Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 413 posts

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

#321

Post by t43562 »

williamdclt wrote: post #108
s_dev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If cool means interesting then yes, it is cool because it's archaic and different but it's not effective. It's the equivalent of a verbal contract. It's simply not as clear or coherent as a written one. Irish democracy in contrast uses STV voting and a written constitution and is modeled between the best of what the UK, the US and France had to offer when it was drafted and is a very representative democracy with man…

> duopolies in the US and the UK for better or worse, the duopoly is disappearing in the UK. Both Tories and Labour are getting passed by Reform and the Greens

with first past the post there will only ever be a duopoly. It forces you into voting AGAINST your least favorite choice.

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

#322

Post by Aushin »

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…

What about just no house of lords?

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

#323

Post by t43562 »

JCattheATM wrote: post #102
mindwok wrote: post #20

British democracy and government is cool. It's not enshrined in some document they got together and wrote down like the US constitution, it's this organic thing that they've stumbled towards over the last ~800 years with small changes like this one gradually evolving them into a modern liberal democracy.

> gradually evolving them into a modern liberal democracy. And yet, they are still not quite there. There is something to be said for design over stumbling.

The stumbling is natural - it's a sort of stable thing deriving out of the state of now.

Design is something put out there which may not stand up to the test of how people actually behave i.e. it may not be stable.

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

#324

Post by t43562 »

rvz wrote: post #26
mindwok wrote: post #20

British democracy and government is cool. It's not enshrined in some document they got together and wrote down like the US constitution, it's this organic thing that they've stumbled towards over the last ~800 years with small changes like this one gradually evolving them into a modern liberal democracy.

> British democracy and government is cool. Oh sweet summer child. The government there does not care about you and will promise anything to get another 5 years in power despite causing the issues they promised to solve in the first place. You are essentially voting in the same party to be in government and progress there moves in the hundreds of years; hence the riddance of the scam that is unelected hereditary nobl…

The governments don't really cause the issues. The big issues are just things that face the country no matter who is in control - how to pay for everything, how to deal with population aging etc.

It's not a simple country - it's a machine with millions of complicated parts and therefore it's difficult to come up with simple things to do that will make everyone happy.

The public don't all have a 10000 foot view, which I don't think any 1 person could comprehensively understand anyhow, and are susceptible to being sold "simple solutions" by politicians - in fact they won't elect anyone who doesn't pretend at least to offer simple solutions.

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

#325

Post by AlecSchueler »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #172
verbify wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in case someone gets the wrong end of the stick, the UK isn’t getting rid of the House of Lords, just the hereditary members (of which there aren’t many).

But almost all the remainder are political appointees. It's disappointing that they didn't replace the hereditary peers with some other non-politically-appointed folks. There is a very great need to have people in the House of Lords who are not beholden to any of the political parties. I personally favour a lottery system where random people get given the opportunity to join the House of Lords for the rest of their w…

> for the rest of their working lives.

One of the nicer things about Lords debates is that many members have ended their working lives and are no longer worried about the day to day felicities of their industry.

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

#326

Post by Anthony-G »

roryirvine wrote: post #309
Anthony-G wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 on…

Huh! I didn’t know any of that. I presumed that Stormont elections had always been FPTP and that gerrymandering – particularly in Derry – was the worst abuse of the democratic process in Northern Ireland.

That’s really interesting that the British promoted STV within their sphere of influence and had intended to use it for elections to Westminster. Thanks for the informative comment and useful historical context.

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

#327

Post by DrScientist »

alexpotato wrote: post #68
endoblast wrote: post #57

When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte, As every child can tell, The House of Peers, throughout the war, Did nothing in particular, And did it very well; Yet Britain set the world ablaze In good King George's glorious days! (from Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan) Gather a group of the most powerful people in the land; give them ermine robes and manifold privileges; require of them nothing other than that they meet regula…

To play devil's advocate: Some people argue that the difficulty of passing laws in the United States is "a feature not a bug" b/c it prevents the US from creating laws too quickly. You could argue the House of Lords did the same: by vetoing bills, it acted as a "speed bump" to laws that might cause too much change too quickly.

The idea of a second chamber is not controversial. The argument is how you populate it.

Elected - you have the problem of two chambers claiming legitimacy and potential deadlock, and also the problem of potentially having the same short term view as the other elected chamber.

Appointed - who gets to appoint, on what criteria, who are they beholden to ( ideally unsackable once appointed - I want them to feel free to say what they really think ).

Inherited - Very unlikely to represent the population. No quality filter. Potentially a culture of service built up - and free to say what they think.

Random. - More likely to represent the population. No quality filter.

You can obviously have a mix of all or any of the above.

In my view, the ideal second chamber would be full of people of experience, who are beholden to nobody (unsackable), that represented a broad range of views, with a culture of service.

I'm against a fully elected second house - as that's not really adding anything different to the first house. Appointed has worked quite well in the past, but it has become more and more abused recently as the elected politicians have two much control.

It's tricky - perhaps some sort of mix.

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

#328

Post by Nursie »

t43562 wrote: post #319
Nursie wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are likely even more out of touch with the electorate. Not compared to the hereditary peers. In theory these people have proved themselves useful in some way and bring expertise to the upper chamber, rather than just being born in the right family. In practice there is some of that and some political cronyism. > Seems to me this just centralizes power even more in the hands of a few. That is exactly what hered…

Being out of touch with the electorate is the thing they have as a feature over the house of commons. i.e. they're not trying to win the next election. They're also not there because of the favours they've done existing politicians. I don't think this is "great" but it does make me wonder if the people who want an end to herditary peers are really going to like what they get.

They're there because someone a long time ago was wealthy and probably had ties to one or more monarchs.

This is not a basis for holding power in any country that calls itself democratic. This idea that they are somehow above everyday concerns and that's a good thing is some sort of weird retcon, and if we're going to use unmitigated cynicism to impugn the validity of action of other office holders who are elected, or who have got to the lords through prominence in public life, then allow me the same here: they're just there to pursue the interests of the landed gentry and hold back progress on issues like fox-hunting. And they have done exactly this in the past. The fact they're not trying to win an election means they are entirely free to pursue selfish aims.

There's no virtue in maintaining the privileges of these alleged 'nobles' to interfere in the running of the state.

What they’re going to get is 92 fewer (to use the modern parlance) nepo-babies having access to the levers of power. It’s something to celebrate.

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

#329

Post by DougN7 »

endoblast wrote: post #57

When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte, As every child can tell, The House of Peers, throughout the war, Did nothing in particular, And did it very well; Yet Britain set the world ablaze In good King George's glorious days! (from Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan) Gather a group of the most powerful people in the land; give them ermine robes and manifold privileges; require of them nothing other than that they meet regula…

My father-in-law always liked to see an exact number of democrats and republicans in congress, or congress held by one and the senate the other, for exactly this reason. With deadlock they can’t screw things up more. I’m not sure I disagree.

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

#330

Post by WickyNilliams »

DrScientist wrote: post #327
alexpotato wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate: Some people argue that the difficulty of passing laws in the United States is "a feature not a bug" b/c it prevents the US from creating laws too quickly. You could argue the House of Lords did the same: by vetoing bills, it acted as a "speed bump" to laws that might cause too much change too quickly.

The idea of a second chamber is not controversial. The argument is how you populate it. Elected - you have the problem of two chambers claiming legitimacy and potential deadlock, and also the problem of potentially having the same short term view as the other elected chamber. Appointed - who gets to appoint, on what criteria, who are they beholden to ( ideally unsackable once appointed - I want them to feel free to s…

Abused is probably an understatement. The Tories made some extremely questionable and bizarre appointments in their recent terms. We have the son of Russian oligarch sitting there! Inexplicable advisors whose appointment is a mystery even after FOIA requests. And extreme partisans like Jacob Rees Mogg and Priti Patel.

Imo they should be proposed and voted on by the house. That should at least offer some prevention of peerages as favours, as they quite clearly have been used.

Post reply on HN