What can you buy.....

[Workingman]

..... for £650,000?

A detached house in Chelsea? No way.

An ocean going powered yacht. Forget it.

A brand new private jet. Do behave!

What it will buy you is a Lifetime Peerage if you support a political party. With a bit of creative accounting you can probably get it all back in attendance allowance and expenses in a few years.

And as you recoup your "loses" you will be able to create laws to govern those who do not have your commercial clout, even though nobody knows who you are or voted for you - all 800 of you.

There are some out there who think that this is a good idea.

[cruiser2]

There are not enough seats in the Lords for every member to sit down at the same time. Would like to see an attendance list published every week.

[Suff]

And elected would be better?

When we can't trust our lower house?

I'd prefer that we go back to hereditary and remove the ability of the government to "present" potential peers.

Then they would not be able to "buy" their way in would they?

[Aggers]

And elected would be better?

When we can't trust our lower house?

I'd prefer that we go back to hereditary and remove the ability of the government to "present" potential peers.

Then they would not be able to "buy" their way in would they?

I thoroughly agree, Suff.

The present system stinks, and is in no way democratic.

[Workingman]

I agree, the present system stinks to high heavens, but hereditary Peers are hardly democratic, are they?

HPs are a recipe for stagnation with the same privileged families making the rules for all eternity unless, that is, some new HPs are created. And who might do that and on what grounds might they be chosen?

[Suff]

It is already a case that the peers cannot block legislation forever. They get two chances to slow down legislation, but if the government is determined, then it will go through.

In the light of this, a HP Lords with a conscience and an interest in a Britain which is a bit wiser and with a little more attention span than 30 seconds would be no bad thing.

It is hardly the 1920's where the King told the Tories that they either bow to change or he would create so many Whig Life Peers that they would lose their majority, with very far reaching consequences.

The system works. We just need to stop thinking that the checks and balances have to be the same as the standard system. In fact, to be a check and a balance it MUST be different, not the same. Something America is currently struggling with.

Let's stop trying to fix something which isn't broken. Then we won't break it. It's time to stop creating life peers every year "Just because we can" and stat making it mean something again.