For most of us we have to pay to be in a care home in old age yet in the house of lords care home they get paid so a bit unfair.
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THE FOURTH OF JULY
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Keith Cocker
Established Member
I imagine what would replace it - and it would need a second chamber - would be as expensive if not more so - and would be much less effective. The HoL has saved us from some very poorly thought out legislation over the years. Be careful what you wish for here.
Rhossydd
Established Member
About £100m not a lot in the overall context of the costs of government across the UK
Probably a LOT more than you realise. They act as a safety net to prevent poor legislation.
Whilst there's definitely need for further reform, some sort of second house remains a good idea.
Worth bearing in mind that at £360/day* the Lords that do attend are generally doing so because they want to contribute to good governance, it won't be for the money.
*Try to find any decent trades people working for that low a rate in London.
I wouldn't get out for bed for that.
How about an elected house rather than some reward for favours.
Keith Cocker
Established Member
5 minutes later you'd be moaning that they were just as bad as the HoC.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
I'd make them do National Service for a year.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Good account of the housing crisis. What is the Labour position on this, if they have one? https://www.theguardian.com/society...strous-tory-policy-blew-up-the-housing-market
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Answer; they don't seem to have one. https://www.theguardian.com/artandd.../labour-manifesto-housebuilding-plans-comment
Not one but four (and now there's talk of more) people close to sunak placed bets on a July election. Criminal charges seem likely to follow. The tories can't help themselves, years and years of corruption, greed and self-interest have led to an ingrained culture of deceit and dishonesty. The sooner they're gone the better for this country.
Jameshow
Established Member
I would also suggest that labours immigration policy caused as much havoc with the housing market as did the Tories!!
As a father with 2 children I find this election extremely depressing. The climate crisis is real, and for all intents and purposes ignored, or made the subject of identity politics, and false financial dividing lines with nothing happening to address growing flooding issues, and farming collapses all around us. Starmer is fundamentally dishonest and untrustworthy, and Labour are effectively as fiscally conservative as the the conservatives running fully under the false notion that running a country with a treasury and central bank is just like a house hold with a credit card, which it is not. The Green's seem distracted by every other social liberal issue, losing any visibility on key Green issues. Up here in Scotland, the SNP are disastrously centralising, have starved councils of cash, and are appalling on the NHS - pay settlements might have good optics, but the resulting collapse in the internal NHS budget is having direct negative impact on patients. Then, instead of giving Agenda for Change staff a pay rise, they gave them a shorter week, to get progressively shorter over the next two years - while we have been told to show how this will have no service impact - "you will have one answer, and your answer will be, everything is great!" Meanwhile, our local economy is being hurt by anti-immigration policies with insufficient farming, NHS and social care staffing, and while I do think we need to become more resilient internally, I am not anti-immigration, certainly think we should be doing our best for refugees, and think this sort of employment starvation cold turkey is utterly bonkers. For someone who believe we need to view all policy through the climate lens, there are few options for me. I am left of centre economically, while socially and culturally pretty centrist, a bit conservative on some things, a bit more liberal on others. I despair.
We do need an upper house though. In my view, we need a house of council representatives. One councillor elected from each council, across party lines, onboarding the loss of an internal vote that results in the council for the benefit of representation in the upper house, encouraging cross-party working and new groupings, such as geographical. This would bind central government to local, and would encourage less centralised top down governance and add much needed devolution. It would also avoid addition of yet another layer of elections with poor turnout (which is what GB's plan will do), and would instead further sponsor and add value to an existing one, improving turnout, and improving the quality of councillors in local governance. This would also produce the right sort of numbers required for the upper house. The only difficulty is working our how to incorporate existing areas of devolution. I would get our parliaments moved to further North in England, so as to be more central UK, and form parliaments that are circular to seek to avoid the adversarial us and them approach embedded in our current system.
Keith Cocker
Established Member
Put yourself in there shoes, they will be unemployed soon so thought a bit of corruption might help pay the bills.
In hindsight the government should have had a minister for Boomers at least twenty years ago to manage the issues that would be created as that mortgage free generation with pensions not only would retire but start retiring early and leave many gaps in the system such as doctors, pharmacist and other skilled workers.
sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
I think it's absolutely correct (based on available evidence) to level that claim of Boris Johnson. Otherwise it's a strong statement to make for any public figure (without sufficient evidence). What makes you feel that Starmer in particular is dishonest?
Terry - Somerset
Established Member
The basis for selection for a second house should be fundamentally different to the House of Commons - no point in two look alike legislative chambers.
There needs to be far more clarity over the role of each house and the monarchy which have evolved over centuries based on precedents, rituals, and ceremony. It needs to be documented.
Rewards for favours is not an ideal way to select members and should be improved. But it has mostly worked as the Lords do not have to face election every 5 years, and can think and act independently.
A question - would you place more trust in someone:
- who appears to have a record of achievement, and is doing the job out of a sense of duty
- whose future relies upon popular acclaim through the ballot box every few years
Rhossydd
Established Member
I'd agree with all that. An appointed upper house makes a lot of sense. Ditch the hereditary peers certainly.
That Johnson just gave peerages to his friends and relations is appalling. That Truss gets an honours list at all is similarly dire.
We need to give the vetting committee some serious power to stop abusive misuses of appointments.
"not ideal" somewhat of an understatement there. It should be absolutely banned.
That Johnson just gave peerages to his friends and relations is appalling. That Truss gets an honours list at all is similarly dire.
We need to give the vetting committee some serious power to stop abusive misuses of appointments.
Its not a strong statement beyond the facts. He lied to achieve power, securing a mandate on an entirely false prospectus, and did so putting his signature (in case there might be any doubt about his commitment) to all of the pledges he made to achieve power. It has been suggested that these had to be changed because of Truss, but these changes were underway before the disaster of Truss occurred. Before that, he lied about Brexit, and his public commitment to accept the vote of the referendum, but then created the main source of internal friction in the Corbyn led party bringing forward an obscure position that nobody could get behind in 2017 or 2019. He said Corbyn was a brilliant leader, and defended the manifesto in the elections, and continued to do so beyond when trying become leader, saying it was Labour's foundational document. He started off supporting environmental protests; now he is in hard opposed. He supported schemes exploring the decriminalisation of cannabis; now he is hardline anti. He made firm commitments to Martin Forde in dealing with the hierarchy of racism that have been dropped, and indeed the culture allowed to clearly persist. Then there is his flip-flopping in position on gender identity. He is not a man I would remotely want as a model for my kids, and while more vaguely more sheepish when doing it, is not in a categorical difference to Boris Johnson. The public can see this, which goes along way to explain what will be unprecedented negative leader's ratings of a party about to form the government.
sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
Some good and perfectly fair points there.
I would suspect that Starmer's flip flopping is more about the needs of a politician (who may have a chance of being voted into power) having to temper/modify their message to try to not repel voters. I don't like it at all, but I wouldn't put it in the same scale as Johnson's complete disassociation from the truth.
I think you illustrate well how inured we become to shifts in dishonesty over time. Having followed this from e.g. the Peter Oborne books on Blair, and the significant shift in "Spin" then, Starmer really is an order of magnitude or categorical degree worse than Blair was himself, who stood at the outset on an honest prospectus. Its hilariously hypocritical (sardonic) when Starmer criticises the honesty of Sunak, as happened last week, when he doesn't have a leg to stand on. Meanwhile, it empowers straight talkers like Farage, who are not trapped by the contorted positions of trying to work out what to say without being self-contradictory or to disappoint some polity or other. The same considerations, and the risk of exposure, are also what is allowing us to see what the new emperor is wearing.
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