Comments on: A Day in the Life Peers of Labour (With Apologies to the Beatles)

By: Alexandria Brelje

Alexandria Brelje — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 06:18:30 +0000

I’m still learning from you, as I’m trying to reach my goals. I absolutely liked reading all that is written on your website.Keep the posts coming. I loved it!

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:58:04 +0000

I propose an alternative. A form of hyper-democracy
described by David Friedman (http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/). Individuals stand for election and the most popular get the
seats. However, the number of votes they receive are equivalent to the number of votes they have in the parliament. More popular candidates have more vote power. There is no general election, citizens can move their vote from one candidate to another at will so the upper house would be in constant competition for votes. When a lord (or whoever) loses too many votes, they get dropped from the house altogether. The result would be you would have a populist house versus the establishment house (the commons) which would at least improve the situation we have now with two establishment houses.

By: William Haines

William Haines — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:43:09 +0000

The main problem with constitutional reform in this country is that people haven’t a clue as to the purpose and function of government. We are where we are as a result of various historical events. The main problem at the moment is that the executive has seized control of the legislature which has turned on its head the historical process whereby Parliament wrested power from the Crown. What is needed is a separation of executive and legislature.
F.A. Hayek in his lucid analysis suggested that what was required was not a separation of powers where both Houses do the same thing – one proposing and one merely revising – but a separation of functions.
The House of Commons should be the chamber for the executive to debate and decide on polices and the House of Lords should become the chamber for the passing of legislation. Each would be constituted on a different basis so as to reduce the chance of one party controlling both. His elaborate proposal for an elected upper chamber should interest you as he reserved a certain number of seats for the elderly.
The main point though is that the executive would not have the power or authority to make new laws thus putting itself effectively above the law. Instead it would have to ensure that its policies were within the laws framed by the legislature which in turn would only be able to pass general rules as opposed to policies.
A proto-dictator like Blair or Brown would be limited by laws which they had not passed and wouldn’t be able to change the rules so that they could win the game which is as it is at the moment.

By: William Haines

William Haines — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:18:36 +0000

David, despite your criticisms of ‘rationalism’ you seem to have swallowed the rationalist position yourself.
The system of hereditary peerages was NOT designed to insulate members of that Chamber from susceptibility to bribery. It was not the product of design at all. Hereditary peerages are the rump of the feudal aristocratic system. Far from being the product of design Hume said,
‘. . . the actualization of the principles of governance comes about, not by human insight and design, but rather, accidentally, as an unanticipated consequence of less worthy human strivings.’
and his compatriot Adam Ferguson said,
‘Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.’