Brown plans to destroy any opposition
It looks as if Gordon Brown is going to destroy any opposition to his government by making the House of Lords mostly elected. For atleast the last 10 years the House of Lords have been the only obstacle to this tyrannical government. If it wasn’t for the Lords we would have no choice about ID cards.
An elected House of Lords would not be good for democracy. In a representative democracy you have to have checks and balances for a representative democracy to work. Having two elected chambers will just mean that they owe their position to their party. They will then hold the party line and vote along party lines. If that happens all the Lords will become is a rubber stamp chamber. The Lords have shown time and time again that they are willing to stand up to the government. This is because they owe their position to no party so even if they are members of that party they will not take the party line. They will vote the way they think is best for the government.
Do we really want a rubber stamp chamber? Do we really want to destroy our only check on the government?
1 comment:
There's an opposition?
Seriously, this has been on the cards for sometime. Few people actually think this is a bad idea because they equate "elected" with "democracy".
What they fail to realise is that the only thing that prevents a democratic government becoming totalitarian is the rule of law. The single most important aspect of which is the prevention of government - however it came to power - from exercising arbitrary power.
We've already seen this government introduce measures which undermine that - such as indiscriminate use of the Parliament Act to force through unimportant and largely token legislation and the outrageously undemocratic Civil Contingencies Bill.
Their "reform" of the Lords to make it more "democratic" will only ensure - as you say - that the Lords will become nothing more than a rubber stamp and the last bulwark FOR democracy against a plebiscitarian dictatorship will be gone.
This is the most serious constitutional discussion we've had in Britain since the Civil War and our idiot press ignore it - preferring to witter on about Jade Goody's tits or David Beckham's tattoos.
What a state!
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