Unfinished Business: Reforming the House of Lords Book

It does, when you consider it, pass belief that a democratic country should, in part, be ruled by a second chamber dominated by hereditary nobles; one of the strengths of this study of the case for reform is that it expresses real outrage at the situation. There has always been a pragmatic argument for retaining the hereditary peers--if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Richards and Welfare comprehensively dismiss this argument, demonstrating that the various occasions on which the second chamber has fulfilled its role as critic of "elective dictatorship" have been occasions on which a lead was taken by the life peers--it is the hereditary peers, with their strong Conservative bias, who, for example, prevented a more effective attack on the Poll Tax. The authors go on to consider alternatives--an entirely nominated second chamber would be undemocratic, a mega-Quango, while an entirely elected one would have, in a sense too much legitimacy. This is an admirable polemic because the authors have the intellectual integrity to spot the difference between a compromise and a fudge; their suggestions combine idealism with pragmatism and are based on a fair-minded sense of what the issues are. --Roz KaveneyRead More