And another thing…

quite protective of lord Mandy aren’t we Tom…

do you still harbour ambitions for him to ride back into the commons on his shinny big horse (pony) and save the Labour party from electoral oblivion?!! u could be his saddle boy perhaps…

The ‘cooling-off’ period was always in the proposals for HoL reform.

The idea was to safeguard the independence of the house. Lords – either the appointed sort or the directly-elected ones – shouldn’t be toeing the party line in the hope of a plum Commons seat. The Lords wasn’t supposed to be a political route to the Commons (like being an MEP is for many), but a separate track of our democracy.

Tom
It’s Jack Straw. Have some sympathy for a man who has no idea what he is doing.

As for his proposals, they will not be implemented this side of an election: and of course will not be after an election. So they are hardly worth wasting bandwith on.

Any legislation that makes Peter Mandelson’s life a little worse is alright by me.

Assuming enough people can be found who will vote for him, I think that Mandelson ought to be subjected to the rigours of the Commons as soon as possible.

He is having a far to cosy ride on the red benches.

…….I’ll support this plan, provided you introduce a reciprocal clause which bars former MPs from being considered for membership of the upper house for a similar period.

That’s an excellent proposal, going stratight from the commons to the lords is just sinecures for the boys/girls who toed the party line.

25 year cooling off period seems about right.

Richard: “Any legislation that makes Peter Mandelson’s life a little worse is alright by me.”

Me too. Bring back hanging for treason and what him squirm. Well, even more than usual.

Had this been in effect after 1999, my MP – John Thurso – wouldn’t have stood in 2001, and he’s served us well.

Then again, if it inconveniences Mandy…

As Chris says, there’s a far better case to make this the other way around (not least for a certain someone who almost certainly didn’t go the full hog with abolishing life peerages so he could get a baronetcy).

How many have gone in this direction, by whatever means, recently? John Thurso, Tony Benn, who else?

It is a very odd proposal, and difficult to see why 5 years instead of 3 or 7 was chosen, other than it matches the Parliamentary period.

I can see an argument that it would prevent a Lord being parachuted into the Commons for political purposes – make Mr X into Lord X to get political experience, then make them Mr X, MP a few months later in a by-election.

(not mentioning any Baron Sugars seeking office as Mayor of London)

However, that can easily be fixed by simply baring Lords from resigning until the next Dissolution of the House of Commons.

The procedure of Dissolution would be amended, so that when the Monarch agrees to dissolve the Commons, she also consents to the expulsion of those Lords who seek to resign.

That a Lord does not resign, but is expelled from the House of Lords would fit in with the fiction that an MP cannot resign, but takes an office of profit under the Crown.

It might also enable an interesting aspect that if a Lord is expelled, then they cannot be readmitted at a later date.

For example, if a Lord resigned to participate in a by-election, and lost it (which would be embarrassing!) then they can’t be pushed back into the Lords as a consolation prize.

Meh – I’d like some sort of mild reform to the House of Lords; mainly to put the Appointments Commission in charge of all appointments with party recommendation lists, with also a function to enable ministers to be brought before either House. I think that so long as the Commission has power over new appointments, the cooling off period before entering the Lords isn’t needed.

As to a cooling off period after leaving the Lords? There may be something in it.

Either way, I am very sceptical of Jack Straw in these reforms. Quite why he was lumbered with constitutional reform I don’t know, but an elected house with no re-election for the members? What’s the bloody point in reforming it when you do this?

One, this gives no more accountability to the Lords since that’s exactly what the current members have; two, some of the best and brightest in the Lords aren’t able to stand for election, particularly the professors; three, we’d likely lose the non-partisan cross-benchers which ensure a constant hung house; four, if done by PR (and I’ve not seen any proposals for voting systems so far) this house will have arguably *more* legitimacy than the Commons!

Some of his other reforms are good – the power of expulsion for criminality by the Lords, for example. But I still think he’s got the wrong end of the stick.

I don’t like the smell of any restriction on who we can vote for. It should only exclude infants, the insane and the incarcerated as they are not capable of independent action and thought. (Open goal)

You know Tom just how hypocritical
can Labour be. You should have introduced a fully elected HOL, but no you use it as a way of bringing even more people to power without us having a say or vote as in the case of Mandelson. Failed as an MP, failed as a euro commisioner. So he is dropped on us via the HOL.
It is just not on and is just so Labour to say one thing and do another.
I would prefere the old guard on hereditary
peers rather than what we have now.

Labour says one thing does another.

The country does not want Mandelson get it.

I’d like Mandelson in the Commons as soon as possible, please.

Not that I don’t find him slimy and repellent of course.

It’s just that he terrifies Tories even more than olden Labour.

@ Liberanos

Most Conservatives I’ve been speaking to don’t find Mandelson in the least bit scary.

Truth be told the majority seem dumb-founded that a man who has resigned not once, but twice could even be considered for a role (no matter how minor) in the Mother of all Parliaments and that his undemocratic appointment is simply the last throw of the dice by a discredited and deeply unpopular fag-end government.

The only thing that really scares Conservatives is the thought of Blair as EU President but luckily that seems to scare a lot of Labour voters too…

Blimey Tom, I’m struck by the rather passionate tone of your post here.

It’s not often you hear a backbench MP telling a member of the cabinet to ‘grow up’. Well said though

@Richard

If the amount of foam-flecked invective spattering Mandelson from almost every Tory commentator isn’t a measure of their fear, then, of course, you’re right.

@ Liberanos
Contempt isn’t the same as fear.

I have contempt for Mandelson but I certainly don’t fear him.

I do fear what Labour might try to do in their attempt to hang on to power but I trust in parliamentary democracy to moderate their actions.

@richard

Political fear is totally unlike fear in the real world.

It simply means awareness of a person’s ability to cause your party problems.

Contempt for Mandelson is also widespread.

But that is more personal than political, I’d suggest.

As far as I’m concerned, Olden Labour is the only threat to the country.

New Labour and the Tories are more or less interchangeably beneficial.

@ Liberanos
“New Labour and the Tories are more or less interchangeably beneficial.”

You couldn’t be more wrong. Tony and his cohorts realised that a Labour party openly espousing socialism could never win in a post Thatcher world. They discarded a number of high profile policies (Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament, Clause 4, etc) in order to make themselves acceptable to “middle England” voters.

Once in power they increased taxes for higher earners, redistributed wealth downwards, doubled the number of public sector employees and have borrowed sums of money that are frankly unimaginable to normal people.

Tony’s “project” was frankly astounding. He made Labour look appealing and, in doing so, hoodwinked large numbers of people into voting for something they would never have done had they realised what he was actually about.

I fear Tony. He had the PT Barnum gift of making you feel good about being tricked.

[...] Tom Harris isn’t overly impressed at some aspects of the proposals for reforming the House of [...]