House of Lords throws out tax credits proposals in a strange reversal of history

[AgnesIO]

And political patronage is somehow a better moral virtue? A peerage based on political favouring is somehow better?

By the way, we're not a democracy. It's a constitutional parliamentary monarchy, hence why our Head of State is based on who came out of a vagina.

We're still a democracy. At least those people have gotten to their positions (generally speaking) at least based on some skill. Alan Sugar, huge donor to the Labour party - but he undoubtedly knows a lot about business. Same as Lords from Political backgrounds - so yes, that is better.

[-:Undertaker:-]

We're still a democracy. At least those people have gotten to their positions (generally speaking) at least based on some skill. Alan Sugar, huge donor to the Labour party - but he undoubtedly knows a lot about business. Same as Lords from Political backgrounds - so yes, that is better.

Not really, because you're muddled up and confusing issues. Even after the 1960s (infact it applied more so after the 1960s reforms of the Life Peerages) the likes of Lord Sugar could still be enobled into the Lords either with an hereditery peerage - as Harold MacMillan was for example - or under a life peerage as the likes of Lord Norton (academic), Lord Pearson (businessman) and others were. Post-1960, you had a nice settlement where life peerages could be added and sat alongside those nobile families who had sat in the upper chamber for hundreds of years.

What Blair's 1999 'reforms' did, which is what we're arguing about, is remove the bulk of those noble families from the Lords and instead replace them with an ever rising amount of political lackeys and party donors and spin doctors, something which has decreased the quality of the Lords although I would still say the Lords is miles ahead of the Commons in quality which is why further atempts to "reform" the Lords (aka ruin it) must be avoided. The idea that political patronage or reward has more virtue than hereditry birthright is absurd though as you claimed earlier: hereditry peerages made sure the House could not be subverted by the centralised party machines. In other words, it was out of the hands of the executive.

If you're really bored tonight then give this a watch, it gives a different perspective (one that is never heard) of the hereditery principle. Other than the acts of devolution, also under the Blair Ministry, the 1999 HoL reform was probably the biggest piece of constitutional vandalism in more than a century.

[FlyingJesus]

Because giving people power purely based on who's vagina they came out of is a ridiculous idea in any modern democracy.

While I don't necessarily disagree, replacing it with a system where the PM fills up seats with their personal chums every so often is far far worse would prefer hereditary peers over nepotism myself I think