Thank The Lord for The Lords and a New Page 3 on The Moon


It is a strange world we live in where the Queen and the City hold dinners in honour of a Communist Dictator and our right wing, free market government has to heavily subsidise/bribe a communist state to build us a nuclear power station. While the vulnerable, poor and the unrepresented are being defended by the Lords, Ladies and Bishops of The House of Lords.

The government has tried to claim that their recent defeat on Tax Credit cuts is undemocratic and has somehow caused a constitutional crises. However, the makeup of both houses of parliament is far more representative of the electorate than in the Commons in which the wishes of around 20% of those with the right to register to vote have a majority. The party with the least representation to votes ratio in both houses is UKIP, and their policy on the Tax Credits is to phase them in gradually as the minimum wage (what Curious George is now calling a living wage) and changes to the tax threshold make up (most) of the difference. It is a pretty sensible policy that is similar to the Lords proposal, except no one must have told Douglas Carswell, their one MP, as he has voted in favour of the cuts...

Many argue, on the left and the right, that the answer is an elected second chamber, but do we really need another election? And with elections, there is still a big element of selection by each party. It would be better if the second chamber was selected in order make Parliament truly representative of all the parties with 5% or more of the national vote. The selection could be based on length of service in the Commons or, for any new parties, or ones with too few ex-MPs, the non-directly elected candidates with the highest percentage of votes in the constituency they stood in.

This would be far more merit-based and would not favour MPs who curry favour over those that do not toe the party line. Each voter would also have two votes, one for a candidate and one for a party to determine the level of representation in parliament and so not allow tactical voting to distort it

It would also preserve the constituency link in the Commons and the ability to form governments* but the second chamber would have the power to block all legislation and be only constrained by an actual constitution and not mere conventions.

After the election, even Nigel Farage had said that something ought to be done about representation. All the opposition parties get together, as was the case in Scotland with the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the nineties, to formulate a new constitutional settlement. They could also come up with a devolution settlement for England to strengthen democracy and the Union. UKIP really ought to be interested because of this, and because they would probably do rather well in regional elections - Nigel Farage South East England First Minister?

The Nationalist are obviously not interested in strengthening the Union but they are pro-PR, despite the current system working so well for the SNP and I would think Ms Sturgeon and Ms Wood would agree that a devolved England would be better for England whether Scotland or Wales are part of the Union or not. The Ulster Unionists ought to be in favour if they want to keep the Union together, but they many prefer endless Tory rule in a broken Union.

The main party not involved, would be the Conservative and Unionist Party and they are greatest threat to the existence of the United Kingdom.

They are pushing their EVEL legislation. The electoral registration system has changed to favour them, and the redrawing of the electoral boundaries will help them further. In local government, they are promoting personality led politics with directed elected Mayors.

After their defeat in the Lords, they are set on revenge. The opposition needs to get their collective acts together.

In the meantime, thank God for the Lords, especially the Archbishops and The Moon has a new Page 3

*a constitution could specify the party with the most votes would have the first right to form a government, which may not be the party with the most seats in the Commons and a government could get legislation through if they got a majority of both houses combined to vote in favour.

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