Mr. Royale, the pup is improving. In a month or two I expect her to be behaving better than a Lib Dem peer. [Of course, she's a border collie, so in a year or so she'll probably be superior to a Cabinet Minister ].
Actually, thinking it through, Lib Dem peers are more akin to the Undead.
Incredible that the Labour peers were so helpful to Mr Cameron that most of them abstained on the Lib Dem amendment. If they had backed the Lib Dems, the government measure would have been defeated, not just delayed. The Lib Dems are taking the fightback against the Tories, while reform.
I think the Lib Dms emerged from yesterday´s events as the clear winners.
Not everyone calling for abolition is a Tory. Clegg handled Lords reform very poorly. The Tory backbench revolt was a timetable motion, so the prospect of reform could have been kept alive by more debate, which seems quite reasonable for such major constitutional change. Instead he threw his toys out of the pram. Along with tuition fees it was his biggest mistake.
He didn't really want it. Suppose the Lords were elected. How many Lib Dems do you think there'd be?
I think that he did want it, as a step to PR. The proposals were far from perfect and did need more debate.
Abolish the lot.
That would give the Commons, and hence the government, and hence the PM, far too much power. It's over-mighty as it is.
Actually, I think that had the Lords been elected by PR then it would have weakened the case for doing likewise for the Commons: the two Houses should be composed differently - what benefit is there to producing an identikit version of the Commons in another place? To have one House based on geographic representation and the other on voter representation gives balance.
On Mike's subject of missed opportunities, this was the real one for the Lib Dems. Lords reform, including elections by PR there, would have gone through if that, rather than the AV referendum which ultimately delivered nothing, had been the trade-off for boundary reform.
Maybe, but those of us who also pointed out it was a wasted opportunity for the Tories can have a small chuckle.
The darn thing needs reforming and reform will come.If Cameron won't do it when he's in the driving seat then the Tories are leaving themselves open to another Labour consitiutional mess instead of putting it right now.
Cameron could be the man who put the Lords legitimacy question to bed for a century.
Chuka Umunna is to marry his girlfriend with an announcement in today's Times
Hyufd, I hate to be picky but surely he has announced in the Times that he is to marry his girlfriend? It would be surprising if he decided to marry his girlfriend to an announcement in the Times. I don't think we've got that far in terms of marital equality yet.
Congratulations to the happy couple, whether she is getting hitched to the paper or the one who merely looks good on paper.
Yes I suppose that could be read both ways. Clearly too settling questions about his private life mean he may be better prepared for any future leadership bid, although I don't think he would be in the frame until after a Labour defeat in 2020
Anyway, this failure is all due to Conservative idiocy over Defence. If they'd followed my suggestions, they'd have a working space cannon by now, and could simply fire the Lib Dem peers into the heart of the sun.
In space, no-one can hear you ignore the Salisbury Convention.
The sun is working very well without politicians getting involved, thank you very much.
Polluting the sun with politicians - even cuddly Lib Dems - would just lead to it try to fuse hydrogen and bullshit. Any adherent to string theory knows this is impossible. Therefore the sun will start to swell as it forms into a red dwarf, enveloping first Mercury, then Venus, and finally Earth.
Please, for God's sake, keep politicians away from the sun.
Good advice for the press too, given what was happening at The Sun
For a small House (150-200 ideally), elections by thirds and by PR you'd need big constituencies. The Euroconstituencies would suffice. They have regional / national relevance and are familiar to the electorate.
My preferred PR system is open list plus (i.e. open lists but with an option to vote for party as well, where those votes count towards party share but where candidates are still elected according only to their individual tallies), but I'd be comfortable with either standard open list or STV as well.
Why do you think an elected HoL would help them do their job better?
Anyway, this failure is all due to Conservative idiocy over Defence. If they'd followed my suggestions, they'd have a working space cannon by now, and could simply fire the Lib Dem peers into the heart of the sun.
In space, no-one can hear you ignore the Salisbury Convention.
I'm with a lot of people on the welfare budget, I think it needs to be cut.
But if it is correct that lower-paid workers are set to lose £1300 a year from the proposed working-tax-credit cuts then it's right it's been stopped.
Lower wage workers can't be punished like that, not when the top rate of tax was cut from 50p to 45p,
Regardless of your political viewpoint, it just isn't fair.
I suspect most working class types (like me) accept that the finances need to be balanced, but hitting those people who jump out of bed each morning to work hard for a low wage isn't the way forward.
Osborne is smart enough to come back with something fairer and better and I expect that he will.
The fact he thought it a good idea in the first place says everything, his position is weakened enormously.
Possibly, but people have short memories.
As McBride spoke about at fascinating length in his book, it is very easy to make judgements which later backfire when setting the budget.
Most people were lauding Osborne for changing the face of the lower-paid/welfare system after the Budget. It took a while for the smart-folk to figure out who the losers were.
If he retreats and comes up with something better then that's a good thing all round.
Incredible that the Labour peers were so helpful to Mr Cameron that most of them abstained on the Lib Dem amendment. If they had backed the Lib Dems, the government measure would have been defeated, not just delayed.
....
No it wouldn't. Osborne would simply have brought it back in the next Budget.
The RedTories helped their friends as usual, they need to keep themselves ready for when it is their turn to take over, and so can keep supping at the trough as they pretend to be for the "workers".
Incredible that the Labour peers were so helpful to Mr Cameron that most of them abstained on the Lib Dem amendment. If they had backed the Lib Dems, the government measure would have been defeated, not just delayed.
....
No it wouldn't. Osborne would simply have brought it back in the next Budget.
The RedTories helped their friends as usual, they need to keep themselves ready for when it is their turn to take over, and so can keep supping at the trough as they pretend to be for the "workers".
The only thing the SNP has achieved recently is a Tory majority.
Saddo, only party that votes for the poor is the SNP. Labour are too busy siding with the nasty party, their great plan of abstaining and then trying to claim they vote against their chums is so pathetic and stupid it is hard to believe. At least the nasty party act as we expect but Labour sit pathetically on two stools unable to even work out what they are for.
Incredible that the Labour peers were so helpful to Mr Cameron that most of them abstained on the Lib Dem amendment. If they had backed the Lib Dems, the government measure would have been defeated, not just delayed. The Lib Dems are taking the fightback against the Tories, while Labour just sit on their hands.
And absolutely fascinating that so many Tory posters on here are now calling for the abolition of the House of Lords. It was the self-interest of Tory MPs that prevented reform of the House of Lords in the last Parliament, combined with Labour playing silly games, as usual. True that government ministers backed the proposals that Clegg put forward - but then these were a Coalition measure, not a Lib Dem one.
So what we have now is Labour demonstrating its hypocricy for all to see, and the Tories in a tizzy about the future of one of the institutions closest to their hearts. And the Lib Dems standing up for ordinary people and strengthening their argument for constitutional reform.
I think the Lib Dms emerged from yesterday´s events as the clear winners.
Get back into wonderland Alice your mad hatter tea party awaits.
Incredible that the Labour peers were so helpful to Mr Cameron that most of them abstained on the Lib Dem amendment. If they had backed the Lib Dems, the government measure would have been defeated, not just delayed.
....
No it wouldn't. Osborne would simply have brought it back in the next Budget.
The RedTories helped their friends as usual, they need to keep themselves ready for when it is their turn to take over, and so can keep supping at the trough as they pretend to be for the "workers".
Corbyn is probably left of Sturgeon
Labour are not however, one swallow does not make a spring.
I'm with a lot of people on the welfare budget, I think it needs to be cut.
But if it is correct that lower-paid workers are set to lose £1300 a year from the proposed working-tax-credit cuts then it's right it's been stopped.
Lower wage workers can't be punished like that, not when the top rate of tax was cut from 50p to 45p,
Regardless of your political viewpoint, it just isn't fair.
I suspect most working class types (like me) accept that the finances need to be balanced, but hitting those people who jump out of bed each morning to work hard for a low wage isn't the way forward.
Osborne is smart enough to come back with something fairer and better and I expect that he will.
The fact he thought it a good idea in the first place says everything, his position is weakened enormously.
Possibly, but people have short memories.
As McBride spoke about at fascinating length in his book, it is very easy to make judgements which later backfire when setting the budget.
Most people were lauding Osborne for changing the face of the lower-paid/welfare system after the Budget. It took a while for the smart-folk to figure out who the losers were.
If he retreats and comes up with something better then that's a good thing all round.
In theory I agree but your point overlooks the partisan nature of politics, Osborne has lost face and knows it, as do his opponents. He can't make many more mistakes.
On the substantive point of the tax credit reforms, do we yet have any real-world examples of how people will be affected by the changes?
Watching this from afar the debate is all about emotions rather than facts. Some facts and figures would add enormously to the discussion.
Those in favour of the changes seem very quiet on the actual figures while those against appear to be cherry picking absolute numbers ("£1,500 a year worse off") while ignoring the totality of the situation ie. Part time worker sees their total income reduce from £30k to £28.5k, which is hardly most people's idea of the Dickensian poverty that it is suggested the reforms will bring.
You only get that kind of money in the UAE, not the UK.
No welfare at all in the UAE unless you're Emirati.
The reasoning for my choice of numbers is from the conversations about the Quetion Time woman a couple of weeks back. From the Telegraph calculator which was pointed to, someone in her situation would get approx £19k in tax credits, plus housing benefit and child benefit on top.
If someone is losing 15% of their £10k income as a result of the changes then I understand the problem, if they are losing 5% of a £30k income from the state then I'm less inclined to be so understanding.
The lack of real world figures being given by anyone tells me that there's more to the whole issue than is currently being debated, and I'm at a loss to understand why.
Incredible that the Labour peers were so helpful to Mr Cameron that most of them abstained on the Lib Dem amendment. If they had backed the Lib Dems, the government measure would have been defeated, not just delayed.
....
No it wouldn't. Osborne would simply have brought it back in the next Budget.
The RedTories helped their friends as usual, they need to keep themselves ready for when it is their turn to take over, and so can keep supping at the trough as they pretend to be for the "workers".
Corbyn is probably left of Sturgeon
Labour are not however, one swallow does not make a spring.
Yes most Scots are right of Corbyn let alone most voters in England so he is not the answer Labour need
Incredible that the Labour peers were so helpful to Mr Cameron that most of them abstained on the Lib Dem amendment. If they had backed the Lib Dems, the government measure would have been defeated, not just delayed.
....
No it wouldn't. Osborne would simply have brought it back in the next Budget.
The RedTories helped their friends as usual, they need to keep themselves ready for when it is their turn to take over, and so can keep supping at the trough as they pretend to be for the "workers".
The only thing the SNP has achieved recently is a Tory majority.
Saddo, only party that votes for the poor is the SNP. Labour are too busy siding with the nasty party, their great plan of abstaining and then trying to claim they vote against their chums is so pathetic and stupid it is hard to believe. At least the nasty party act as we expect but Labour sit pathetically on two stools unable to even work out what they are for.
I'm with a lot of people on the welfare budget, I think it needs to be cut.
But if it is correct that lower-paid workers are set to lose £1300 a year from the proposed working-tax-credit cuts then it's right it's been stopped.
Lower wage workers can't be punished like that, not when the top rate of tax was cut from 50p to 45p,
Regardless of your political viewpoint, it just isn't fair.
I suspect most working class types (like me) accept that the finances need to be balanced, but hitting those people who jump out of bed each morning to work hard for a low wage isn't the way forward.
Osborne is smart enough to come back with something fairer and better and I expect that he will.
How many people jump "out of bed each morning" to "work hard for a low wage"? And have they seen anyone about their lack of self-esteem?
I don't understand your question.
But I know there are a lot of the factory-workers at the business I'm in who share lifts each morning to get in by 6am and they are on about £7.50 an hour, hoping for some overtime on Saturday and Sunday to make ends meet.
On the substantive point of the tax credit reforms, do we yet have any real-world examples of how people will be affected by the changes?
Watching this from afar the debate is all about emotions rather than facts. Some facts and figures would add enormously to the discussion.
Those in favour of the changes seem very quiet on the actual figures while those against appear to be cherry picking absolute numbers ("£1,500 a year worse off") while ignoring the totality of the situation ie. Part time worker sees their total income reduce from £30k to £28.5k, which is hardly most people's idea of the Dickensian poverty that it is suggested the reforms will bring.
You only get that kind of money in the UAE, not the UK.
No welfare at all in the UAE unless you're Emirati.
The reasoning for my choice of numbers is from the conversations about the Quetion Time woman a couple of weeks back. From the Telegraph calculator which was pointed to, someone in her situation would get approx £19k in tax credits, plus housing benefit and child benefit on top.
If someone is losing 15% of their £10k income as a result of the changes then I understand the problem, if they are losing 5% of a £30k income from the state then I'm less inclined to be so understanding.
The lack of real world figures being given by anyone tells me that there's more to the whole issue than is currently being debated, and I'm at a loss to understand why.
More likely none of them can work out the impact or have any clue where the money goes etc due to the complexity and uselessness of the whole charade
On the substantive point of the tax credit reforms, do we yet have any real-world examples of how people will be affected by the changes?
Watching this from afar the debate is all about emotions rather than facts. Some facts and figures would add enormously to the discussion.
Those in favour of the changes seem very quiet on the actual figures while those against appear to be cherry picking absolute numbers ("£1,500 a year worse off") while ignoring the totality of the situation ie. Part time worker sees their total income reduce from £30k to £28.5k, which is hardly most people's idea of the Dickensian poverty that it is suggested the reforms will bring.
You only get that kind of money in the UAE, not the UK.
No welfare at all in the UAE unless you're Emirati.
The reasoning for my choice of numbers is from the conversations about the Quetion Time woman a couple of weeks back. From the Telegraph calculator which was pointed to, someone in her situation would get approx £19k in tax credits, plus housing benefit and child benefit on top.
If someone is losing 15% of their £10k income as a result of the changes then I understand the problem, if they are losing 5% of a £30k income from the state then I'm less inclined to be so understanding.
The lack of real world figures being given by anyone tells me that there's more to the whole issue than is currently being debated, and I'm at a loss to understand why.
As you say, one is different from the other. Assuming that you'd wish to treat pensioners and working-age families alike, how big would an occupational pension have to be before you'd cut its recipient's State pension? Alternatively, the Government has proposed that households earning up to £40k can continue to enjoy social housing rents. Is that figure too high, in your view?
My preferred PR system is open list plus (i.e. open lists but with an option to vote for party as well, where those votes count towards party share but where candidates are still elected according only to their individual tallies), but I'd be comfortable with either standard open list or STV as well.
I'm for an elected senate. 100 independent, high profile politicians, who delight in holding the executive to account.
The US system of elections seems to work. I like the idea of mid term unpopularity having consequences for governing parties.
"The tax credits defeat happened because the Tories are still paying a price for not winning a majority in 2010"
I don't agree, because I doubt the Tories would have won in 2015 had they not been able to share the responsibility for bringing the deficit down and other unpopular measures with the LibDems. We'll never know, of course, but in my mind, a Miliband-Sturgeon-Clegg coalition would have been possible.
What about an elected Senate with 100 members chosen exactly two years after each Commons election? That would give the opposition parties a slight inbuilt advantage as governments are rarely popular in mid-term. Also, it would enable the Government to reclaim the peerage as an honour - a reward for meritorious service to the nation, without needing to assume that just because somebody is a good scientist or sportsman, they know something about government.
As Sandpit says, the key question is what is the House of Lords for? For 100 years it has been there to make governments rethink. It seemed to perform that role admirably last night.
On matters of law not finance. This is a financial issue.
Then why isn't it in the Finance Act, along with the rest of the budget? No, seriously, what is Osborne up to?
An elected 'Lords' is a ridiculous idea, the elective element is 100% at odds with the idea of a revising chamber. We have had these debates over and over again in the last 100 years.
The problems of the current house are easily solved by adapting (ironically) the mechanism that Blair's government introduced for the hereditary peers. Let the HoL be say 300 members broken into 30 hereditary peers, 10 bishops etc, 60 crossbenchers and 200 political peers. Each group to be elected from among their existing entitlements, with the ratios for the political peers in line with the % vote at the last election.
The exact ratios can be the subject of debate but here we have a cheap and easy set up which is created by sensible reform rather than silly pet schemes.
And it would reduce the number of Lib Dem peers as well. What's not to like?
Alternatively, the Government has proposed that households earning up to £40k can continue to enjoy social housing rents. Is that figure too high, in your view?
Anyway, this failure is all due to Conservative idiocy over Defence. If they'd followed my suggestions, they'd have a working space cannon by now, and could simply fire the Lib Dem peers into the heart of the sun.
In space, no-one can hear you ignore the Salisbury Convention.
The sun is working very well without politicians getting involved, thank you very much.
Polluting the sun with politicians - even cuddly Lib Dems - would just lead to it try to fuse hydrogen and bullshit. Any adherent to string theory knows this is impossible. Therefore the sun will start to swell as it forms into a red dwarf, enveloping first Mercury, then Venus, and finally Earth.
Please, for God's sake, keep politicians away from the sun.
If politicians had been involved in the Sun then it probably would have ended up looking like Saturn or worse still Uranus. :-)
As Sandpit says, the key question is what is the House of Lords for? For 100 years it has been there to make governments rethink. It seemed to perform that role admirably last night.
On matters of law not finance. This is a financial issue.
Then why isn't it in the Finance Act, along with the rest of the budget? No, seriously, what is Osborne up to?
Incredible that the Labour peers were so helpful to Mr Cameron that most of them abstained on the Lib Dem amendment. If they had backed the Lib Dems, the government measure would have been defeated, not just delayed.
....
No it wouldn't. Osborne would simply have brought it back in the next Budget.
The RedTories helped their friends as usual, they need to keep themselves ready for when it is their turn to take over, and so can keep supping at the trough as they pretend to be for the "workers".
The only thing the SNP has achieved recently is a Tory majority.
Saddo, only party that votes for the poor is the SNP. Labour are too busy siding with the nasty party, their great plan of abstaining and then trying to claim they vote against their chums is so pathetic and stupid it is hard to believe. At least the nasty party act as we expect but Labour sit pathetically on two stools unable to even work out what they are for.
Good rant. Shame it doesn't make a difference.
Take an earthquake to have Labour make a difference for sure.
Anyway, this failure is all due to Conservative idiocy over Defence. If they'd followed my suggestions, they'd have a working space cannon by now, and could simply fire the Lib Dem peers into the heart of the sun.
In space, no-one can hear you ignore the Salisbury Convention.
The sun is working very well without politicians getting involved, thank you very much.
Polluting the sun with politicians - even cuddly Lib Dems - would just lead to it try to fuse hydrogen and bullshit. Any adherent to string theory knows this is impossible. Therefore the sun will start to swell as it forms into a red dwarf, enveloping first Mercury, then Venus, and finally Earth.
Please, for God's sake, keep politicians away from the sun.
If politicians had been involved in the Sun then it probably would have ended up looking like Saturn.
There have been endless silly ideas in reforming the HoL but the Lib Dem idea that the number of Peers should reflect the share of the vote that a party got at any one election is right up there. Hopefully this has now died a death although @Isam may be disappointed that he is not one of more than 100 UKIP Lords that should have been appointed since the election.
I still think that the only sensible course is to abolish the whole thing. I accept that this might require reform of the way the Commons passes legislation so there is more meaningful scrutiny (I think evidential hearings on the impact of proposed legislation as per the Scottish Parliament is a good way to go) and additional resources but none of these technical difficulties justify keeping the absurdity that is the HoL.
The government is going to have to find some additional hundreds of millions as a result of last night's votes. Lords expenses are the obvious place to start.
The Danish system is unicameral but 20% of MPs can force a referendum on any subject to overturn a Government policy. It doesn't happen often since the Danes don't have the Swiss tradition of constantly voting, but the existence of the weapon keeps the Government in check.
Where the Danish system is weak is that it doesn't have a strong scrutiny arrangement. As an MP I argued for the Lords to become a scrutinising chamber of experts, all appointed from every walk of life that you can think of (including unpopular ones), which would examine every Bill before it reached the Commons (with committees specialising in each area) but would have no power or delay or rejection. Effectively it would become a big Select Committee, but with experts not trying to win votes rather than elected politicians: the idea would be that they'd assess clearly how and if the legislation would actually work as stated.
So if the Government wanted to do something daft it would need to take on the chin a scathing report from a committee of people who were acknowledged authorities on the subject, but if they wanted to press ahead anyway, so be it.
As Sandpit says, the key question is what is the House of Lords for? For 100 years it has been there to make governments rethink. It seemed to perform that role admirably last night.
On matters of law not finance. This is a financial issue.
Then why isn't it in the Finance Act, along with the rest of the budget? No, seriously, what is Osborne up to?
Perhaps he was only flying a kite in the first place. Now, if he misses any self-imposed target he has a scapegoat.
Incredible that the Labour peers were so helpful to Mr Cameron that most of them abstained on the Lib Dem amendment. If they had backed the Lib Dems, the government measure would have been defeated, not just delayed.
....
No it wouldn't. Osborne would simply have brought it back in the next Budget.
The RedTories helped their friends as usual, they need to keep themselves ready for when it is their turn to take over, and so can keep supping at the trough as they pretend to be for the "workers".
The only thing the SNP has achieved recently is a Tory majority.
Saddo, only party that votes for the poor is the SNP. Labour are too busy siding with the nasty party, their great plan of abstaining and then trying to claim they vote against their chums is so pathetic and stupid it is hard to believe. At least the nasty party act as we expect but Labour sit pathetically on two stools unable to even work out what they are for.
Good rant. Shame it doesn't make a difference.
Take an earthquake to have Labour make a difference for sure.
Labour has done more for working people than the SNP ever will.
Alternatively, the Government has proposed that households earning up to £40k can continue to enjoy social housing rents. Is that figure too high, in your view?
Alternatively, the Government has proposed that households earning up to £40k can continue to enjoy social housing rents. Is that figure too high, in your view?
Mr. Jonathan, must beg to differ. The only time the Opposition is an alternative government is during an election. During the 4-5 year term, the Opposition's job is to hold the Government to account.
An Upper House as a revising chamber makes sense. Having two sets of politicians doing the same job is foolish.
An elected 'Lords' is a ridiculous idea, the elective element is 100% at odds with the idea of a revising chamber. We have had these debates over and over again in the last 100 years.
The problems of the current house are easily solved by adapting (ironically) the mechanism that Blair's government introduced for the hereditary peers. Let the HoL be say 300 members broken into 30 hereditary peers, 10 bishops etc, 60 crossbenchers and 200 political peers. Each group to be elected from among their existing entitlements, with the ratios for the political peers in line with the % vote at the last election.
The exact ratios can be the subject of debate but here we have a cheap and easy set up which is created by sensible reform rather than silly pet schemes.
And it would reduce the number of Lib Dem peers as well. What's not to like?
Then change this bloody "revising" bit. There are 108 democracies with two elected legislative bodies.
The reason the TC was put through a statutory instrument was because Osborne thought he could smuggle it through without much scrutiny.
This element would not passed through the Committee stage in a Finance bill because many Tory MPs as we are finding out would not have supported it.
On the substantive point of the tax credit reforms, do we yet have any real-world examples of how people will be affected by the changes?
Watching this from afar the debate is all about emotions rather than facts. Some facts and figures would add enormously to the discussion.
Those in favour of the changes seem very quiet on the actual figures while those against appear to be cherry picking absolute numbers ("£1,500 a year worse off") while ignoring the totality of the situation ie. Part time worker sees their total income reduce from £30k to £28.5k, which is hardly most people's idea of the Dickensian poverty that it is suggested the reforms will bring.
You only get that kind of money in the UAE, not the UK.
No welfare at all in the UAE unless you're Emirati.
The reasoning for my choice of numbers is from the conversations about the Quetion Time woman a couple of weeks back. From the Telegraph calculator which was pointed to, someone in her situation would get approx £19k in tax credits, plus housing benefit and child benefit on top.
If someone is losing 15% of their £10k income as a result of the changes then I understand the problem, if they are losing 5% of a £30k income from the state then I'm less inclined to be so understanding.
The lack of real world figures being given by anyone tells me that there's more to the whole issue than is currently being debated, and I'm at a loss to understand why.
As you say, one is different from the other. Assuming that you'd wish to treat pensioners and working-age families alike, how big would an occupational pension have to be before you'd cut its recipient's State pension? Alternatively, the Government has proposed that households earning up to £40k can continue to enjoy social housing rents. Is that figure too high, in your view?
At the risk of going way off the topic of working tax credits, my view is that the state pension age needs to rise at least as fast as life expectancy, means testing it is never going to happen in a month of Sundays as people have paid NI all their lives in return for it, and these people vote. State intervention in housing is only distorting the market, labour mobility within the UK needs to be encouraged rather than unskilled and semi-skilled immigration. More housing needs to be build where there is demand for it, but again this is politically difficult to do as the middle-class NIMBYs also vote.
There have been endless silly ideas in reforming the HoL but the Lib Dem idea that the number of Peers should reflect the share of the vote that a party got at any one election is right up there. Hopefully this has now died a death although @Isam may be disappointed that he is not one of more than 100 UKIP Lords that should have been appointed since the election.
I still think that the only sensible course is to abolish the whole thing. I accept that this might require reform of the way the Commons passes legislation so there is more meaningful scrutiny (I think evidential hearings on the impact of proposed legislation as per the Scottish Parliament is a good way to go) and additional resources but none of these technical difficulties justify keeping the absurdity that is the HoL.
The government is going to have to find some additional hundreds of millions as a result of last night's votes. Lords expenses are the obvious place to start.
The Danish system is unicameral but 20% of MPs can force a referendum on any subject to overturn a Government policy. It doesn't happen often since the Danes don't have the Swiss tradition of constantly voting, but the existence of the weapon keeps the Government in check.
Where the Danish system is weak is that it doesn't have a strong scrutiny arrangement. As an MP I argued for the Lords to become a scrutinising chamber of experts, all appointed from every walk of life that you can think of (including unpopular ones), which would examine every Bill before it reached the Commons (with committees specialising in each area) but would have no power or delay or rejection. Effectively it would become a big Select Committee, but with experts not trying to win votes rather than elected politicians: the idea would be that they'd assess clearly how and if the legislation would actually work as stated.
So if the Government wanted to do something daft it would need to take on the chin a scathing report from a committee of people who were acknowledged authorities on the subject, but if they wanted to press ahead anyway, so be it.
I quite like that idea, but I do have a big but. Experts in given areas tend to fall into one of two groups. First (and this is usually the biggest group), those that are very conservative about their specialist areas. Any proposal for change is automatically treated as an affront to civilisation equivalent to Herod's slaughter of the firstborn. Second, those that have particular hobby horses which they ride into the ground.
Ideas that come from outside the traditional groupthink are most unlikely to get much of a hearing, no matter how good they are.
I'm with a lot of people on the welfare budget, I think it needs to be cut.
But if it is correct that lower-paid workers are set to lose £1300 a year from the proposed working-tax-credit cuts then it's right it's been stopped.
Lower wage workers can't be punished like that, not when the top rate of tax was cut from 50p to 45p,
Regardless of your political viewpoint, it just isn't fair.
I suspect most working class types (like me) accept that the finances need to be balanced, but hitting those people who jump out of bed each morning to work hard for a low wage isn't the way forward.
Osborne is smart enough to come back with something fairer and better and I expect that he will.
The fact he thought it a good idea in the first place says everything, his position is weakened enormously.
Possibly, but people have short memories.
As McBride spoke about at fascinating length in his book, it is very easy to make judgements which later backfire when setting the budget.
Most people were lauding Osborne for changing the face of the lower-paid/welfare system after the Budget. It took a while for the smart-folk to figure out who the losers were.
If he retreats and comes up with something better then that's a good thing all round.
In theory I agree but your point overlooks the partisan nature of politics, Osborne has lost face and knows it, as do his opponents. He can't make many more mistakes.
I don't know. Having been among the first to suggest the budget was another omnishambles, I'm coming round to the idea it was a master-strategised triple bluff by which Osborne has shored up his baby-eating credentials but can now win back the pragmatists by ameliorating the tax credit changes, and as a bonus has swung the party behind Lords reform. It cannot have been an accident the most controversial cuts came in a Statutory Instrument and not the Finance Act where they'd have been immune from challenge. Osborne picked this fight, perhaps with the intention of losing it.
Edit: and as @Innocent_Abroad points out, the Chancellor now has an excuse for missing targets on debt and deficit.
In the days, long ago, when the Tories had a built in majority in the Lords, there were regular problems for Labour governments. Admittedly the Lords often eventually backed down, but as you sow .......
Was this Blair's best legacy after the Minimum Wage ?
Mr. Jonathan, must beg to differ. The only time the Opposition is an alternative government is during an election. During the 4-5 year term, the Opposition's job is to hold the Government to account.
An Upper House as a revising chamber makes sense. Having two sets of politicians doing the same job is foolish.
Check and balance. 108 countries cannot be wrong ! Otherwise , in Hailsham's words, you have an "elected dictatorship" since, now-a-days they get to power with much less than even 40% of the votes.
What a stunning mess Osborne has made of all this. As I said yesterday, it was easy to predict that tax credit cut would be a massive disaster as soon as he sat down after delivering the post-election budget. The fact that most MPs didn't spot this shows how little they know of the welfare system.
The other issue here is the way we, as a country, run general elections. IMHO it is an absolute disgrace that the Tories were not forced to explain more details of the £12b welfare cut during the campaign. It doesn't matter whether one agrees with the cut or not, the issue is that voters had a huge gap in their knowledge of what the party planned. The media do not come out well on this front.
Alternatively, the Government has proposed that households earning up to £40k can continue to enjoy social housing rents. Is that figure too high, in your view?
It's worth bearing in mind that had the Conservatives appointed UKIP peers to the same share of the vote as they did Lib Dem peers, they would not face this problem. It's just another way we suffer from failing to co-operate with another conservative party.
In the days, long ago, when the Tories had a built in majority in the Lords, there were regular problems for Labour governments. Admittedly the Lords often eventually backed down, but as you sow .......
Was this Blair's best legacy after the Minimum Wage ?
The minimum wage was an excellent accomplishment and I applaud this Gov't raising it for everyone, not just for multiple sprog poppers.
"The process for extra peers, however, remained, and the yellows saw a huge expansion in their numbers in the House of Lords. They are there for life and not just for a parliament."
What a stunning mess Osborne has made of all this. As I said yesterday, it was easy to predict that tax credit cut would be a massive disaster as soon as he sat down after delivering the post-election budget. The fact that most MPs didn't spot this shows how little they know of the welfare system.
I always though tax credits were credits people got back on tax they'd already or were committed to paying.
State intervention in housing is only distorting the market, labour mobility within the UK needs to be encouraged rather than unskilled and semi-skilled immigration. More housing needs to be build where there is demand for it, but again this is politically difficult to do as the middle-class NIMBYs also vote.
Alternatively, housing needs to be built (or refurbished) where there is no demand for it, and sold off cheap. The idea being to reinvigorate dying communities, and have the benefits of "new towns" at less expense since most of the infrastructure is already there.
It's worth bearing in mind that had the Conservatives appointed UKIP peers to the same share of the vote as they did Lib Dem peers, they would not face this problem. It's just another way we suffer from failing to co-operate with another conservative party.
Why would UKIP have been raised to the same level as the Lib Dem when the Lib Dems secured a factor more votes than them in 2010? Which is when the appointments were based on.
It's worth bearing in mind that had the Conservatives appointed UKIP peers to the same share of the vote as they did Lib Dem peers, they would not face this problem. It's just another way we suffer from failing to co-operate with another conservative party.
If the Kippers had supported the Tories on the Tax Credits issue with actual votes, their "working class" support would have vanished. Note even that Tory shit-paper The Sun rallied against the cuts in TC.
The other issue here is the way we, as a country, run general elections. IMHO it is an absolute disgrace that the Tories were not forced to explain more details of the £12b welfare cut during the campaign. It doesn't matter whether one agrees with the cut or not, the issue is that voters had a huge gap in their knowledge of what the party planned. The media do not come out well on this front.
And it is a huge indictment of Labour, who said nothing about anything following Ed's "inherit the win" strategy.
Of course, the problem for the Conservatives is although they won the election, they did not win backing for their programme, since few voters or even successful candidates knew what it was, which means they might easily trip up between now and 2020.
State intervention in housing is only distorting the market, labour mobility within the UK needs to be encouraged rather than unskilled and semi-skilled immigration. More housing needs to be build where there is demand for it, but again this is politically difficult to do as the middle-class NIMBYs also vote.
Alternatively, housing needs to be built (or refurbished) where there is no demand for it, and sold off cheap. The idea being to reinvigorate dying communities, and have the benefits of "new towns" at less expense since most of the infrastructure is already there.
No the benefits of New Towns is that they are within commuting distance normally of major cities. Of you fail to take that into account and expand towns where there is no demand that are not in commuting distance all you are going to so is have more derelict buildings and devalued homes. Location, location, location
IMHO it is an absolute disgrace that the Tories were not forced to explain more details of the £12b welfare cut during the campaign. It doesn't matter whether one agrees with the cut or not, the issue is that voters had a huge gap in their knowledge of what the party planned. The media do not come out well on this front.
Whatever. I doubt you've ever whined about the details of manifesto commitments in previous elections.
£12 billion of Welfare cuts is exactly what is says. £12 billion of welfare cuts. Voters can, and should do their own research.
I want the elected Government of the day..whatever colour..to govern..and not be dictated to by a bunch of non elected,failed and past it politicians..
Nice joke quoted in The Waugh Room: "LabourList's Conor Pope wins the best joke paying tribute to the Labour peer who led the defeat: "I hope Baroness Hollis, in the Upper Chamber, with the statutory instrument are added to the next edition of Cluedo."
Incredible that the Labour peers were so helpful to Mr Cameron that most of them abstained on the Lib Dem amendment. If they had backed the Lib Dems, the government measure would have been defeated, not just delayed.
....
No it wouldn't. Osborne would simply have brought it back in the next Budget.
The RedTories helped their friends as usual, they need to keep themselves ready for when it is their turn to take over, and so can keep supping at the trough as they pretend to be for the "workers".
The only thing the SNP has achieved recently is a Tory majority.
Don't be modest. Labour having a crap leader, incoherent policies and the moral compass of..well..Gordon Brown, also contributed to that outcome.
There have been endless silly ideas in reforming the HoL but the Lib Dem idea that the number of Peers should reflect the share of the vote that a party got at any one election is right up there. Hopefully this has now died a death although @Isam may be disappointed that he is not one of more than 100 UKIP Lords that should have been appointed since the election.
I still think that the only sensible course is to abolish the whole thing. I accept that this might require reform of the way the Commons passes legislation so there is more meaningful scrutiny (I think evidential hearings on the impact of proposed legislation as per the Scottish Parliament is a good way to go) and additional resources but none of these technical difficulties justify keeping the absurdity that is the HoL.
The government is going to have to find some additional hundreds of millions as a result of last night's votes. Lords expenses are the obvious place to start.
Where the Danish system is weak is that it doesn't have a strong scrutiny arrangement. As an MP I argued for the Lords to become a scrutinising chamber of experts, all appointed from every walk of life that you can think of (including unpopular ones), which would examine every Bill before it reached the Commons (with committees specialising in each area) but would have no power or delay or rejection. Effectively it would become a big Select Committee, but with experts not trying to win votes rather than elected politicians: the idea would be that they'd assess clearly how and if the legislation would actually work as stated.
So if the Government wanted to do something daft it would need to take on the chin a scathing report from a committee of people who were acknowledged authorities on the subject, but if they wanted to press ahead anyway, so be it.
Nick, that was exactly my favoured solution - except with the caveats Antifrank cites.
I think Bishops do add (aside from my innate conservative preference not to disestablish) a useful moral voice in debates, and the law lords expertise was also helpful. We effectively have big business and industry Lords.
Why not medical Lords, education Lords, small business owner and farmer Lords, as well as geographical representatives?
However, I would not make any of those subject matter Lords coterminous with industry unions like the BMA or NUT or NFA to avoid a conspiracy against the public.
State intervention in housing is only distorting the market, labour mobility within the UK needs to be encouraged rather than unskilled and semi-skilled immigration. More housing needs to be build where there is demand for it, but again this is politically difficult to do as the middle-class NIMBYs also vote.
Alternatively, housing needs to be built (or refurbished) where there is no demand for it, and sold off cheap. The idea being to reinvigorate dying communities, and have the benefits of "new towns" at less expense since most of the infrastructure is already there.
No the benefits of New Towns is that they are within commuting distance normally of major cities. Of you fail to take that into account and expand towns where there is no demand that are not in commuting distance all you are going to so is have more derelict buildings and devalued homes. Location, location, location
Incredible that the Labour peers were so helpful to Mr Cameron that most of them abstained on the Lib Dem amendment. If they had backed the Lib Dems, the government measure would have been defeated, not just delayed.
....
No it wouldn't. Osborne would simply have brought it back in the next Budget.
The RedTories helped their friends as usual, they need to keep themselves ready for when it is their turn to take over, and so can keep supping at the trough as they pretend to be for the "workers".
Corbyn is probably left of Sturgeon
Labour are not however, one swallow does not make a spring.
Yes most Scots are right of Corbyn let alone most voters in England so he is not the answer Labour need
But, but, but didn't a Scottish sub sample say he'd raised the Labour vote by 1.5% or some such?
Lady Meacher may have made one of the weaker speeches heard in the Upper House for years but in that regard she faced competition from Lady Manzoor (Lib Dem). She came up with the novel line that the Lords had a ‘democratic mandate’. Magnificent!
As Sandpit says, the key question is what is the House of Lords for? For 100 years it has been there to make governments rethink. It seemed to perform that role admirably last night.
On matters of law not finance. This is a financial issue.
Then why isn't it in the Finance Act, along with the rest of the budget? No, seriously, what is Osborne up to?
That's the one question. Governments get defeated once in a while of course and get mauled in the press when they do so. This could have been streamlined though in a different way but it wasn't but the method would have been perfectly clear to No10 and No 11 had they wished to take it. It's not incompetence so what is it?
Why walk through a minefield when you could use a bridge?
Edited extra bit: Mr. L, "Of course, the problem for the Conservatives is although they won the election, they did not win backing for their programme, since few voters or even successful candidates knew what it was, which means they might easily trip up between now and 2020."
Labour did things it explicitly ruled out in manifestos. The Lords didn't oppose finance matters even then.
I believe that it is at the discretion of the Speaker of the HoC to certify whether legislation going to the Lords is a "Money Bill" in the terms of the 1911 and 1949 Parliament Act and thereby open to only a maximum of a month's delay by the HoL.
The issue last night was a Statutory Instrument which is clearly defined in the Statutory Instruments Act of 1946 as "subordinate legislation". Was it a "Money Bill"? It was clearly concerned with the supply of finance but was it a "Bill". Does the term "Bill" refer only to primary legislation (debated and amendable in the HoC) or does it also include statutory instruments which bypass that process (because they are subordinate to primary legislation).
The Statutory Instruments Act of 1946 in its definition of "Statutory Instrument" does not refer to it as a "Bill" but a "document".
It will be fascinating if Speaker Bercow decides to adjudicate on this! It is at his discretion.
It's worth bearing in mind that had the Conservatives appointed UKIP peers to the same share of the vote as they did Lib Dem peers, they would not face this problem. It's just another way we suffer from failing to co-operate with another conservative party.
Why would UKIP have been raised to the same level as the Lib Dem when the Lib Dems secured a factor more votes than them in 2010? Which is when the appointments were based on.
I think he meant elect ukip peers based on their 2015 share not to the Lib Dems 2010 share
What a stunning mess Osborne has made of all this. As I said yesterday, it was easy to predict that tax credit cut would be a massive disaster as soon as he sat down after delivering the post-election budget. The fact that most MPs didn't spot this shows how little they know of the welfare system.
I always though tax credits were credits people got back on tax they'd already or were committed to paying.
Edited extra bit: Mr. L, "Of course, the problem for the Conservatives is although they won the election, they did not win backing for their programme, since few voters or even successful candidates knew what it was, which means they might easily trip up between now and 2020."
Labour did things it explicitly ruled out in manifestos. The Lords didn't oppose finance matters even then.
Yes.
Appoint 200 new Tory working peers.
Be imaginative Dave. Don't just go for donors and ex politicians.
State intervention in housing is only distorting the market, labour mobility within the UK needs to be encouraged rather than unskilled and semi-skilled immigration. More housing needs to be build where there is demand for it, but again this is politically difficult to do as the middle-class NIMBYs also vote.
Alternatively, housing needs to be built (or refurbished) where there is no demand for it, and sold off cheap. The idea being to reinvigorate dying communities, and have the benefits of "new towns" at less expense since most of the infrastructure is already there.
No the benefits of New Towns is that they are within commuting distance normally of major cities. Of you fail to take that into account and expand towns where there is no demand that are not in commuting distance all you are going to so is have more derelict buildings and devalued homes. Location, location, location
There are major cities all over the country.
Land is not a form of capital. It is a factor of production in its own right.
Edited extra bit: Mr. L, "Of course, the problem for the Conservatives is although they won the election, they did not win backing for their programme, since few voters or even successful candidates knew what it was, which means they might easily trip up between now and 2020."
Labour did things it explicitly ruled out in manifestos. The Lords didn't oppose finance matters even then.
I'm talking about the electorate. The Lords question is quite separate and is about the Finance Act (or bill) versus statutory instruments, around which I have a shiny new theory developed below, which is that George Osborne knew exactly what he was doing.
Natasha Bertaud @NatashaBertaud · 7m7 minutes ago .@JunckerEU in @Europarl_EN "#WesternBalkansRoute Meeting was not a day for big political statements. This was a day to roll up our sleeves"
I take it from that the meeting was a complete failure then.
IMHO it is an absolute disgrace that the Tories were not forced to explain more details of the £12b welfare cut during the campaign. It doesn't matter whether one agrees with the cut or not, the issue is that voters had a huge gap in their knowledge of what the party planned. The media do not come out well on this front.
Whatever. I doubt you've ever whined about the details of manifesto commitments in previous elections.
£12 billion of Welfare cuts is exactly what is says. £12 billion of welfare cuts. Voters can, and should do their own research.
What were you expecting?
Twaddle of the first order.
If a political party proposes a specific figure of £12bn of cuts it should be in a position to detail the nature of the cuts.
The electorate might also reasonably be able to trust the PM and cabinet ministers to keep their word months after an election. It shouldn't be too much to ask.
The Conservatives would have done well to continue the Coalition policy of incentivising the working poor rather drastic cuts to tax credits in one fell swoop.
Natasha Bertaud @NatashaBertaud · 7m7 minutes ago .@JunckerEU in @Europarl_EN "#WesternBalkansRoute Meeting was not a day for big political statements. This was a day to roll up our sleeves"
I take it from that the meeting was a complete failure then.
As you know, I'm not much of a cinema-goer, but I haven't warmed to Craig as Bond.
Mr. W, I have some sympathy with that view, but that's also a criticism of every party (all were too vague) and the weakness/shallowness of the media (to be fair, some did point this out, including Tom Bradby [a better political editor than news anchor, though hopefully he'll improve], but not enough was made of it).
IMHO it is an absolute disgrace that the Tories were not forced to explain more details of the £12b welfare cut during the campaign. It doesn't matter whether one agrees with the cut or not, the issue is that voters had a huge gap in their knowledge of what the party planned. The media do not come out well on this front.
Whatever. I doubt you've ever whined about the details of manifesto commitments in previous elections.
£12 billion of Welfare cuts is exactly what is says. £12 billion of welfare cuts. Voters can, and should do their own research.
What were you expecting?
Twaddle of the first order.
If a political party proposes a specific figure of £12bn of cuts it should be in a position to detail the nature of the cuts.
The electorate might also reasonably be able to trust the PM and cabinet ministers to keep their word months after an election. It shouldn't be too much to ask.
The Conservatives would have done well to continue the Coalition policy of incentivising the working poor rather drastic cuts to tax credits in one fell swoop.
Jack, you are a gentleman and a scholar !
How would the electorate do their "research" if the cuts in Tax credits were not even mentioned and, in fact, explicitly denied. Cameron does say things sometimes on the hoof. I think in 2010 he said something about pensioners winter fuel support.
There have been endless silly ideas in reforming the HoL but the Lib Dem idea that the number of Peers should reflect the share of the vote that a party got at any one election is right up there. Hopefully this has now died a death although @Isam may be disappointed that he is not one of more than 100 UKIP Lords that should have been appointed since the election.
I still think that the only sensible course is to abolish the whole thing. I accept that this might require reform of the way the Commons passes legislation so there is more meaningful scrutiny (I think evidential hearings on the impact of proposed legislation as per the Scottish Parliament is a good way to go) and additional resources but none of these technical difficulties justify keeping the absurdity that is the HoL.
The government is going to have to find some additional hundreds of millions as a result of last night's votes. Lords expenses are the obvious place to start.
Where the Danish system is weak is that it doesn't have a strong scrutiny arrangement. As an MP I argued for the Lords to become a scrutinising chamber of experts, all appointed from every walk of life that you can think of (including unpopular ones), which would examine every Bill before it reached the Commons (with committees specialising in each area) but would have no power or delay or rejection. Effectively it would become a big Select Committee, but with experts not trying to win votes rather than elected politicians: the idea would be that they'd assess clearly how and if the legislation would actually work as stated.
So if the Government wanted to do something daft it would need to take on the chin a scathing report from a committee of people who were acknowledged authorities on the subject, but if they wanted to press ahead anyway, so be it.
Nick, that was exactly my favoured solution - except with the caveats Antifrank cites.
I think Bishops do add (aside from my innate conservative preference not to disestablish) a useful moral voice in debates, and the law lords expertise was also helpful. We effectively have big business and industry Lords.
Why not medical Lords, education Lords, small business owner and farmer Lords, as well as geographical representatives?
However, I would not make any of those subject matter Lords coterminous with industry unions like the BMA or NUT or NFA to avoid a conspiracy against the public.
IF the bishops spent more time ministering to the needs of their flocks rather than interfering in political matters, the C of E would be in a much better place.
The pontificating by the female bishop just appointed tells you everything you want to know about the political leanings of the C of E cf the vote Labour letter at GE 2015.
As you know, I'm not much of a cinema-goer, but I haven't warmed to Craig as Bond.
Mr. W, I have some sympathy with that view, but that's also a criticism of every party (all were too vague) and the weakness/shallowness of the media (to be fair, some did point this out, including Tom Bradby [a better political editor than news anchor, though hopefully he'll improve], but not enough was made of it).
Be imaginative Dave. Don't just go for donors and ex politicians.
Appoint charismatic Tory bloggers. Ahem.
Appoint those whose betting accounts have been shut down by the bookies because they consisently won on political bets, an objective demonstration of good political judgement.
Not only is processed meat apparently really bad for you, it also could be making us cannibalistic.
A study of both meat and vegetarian hot dogs showed that they contain unadvertised ingredients - including human DNA. Clear Food Labs, a food analytics start-up found that 10% of vegetarian hot dog products contain meat.
More worryingly - unless you are a hardcore vegetarian who would rather eat people than pigs - the company found human DNA in 2% of its hot dog samples, and in two-thirds of the vegetarian samples...the human DNA most likely came from hygeine issues, so saliva and other bodily fluids along the production line. .
Mr. Eagles, the Conservatives suffered a serious polling reverse over the so-called omnishambles budget. If you want to put a man on a pedestal, go for Alexander or Aurelian.
Edited extra bit: Mr. Eagles, in a free society you're entitled to hold views which are not necessarily compatible with reality or reason.
Be imaginative Dave. Don't just go for donors and ex politicians.
Appoint charismatic Tory bloggers. Ahem.
Appoint those whose betting accounts have been shut down by the bookies because they consisently won on political bets, an objective demonstration of good political judgement.
Mr. Eagles, the Conservatives suffered a serious polling reverse over the so-called omnishambles budget. If you want to put a man on a pedestal, go for Alexander or Aurelian.
A minor set back. Even the greatest have their occasional set backs
Mr. L, I think you (and Mr. Eagles) are over-estimating Osborne.
People who underestimate George always end up losing
George stopped the 2007 election that never was
George helped destroy the Lib Dems (with kindness)
George helped UKIP surge where they ultimately hurt Labour more than the Tories.
All examples of his brilliance.
There are many more
What extraordinary sycophancy bordering on hero worship. Religious fanatics have nothing on the conservative party groupies.
Even if all true, everyone's luck runs out eventually. Who was it said there are two types of chancellor, those who fail and those who get out in time?
On last night's votes, Labour got their tactics right. The fatal motion would indeed have been an unambiguous outrage. A democratic party which seeks to be a party of government couldn't support it. The motions which did pass were sufficiently nuanced for Labour to be able to claim, with at least some justification, that they were in the spirit of the Lords being a revising chamber and giving the opportunity to the Commons to improve the proposals.
More interesting in electoral terms are the implications for the boundaries changes. I expect some action from the government on that.
Mr. L, Labour broke manifesto commitments on tuition fees and increasing income tax, so that argument doesn't stack up.
And, of course, raised tuition fees after receiving their mandate from a lower percentage of the electorate (2001) than Cameron did last time (2015), using the favoured PCLipp measure.
Governments are free to do so, as circumstances can change hugely over 5 years and they can learn more. Which is why we elect them with freedom of manouevre rather than only to rigorously comply with their manifestos.
Then again, this shouldn't be a constitutional crisis. Wasn't it the Conservative Leader of the House of Lords who explicitly declared the convention that the Lords would never table a fatal amendment to a Statutory Instrument as dead? And haven't they done so on more than one occasion since?
And should this have been a Statutory Instrument in the first place? It does rather smack of an attempt to push it through with minimum scrutiny.
(Personally, until a Government grabs housing, infrastructure, and care by the horns and sorts these out, these will remain huge timebombs ready to explode, regardless of our poring over constitutional minutiae)
Comments
The darn thing needs reforming and reform will come.If Cameron won't do it when he's in the driving seat then the Tories are leaving themselves open to another Labour consitiutional mess instead of putting it right now.
Cameron could be the man who put the Lords legitimacy question to bed for a century.
On so many levels it is astonishing.
With that, I must go. Have a good morning.
As McBride spoke about at fascinating length in his book, it is very easy to make judgements which later backfire when setting the budget.
Most people were lauding Osborne for changing the face of the lower-paid/welfare system after the Budget. It took a while for the smart-folk to figure out who the losers were.
If he retreats and comes up with something better then that's a good thing all round.
The reasoning for my choice of numbers is from the conversations about the Quetion Time woman a couple of weeks back. From the Telegraph calculator which was pointed to, someone in her situation would get approx £19k in tax credits, plus housing benefit and child benefit on top.
If someone is losing 15% of their £10k income as a result of the changes then I understand the problem, if they are losing 5% of a £30k income from the state then I'm less inclined to be so understanding.
The lack of real world figures being given by anyone tells me that there's more to the whole issue than is currently being debated, and I'm at a loss to understand why.
But I know there are a lot of the factory-workers at the business I'm in who share lifts each morning to get in by 6am and they are on about £7.50 an hour, hoping for some overtime on Saturday and Sunday to make ends meet.
The US system of elections seems to work. I like the idea of mid term unpopularity having consequences for governing parties.
I don't agree, because I doubt the Tories would have won in 2015 had they not been able to share the responsibility for bringing the deficit down and other unpopular measures with the LibDems. We'll never know, of course, but in my mind, a Miliband-Sturgeon-Clegg coalition would have been possible.
What about an elected Senate with 100 members chosen exactly two years after each Commons election? That would give the opposition parties a slight inbuilt advantage as governments are rarely popular in mid-term. Also, it would enable the Government to reclaim the peerage as an honour - a reward for meritorious service to the nation, without needing to assume that just because somebody is a good scientist or sportsman, they know something about government.
The problems of the current house are easily solved by adapting (ironically) the mechanism that Blair's government introduced for the hereditary peers. Let the HoL be say 300 members broken into 30 hereditary peers, 10 bishops etc, 60 crossbenchers and 200 political peers. Each group to be elected from among their existing entitlements, with the ratios for the political peers in line with the % vote at the last election.
The exact ratios can be the subject of debate but here we have a cheap and easy set up which is created by sensible reform rather than silly pet schemes.
And it would reduce the number of Lib Dem peers as well. What's not to like?
Where the Danish system is weak is that it doesn't have a strong scrutiny arrangement. As an MP I argued for the Lords to become a scrutinising chamber of experts, all appointed from every walk of life that you can think of (including unpopular ones), which would examine every Bill before it reached the Commons (with committees specialising in each area) but would have no power or delay or rejection. Effectively it would become a big Select Committee, but with experts not trying to win votes rather than elected politicians: the idea would be that they'd assess clearly how and if the legislation would actually work as stated.
So if the Government wanted to do something daft it would need to take on the chin a scathing report from a committee of people who were acknowledged authorities on the subject, but if they wanted to press ahead anyway, so be it.
Since the US has borrowed so much of our law, it's about time we borrowed something back.
An Upper House as a revising chamber makes sense. Having two sets of politicians doing the same job is foolish.
The reason the TC was put through a statutory instrument was because Osborne thought he could smuggle it through without much scrutiny.
This element would not passed through the Committee stage in a Finance bill because many Tory MPs as we are finding out would not have supported it.
State intervention in housing is only distorting the market, labour mobility within the UK needs to be encouraged rather than unskilled and semi-skilled immigration. More housing needs to be build where there is demand for it, but again this is politically difficult to do as the middle-class NIMBYs also vote.
Ideas that come from outside the traditional groupthink are most unlikely to get much of a hearing, no matter how good they are.
Edit: and as @Innocent_Abroad points out, the Chancellor now has an excuse for missing targets on debt and deficit.
What a stunning mess Osborne has made of all this. As I said yesterday, it was easy to predict that tax credit cut would be a massive disaster as soon as he sat down after delivering the post-election budget. The fact that most MPs didn't spot this shows how little they know of the welfare system.
The other issue here is the way we, as a country, run general elections. IMHO it is an absolute disgrace that the Tories were not forced to explain more details of the £12b welfare cut during the campaign. It doesn't matter whether one agrees with the cut or not, the issue is that voters had a huge gap in their knowledge of what the party planned. The media do not come out well on this front.
What about McPeers ?
Oh how naive was I.
Mr. JEO, how many peers do the Greens have?
Bavarians losing patience with Merkel and starting to issue ultimatums on stopping asylum seekers.
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/fluechtlingskrise/fluechtlingskrise-seehofer-wettert-gegen-oesterreich-13878142.html
Of course, the problem for the Conservatives is although they won the election, they did not win backing for their programme, since few voters or even successful candidates knew what it was, which means they might easily trip up between now and 2020.
£12 billion of Welfare cuts is exactly what is says. £12 billion of welfare cuts. Voters can, and should do their own research.
What were you expecting?
Labour having a crap leader, incoherent policies and the moral compass of..well..Gordon Brown, also contributed to that outcome.
I think Bishops do add (aside from my innate conservative preference not to disestablish) a useful moral voice in debates, and the law lords expertise was also helpful. We effectively have big business and industry Lords.
Why not medical Lords, education Lords, small business owner and farmer Lords, as well as geographical representatives?
However, I would not make any of those subject matter Lords coterminous with industry unions like the BMA or NUT or NFA to avoid a conspiracy against the public.
Don't misunderestimate George.
@montie: The tax credits row could all be part of a great conspiracy by George Osborne, of course, to solidify Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. Could be.
Governments get defeated once in a while of course and get mauled in the press when they do so. This could have been streamlined though in a different way but it wasn't but the method would have been perfectly clear to No10 and No 11 had they wished to take it. It's not incompetence so what is it?
Why walk through a minefield when you could use a bridge?
Labour was normally very good at making sure its more controversial policies were in the manifesto, not least to head off backbench rebels.
Edited extra bit: Mr. L, "Of course, the problem for the Conservatives is although they won the election, they did not win backing for their programme, since few voters or even successful candidates knew what it was, which means they might easily trip up between now and 2020."
Labour did things it explicitly ruled out in manifestos. The Lords didn't oppose finance matters even then.
The issue last night was a Statutory Instrument which is clearly defined in the Statutory Instruments Act of 1946 as "subordinate legislation". Was it a "Money Bill"? It was clearly concerned with the supply of finance but was it a "Bill". Does the term "Bill" refer only to primary legislation (debated and amendable in the HoC) or does it also include statutory instruments which bypass that process (because they are subordinate to primary legislation).
The Statutory Instruments Act of 1946 in its definition of "Statutory Instrument" does not refer to it as a "Bill" but a "document".
It will be fascinating if Speaker Bercow decides to adjudicate on this! It is at his discretion.
Appoint 200 new Tory working peers.
Be imaginative Dave. Don't just go for donors and ex politicians.
Appoint charismatic Tory bloggers. Ahem.
.@JunckerEU in @Europarl_EN "#WesternBalkansRoute Meeting was not a day for big political statements. This was a day to roll up our sleeves"
I take it from that the meeting was a complete failure then.
http://thaddeusthesixth.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/macedonian-she-wolves.html
If a political party proposes a specific figure of £12bn of cuts it should be in a position to detail the nature of the cuts.
The electorate might also reasonably be able to trust the PM and cabinet ministers to keep their word months after an election. It shouldn't be too much to ask.
The Conservatives would have done well to continue the Coalition policy of incentivising the working poor rather drastic cuts to tax credits in one fell swoop.
George stopped the 2007 election that never was
George helped destroy the Lib Dems (with kindness)
George helped UKIP surge where they ultimately hurt Labour more than the Tories.
All examples of his brilliance.
There are many more
As you know, I'm not much of a cinema-goer, but I haven't warmed to Craig as Bond.
Mr. W, I have some sympathy with that view, but that's also a criticism of every party (all were too vague) and the weakness/shallowness of the media (to be fair, some did point this out, including Tom Bradby [a better political editor than news anchor, though hopefully he'll improve], but not enough was made of it).
How would the electorate do their "research" if the cuts in Tax credits were not even mentioned and, in fact, explicitly denied. Cameron does say things sometimes on the hoof. I think in 2010 he said something about pensioners winter fuel support.
The pontificating by the female bishop just appointed tells you everything you want to know about the political leanings of the C of E cf the vote Labour letter at GE 2015.
The bishops should be out of the HOL period.
Edited extra bit: Mr. Eagles, in a free society you're entitled to hold views which are not necessarily compatible with reality or reason.
More interesting in electoral terms are the implications for the boundaries changes. I expect some action from the government on that.
Governments are free to do so, as circumstances can change hugely over 5 years and they can learn more. Which is why we elect them with freedom of manouevre rather than only to rigorously comply with their manifestos.
Then again, this shouldn't be a constitutional crisis. Wasn't it the Conservative Leader of the House of Lords who explicitly declared the convention that the Lords would never table a fatal amendment to a Statutory Instrument as dead? And haven't they done so on more than one occasion since?
And should this have been a Statutory Instrument in the first place? It does rather smack of an attempt to push it through with minimum scrutiny.
(Personally, until a Government grabs housing, infrastructure, and care by the horns and sorts these out, these will remain huge timebombs ready to explode, regardless of our poring over constitutional minutiae)
He's too smug for my liking (yes I'm aware of the irony but I'm not running to be Tory leader, yet)