoever.

[mk1]

The laws are made by the European Commission - a wholly UNACCOUNTABLE, UNDEMOCRATIC body that can not receive any sanction from any electorate.

Now slightly reworded:


The laws are made by the House Of Lords- a wholly UNACCOUNTABLE, UNDEMOCRATIC body that can not receive any sanction from any electorate


Still better  our superior  WASP 'British ' system than all that 'tanned Deigo'  malarkey eh?

[Vincent]

However, the LD case falls apart when you consider that the Liberal Democrats are joined at the hip to the EU and owe them their first and only allegiance.

What a load of garbage. the Liberal Democrats first allegiance is to the British people, if that means supporting the UK's largest market so be it