Lords a leaping

As I write this blog, MPs are voting on whether to bring more democracy to Parliament.

Is the beginning of the end on the wall for the House of Lords? MPs have just voted to reject a House of Lords made up of a membership with 20% elected, 40% elected, 50% elected, 60% elected and all-member elected being rejected.

If we have to have a second Chamber, I would prefer a smaller all-elected Chamber. However, that probably won't happen but it looks likely that an 80% elected Chamber may go through. I hope so. I won't know the result before I finish this blog, I have my surgery to attend and then a Neighbourhood Policing meeting in Noel Park.

I have always found it amazing how we can call ourselves a democracy when for years over a thousand people, never elected, but decided on the Laws of the Land based on who slept with whom in the 1600s and 1700s.

The current Labour Government has done more to reform the House of Lords than the historic Labour Governments of Atlee in the 1940s and Wilson in the 1960s. The only near thing to reform was Asquith's Liberals in 1909 and 1910. Perhaps a hundred years on from an attempt at reform and it can now be done. And unlike in the early 1900s, it should not cause a Constituional crisis, if their Lordships know what is right for the contry.

That all said, I guess now my chances for a seat in Lords are out of the window. A small price worthing me thinks....