I agree with Lapras that people who are successful in their fields would be good. 100 people. 15 from law backgrounds. 10 from medical. 10 from education. 10 from military / police. 5 from each of Britains key industries. All elected from within their disciplines. Good wage. Ten year role. No political allegiances allowed. Circular chamber. Absolutely random splurge of thoughts but we don’t have to stick to the old ways.
Sounds good. Problem is from what I see, most of the people and parties who want to abolish the lords want to do so because of them blocking the Rwanda bill, not due due to any principled stand against the hol. Basically the lords are fine if they're voting in the way they want...
Heh, that makes me think of that song by the kinks... Preserving the old ways from being abused Protecting the new ways for me and for you What more can we do?
It’s quite incredible when you look at the current state of the Lords, nearly a quarter of a century into the 3rd millennium. There are 792 of them right now, of whom 92 are the surviving hereditary peers and 26 are Church of England bishops. No other religion gets automatic representation in the upper house. Some of them are elected by an internal vote to replace dead members. The whole thing is laughably archaic and undemocratic, although it’s true that they are showing more principle, more independence of thought and more backbone than the majority party in the HoC.
Significantly fewer lord's than at points in recent history. Its by no means a perfect system but two elected chambers will just multiply the existing issues of narcissistic personalities seeking power. The idea above that there are 100 non partisan morally superior professionals willing to sit on some unelected council is also pretty sensationalist and laughable. As if the power wouldn't just corrupt as it always does. Stamford prison experiment comes to mind. Gradual and incremental Lords reform is the obvious solution but no politician will do it in the next few years, it's far too useful for them.
No, you’re right of course. It’s much more important that the Commons are scrutinised by the likes of Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge, who rise to the Lords by sharpening Boris Johnson’s pencils.
The only possible argument you can make in favour of retaining the House of Lords as is, is that it works quite well.
Well, but, however. https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/what-is-the-role-of-the-house-of-lords-and-could-it-do-more/ "In practice, the Lords will seek to amend legislation through tabling amendments, or often by pressing for concessions early in the legislative process. However, whilst the Lords will often make amendments, the government is not required to accept these changes – a ‘defeat’ in the Lords is very different to a defeat in the Commons. In this way, policy change can happen without a ‘defeat’ but may not happen even with one." The blatant misuse of prime minister's honours has been a feature of politics for the last hundred years or more. https://www.ft.com/content/edb385cf-e580-47a2-9577-88bb022a0187 "Troublesome benefactors can cost more in reputation than the money they bring in - we need tighter rules." Bugger that! Bring it all down, Two elected houses needed implementing PR with judicial powers strengthened to prevent government abuses e.g. the unlawful proroguing of parliament.
UP to eight million UK workers risk being replaced by artificial intelligence within five years. A study by the Institute for Public Policy Research found nearly 60% of current human tasks could be handed to the rapidly advancing technology. Jobs most at risk include those of secretaries, human resources staff, call centre agents, sales people and even authors. Those least at risk include electricians, plumbers, carpenters and bricklayers as well as teachers, barristers, dentists and doctors. But even some of those could be affected over the coming years. Chief Executives are said to be safe, but no real surprise there as they will probably be the people rolling out AI and reaping the benefits of financial savings from not having as many staff to pay. There must be people on here are doing jobs that put them at risk of being replaced by AI, or have family members that could be replaced by AI. Will Universal Basic Income need to become a thing or will those “up to 8 million people” be thrown to the dogs?
Things are getting desperate, as can be seen from part of a video the Tories put out to show Sadiq Khan in a bad light.
The dogs are licking their lips St T. I don't think our current or future governments will be willing to completely restructure the economy to be able to provide this, so at that point, 8 million people need to remember that the power is still with the people, despite what they may be told otherwise
AI may be new but replacing humans with more efficient machines has been a gradual process since the industrial revolution. Quite often when it was the large manufacturers that we used to have in this country the expression "uneconomic working practices" was wheeled out as justification. There seemed to be very little sympathy shown by those who were unaffected, usually because it only concerned the working classes and their Unions. But this time, if the predictions are true, many more from different walks of life will lose their jobs and 8 million is quite frightening. I'm not saying "now it's your turn" far from it, but these practices have been accepted and in some cases encouraged for a long time. It's always been a puzzle to me where the young of today find work. There were thousands of apprenticeships and thousands of adults employed in the manufacturing industry that's no longer there. I'm sure there are many reasons to not nationalise companies but there are also advantages and with the right management I'm sure they can have a part to play in keeping people in employment. This may be pie in the sky as I release my inner socialist but I can't help but feel that a population of many unemployed people will be a disaster if future governments don't see what's coming.
The socialist in me says future governments need to either create large-scale infrastructure projects and employ huge numbers of people, or re-nationalise and invest heavily in essential services, and employ large numbers of people. Pay them well, and money comes back in taxation and means that there are actually people/consumers who can afford to buy the products and services that used to be created by people and instead will be dominated by AI. That is of course dependent on future governments actually taxing companies that would be making the money from AI driven commerce. It is also dependent on future governments trying not to run the country like a business, and instead run it like a family. Growth cannot happen forever, so there needs to be a new measure of success for a society. If such a thing exists now... The alternatives are fairly stark from what I can see.
Ask Gordon Brown what to do. He attracted international praise for his actions in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the subsequent bank rescue package in 2008. The first line of an opinion piece by economist Paul Krugman published in The New York Times on 12 October 2008 was "Has Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, saved the world financial system?" with Krugman stating that Brown and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, had "defined the character of the worldwide rescue effort, with other wealthy nations playing catch-up".
Scrapping the Lords for a PR elected upper chamber will not have the effect you think it will. It would effectively grant long term stable and influential legaslative careers to those on currently on the outskirts of mainstream politics. Arise lord Nigel. Politics would just realign and mps will resign in favour of the upper chamber. Like in the US and France, people will only pay attention to the upper chamber. PR isn't quite the magic fix you're making it out to be either... It would have a major splintering effect and cause chaos for a solid period of time. At the moment the UK is a reasonably balanced system which keeps the relative extremes of UK politics in check and runs far more smoothly than some of our very close neighbours... It has been over 4 months since the Dutch GE and still no one can agree on a government due to ongoing debates between the major parties.. And it looks like the most popular party won't even be included and their leader probably won't be PM. Bet that's going down well with 25% of the Dutch electorate.
I want rid of FPTP which is biased in favour of the tories and to a lesser extent labour to be replaced by single transferable vote as proposed by the electoral reform society. The the current system is far from reasonably balanced, wrecked economy, public services decimated, corruption in politics rife and shameful use of the honours system by Johnson and Truss. FPTP has replaced supplementary vote for mayoral elections a sneaky bit of gerrymandering. The voting system in the Netherlands is in need of reform, to low a threshold for seats. So what if a 25% minority of Dutch voters are pissed off? The majority are not in favour of Wilders to lead a government who, even with other right wing groups, couldn't form a government. He actually rowed back on many of his racist policies in an attempt to gain power and failed to get enough support.
Apologies, I’ve been away so didn’t respond to this sooner. This almost proves my point. This sort of selfish, narcissistic thinking has been massively amplified by a lack of religion. For all the cons of organised religion, there are some huge, huge benefits of it. One of those is: community. Community and pride in your country and fellow men. We have lost that completely. This is one of the reasons why I hate progressives. They don’t understand that if you stand for nothing, you fall for anything. The void where pride in your country and religion used to be will be filled up with toxic narratives that make society worse as a whole. We can certainly argue whether organised religion is an overall net benefit for society. But I believe it’s absolutely definite that the rise of atheism and moving away from spirituality/community is creating a more selfish society and having a negative impact. There is a growing lack of respect and discipline and i can see it everywhere I look.
