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Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

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Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#301

Post by AndrewDucker »

penguin_booze wrote: post #287
cryptonector wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any charge that can be punished with imprisonment should require a jury trial.

Jury trials are a colossal and disproportionate waste of time. Jury trials have it place, but most of the time is spent on jury selection, theatrics, and deliberation--all this cost dearly, both in terms of time and money. Thanks to its high cost and unpredictability, laughable inventions like "plea bargains" exist, only to selectively prey on the vulnerable. It's not perfect (nor are jury trials), but when it comes…

UK trials don't spend lots of time on jury selection. And there's rarely days of deliberation.

Not everything is done in US style.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#302

Post by bradleyjg »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #250
bradleyjg wrote: post #236

When the logic for bicameralism disappears, you should get rid of the second chamber. Not just find some other random thing to do with it. See, also, US state legislatures post Reynolds v. Sims.

The logic is to divide power into as many pieces as possible to prevent tyranny by structure. Unless you admire totalitarianism and unitary executive theory.

The Founders were wrong about this one. We have an overly powerful executive because they split up the legislative power too much and it doesn’t act as an effective counterweight.

Look around the world and find the countries where the legislature rather than the executive is the most dangerous branch as Hamilton suggested. It’s a very short list.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#303

Post by JamesTRexx »

edgyquant wrote: post #195
JamesTRexx wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government needs to be for all the people, and not just for the 1% with wealth and power. Not more or less.

This seems to go against human nature. Government is always for the 1% and in the rare case it isn’t it simply just creates a new 1%

True. Seems self-preservation is strong in our genes and can manifest in strong greed or prefering to avoid (direct) conflict with the greedy.

Humans are not always social creatures on all social fronts.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#304

Post by roryirvine »

w0de0 wrote: post #297

Genuinely regrettable. The appointed life peers system is worse than the traditional ‘hereditary sortition’ (if you will). The former creates a class of semi-sinecures of equally questionable quality yet beholden to the political system of the moment. Life peerages become awards for donors and loyalists, a legitimized corruption. The house’s composition becomes an ever-growing competition based on unlimited partisan…

Did you ever actually read the candidate statements written for the hereditary by-elections whenever a new spot opened up in the Lords?

Seriously, they're worth a read. A collection of posh nobodies all with a 'long career in business/finance' but rarely any particular concrete achievements to talk about. My favourite is Earl Dudley, who stands at every single opportunity seemingly only in a desperate attempt to promote his semi-pornographic youtube channel.

Sortition sounds great in theory, but I don't think it's well-suited to a permanent chamber. Use it for citizens juries, or appoint a time-limited jury to scrutinise a single reading of each bill, similar to the work of a select ctte today.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#305

Post by thaumasiotes »

w0de0 wrote: post #297

Genuinely regrettable. The appointed life peers system is worse than the traditional ‘hereditary sortition’ (if you will). The former creates a class of semi-sinecures of equally questionable quality yet beholden to the political system of the moment. Life peerages become awards for donors and loyalists, a legitimized corruption. The house’s composition becomes an ever-growing competition based on unlimited partisan…

It's worth considering that the life peers system is similar in many ways to the Roman Senate, which worked fine.

Senators got that way by popular election rather than by appointment, which is a significant difference.

Appointed life peers are even more similar, basically identical, to appointed officers in an imperial court. Courts operate on appointments as opposed to heredity when the throne is powerful.

It looks to me like only the king can create peers. If a British king was interested in reclaiming some power, that would be a promising place to start.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#306

Post by [deleted] »

r14c wrote: post #249
marcus_holmes wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the one argument left for monarchy; that the military in the UK (and technically Australia) swear loyatly to the monarch, not the Prime Minister. In the event of an obviously-lunatic elected official ordering the troops into civilian areas to "pacify" civilian populations, the monarch could (in theory) countermand that order.

Isn't that worse? You don't even get to elect the commander in chief, its just some random guy who was born into it?

[deleted]

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#307

Post by ChocolateGod »

r14c wrote: post #249
marcus_holmes wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the one argument left for monarchy; that the military in the UK (and technically Australia) swear loyatly to the monarch, not the Prime Minister. In the event of an obviously-lunatic elected official ordering the troops into civilian areas to "pacify" civilian populations, the monarch could (in theory) countermand that order.

Isn't that worse? You don't even get to elect the commander in chief, its just some random guy who was born into it?

The monarch being Commander in Chief is ceremonial. Everything is done on the advice of the Prime Minister and their cabinet.

The chance of the monarch overriding said request is less than 1%.

Even then, parliament is sovereign. Whilst the logistics are complicated due to how things are introduced to the house, if parliament says no to a prime ministers decision, it overrides anything the prime minister who has no absolute power like a president does.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#308

Post by scott_w »

hardlianotion wrote: post #106
scott_w wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a good revising chamber is critical to good democracy, though the Lords recently have been playing silly buggers around the Employment Rights Act and ignoring the Salisbury Convention (which is that they shouldn’t block manifesto commitments). I do think the USA goes too far, which has led to frustration among the public and contributed to Trump and the resulting behaviour. I’ve said before that I think the U…

Which manifesto commitments have been blocked in this parliament?

> Which manifesto commitments have been blocked in this parliament?

To be clear, I didn't say they "blocked," I said:

> though the Lords recently have been playing silly buggers around the Employment Rights Act

This was a manifesto commitment which, while it eventually went through, it was touch and go for a little bit. Reporting at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f412kJChC6g

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#309

Post by roryirvine »

Anthony-G wrote: post #134
kimos wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this about Ireland because they are such a young republic. And democratic systems are a technology. Something that we understand better over time, and somewhere new can pick and choose from what is best, where it is _extremely_ hard to change existing systems in established countries.

Also, one of the reasons for choosing proportional representation with a single transferable vote (PR-STV) was to ensure that the substantial unionist minority (who wanted to maintain the link with the UK/Britain) would still have have their views represented in the new parliament. This system works for other minority views and provides new political parties with a chance to grow in a way that wouldn’t be possible in…

The parliament of Northern Ireland also used STV for the same (er, well, inverted) reasons from 1921 until the Unionist majority forced a change to FPTP for most seats in 1929.

More generally, STV was the default choice for assemblies throughout the British Empire (and became known as 'the British system' as a result) from the late 19th century onwards.

It was even agreed on for use in Westminster in 1919 - though only the university seats ever actually used it - making it "more traditional" than the current single-member FPTP system which dates only from 1949. The failure to actually implement it was part of a more general reactionary movement in the aftermath of the war, when Lloyd George's promise of a "land fit for heroes" was thoroughly betrayed.

The Irish system seems to work well, and can be used as a comparator for considering what the UK might look like if that betrayal hadn't happened.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#310

Post by scott_w »

hunterpayne wrote: post #228
scott_w wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a good revising chamber is critical to good democracy, though the Lords recently have been playing silly buggers around the Employment Rights Act and ignoring the Salisbury Convention (which is that they shouldn’t block manifesto commitments). I do think the USA goes too far, which has led to frustration among the public and contributed to Trump and the resulting behaviour. I’ve said before that I think the U…

The Senate in the US is the upper house and can override the House. There is no "primacy" of the House in the US system. The only place where anything like that exists is in impeachment (which is for any member of the executive or judicial branch, not just the president) where the House simply has more votes than the Senate (each member gets 1 vote). Those types of hearings are pretty rare (usually).

> There is no "primacy" of the House in the US system.

I know, I'm saying this is not a good approach, for the reasons I gave above.

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