House of commons vs. House of Lords

The incumbent government of Messrs Cameron and Osborne have now started on the process of further curtailing the powers of the House of Lords. This second chamber is a throwback to early use of power in this country, when Kings were Kings and the populace were known as serfs. Over the years it has become less and less powerful, the elected parliaments have slowly put a stop to the chamber doing anything much.

House of Lords 

The simple reason is that the house of Lords was just such a thing. The members were the aristocracy, members of the clergy (Bishops) and in more recent times ex politicians granted a life peerage by the whichever party was in power. It is an unelected chamber and as such is an anathema to democratically minded people. My favourite and sadly missed politician, Tony Benn, managed to relinquish his inheritance to be able to sit in the elected parliament. His objection to the house of Lords was that in a democracy it was outrageous for the unelected "elite" of society to have any say about what a government, voted for by the people of this country, should decide to do.

And of course on a technical point I would totally agree.

However.... Parliament as it stands today could hardly be described as a being voted for by the people. The current government only captured 36% of the votes cast and only 66% of those entitled to vote did just that. The Conservatives managed to capture 330 elected members of parliament with that vote (326 being needed to form a government) thanks to our "First past the post" system. So the matter of fact is that less than a quarter of the electorate ACTUALLY voted for the Conservatives and yet they hold almost absolute power in Parliament. This is not a new phenomenon. It has also been true of every government since Thatch herself.

And this is where I become a bit of a hypocrite because whilst Parliaments are allowed to wield this lop sided power this country definitely needs a brake on Parliamentary power. Hence the need for a body such as the House of Lords.

I admit that the current system of election does provide many benefits one of which is a quick change of government. Some European countries (Belgium) have in the past had long pauses after elections for deals to be struck and coalitions formed. But the downside is that we get a government we didn't really vote for.

If we are to be rid of the House of Lords we first have to adjust the way Parliament is elected to properly reflect the will of the country