This week has been a shameful episode by a few at the top of the party and it would not surprise me that many good and hard working conservatives are exasperated and angry
They have it in their own hands to take action, either to demand Boris listens to them, or take the necessary steps to replace him
Most PMs would give their eye teeth to still be ahead, even if only by 1%, midterm as Boris is.
Blair is the only recent PM who polled better than Boris is midterm
You cannot see the damage this has caused to the party and trot out every excuse that I am not convinced even you believe
If it was really causing damage to the party, Starmer Labour would be 10% ahead midterm, not 1% behind!
But it's relative innit? How far behind was Starmer a week ago?
The point I’d take from it is that, when every headline in the papers is slaughtering the Tories all week, they’re 1-3 points ahead and, when things are going well for them, they’re 8-10 points ahead.
Doesn’t anyone else see things in this way? I can’t get my head around the enthusiasm to treat every poll outside the context of the ebb and flow of an electoral cycle
It’s like a golfer hitting his first tee shot into the water and shooting a double bogey - it doesn’t mean he’s going to card 36 over par
The obviously crucial thing to watch is whether further media stories gain traction and the tory position continues to ebb. The Paterson-Covid contracts story below looks like one with the potential to do that, but at the same time the government may have a chance to redirect attention away if Cop26 goes well - or alternately to fire up their troops with an aggressive approach to Article 16. So because of these various events, the next couple of weeks' polls might be the much more telling ones.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
This week has been a shameful episode by a few at the top of the party and it would not surprise me that many good and hard working conservatives are exasperated and angry
They have it in their own hands to take action, either to demand Boris listens to them, or take the necessary steps to replace him
Most PMs would give their eye teeth to still be ahead, even if only by 1%, midterm as Boris is.
Blair is the only recent PM who polled better than Boris is midterm
You cannot see the damage this has caused to the party and trot out every excuse that I am not convinced even you believe
If it was really causing damage to the party, Starmer Labour would be 10% ahead midterm, not 1% behind!
But it's relative innit? How far behind was Starmer a week ago?
The point I’d take from it is that, when every headline in the papers is slaughtering the Tories all week, they’re 1-3 points ahead and, when things are going well for them, they’re 8-10 points ahead.
Doesn’t anyone else see things in this way? I can’t get my head around the enthusiasm to treat every poll outside the context of the ebb and flow of an electoral cycle
It’s like a golfer hitting his first tee shot into the water and shooting a double bogey - it doesn’t mean he’s going to card 36 over par
On your last sentence, it usually does in my case. Maybe even worse.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
Lord Botham. Enough said.
Lord Botham is one of our most successful cricketers of all time who has done a huge amount of charity work too.
He attended an ordinary comprehensive in Somerset. He has as much right to be there as any other peer as a talented individual with a lot to offer in life experience to making laws
The flood gates are opening kids, as every pol journo who has been sitting on a sleaze story heads up to their editor's desk...
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 32m - wealthy benefactors seem guaranteed peerage if they take on temporary role as Tory party treasurer & increase their donations beyond £3m
- in past 20 years all 16 of the party’s main treasurers (apart from most recent) have been offered seat in Lords
If that is true Boris must not be involved then
No one is bothered by the sale of peerages, which is ancient tradition in British politics.
Should it be acceptable though?
An "ancient tradition" of corruption doesn't strike me as a tradition to be proud of.
Weird hill to die on.
Well, if we are not going to fund parties from state funds then they have to get their money somewhere. I actually prefer that the politicians are the ones footing the bill personally rather than taking money from lobbyists, but I’ve got cynical in my old age.
Comment on the COVID data - all very good news. It also looks like the hospital funnel now has more people leaving it than entering, which makes sense given the fall in cases started about 10 days ago. In the England data I think we're about to see deaths level off and begin to fall within the next 2-3 days.
What's been very positive is that after stabilising at about 0.9, the R has actually gone down to about 0.7, so even if we do get a few additional cases from schools being open again there is now quite a lot of R budget available to absorb any additional cases from schools for those last 10-20% of kids that haven't yet had it or been vaccinated.
I've been having a think about what is driving the fall, the real time data from Google suggests that mobility is higher now than when we were registering 30% more daily cases two weeks ago so I don't think there has been any behaviour change. The booster programme is still in its infancy when one takes into account the 10 days needed for efficacy to go back up. The second dose programme has entirely stalled as well. We will get to something like 70% of the population covered with two doses by the end of the year.
My gut feeling is that we've actually hit herd immunity now that the virus has burned through all of the kids in the country. There was always a very large reservoir of potential hosts for virus when we had stupid things like school bubbles running last spring/summer which meant that the virus always had somewhere to go even if it couldn't necessarily find viable hosts in the adult population due to vaccination.
I really have to applaud the government for holding its nerve on high case numbers since the end of May. Other countries would have buckled under the pressure of their lockdown fascist scientists and media screaming at them to implement a lockdown. In fact some already have brought back pretty tough lockdown type measures like indoor social distancing and closing down certain hospitality venues like late night bars and clubs.
It's looking more and more as though the light at the end of the tunnel isn't an oncoming train and we really might be at the tail end of this in the UK.
I was at a packed Christmas market today. Must have been thousands of people there, with 95% not wearing a face mask.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
Lord Botham. Enough said.
Lord Botham is one of our most successful cricketers of all time who has done a huge amount of charity work too.
He attended an ordinary comprehensive in Somerset. He has as much right to be there as any other peer as a talented individual with a lot to offer in life experience to making laws
Lord Botham has spoken a grand total of twice since he joined the Lords. It really sounds like he's contributing greatly to the legislative process.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
Lord Botham. Enough said.
Lord Botham is one of our most successful cricketers of all time who has done a huge amount of charity work too.
He attended an ordinary comprehensive in Somerset. He has as much right to be there as any other peer as a talented individual with a lot to offer in life experience to making laws
Lord Botham has spoken a grand total of twice since he joined the Lords. It really sounds like he's contributing greatly to the legislative process.
I think that's a bit unfair. If the idea is to have a chamber of experts, you can't expect each expert to be needed all the time.
This week has been a shameful episode by a few at the top of the party and it would not surprise me that many good and hard working conservatives are exasperated and angry
They have it in their own hands to take action, either to demand Boris listens to them, or take the necessary steps to replace him
Most PMs would give their eye teeth to still be ahead, even if only by 1%, midterm as Boris is.
Blair is the only recent PM who polled better than Boris is midterm
You cannot see the damage this has caused to the party and trot out every excuse that I am not convinced even you believe
If it was really causing damage to the party, Starmer Labour would be 10% ahead midterm, not 1% behind!
But it's relative innit? How far behind was Starmer a week ago?
The point I’d take from it is that, when every headline in the papers is slaughtering the Tories all week, they’re 1-3 points ahead and, when things are going well for them, they’re 8-10 points ahead.
Doesn’t anyone else see things in this way? I can’t get my head around the enthusiasm to treat every poll outside the context of the ebb and flow of an electoral cycle
It’s like a golfer hitting his first tee shot into the water and shooting a double bogey - it doesn’t mean he’s going to card 36 over par
On your last sentence, it usually does in my case. Maybe even worse.
If that happens to me I don’t normally last the 18!
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
Lord Botham. Enough said.
Lord Botham is one of our most successful cricketers of all time who has done a huge amount of charity work too.
He attended an ordinary comprehensive in Somerset. He has as much right to be there as any other peer as a talented individual with a lot to offer in life experience to making laws
Lord Botham has spoken a grand total of twice since he joined the Lords. It really sounds like he's contributing greatly to the legislative process.
I'd forgotten the idiocy of making Botham a Lord. Almost as bad as the ennobling of his own brother.
Perhaps Owen Paterson or Geoffrey Boycott should also be named as the next Lord Mayors of London.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
Lord Botham. Enough said.
Lord Botham is one of our most successful cricketers of all time who has done a huge amount of charity work too.
He attended an ordinary comprehensive in Somerset. He has as much right to be there as any other peer as a talented individual with a lot to offer in life experience to making laws
Chuckle. Even if that were true, it’s not why he’s there.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons.
The average age of a Lord is 71, the average age of an MP is 51. Lords tend to be retired but had distinguished careers in their chosen profession or field and have no desire for career advancement therefore but are just giving their accumulated knowledge to scrutiny of legislation while still giving way to the elected Commons if the 2 are not able to ultimately agree
I have another modest proposal: to avoid the problem of people buying their way into the legislature allow life peers the right to speak in the Lords, but restrict voting to the hereditaries (while also placing a veto on the creation of new hereditary peers). That would keep a steady steam of new peers coming in as the old ones died, but prevent the government of the day from getting to pick who they were (as long as none of them have seen “Kind Hearts and Coronets” anyway). Who could possibly object to that?
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
Fun fact - one of the few members of the Commonwealth of Nations that does NOT have an upper house modeled upon the House of Lords is . . . wait for it . . . New Zealand.
Which did have one, but abolished it. Have a whole book about its somewhere.
Current UK HoL is obviously mostly botheration. With dissipation, constipation and addlepation thrown in the mix.
Nevertheless its existence constitutes a once actual, and still potential, center of real power within and without the state. The House of Lords lost this power over time to the House of Commons, because the latter had better real connection and true reflection of the power and people of the realm.
Not inconceivable that at some future day, the tables might be turned, yet again.
Or to quote (or anticipate) the Prime Minister - Vox populi, vox dei.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
I have another modest proposal: to avoid the problem of people buying their way into the legislature allow life peers the right to speak in the Lords, but restrict voting to the hereditaries (while also placing a veto on the creation of new hereditary peers). That would keep a steady steam of new peers coming in as the old ones died, but prevent the government of the day from getting to pick who they were (as long as none of them have seen “Kind Hearts and Coronets” anyway). Who could possibly object to that?
Or repeal the HoL act 1999 and abolish, or severely restrict, life peerages.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
Lord Botham. Enough said.
Lord Botham is one of our most successful cricketers of all time who has done a huge amount of charity work too.
He attended an ordinary comprehensive in Somerset. He has as much right to be there as any other peer as a talented individual with a lot to offer in life experience to making laws
Lord Botham has spoken a grand total of twice since he joined the Lords. It really sounds like he's contributing greatly to the legislative process.
I think that's a bit unfair. If the idea is to have a chamber of experts, you can't expect each expert to be needed all the time.
Botham has world class-leading expertise on partying - perhaps he can do the Lords' Christmas events.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
Yep, absolutely. One of the worst sights is people doing complete 180s on it when the chamber is either for or against their particular hobby horse though !
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
I am not overly impressed by the value delivered by the House of Lords. Feels like there might be better, cheaper, simpler ways to deliver what it does.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
Yep, absolutely. One of the worst sights is people doing complete 180s on it when the chamber is either for or against their particular hobby horse though !
Watch a Lords debate and a Commons debate on BBC Parliament, the former are generally of a higher standard and less partisan
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
Lord Botham. Enough said.
Lord Botham is one of our most successful cricketers of all time who has done a huge amount of charity work too.
He attended an ordinary comprehensive in Somerset. He has as much right to be there as any other peer as a talented individual with a lot to offer in life experience to making laws
Lord Botham has spoken a grand total of twice since he joined the Lords. It really sounds like he's contributing greatly to the legislative process.
I think that's a bit unfair. If the idea is to have a chamber of experts, you can't expect each expert to be needed all the time.
No, but personally I do think a minimum amount of attendance should be necessary . We want expert contribution but they can also contribute generally - it's not a gong, being a Lord comes with actual legislative power, it's not just a reward of a title. If they dont want to show up more often they can stick with a knighthood.
MPs don't have that attendance duty but can argue they were chosen and will be judged by the people if they are slackers.
On the subject of Disney animated movies there is only one correct answer - The Lion King. For Pixar there is also only one correct answer - Inside Out.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
Those who criticise the EU for being not democratic enough, but somehow accept or celebrate the Lords befuddle my tired brain.
I voted Remain though I accepted the Leave vote, I also accept the EU has an elected Parliament (if not an elected Commission) and of course on Brexit the Lords was more anti than the Commons anyway
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
Cross-benchers are the swing voters in the Lords as there is never a Tory or Labour majority in the Lords unlike the Commons.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
I've said before I think a simple fix would be a 10 year gap for someone serving in the Commons to enter the Lords. The Lords is not a reward for service, you are still supposed to put the time in and theoretically earn a place, and merely being a longstanding MP doesn't automatically mean you should get in.
Delay it and parties lose the option to encourage a retirement and have to step up and make someone do so if they are past it. It gives a chance for the ex MP to show they have more to offer in public life and are not just looking for a comfy sinecure. And since many are younger now they have time to do that.
I am not overly impressed by the value delivered by the House of Lords. Feels like there might be better, cheaper, simpler ways to deliver what it does.
I suspect that you need to pick (at best) two from your list of “better, cheaper, simpler”. Getting all three might be quite a challenge.
When I was at university I was in a satirical production that lampooned the absurdities of the House of Lords: Iolanthe, one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s better operettas. It is an issue that people have been debating for quite a long time without ever coming to a conclusion. It is easy to say that what we have is a bad idea (it is, after all); it is much harder to come up with a replacement that will please most people.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
Cross-benchers are the swing voters in the Lords as there is never a Tory or Labour majority in the Lords unlike the Commons.
So logic fail from you there
I'm not talking about swing votes or splits by party lines. I'm talking purely in terms of membership.
It is an undeniable fact that the vast majority of the membership of the 800 (lol) strong Lords are simply party hacks.
You can twist and turn all you want, but that's what it is.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
Cross-benchers are the swing voters in the Lords as there is never a Tory or Labour majority in the Lords unlike the Commons.
So logic fail from you there
I'm not talking about swing votes or splits by party lines. I'm talking purely in terms of membership.
It is an undeniable fact that the vast majority of the membership of the 800 (lol) strong Lords are simply party hacks.
You can twist and turn all you want, but that's what it is.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
Cross-benchers are the swing voters in the Lords as there is never a Tory or Labour majority in the Lords unlike the Commons.
So logic fail from you there
I'm not talking about swing votes or splits by party lines. I'm talking purely in terms of membership.
It is an undeniable fact that the vast majority of the membership of the 800 (lol) strong Lords are simply party hacks.
You can twist and turn all you want, but that's what it is.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
They do actually swing things sometimes so they are not irrelevant just for being a minority. However, their having an impact is no answer to their being too many party hacks, which there are.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
I've said before I think a simple fix would be a 10 year gap for someone serving in the Commons to enter the Lords. The Lords is not a reward for service, you are still supposed to put the time in and theoretically earn a place, and merely being a longstanding MP doesn't automatically mean you should get in.
Delay it and parties lose the option to encourage a retirement and have to step up and make someone do so if they are past it. It gives a chance for the ex MP to show they have more to offer in public life and are not just looking for a comfy sinecure. And since many are younger now they have time to do that.
You want the government to give up one of the carrots it has when dealing with MPs? Good luck persuading them to do that…
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
They do actually swing things sometimes so they are not irrelevant just for being a minority. However, their having an impact is no answer to their being too many party hacks, which there are.
Yeah but @HYUFD is approaching it from a party political basis, as usual, whereas I'm approaching it from a conceptual stand point.
If you want the Lords to be a chamber of experts, that is not what it is right now. It's a chamber of old party hacks with some "experts" thrown in.
If we want an upper chamber of experts it should be appointed by independent commission and not at the whim of political parties.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
Cross-benchers are the swing voters in the Lords as there is never a Tory or Labour majority in the Lords unlike the Commons.
So logic fail from you there
I'm not talking about swing votes or splits by party lines. I'm talking purely in terms of membership.
It is an undeniable fact that the vast majority of the membership of the 800 (lol) strong Lords are simply party hacks.
You can twist and turn all you want, but that's what it is.
100% of MPs by contrast are party hacks
Yeah, but they are elected party hacks.
So what? The Lords gives way to the elected Commons, if we had an elected Senate like the US it could prevent Commons legislation getting passed indefinitely without meeting it halfway.
Hence it is so difficult to get anything meaningful passed in the US unless the Presidency, the House of Representatives and Senate are all controlled by the same party and ideally with a comfortable majority in Congress
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
I've said before I think a simple fix would be a 10 year gap for someone serving in the Commons to enter the Lords. The Lords is not a reward for service, you are still supposed to put the time in and theoretically earn a place, and merely being a longstanding MP doesn't automatically mean you should get in.
Delay it and parties lose the option to encourage a retirement and have to step up and make someone do so if they are past it. It gives a chance for the ex MP to show they have more to offer in public life and are not just looking for a comfy sinecure. And since many are younger now they have time to do that.
You want the government to give up one of the carrots it has when dealing with MPs? Good luck persuading them to do that…
I can dream of a world in which the political class would consider disadvantaging itself for the common good (it has happened, rarely, it being one factor in there being some checks on power) without expecting it.
In the long term it would help them be firmer with old duffers as local and national parties would need to be more active and discerning about their candidates.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
Cross-benchers are the swing voters in the Lords as there is never a Tory or Labour majority in the Lords unlike the Commons.
So logic fail from you there
I'm not talking about swing votes or splits by party lines. I'm talking purely in terms of membership.
It is an undeniable fact that the vast majority of the membership of the 800 (lol) strong Lords are simply party hacks.
You can twist and turn all you want, but that's what it is.
100% of MPs by contrast are party hacks
Yeah, but they are elected party hacks.
So what? The Lords gives way to the elected Commons, if we had an elected Senate like the US it could prevent Commons legislation getting passed indefinitely without meeting it halfway
Because the legislature is an important and serious business and should not be used as a gong for mates of politicians, which is what it IS used for.
You may not care, maybe because you one day would like to be rewarded for your services to the Conservative Party with a peerage, but I do.
Comment on the COVID data - all very good news. It also looks like the hospital funnel now has more people leaving it than entering, which makes sense given the fall in cases started about 10 days ago. In the England data I think we're about to see deaths level off and begin to fall within the next 2-3 days.
What's been very positive is that after stabilising at about 0.9, the R has actually gone down to about 0.7, so even if we do get a few additional cases from schools being open again there is now quite a lot of R budget available to absorb any additional cases from schools for those last 10-20% of kids that haven't yet had it or been vaccinated.
I've been having a think about what is driving the fall, the real time data from Google suggests that mobility is higher now than when we were registering 30% more daily cases two weeks ago so I don't think there has been any behaviour change. The booster programme is still in its infancy when one takes into account the 10 days needed for efficacy to go back up. The second dose programme has entirely stalled as well. We will get to something like 70% of the population covered with two doses by the end of the year.
My gut feeling is that we've actually hit herd immunity now that the virus has burned through all of the kids in the country. There was always a very large reservoir of potential hosts for virus when we had stupid things like school bubbles running last spring/summer which meant that the virus always had somewhere to go even if it couldn't necessarily find viable hosts in the adult population due to vaccination.
I really have to applaud the government for holding its nerve on high case numbers since the end of May. Other countries would have buckled under the pressure of their lockdown fascist scientists and media screaming at them to implement a lockdown. In fact some already have brought back pretty tough lockdown type measures like indoor social distancing and closing down certain hospitality venues like late night bars and clubs.
It's looking more and more as though the light at the end of the tunnel isn't an oncoming train and we really might be at the tail end of this in the UK.
I was at a packed Christmas market today. Must have been thousands of people there, with 95% not wearing a face mask.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
They do actually swing things sometimes so they are not irrelevant just for being a minority. However, their having an impact is no answer to their being too many party hacks, which there are.
Yeah but @HYUFD is approaching it from a party political basis, as usual, whereas I'm approaching it from a conceptual stand point.
If you want the Lords to be a chamber of experts, that is not what it is right now. It's a chamber of old party hacks with some "experts" thrown in.
If we want an upper chamber of experts it should be appointed by independent commission and not at the whim of political parties.
They already are, crossbench peers are recommended for appointment and party peers vetted before appointment by the House of Lords Appointment Commission
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
They do actually swing things sometimes so they are not irrelevant just for being a minority. However, their having an impact is no answer to their being too many party hacks, which there are.
Yeah but @HYUFD is approaching it from a party political basis, as usual, whereas I'm approaching it from a conceptual stand point.
If you want the Lords to be a chamber of experts, that is not what it is right now. It's a chamber of old party hacks with some "experts" thrown in.
If we want an upper chamber of experts it should be appointed by independent commission and not at the whim of political parties.
They already are, by the House of Lords Appointment Commission
No, they only nominate cross-benchers and simply "vet" the party hacks.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
I've said before I think a simple fix would be a 10 year gap for someone serving in the Commons to enter the Lords. The Lords is not a reward for service, you are still supposed to put the time in and theoretically earn a place, and merely being a longstanding MP doesn't automatically mean you should get in.
Delay it and parties lose the option to encourage a retirement and have to step up and make someone do so if they are past it. It gives a chance for the ex MP to show they have more to offer in public life and are not just looking for a comfy sinecure. And since many are younger now they have time to do that.
You want the government to give up one of the carrots it has when dealing with MPs? Good luck persuading them to do that…
I can dream of a world in which the political class would consider disadvantaging itself for the common good (it has happened, rarely, it being one factor in there being some checks on power) without expecting it.
In the long term it would help them be firmer with old duffers as local and national parties would need to be more active and discerning about their candidates.
That is a world where being a politician is not a career, not the sole source of income for most MPs.
I suspect going back to a world where MPs were drawn exclusively from those of independent means would not be popular, particularly not with the current lot.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
Cross-benchers are the swing voters in the Lords as there is never a Tory or Labour majority in the Lords unlike the Commons.
So logic fail from you there
I'm not talking about swing votes or splits by party lines. I'm talking purely in terms of membership.
It is an undeniable fact that the vast majority of the membership of the 800 (lol) strong Lords are simply party hacks.
You can twist and turn all you want, but that's what it is.
100% of MPs by contrast are party hacks
Yeah, but they are elected party hacks.
So what? The Lords gives way to the elected Commons, if we had an elected Senate like the US it could prevent Commons legislation getting passed indefinitely without meeting it halfway
Because the legislature is an important and serious business and should not be used as a gong for mates of politicians, which is what it IS used for.
You may not care, maybe because you one day would like to be rewarded for your services to the Conservative Party with a peerage, but I do.
Of course I care (though Lord Hyufd of Epping does have a nice ring to it!)
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
We need to decide what it's actually for. Is it to provide a legislative function or is it a reward for party hacks? It can't be both, and it certainly doesn't need nearly 800 of the whoppers.
Most Lords are not party hacks, indeed there are fewer party hacks in the Lords than the Commons and the Lords has no majority for any party, crossbenchers being the median Lord, unlike the Commons
Almost every Lord is a party hack - 524 of them to be precise.
There are also 190 crossbench Lords and 43 non affiliated Lords and 23 apolitical bishops, so that is 256 more non party hacks than the Commons where every MP was elected representing a political party apart from the Speaker
So what? You really do come out with some utter irrelevant drivel sometimes.
It is the ideal second chamber and upper house, more independent than the Commons, filled with expertise and those who have had distinguished careers and are old enough not to be interested in career advancement.
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
It's filled with party hacks, as I demonstrated. 524 of them. Your response to that was some ridiculous argument about it having more cross-benchers than the Commons, which whilst true, said cross-benchers are still in the vast minority in the Lords, and therefore are irrelevant.
Cross-benchers are the swing voters in the Lords as there is never a Tory or Labour majority in the Lords unlike the Commons.
So logic fail from you there
I'm not talking about swing votes or splits by party lines. I'm talking purely in terms of membership.
It is an undeniable fact that the vast majority of the membership of the 800 (lol) strong Lords are simply party hacks.
You can twist and turn all you want, but that's what it is.
100% of MPs by contrast are party hacks
Yeah, but they are elected party hacks.
So what? The Lords gives way to the elected Commons, if we had an elected Senate like the US it could prevent Commons legislation getting passed indefinitely without meeting it halfway
Because the legislature is an important and serious business and should not be used as a gong for mates of politicians, which is what it IS used for.
You may not care, maybe because you one day would like to be rewarded for your services to the Conservative Party with a peerage, but I do.
Of course I care (though Lord Hyufd of Epping does have a nice ring to it!)
This is the issue - "services to the Conservative Party" (or the Labour Party for that matter) should not be a reason for ennoblement.
Remember David Cameron's personal advisor and chief guru, Steve Hilton? Here he is, on climate change.
"Cop26 is a gigantic flatulent mess of incoherence and sanctimony: Ex-No10 Special Adviser Steve Hilton claims our entire establishment has been possessed by an almost spiritual climate cult"
"I have just stopped supporting the monarchy. I can’t do it any more. I am not a republican, or anything silly like that. I would like a proper monarchy. But the House of Windsor’s total mass conversion to Green orthodoxy has destroyed the case for this particular Royal Family.
The whole point of the Crown is that it does not take sides in politics. Yet in the past few days, three generations of Royals have given their support to one of the most contentious causes in human history.
Of course you would barely know it now, because so many other institutions have collapsed into conformity in the past year or so, but the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial. "
Comment on the COVID data - all very good news. It also looks like the hospital funnel now has more people leaving it than entering, which makes sense given the fall in cases started about 10 days ago. In the England data I think we're about to see deaths level off and begin to fall within the next 2-3 days.
What's been very positive is that after stabilising at about 0.9, the R has actually gone down to about 0.7, so even if we do get a few additional cases from schools being open again there is now quite a lot of R budget available to absorb any additional cases from schools for those last 10-20% of kids that haven't yet had it or been vaccinated.
I've been having a think about what is driving the fall, the real time data from Google suggests that mobility is higher now than when we were registering 30% more daily cases two weeks ago so I don't think there has been any behaviour change. The booster programme is still in its infancy when one takes into account the 10 days needed for efficacy to go back up. The second dose programme has entirely stalled as well. We will get to something like 70% of the population covered with two doses by the end of the year.
My gut feeling is that we've actually hit herd immunity now that the virus has burned through all of the kids in the country. There was always a very large reservoir of potential hosts for virus when we had stupid things like school bubbles running last spring/summer which meant that the virus always had somewhere to go even if it couldn't necessarily find viable hosts in the adult population due to vaccination.
I really have to applaud the government for holding its nerve on high case numbers since the end of May. Other countries would have buckled under the pressure of their lockdown fascist scientists and media screaming at them to implement a lockdown. In fact some already have brought back pretty tough lockdown type measures like indoor social distancing and closing down certain hospitality venues like late night bars and clubs.
It's looking more and more as though the light at the end of the tunnel isn't an oncoming train and we really might be at the tail end of this in the UK.
I was at a packed Christmas market today. Must have been thousands of people there, with 95% not wearing a face mask.
Yes, now commonplace I think. I was at Broadway Market in Hackney a couple of weeks ago. Absolutely packed, no masks whatsoever, and like the pandemic had never happened.
It’s one of the many experiences that contribute to my scepticism that people remain fearful. I hear all about it on PB, but I never see it.
Remember David Cameron's personal advisor and chief guru, Steve Hilton? Here he is, on climate change.
"Cop26 is a gigantic flatulent mess of incoherence and sanctimony: Ex-No10 Special Adviser Steve Hilton claims our entire establishment has been possessed by an almost spiritual climate cult"
What a load of crap. Repeating the same nonsense about windless days. Yes, there many be days when the wind doesn’t blow, but if you can cut your emissions by a half or three quarters by not having the gas power stations firing, surely that’s a good thing?
"I have just stopped supporting the monarchy. I can’t do it any more. I am not a republican, or anything silly like that. I would like a proper monarchy. But the House of Windsor’s total mass conversion to Green orthodoxy has destroyed the case for this particular Royal Family.
The whole point of the Crown is that it does not take sides in politics. Yet in the past few days, three generations of Royals have given their support to one of the most contentious causes in human history.
Of course you would barely know it now, because so many other institutions have collapsed into conformity in the past year or so, but the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial. "
Are there actually any parties in the UK at the moment who agree with him?
"I have just stopped supporting the monarchy. I can’t do it any more. I am not a republican, or anything silly like that. I would like a proper monarchy. But the House of Windsor’s total mass conversion to Green orthodoxy has destroyed the case for this particular Royal Family.
The whole point of the Crown is that it does not take sides in politics. Yet in the past few days, three generations of Royals have given their support to one of the most contentious causes in human history.
Of course you would barely know it now, because so many other institutions have collapsed into conformity in the past year or so, but the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial. "
The hint is if the monarch has accepted it, the vast majority of the populace has too.
"I have just stopped supporting the monarchy. I can’t do it any more. I am not a republican, or anything silly like that. I would like a proper monarchy. But the House of Windsor’s total mass conversion to Green orthodoxy has destroyed the case for this particular Royal Family.
The whole point of the Crown is that it does not take sides in politics. Yet in the past few days, three generations of Royals have given their support to one of the most contentious causes in human history.
Of course you would barely know it now, because so many other institutions have collapsed into conformity in the past year or so, but the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial. "
Are there actually any parties in the UK at the moment who agree with him?
"I have just stopped supporting the monarchy. I can’t do it any more. I am not a republican, or anything silly like that. I would like a proper monarchy. But the House of Windsor’s total mass conversion to Green orthodoxy has destroyed the case for this particular Royal Family.
The whole point of the Crown is that it does not take sides in politics. Yet in the past few days, three generations of Royals have given their support to one of the most contentious causes in human history.
Of course you would barely know it now, because so many other institutions have collapsed into conformity in the past year or so, but the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial. "
Elegant Godwin by The Hitch in this column - a collectors’ item.
Propose that the House of Lords be reconstituted, to consist of elected Lords of Parliament selected from pubs and private clubs across the UK, chosen on first-past-the-tap basis, with due allocation for coffee bars, hookah lounges and other hangouts to fully represent the tea-totalling community.
"I have just stopped supporting the monarchy. I can’t do it any more. I am not a republican, or anything silly like that. I would like a proper monarchy. But the House of Windsor’s total mass conversion to Green orthodoxy has destroyed the case for this particular Royal Family.
The whole point of the Crown is that it does not take sides in politics. Yet in the past few days, three generations of Royals have given their support to one of the most contentious causes in human history.
Of course you would barely know it now, because so many other institutions have collapsed into conformity in the past year or so, but the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial. "
Are there actually any parties in the UK at the moment who agree with him?
Also. "This particular Royal Family." The Establishment has form for non-strict adherence to heredity when they disapprove of who God chooses to anoint.
This week has been a shameful episode by a few at the top of the party and it would not surprise me that many good and hard working conservatives are exasperated and angry
They have it in their own hands to take action, either to demand Boris listens to them, or take the necessary steps to replace him
Most PMs would give their eye teeth to still be ahead, even if only by 1%, midterm as Boris is.
Blair is the only recent PM who polled better than Boris is midterm
You cannot see the damage this has caused to the party and trot out every excuse that I am not convinced even you believe
If it was really causing damage to the party, Starmer Labour would be 10% ahead midterm, not 1% behind!
But it's relative innit? How far behind was Starmer a week ago?
The point I’d take from it is that, when every headline in the papers is slaughtering the Tories all week, they’re 1-3 points ahead and, when things are going well for them, they’re 8-10 points ahead.
Doesn’t anyone else see things in this way? I can’t get my head around the enthusiasm to treat every poll outside the context of the ebb and flow of an electoral cycle
It’s like a golfer hitting his first tee shot into the water and shooting a double bogey - it doesn’t mean he’s going to card 36 over par
I agree with you that the underlying position is that the Tories are 4-5 points ahead in an average week, and have been for ages. But I think the concept of "mid-term" with its sibling "swingback" is dated here. The real position is that there's 35% who will vote Tory no matter what, and 5-10% who will consider it on a good day. There's 30% who vote Labour no matter what (remember that Corbyn got over 32% even in 2019), but there's also 15% or so who lean LD or Green, and most of them - especially the Greens - are implacably hostile to the Tories and can't wait to screw them. I don't see where the swingback for the Tories will come from, and there is plenty of evidence that a proportion of voters are tactically-minded in marginals. "Hooray, we're 1% ahead and that's even before swingback" is complacency, and that rarely ends well.
Remember David Cameron's personal advisor and chief guru, Steve Hilton? Here he is, on climate change.
"Cop26 is a gigantic flatulent mess of incoherence and sanctimony: Ex-No10 Special Adviser Steve Hilton claims our entire establishment has been possessed by an almost spiritual climate cult"
Propose that the House of Lords be reconstituted, to consist of elected Lords of Parliament selected from pubs and private clubs across the UK, chosen on first-past-the-tap basis, with due allocation for coffee bars, hookah lounges and other hangouts to fully represent the tea-totalling community.
Rules out Boris, who seems a first out of the taxi, last to the bar kind of guy.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 32m OBSERVER: @BorisJohnson sleaze crisis deepens amid pressure on Covid deals #TomorrowsPapersToday
drip drip drip
£500 million worth's of covid contracts into the frame says Observer. Can't see the details yet.
Tick, tock...
That really has much worse potential for the Tories than the Lords story. Lords sleaze is taken for granted by some, particularly among older voters, but the other story links the Paterson imbroglio with something that a lot of the public, including many Tory voters, are still very angry about : that the covid contracts still haven't been investigated.
I'd be staggered if the Tories don't lose more ground due to that over the coming weeks.
CCHQ will be anxiously checking how many Labour treasurers were ennobled. Lord Levy? And desperately spinning that £500 million in Covid contracts is a mere bagatelle compared with a pair of inscribed Airpods.
Regarding the debate over the adequacy of renewables to satisfy energy demand, someone has crunched the global numbers..
Geophysical constraints on the reliability of solar and wind power worldwide https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z If future net-zero emissions energy systems rely heavily on solar and wind resources, spatial and temporal mismatches between resource availability and electricity demand may challenge system reliability. Using 39 years of hourly reanalysis data (1980–2018), we analyze the ability of solar and wind resources to meet electricity demand in 42 countries, varying the hypothetical scale and mix of renewable generation as well as energy storage capacity. Assuming perfect transmission and annual generation equal to annual demand, but no energy storage, we find the most reliable renewable electricity systems are wind-heavy and satisfy countries’ electricity demand in 72–91% of hours (83–94% by adding 12 h of storage). Yet even in systems which meet >90% of demand, hundreds of hours of unmet demand may occur annually. Our analysis helps quantify the power, energy, and utilization rates of additional energy storage, demand management, or curtailment, as well as the benefits of regional aggregation.
Q. Why don't we have carbon capture operating in the UK yet?
A. Because twice over the government promised £1 billion of funding and then withdrew it. The first time round was slightly more complicated as the preferred project said that they needed £1.5 billion.
Hopefully this time will be different.
(I might have said that last time.)
Key problem with carbon capture is that it will always be more expensive than the status quo.
Wind and solar are continually becoming cheaper and it's the economics which is increasingly driving the transition away from fossil fuels.
"I have just stopped supporting the monarchy. I can’t do it any more. I am not a republican, or anything silly like that. I would like a proper monarchy. But the House of Windsor’s total mass conversion to Green orthodoxy has destroyed the case for this particular Royal Family.
The whole point of the Crown is that it does not take sides in politics. Yet in the past few days, three generations of Royals have given their support to one of the most contentious causes in human history.
Of course you would barely know it now, because so many other institutions have collapsed into conformity in the past year or so, but the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial. "
I'm not sure Peter gets the whole idea of "monarchy": you know, where you don't get any say in who gets the job?
Sleep not happening. Good morning to anyone out there..
Good morning Mr B. I'm afraid you'll have to accept that as one gets older, every so often sleep just doesn't happen, however many sheep you count or whatever other strategy you use to clear your mind. Over the years you've just stored too many thoughts and every so often you need a reset. The consolation is that tonight you'll sleep well!
Sleep not happening. Good morning to anyone out there..
Good morning Mr B. I'm afraid you'll have to accept that as one gets older, every so often sleep just doesn't happen, however many sheep you count or whatever other strategy you use to clear your mind. Over the years you've just stored too many thoughts and every so often you need a reset. The consolation is that tonight you'll sleep well!
In spit of Covid or whatever. Best of luck!
Indeed i had a shocker night b4 last, slept like a log last night.
Sleep not happening. Good morning to anyone out there..
Good morning Mr B. I'm afraid you'll have to accept that as one gets older, every so often sleep just doesn't happen, however many sheep you count or whatever other strategy you use to clear your mind. Over the years you've just stored too many thoughts and every so often you need a reset. The consolation is that tonight you'll sleep well!
In spit of Covid or whatever. Best of luck!
Indeed i had a shocker night b4 last, slept like a log last night.
It is not often, Mr 2 that you and I agree upon anything!
This week has been a shameful episode by a few at the top of the party and it would not surprise me that many good and hard working conservatives are exasperated and angry
They have it in their own hands to take action, either to demand Boris listens to them, or take the necessary steps to replace him
Most PMs would give their eye teeth to still be ahead, even if only by 1%, midterm as Boris is.
Blair is the only recent PM who polled better than Boris is midterm
You cannot see the damage this has caused to the party and trot out every excuse that I am not convinced even you believe
If it was really causing damage to the party, Starmer Labour would be 10% ahead midterm, not 1% behind!
But it's relative innit? How far behind was Starmer a week ago?
The point I’d take from it is that, when every headline in the papers is slaughtering the Tories all week, they’re 1-3 points ahead and, when things are going well for them, they’re 8-10 points ahead.
Doesn’t anyone else see things in this way? I can’t get my head around the enthusiasm to treat every poll outside the context of the ebb and flow of an electoral cycle
It’s like a golfer hitting his first tee shot into the water and shooting a double bogey - it doesn’t mean he’s going to card 36 over par
People are in denial that Boris is still immensely popular, and labour are failing to make inroads in to this; even 2 years in to the current parliament. But there is still a long way to go to the next election.
F1: ha, Bottas on pole was unexpected. I didn't bet on that (did raise it in my blog, though) but the 23 I have on him winning should be hedgeable.
Pre-race ramble will be up God-knows-when because for the US race it was hours into the day before the markets woke up.
Good shout on Bottas, but yes, most unexpected. The RBs just couldn’t get a lap together when it mattered - not helped by Tsunoda, one of their own, quite Royally getting in the way at the end of Q3.
This week has been a shameful episode by a few at the top of the party and it would not surprise me that many good and hard working conservatives are exasperated and angry
They have it in their own hands to take action, either to demand Boris listens to them, or take the necessary steps to replace him
Most PMs would give their eye teeth to still be ahead, even if only by 1%, midterm as Boris is.
Blair is the only recent PM who polled better than Boris is midterm
You cannot see the damage this has caused to the party and trot out every excuse that I am not convinced even you believe
If it was really causing damage to the party, Starmer Labour would be 10% ahead midterm, not 1% behind!
But it's relative innit? How far behind was Starmer a week ago?
The point I’d take from it is that, when every headline in the papers is slaughtering the Tories all week, they’re 1-3 points ahead and, when things are going well for them, they’re 8-10 points ahead.
Doesn’t anyone else see things in this way? I can’t get my head around the enthusiasm to treat every poll outside the context of the ebb and flow of an electoral cycle
It’s like a golfer hitting his first tee shot into the water and shooting a double bogey - it doesn’t mean he’s going to card 36 over par
People are in denial that Boris is still immensely popular, and labour are failing to make inroads in to this; even 2 years in to the current parliament. But there is still a long way to go to the next election.
I'd dispute, gently, the word 'immensely'; I agree he's still well regarded, but I do feel that some of the gloss is, if not actually coming off, wearing very thin. Of course those of us who never held him in high regard are having our opinion justified.
Remember David Cameron's personal advisor and chief guru, Steve Hilton? Here he is, on climate change.
"Cop26 is a gigantic flatulent mess of incoherence and sanctimony: Ex-No10 Special Adviser Steve Hilton claims our entire establishment has been possessed by an almost spiritual climate cult"
Remember David Cameron's personal advisor and chief guru, Steve Hilton? Here he is, on climate change.
"Cop26 is a gigantic flatulent mess of incoherence and sanctimony: Ex-No10 Special Adviser Steve Hilton claims our entire establishment has been possessed by an almost spiritual climate cult"
That’s actually a good piece if you look behind the lurid headline.
He’s right that the ‘activists’ and their behaviours are if anything a negative to their cause (see the idiots blocking motorways for a recent example), and he’s also right that the politicians need to bring the public with them fo the changes they propose, especially if that means higher taxes and higher energy bills.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see political parties emerge opposed to the proposed policy solutions, which could potentially cause problems for more conservative governments such as in the UK.
This week has been a shameful episode by a few at the top of the party and it would not surprise me that many good and hard working conservatives are exasperated and angry
They have it in their own hands to take action, either to demand Boris listens to them, or take the necessary steps to replace him
Most PMs would give their eye teeth to still be ahead, even if only by 1%, midterm as Boris is.
Blair is the only recent PM who polled better than Boris is midterm
You cannot see the damage this has caused to the party and trot out every excuse that I am not convinced even you believe
If it was really causing damage to the party, Starmer Labour would be 10% ahead midterm, not 1% behind!
But it's relative innit? How far behind was Starmer a week ago?
The point I’d take from it is that, when every headline in the papers is slaughtering the Tories all week, they’re 1-3 points ahead and, when things are going well for them, they’re 8-10 points ahead.
Doesn’t anyone else see things in this way? I can’t get my head around the enthusiasm to treat every poll outside the context of the ebb and flow of an electoral cycle
It’s like a golfer hitting his first tee shot into the water and shooting a double bogey - it doesn’t mean he’s going to card 36 over par
People are in denial that Boris is still immensely popular, and labour are failing to make inroads in to this; even 2 years in to the current parliament. But there is still a long way to go to the next election.
I'd dispute, gently, the word 'immensely'; I agree he's still well regarded, but I do feel that some of the gloss is, if not actually coming off, wearing very thin. Of course those of us who never held him in high regard are having our opinion justified.
He is ahead in the polls; even in the middle of a world ending corruption scandal. The labour attack lines are rendered ineffective by the fact that the tories did an incomprehensible u-turn. It is very clumsy, bizarre, and defies all political norms, but it seems to work.
The Lords is just a state benefit for old party suck ups. Abolish it.
The Lords is actually filled with experienced, successful people from businessmen, to sportspeople, politicians, academics, figures from the arts, scientists, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, charity heads, ex generals, ex police etc as well as the handful of remaining hereditary peers.
It cannot prevent bills being passed but has on the whole highly educated people with a stake in the nation who bring their expertise to scrutinise legislation and if necessary can ask the Commons to thing again.
Indeed on the whole most Lords were at the top of their professions or fields before they became peers, most MPs however were mid tier in their professions or professional political advisers before they got elected
I'm not against an appointed chamber but having one it needs to be much more demonstrative of its virtues and much more careful to not present its negatives - in practice that means to avoid seeming like a retirement home to get awkward people out of the commons it needs to appoint fewer ex MPs, or delay appointing them. And it needs to appoint fewer people who have worked directly for or made massive donations to a party if it does not want to appear as an easy way to make cash for that party.
People have suggested in the past that the Lords could be elected from various NGOs so that you can have the people with various expertise, but not the party donors.
So, for example, you could have a few Lords elected by the members of the CBI, FSB, etc, for business, the TUC for trade unionists, the various royal societies for different sciences, and so on. You could also simply make it a rule that anyone who had reached a particular seniority as a judge, or armed forces, would be considered for a peerage once they retired, perhaps up to a sectoral quota. You could even extend this to politicians, I guess, by having places in the Lords for former cabinet ministers.
I'd still rather replace it with Lords chosen by the jury system, but there are options if what you want to do is retain elements of the status quo.
Regarding the debate over the adequacy of renewables to satisfy energy demand, someone has crunched the global numbers..
Geophysical constraints on the reliability of solar and wind power worldwide https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z If future net-zero emissions energy systems rely heavily on solar and wind resources, spatial and temporal mismatches between resource availability and electricity demand may challenge system reliability. Using 39 years of hourly reanalysis data (1980–2018), we analyze the ability of solar and wind resources to meet electricity demand in 42 countries, varying the hypothetical scale and mix of renewable generation as well as energy storage capacity. Assuming perfect transmission and annual generation equal to annual demand, but no energy storage, we find the most reliable renewable electricity systems are wind-heavy and satisfy countries’ electricity demand in 72–91% of hours (83–94% by adding 12 h of storage). Yet even in systems which meet >90% of demand, hundreds of hours of unmet demand may occur annually. Our analysis helps quantify the power, energy, and utilization rates of additional energy storage, demand management, or curtailment, as well as the benefits of regional aggregation.
If only there was some kind of molecule that burned very cleanly, was abundant, required low capital costs to build generating facilities, can be relatively easily stored, and which can be bought from diverse geographically locations. If such a thing existed, it could easily provide 10-20% of all electrical power, at limited cost.
Q. Why don't we have carbon capture operating in the UK yet?
A. Because twice over the government promised £1 billion of funding and then withdrew it. The first time round was slightly more complicated as the preferred project said that they needed £1.5 billion.
Hopefully this time will be different.
(I might have said that last time.)
Ohhh spotted an excellent pedant moment. You couldn't have said that last time if it was the first time.
No, last time was the second time. We are now trying to get it off the ground for the third time.
Two clusters selected for 'Track 1'. Scotland not one of them. Let’s see what happens next.
Carbon capture might end up being used for concrete production, maybe to create negative emissions from biomass or CO2 liquefied during compressed air energy storage, but not to enable continued burning of fossil fuels.
"I have just stopped supporting the monarchy. I can’t do it any more. I am not a republican, or anything silly like that. I would like a proper monarchy. But the House of Windsor’s total mass conversion to Green orthodoxy has destroyed the case for this particular Royal Family.
The whole point of the Crown is that it does not take sides in politics. Yet in the past few days, three generations of Royals have given their support to one of the most contentious causes in human history.
Of course you would barely know it now, because so many other institutions have collapsed into conformity in the past year or so, but the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial. "
Are there actually any parties in the UK at the moment who agree with him?
Sinn Féin
Sinn Fėin don’t think climate change is caused by human activity? I didn’t know that.
Just had a look at my diary for last year and it's now twelve months since news of the Pfizer/Biotech vaccine was released.
What an awesome 12 months that’s been, going from potentially millions of deaths, to something that is now mostly treatable and a minor inconvenience. Well done medical science!
The flood gates are opening kids, as every pol journo who has been sitting on a sleaze story heads up to their editor's desk...
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 32m - wealthy benefactors seem guaranteed peerage if they take on temporary role as Tory party treasurer & increase their donations beyond £3m
- in past 20 years all 16 of the party’s main treasurers (apart from most recent) have been offered seat in Lords
If that is true Boris must not be involved then
Not everything bad is his fault. That doesnt make things better, in fact it's worse as it means problems go deeper.
Can't expect the plebs to understand how the real world works - of course wealthy benefactors should be entitled to peerages. What else are peerages for?
I dont think anyone would be shocked people can still effectively buy peerages. But that the treasurers all get one is taking the piss a bit, to suggest all deserved one for other reasons
If you are going to have then concept of working peers appointed by the political parties why are people surprised that senior party figures get them?
The Treasurer’s role is more about leaning on your friends than giving yourself though
Knew you'd come along to defend this concept.
I’m not particularly defending it.
But you can’t make the direct link to the payment, unlike Blair
When its happened 16 times in a row that's pretty compelling as circumstantial evidence goes though.
If it's not a direct link then it's the most remarkable coincidence.
There’s a direct link between being Treasurer/party chief executive and getting a peerage.
Treasurers tend to be wealthy individuals who have given a lot of money over time
But you can’t prove the link that “give a lot of money” = “get a peerage”
"I have just stopped supporting the monarchy. I can’t do it any more. I am not a republican, or anything silly like that. I would like a proper monarchy. But the House of Windsor’s total mass conversion to Green orthodoxy has destroyed the case for this particular Royal Family.
The whole point of the Crown is that it does not take sides in politics. Yet in the past few days, three generations of Royals have given their support to one of the most contentious causes in human history.
Of course you would barely know it now, because so many other institutions have collapsed into conformity in the past year or so, but the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial. "
Are there actually any parties in the UK at the moment who agree with him?
Sinn Féin
Sinn Fėin don’t think climate change is caused by human activity? I didn’t know that.
Found this in a recent SF document: 'Climate Justice and a Just Transition We need to confront global warming, and the methods and alternatives we use must be inclusive and democratic. Sinn Féin believes that the transition to ecological sustainability must be framed by principles of social justice and equality. We need a just transition to a carbon-free future. If the process is not fair, neither will the outcome, that is for certain.'
There's quite a lot more and where there's disagreement it's with methods, not principles.
Just had a look at my diary for last year and it's now twelve months since news of the Pfizer/Biotech vaccine was released.
What an awesome 12 months that’s been, going from potentially millions of deaths, to something that is now mostly treatable and a minor inconvenience. Well done medical science!
It's been about 20 months since Covid hit developed countries. In that time half a dozen decent vaccines have been approved. More than six billion doses have been administered worldwide. Pfizer and Merck have produced drugs that reduce mortality and hospitalisation from Covid by 90+%.
mRNA vaccines have gone from idea to the most successful weapon in our armoury. And in the next half decade they will revolutionise cancer treatment.
Horse dewormer has been touted as a miracle cure. And debunked. And touted again.
After painful, depressing lockdowns across much of the world, we're now increasingly back to normal.
Just had a look at my diary for last year and it's now twelve months since news of the Pfizer/Biotech vaccine was released.
What an awesome 12 months that’s been, going from potentially millions of deaths, to something that is now mostly treatable and a minor inconvenience. Well done medical science!
It's been about 20 months since Covid hit developed countries. In that time half a dozen decent vaccines have been approved. More than six billion doses have been administered worldwide. Pfizer and Merck have produced drugs that reduce mortality and hospitalisation from Covid by 90+%.
mRNA vaccines have gone from idea to the most successful weapon in our armoury. And in the next half decade they will revolutionise cancer treatment.
Horse dewormer has been touted as a miracle cure. And debunked. And touted again.
After painful, depressing lockdowns across much of the world, we're now increasingly back to normal.
It's been a triumph for human ingenuity.
And, often, a triumph for the human spirit! Quite cheered me up!
"I have just stopped supporting the monarchy. I can’t do it any more. I am not a republican, or anything silly like that. I would like a proper monarchy. But the House of Windsor’s total mass conversion to Green orthodoxy has destroyed the case for this particular Royal Family.
The whole point of the Crown is that it does not take sides in politics. Yet in the past few days, three generations of Royals have given their support to one of the most contentious causes in human history.
Of course you would barely know it now, because so many other institutions have collapsed into conformity in the past year or so, but the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial. "
Are there actually any parties in the UK at the moment who agree with him?
Sinn Féin
Sinn Fėin don’t think climate change is caused by human activity? I didn’t know that.
Found this in a recent SF document: 'Climate Justice and a Just Transition We need to confront global warming, and the methods and alternatives we use must be inclusive and democratic. Sinn Féin believes that the transition to ecological sustainability must be framed by principles of social justice and equality. We need a just transition to a carbon-free future. If the process is not fair, neither will the outcome, that is for certain.'
There's quite a lot more and where there's disagreement it's with methods, not principles.
Thanks. So it looks like Peter Hutchins idea that “ the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial” is not really true in the UK, certainly not amongst significant political parties.
Sleep not happening. Good morning to anyone out there..
Good morning Mr B. I'm afraid you'll have to accept that as one gets older, every so often sleep just doesn't happen, however many sheep you count or whatever other strategy you use to clear your mind. Over the years you've just stored too many thoughts and every so often you need a reset. The consolation is that tonight you'll sleep well!
In spit of Covid or whatever. Best of luck!
Indeed i had a shocker night b4 last, slept like a log last night.
It is not often, Mr 2 that you and I agree upon anything!
"I have just stopped supporting the monarchy. I can’t do it any more. I am not a republican, or anything silly like that. I would like a proper monarchy. But the House of Windsor’s total mass conversion to Green orthodoxy has destroyed the case for this particular Royal Family.
The whole point of the Crown is that it does not take sides in politics. Yet in the past few days, three generations of Royals have given their support to one of the most contentious causes in human history.
Of course you would barely know it now, because so many other institutions have collapsed into conformity in the past year or so, but the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial. "
Are there actually any parties in the UK at the moment who agree with him?
Sinn Féin
Sinn Fėin don’t think climate change is caused by human activity? I didn’t know that.
Found this in a recent SF document: 'Climate Justice and a Just Transition We need to confront global warming, and the methods and alternatives we use must be inclusive and democratic. Sinn Féin believes that the transition to ecological sustainability must be framed by principles of social justice and equality. We need a just transition to a carbon-free future. If the process is not fair, neither will the outcome, that is for certain.'
There's quite a lot more and where there's disagreement it's with methods, not principles.
Wasn't the point that SF are the only party elected to parliament that wants to be a Republic, not that SF a re climate change denialists?
There are a few of the latter on the right wing, especially in REFUK.
Comments
He attended an ordinary comprehensive in Somerset. He has as much right to be there as any other peer as a talented individual with a lot to offer in life experience to making laws
Perhaps Owen Paterson or Geoffrey Boycott should also be named as the next Lord Mayors of London.
The average age of a Lord is 71, the average age of an MP is 51. Lords tend to be retired but had distinguished careers in their chosen profession or field and have no desire for career advancement therefore but are just giving their accumulated knowledge to scrutiny of legislation while still giving way to the elected Commons if the 2 are not able to ultimately agree
Which did have one, but abolished it. Have a whole book about its somewhere.
Current UK HoL is obviously mostly botheration. With dissipation, constipation and addlepation thrown in the mix.
Nevertheless its existence constitutes a once actual, and still potential, center of real power within and without the state. The House of Lords lost this power over time to the House of Commons, because the latter had better real connection and true reflection of the power and people of the realm.
Not inconceivable that at some future day, the tables might be turned, yet again.
Or to quote (or anticipate) the Prime Minister - Vox populi, vox dei.
One of the worst sights is people doing complete 180s on it when the chamber is either for or against their particular hobby horse though !
Yet it still gives way to the elected Commons if the two cannot reach agreement on legislation
MPs don't have that attendance duty but can argue they were chosen and will be judged by the people if they are slackers.
So logic fail from you there
Delay it and parties lose the option to encourage a retirement and have to step up and make someone do so if they are past it. It gives a chance for the ex MP to show they have more to offer in public life and are not just looking for a comfy sinecure. And since many are younger now they have time to do that.
When I was at university I was in a satirical production that lampooned the absurdities of the House of Lords: Iolanthe, one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s better operettas. It is an issue that people have been debating for quite a long time without ever coming to a conclusion. It is easy to say that what we have is a bad idea (it is, after all); it is much harder to come up with a replacement that will please most people.
It is an undeniable fact that the vast majority of the membership of the 800 (lol) strong Lords are simply party hacks.
You can twist and turn all you want, but that's what it is.
If you want the Lords to be a chamber of experts, that is not what it is right now. It's a chamber of old party hacks with some "experts" thrown in.
If we want an upper chamber of experts it should be appointed by independent commission and not at the whim of political parties.
Solar not doing so well though…
Hence it is so difficult to get anything meaningful passed in the US unless the Presidency, the House of Representatives and Senate are all controlled by the same party and ideally with a comfortable majority in Congress
In the long term it would help them be firmer with old duffers as local and national parties would need to be more active and discerning about their candidates.
You may not care, maybe because you one day would like to be rewarded for your services to the Conservative Party with a peerage, but I do.
I suspect going back to a world where MPs were drawn exclusively from those of independent means would not be popular, particularly not with the current lot.
"Cop26 is a gigantic flatulent mess of incoherence and sanctimony: Ex-No10 Special Adviser Steve Hilton claims our entire establishment has been possessed by an almost spiritual climate cult"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10173041/Ex-No10-guru-claims-Downing-Street-possessed-climate-cult.html
I don’t KNOW there is no higher power - indeed I hope there is, and that she’s a good person, albeit clearly imperfect, just like the rest of us.
I just think, on balance, it’s very unlikely.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10172943/PETER-HITCHENS-Green-Queen-just-terrible-mistake-taking-politics.html
"I have just stopped supporting the monarchy. I can’t do it any more. I am not a republican, or anything silly like that. I would like a proper monarchy. But the House of Windsor’s total mass conversion to Green orthodoxy has destroyed the case for this particular Royal Family.
The whole point of the Crown is that it does not take sides in politics. Yet in the past few days, three generations of Royals have given their support to one of the most contentious causes in human history.
Of course you would barely know it now, because so many other institutions have collapsed into conformity in the past year or so, but the view that climate change is caused by human activity remains controversial. "
It’s one of the many experiences that contribute to my scepticism that people remain fearful. I hear all about it on PB, but I never see it.
He’s now a Trump cult leader on Fox. Speaking of giant flatulent messes.
I hope things get better for you, irrespective of the polls.
So contentious that there is cross party support for it ?
And unlike, say, Europe, the issue does not seem to be one on which the parties are ignoring a large proportion of the electorate.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/belief-in-climate-change
Inelegant mince from Hitchens.
Good morning to anyone out there..
Geophysical constraints on the reliability of solar and wind power worldwide
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z
If future net-zero emissions energy systems rely heavily on solar and wind resources, spatial and temporal mismatches between resource availability and electricity demand may challenge system reliability. Using 39 years of hourly reanalysis data (1980–2018), we analyze the ability of solar and wind resources to meet electricity demand in 42 countries, varying the hypothetical scale and mix of renewable generation as well as energy storage capacity. Assuming perfect transmission and annual generation equal to annual demand, but no energy storage, we find the most reliable renewable electricity systems are wind-heavy and satisfy countries’ electricity demand in 72–91% of hours (83–94% by adding 12 h of storage). Yet even in systems which meet >90% of demand, hundreds of hours of unmet demand may occur annually. Our analysis helps quantify the power, energy, and utilization rates of additional energy storage, demand management, or curtailment, as well as the benefits of regional aggregation.
Wind and solar are continually becoming cheaper and it's the economics which is increasingly driving the transition away from fossil fuels.
Over the years you've just stored too many thoughts and every so often you need a reset.
The consolation is that tonight you'll sleep well!
In spit of Covid or whatever. Best of luck!
F1: ha, Bottas on pole was unexpected. I didn't bet on that (did raise it in my blog, though) but the 23 I have on him winning should be hedgeable.
Pre-race ramble will be up God-knows-when because for the US race it was hours into the day before the markets woke up.
Some good news for all the PB London party animals - although they’re probably all very much still in bed right now - a 12,500 capacity crowd turned up at Wembley Arena last night for a rave. London is BACK, as some of them might say…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/fatboy-slim-come-long-way-together-review-joyous-post-lockdown/
Of course those of us who never held him in high regard are having our opinion justified.
He’s right that the ‘activists’ and their behaviours are if anything a negative to their cause (see the idiots blocking motorways for a recent example), and he’s also right that the politicians need to bring the public with them fo the changes they propose, especially if that means higher taxes and higher energy bills.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see political parties emerge opposed to the proposed policy solutions, which could potentially cause problems for more conservative governments such as in the UK.
So, for example, you could have a few Lords elected by the members of the CBI, FSB, etc, for business, the TUC for trade unionists, the various royal societies for different sciences, and so on. You could also simply make it a rule that anyone who had reached a particular seniority as a judge, or armed forces, would be considered for a peerage once they retired, perhaps up to a sectoral quota. You could even extend this to politicians, I guess, by having places in the Lords for former cabinet ministers.
I'd still rather replace it with Lords chosen by the jury system, but there are options if what you want to do is retain elements of the status quo.
Carbon capture might end up being used for concrete production, maybe to create negative emissions from biomass or CO2 liquefied during compressed air energy storage, but not to enable continued burning of fossil fuels.
Treasurers tend to be wealthy individuals who have given a lot of money over time
But you can’t prove the link that “give a lot of money” = “get a peerage”
'Climate Justice and a Just Transition
We need to confront global warming, and the methods and alternatives we use must be inclusive and democratic.
Sinn Féin believes that the transition to ecological sustainability must be framed by principles of social justice and equality. We need a just transition to a carbon-free future. If the process is not fair, neither will the outcome, that is for certain.'
There's quite a lot more and where there's disagreement it's with methods, not principles.
mRNA vaccines have gone from idea to the most successful weapon in our armoury. And in the next half decade they will revolutionise cancer treatment.
Horse dewormer has been touted as a miracle cure. And debunked. And touted again.
After painful, depressing lockdowns across much of the world, we're now increasingly back to normal.
It's been a triumph for human ingenuity.
Quite cheered me up!
Wasn't the point that SF are the only party elected to parliament that wants to be a Republic, not that SF a re climate change denialists?
There are a few of the latter on the right wing, especially in REFUK.