"Yet Jack Straw reckons we will need 350-400 elected senators to replace the medieval cronyist retirement home that is the House of Lords."
I'm sorry, but I partly disagree with the abuse aimed at the Lords: yes, they may be more cronyist than they used to be, but the quality of debate and their greater independence from party politics means that they are the only bulwark between us and the crazed totalitarianism that Labour is aiming for.
Give me a medieval retirement home over any of Labour's proposed "reforms" any day.
Hi Spokey
I do have some sympathy with what you say, but I just can't wrap my head around unelected legislators. Is there another major democracy that has them?
Appointments to advisory jobs, yes, but legislators no.
We would need to weaken the electoral link with the party in Commons power, though, for the reasons you give. As a minimum, we'd need to ensure longer terms for senators.
Wat
I'm on Spokey's side here: what is democratic about another 400 careerists sucking at the taxpayers' teat and obeying a party whip in order to continue sucking?
The beauty of the Lords pre-1997 was not that it had a permanent Conservative majority but that it had a permanent conservative majority: it's conservatism was (and to a small extent still is) the only brake on the stupidity and cupidity of the Commons. As it happens pre-1997 (and since, I think, WW1) no bill passed by the Commons which was in the ruling party's manifesto was vetoed in the Lords and, of course, the Lords had no say in finance legislation. Unfortunately the Lords - as constituted pre-1997 - committed the great constitutional sin: it worked and, worse, no one person or committee designed the British legislature or the principle of the Crown in Parliament which also worked as long as it was tended by those who believed in it.
But, coming back to your point, there is no superiority or anything particularly democratic in an exercise which counts heads and then ignores what those "heads" might want (eg capital punishment, referendum on the Lisbon Treaty). We've turned our country over to shysters (both in office and in "opposition"). Accordingly, your criticism that 400 senators is too many is, although correct, beside the point. Frankly, who cares? The shysters will rule whatever happens whether there are 100 or 400.
I think we do need some form of second chamber to give some level of protection against 'the mob', to influence the primary chamber to think again about particular pieces of legislation. I'm not sure what form this second chamber should take, but I think there have been times when the Lords have proved invaluable - their relative isolation from the people is a factor in that.
There are a number of things wrong with this "major democracy" - I don't believe the Lords is the most important issue we need to resolve.
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