Despite our best efforts, we Liberal Democrats failed last Thursday to make electoral reform sexy. Quelle surprise. The economy is faltering, public services have a shaky future and, frankly, how people vote for their MP’s is not of major concern to the British people.
Using my trusty retrospectoscope, I can tell you that the Yes campaign got the message wrong, and it did not resonate with people. The campaign went for the anti-politics, anti-politician approach of saying they were offering the people a way to make their MP’s work harder and suffer more. Britons shrugged. The fundamental nature in which politics would be changed was never addressed; and how fundamental it is!
People are concerned about jobs, public services, the NHS and so on, but apparently they are unconcerned about who is making those decisions. They should be. Does it bother the British people that not a single government has had the support of the British people since the Second World War? It should, because every government since has affected the lives of British people. Within the current government, which does have a mandate of a majority, does it bother the British people that hundreds of MP’s on government had more people voting against them? It should. It might not, but it shouldbecause this government is affecting the lives of British people. The reason it should it because, in a democracy, the principle that people are governed only by those they voted for is fundamental.
Which logically brings us to the House of Lords. It should bother the British people that in a country we call a democracy, we have a chamber in Parliament that is totally unelected. People who have the power to block and force alterations to legislation have absolutely no mandate and are totally unaccountable. There is nothing I can do about them, there is nothing you can do about them, but they are there and they are a stain on our democracy.
At the Spring Conference this year, Nick Thornsby asked Nick Clegg if we could have an elected House of Lords and if we could have it soon. Clegg replied “Yes” on both counts. Well I plan to hold him to that. The Coalition Agreement promises to look at reforming the House of Lords. I plan to hold both parties to that. Not because it is a sexy policy, not because I think the Lib Dems can splash it over the front page of Focuses and election material, not because I think the voters will finally rediscover their long-lost love for Nick Clegg but because it is just so fundamental.
Libel laws, correctly described in this blog as a “farce”, were not the talk of the town, did not affect most people in this country and was not the subject of conversation in social settings (usually, according to political commentators, pubs). But the Liberal Democrats reformed them because they were a stain on our legal system. Just the same, an unelected chamber of government should be reformed because it is a stain on our democracy. And if the Lib Dems don’t reform it, no one else will.
Andrew Jones, a Liberal Democrat member and Vice-President of the University of Nottingham Liberal Democrats
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14 Comments
Good article. A Lord part-elected by PR will effectively put the Commons to shame and keep the issue of electoral reform alive.
Key point about AV: it does not necessarily deliver a more democratic outcome, in terms of first preferences. This meant that the campaign could not take the moral high ground, and point up the outrageous distortions produced by FPTP.
This meant the campaign was pretty much doomed from the outset – Clegg was set up to fail, and fail he certainly has.
Did I miss something? I didn’t think we were planning on shelving Lords reform!
Apart from that we have a problem. Most people feel less let down by the un-elected Lords than the elected commons. At least the lords tried to do something to stop the fees being rubber stamped through before the white paper has even been published. Latest I read the rich will now be able to buy a place at Oxbridge, Very progressive!
I find myself agreeing with the Lords far more than the commons lately, perhaps I’m just getting older.
Whatever changes we recommend we must ensure that the Lords are worrying about what is best long term for the country and not what is best for their short term survival.
“The Coalition Agreement promises to look at reforming the House of Lords. I plan to hold both parties to that.”
No need to worry – they’re already doing the “looking at” part. It’s the “actually doing” part that the Tories are going to block, by all accounts.
However much constitutional reform might press LD buttons, it is naive inthe extreme to assume that the public at large give a toss. To have any chance of recovering from the current low we need to connect with the people, not just each other, and Lords reform will not do that
Lords reform is unfinished business from the 1910 General Election. Andrew Jones is right if we don’t do it now we are in government, no one else will.
The AV campaign did get the message wrong and it can be said to be anti-politics. Personally I like AV and don’t really want to see STV for the House of Commons, but think it should be used for the new Second Chamber (a Bundesrat – House of the Regions).
The case for AV should include that each person elected has to get more than 50% of the vote. This message was lost by saying there were times when this doesn’t have to be true. Also that Governments should never again be formed with over half the electorate not supporting it in some way.
Did the Yes campaign put out a free post leaflet as the No campaign did? I didn’t see one.
The No campaign was effective in saying that some people would have more than one vote. AV is a preference system and it seems it is difficult to persuade people this is better than candidates being elected with only minority support.
If the Yes campaign had had longer could they have convinced people that consensus politics and coalitions are a good thing? Until we have won this argument we will never win a referendum on changing the voting system to a preference system.
Therefore we should not have a referendum on House of Lords reform we need to build a majority in the House of Commons for our proposal. In 2003 there was no majority in the House of Commons for any of the options. The House of Lords supported a wholly appointed second chamber. In 2005 the House of Commons did have a majority for a 60% elective second chamber. We will have to accept some appointed members in the second chamber. However we must not compromise on STV and there must not be a list system.
Great article.
Personally, I’m completely baffled as to how this issue can even be the subject of discussion among supposedly enlightened individuals in the 21st Century.
An unelected chamber in government is totally, utterly, entirely, without any question whatsoever UNDEMOCRATIC.
Get rid of it!
@ Kirsten de Keyser:
“An unelected chamber in government is totally, utterly, entirely, without any question whatsoever UNDEMOCRATIC.”
Yes it is. So what? Contrary to the OP, it cannot block anything, just delay it and force the government to look again at its proposals. Is there any reason why an elected chamber would do this job more effectively than an unelected one?
Once again, I’m telling you the public by and large don’t care about Lords reform. They care infinitely more about job security and the loss of our public services.
Tackle the Lords when times are good. Right now it just looks like more Westminster naval-gazing.
@Mr X “…force the government to look again at its proposals”
An unelected body should not be allowed to force the government to do anything whatsoever.
It is entirely unsurprising that an unelected body of legislators gets right up the noses of democrats big time.
But… despite its evident democratic deficiency, it actually works surprisingly well. I for one have often welcomed its interventions to rein in some of the sillier and more dogmatic ideas that periodically come forward from the Commons.
Moreover, as the post says People are concerned about jobs, public services, the NHS and so on, but apparently they are unconcerned about who is making those decisions. If this is correct (and I suspect it is) then this could be yet another misreading of the public mood by Lib Dems, going for something that matters to activists but is of little concern to the nation.
The strength of the Lords is that it includes people with vast experience of life – the law, medicine, science, industry etc. and who are not driven by the short term exigencies of the electoral cycle or party discipline. Conversely, in the Commons we have far to many professional politicians who have never done a job outside politics and PR and it shows.
So, before we advance with Lords reform I suggest we need to come up with a plan that will result in a Lords with a completely different ‘geometry’ to the Commons by which I mean one elected on a different timescale, on a different constituency basis (cf how US Senators represent their state – perhaps counties in our case or regions if we had them), representation for smaller parties, a way of avoiding ‘professional’ politicians and including eminent people from all walks of life, a good proportion of independents (cross-benchers) etc.
That will be difficult, but then so are most worthwhile things.
“An unelected body should not be allowed to force the government to do anything whatsoever.”
Why not?
“But… despite its evident democratic deficiency, it actually works surprisingly well. I for one have often welcomed its interventions to rein in some of the sillier and more dogmatic ideas that periodically come forward from the Commons. ”
Very much agreed.
Absolutely agree with both the content, and very much the tone, of this post. It isn’t sexy, but it is NECESSARY. Hear hear.
I live near Ullswater, sometimes called “The Jewel of the Lake District” and more than one foreign visitor has told me it’s the most beautiful place in Europe. Ullswater looks as it does thanks to an intervention by the House of Lords in the early sixties when the commons was going to let Manchester have it and (presumably) do what they’d done to Thirlmere. Since then I’ve had a lot of respect for the Lords. When did they last do any harm? All the bad stuff has come from the Commons! SET (anyone remember that?) Poll Tax … It’s the Commons that needs reform, not the Lords, and we, the Nation, have blown it! Whether or not an appointed upper house is undemocratic depends, surely, on who’s doing the appointing. Personally, I’d sooner entrust the financial management of the country to a group of elder statesmen (sorry! statesfolk) of proven ability and commitment and endowed with the wisdom of age, than to one or more kids off millionaire’s row, not long out of Public School, and who look as if they’re still there!