How to reform the House of Lords?

Well, it's certainly been a while since anything has exercised me enough to encourage me to write in here, and for all three of my committed followers, I do apologise. Today, however, is the State Opening of Parliament and one of the bills that we are likely to see in the not too distant future is that concerning the reform of the House of Lords, and unlike the majority of the population bored stiff by this debate, I have some views which may prove useful in helping observers come to a decision.

The main issue with Lords reform is that nobody is quite sure what form a new House of Lords should take. There have been all sorts of suggestions concerning the possibility of an entirely elected House, an entirely appointed House, or various permutations on those and its existing structure of 92 Hereditary Peers (including the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain), 26 Lords Spiritual, and the remaining 691 being appointed Life Peers. One of the main topics under discussion is whether, in a democracy, there is any justification for retaining a legislative role for Hereditary Peers, and the overwhelming consensus is that there is not: it is perceived as being undemocratic and "unfair" that some people should have a say in the legislature by virtue of their birth. Furthermore, there is considerably debate about whether appointed peers should remain - indeed the Liberal Democrats want to replace the House of Lords with a fully elected second chamber, and they are the party pushing most heartily fore Lords Reform, primarily because their party is in the doldrums and badly needs a win.

An elected second chamber would, I strongly believe, be one of the poorest constitutional decisions anybody of my generation has ever seen. Firstly, one questions how members should be elected, and if they should be elected at the same time as the House of Commons. Secondly, if they are elected, it will be much more difficult for the Commons to push bills through, as the Lords will be representative and demand a stronger arm on behalf of those who elected them. Would the House of Commons remain senior in that case? And finally, who would actually vote in elections to the Lords? Newspapers spoke rapturously of a return to proper democracy when 65% of the population turned out to vote in 2010 - the highest it had been for a while. If not even two thirds of the population can be bothered to vote in our most important elections, what sort of mandate is an elected second, and less important, house going to have? I would predict a turnout of less than one third of the electorate.

There is a general assumption that democracy is more or less the only acceptable way of choosing a government, and while this does make it less likely that a madman will end up as Prime Minister, democracy is merely an exercise in damage limitation and the exaltation of popularity above policy. It is important to have a mechanism whereby poor leaders can be ejected from the legislative assembly without recourse to civil war, but it does not mean that the system should apply across the board. We can already see that what we in Britain are pleased to call a democratic and representative government has led to huge social divisions and a Parliament crippled by disagreement and backstabbing within the Coalition. Our elected politicians are the worst examples of what may be produced by a democratic system: ineffectual, vain, and committed to winning votes rather than actually running the country properly, and as we are the ones who elected them, it is entirely our fault.

The second option for the Lords is to have an entirely appointed House, filled with members chosen by the House of Commons, ostensibly for their expertise, but almost always in the pursuit of political gain for the Commons. Consider the cash for peerages scandal, or the ludicrous appointment of Alan Sugar to the Lords as Gordon Brown's business czar. To appoint somebody to the Lords because in the popular imagination they embody "business" as a result of being a television personality is bad enough, but that he failed so spectacularly to actually do anything. Lord Sugar retains his seat and since his ennoblement in 2009, has voted a whole 14 times. All appointment results in is a House full of the cronies of the members of the Commons, invalidating its existence as one of the primary constitutional checks and balances.

So election doesn't work, and neither does appointment. How then to compose the House of Lords? I suggest that one of the best aspects of the House of Lords currently is the experience and expertise it lends to the consideration of legislation, often quickly rushed through the Commons and considered only for its political viability. Ideally, this strength would be increased, allowing for as apolitical debate as possible. Experts in their fields must be chosen, and I propose that a good place to start finding such experts is in the 100 chartered professional bodies in the UK. If there were one representative from each who held an office in the Lords for as long as his tenure on the committee of his association lasted, just as the Lords Spiritual currently sit by virtue of their ecclesiastical offices, there would be a constant turnover of expertise in almost every area of activity in the UK. We have also, since the election of the first Mayor of London, seen a remarkable resurgence in civic interest, which raises the possibility of raising the 31 Lords Mayor and Provost in the UK to the Lords, again in a temporary capacity, allowing legislative representation in the Lords for the largest cities in the country.

As far as regards Hereditary Peers, I believe they still have a place in Parliament. The hereditary system is completely arbitrary, and under the present method whereby all people holding a hereditary title elect a proportion of their number to the House of Lords, we have an easy group from which to choose an arbitrary control group. Evidently a nationwide lottery could be held, but that would be extremely difficult to manage and would fail to acknowledge the importance of tradition and history, both of which remain highly valued in the UK. The only problem with hereditary peers is that they tend to be somewhat politically homogeneous, but this leads me to my final suggestion: that we abolish the party system in the Upper House in the pursuit of an advisory chamber unsullied by the political machinations of the Commons, and behaving very much more like the Roman Senate, in that each member is his own mouthpiece, not merely the organ of party-political wrangling.

Messers Cameron and Clegg: I am free for consultation during working hours.

I've Never Seen A Site That Didn't Look Better Looking Back.

At midnight tonight, it appears that Basildon Council will officially serve notice of eviction to the inhabitants of Dale Farm in Essex. The result of this is that the people who live there, who call themselves Travellers, will be turfed off the land which they own because of repeated planning violations over the course of a decade or so. Predictably, the usual suspects are up in arms, including the Luvvie-In-Chief and all-round UN Good Egg Vannessa Redgrave who whinged out of my radio this morning telling me the "just go down there" and meet these people. The local Catholic bish went and did his bit, although he was altogether more sensible in his ideas, merely suggesting that the Council had better have a good idea of where people were going to go.

Still, it's quite a difference between the calls for the law to be rigorously enforced with regards to the rioters of two weeks ago, and pleas for mercy and the bending of the law for the gypsies. It is the personal opinion of your humble correspondant that the law applies to everybody, regardless of which particular law, and regardless of whatever special specious racial circumstances surround the issue. Planning law applies to everybody wishing to alter their land to ensure that the whole UK doesn't turn into one giant, unmitigated hellhole like Dale Farm.

Various defences have been put forward to persuade Basildon Council to allow the gypises to remain where they are, primarily to do with race. Indeed, the blog dedicated to Dale Farm specifically accuses Basildon council of racism for turning down their planning applications without considering the other reasons for doing so. I think quite a good one is that the whole area looks like an inhabited cess-pit - precisely the sort of thing the planning rules are there to avoid.

In any case "Traveller" is not a race, so racism cannot possibly be involved. The inhabitants claim to be descended from Scottish, Irish and Romanian wanderers, which seems essentially to encompass Europe, making them Europeans. Is it possible to be racist against your own race? Furthermore, in decribing themselves as Travellers, I'm sure I'm not wrong in inferring that means they intend to travel, perhaps when their position on a certain bit of land becomes untenable?

Whether Travellers can be considered a distinct race or not, the issue is not about that. It is evident that in a functioning society, everybody must follow the same laws. A property the immediately abuts Dale Farm must after all keep the law of the land, apparently simply because the inhabitant has the great misfortune not to be a gypsy, if those same gipsies are to be believed. No, I am firmly on the side of Basildon Council here. A decade is far to long for a planning dispute to go on, and they should have been told to clear out years ago if they continued to ignore the law.

What Came Ye Into Mayfair to Seek? A Man Dressed In Soft Raiment?

I work for a high value fund in Mayfair in London, a traditional haunt of the rich and well dressed. Since the invasion of super-rich Russians and Saudis over the last decade, this has become less evident, but I believe there is still a ring of truth to the idea. If there is one thing that will undermine the genteel society of the Clubs on the other side of Piccadilly though, it is the abhorence of dress down Friday.

From where I am sitting, in an office of five, I can see two pairs of jeans. The only tie I have seen all day has been the one I am wearing. "Why so offended?" you might ask, and it is a fair question. After all, why dress smartly if one doesn't need to? The fund is succesful and makes a lot of people very rich, so ties can be done without, can't they?

The problem with that argument is that it reduces people to homo economicus. Happily, money is not the only thing in life, although we increasingly seem to forget that, and through the pernicious influence of dress down Fridays, society is in danger of losing its élan and grace. Up until quite recently, one was careful to show everyone what a sober and succesful chap one was through the astute deployment of a well-cut suit and discretely patterned tie, and this was merely the most visible symptom of a culture that lived by a well-defined set of behavioural rules. Snobby though it sounds, deference was a part of this, and I believe that it was a very good thing. Having definite rules to follow in the majority of social encounters ensures that everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing at any one time. Somewhat like a military parade, a known set of actions leads to order and harmony. This is why table manners are considered so important. It's not the actual rules themselves that matter - they're pretty arbitrary and vary from culture to culture - rather, it's the fact that there are rules to follow. Everyone knows what they are supposed to do and everyone fits in.

In the modern age, social rules are considered deeply unfashionable. Dress codes are a good example, particularly for evening wear. There is a reason men wear black tie and appear so monochrome: it is to allow the ladies, who wear splendid dresses and dazzling jewellery, to take the limelight, while the gentlemen remain elegant yet unobtrusive. Now though, some men seem to have forgotten this very simple rule and insist on trying to out-dress each other ever more casually, like a crowd of spoiled children. Who can show the most chest hair? Ooooh, pick me!

I recommend that everybody remember that no man is an island. Shoes are polished and shirts are ironed for the same reasons that foul language is avoided and hands are shaken with a smile: everybody likes to feel valued and that other people they encounter have made an effort, even in a nebulous and impersonal way, to impress them. Since lazy celebrities have made it "cool", or at least socially acceptable to appear in public in scandalous states of undress, we have lost our manners in matters of clothing, resulting in the endless confusion as to what on Earth that ludicrous instruction "smart-casual" actually means.The sooner we can get back to a nationwide adherence to a small thing like an unwritten dress-code, the sooner we can hope to strive for a perfect example of a lady or gentleman.

Look Beyond Our Narrow Confines

This morning, news came through that UK net migration is up 21% on last year, which seems to have rather weakened the coalition's claims to trying to stem immigration. It is mildly surprising that so few Britons have upped sticks and left to work in more congenial environments - perhaps to places not threatened with imminent financial collapse - but rather less surprising is the provenance of many of our new chums. Being part of the EU, Britain is bound by laws from our excellent friends in Brussels to take all comers from within the European Economic Area, regardless of whether they're actually any good or not. The number of non-student immigrants who come without a job to go into stands at a six year high, just at the time when the political classes are rushing about wringing their hands over the vast number of unproductive wastrels making a nest of the benefits system.

While these statistics may be annoying, I do not think that they will be particularly significant to anybody who does not base their lives on what the Daily Mail tells them. What is useful about them is that they raise two questions which are very significant at the moment. Firstly, by far the largest single group of immigrants is that made up of students coming to take advantage of our excellent but creaking higher education system. Indeed, overseas students, through their higher fees, now contribute a significant portion of the income of many universities, particularly those with the great financial misfortune to be humanities-heavy, and their numbers increase every year. Meanwhile, British students are finding it increasingly difficult to get into university, such is the pressure on space, as well as having to pay a lot more. Since the market is quite clearly strong for foreign students wishing to come to study in the UK, why not put the squeeze on foreign students rather than our own?

The second point that the migration figures raise is that of the EU. Every time new immigration figures arrive, there are always calls to reduce it in some way, and that generally means capping extra-EU immigration. This, unfortunately, does not actually help as immigration from Europe continues to be allowed. All very splendid - many hands make light work and all that - but why must it only be EU immigrants?

I have a good friend and bridge partner who came to the UK from Australia having got a good degree from a very good university despite all the while serving in the Royal Australian Air Force Reserve. She now works for a well known law firm in the City and is a credit to her profession, but will shortly have to return to Australia for an extended period while renewing her visa. Not only does this remove a motivated and productive member of the work force who would otherwise continue to contribute tax revenue, it means that a subject of the Queen, a person who shares our Head of State, Parliamentary system, judicial system, military tradition, language and a good deal of our history and culture is ejected from the country in favour of immigrants who share none of these things and are not required to be at all qualified.

Now that the euro appears close to collapse, and even traditionally stable countries such as France are feeling the pinch and credit agencies beginning to look crititcally at AAA rated EU countries, is there much point in us staying in the EU? The English Channel has been described as the biggest cultural fault line in the world, and it is true that most Britons feel they have very little in common with their fellow Europeans. On the other hand, the Commonwealth provides a ready-made bloc of fifty-four countries, with the majority of which we have far more in common and has the excellent strength of having a much more diverse economic basis, and a much wider global reach. No single currency obviates the possibility of an bloc-wide default, and the diplomatic potential is arguably much greater.

Let's get shot of these CAP-munching, debt-reliant, orgy-indulging contintentals and remember why we never used to care about Europe anyway. The world is a big place, and there is a lot more out there than a Franco-German hegemony can offer us. At least I might be able to keep my bridge partner...

The Nonsense of Spreading Democracy

In the news this morning, looking bad in the papers and upsetting civilians at their breakfast, came reports from the vast meat grinder of the Middle East (all new recipe, now with added Libya!) Gaddafi is apparently about to get his head kicked in by the heroic Rebel Alliance supported by the occasional friendly missile lobbed over from Italy, while east of Suez, the Assad's minions are taking the fight to the Syrian rebels in no uncertain terms. Over all this, the "civilised" EU and United States occasionally condescend to wheeze ineffectually at the overlords of these places. Still, important to show solidarity with the oppressed masses, eh?

Of course it's not.

I didn't see hordes of newly liberated Iraqis charging over to give the rioters a damn good bit of what for a couple of weeks ago, and neither do I expect to see grateful Libyans weeping at the godlike munificence of NATO for sending some aeroplanes and ships to obliterate a war machine fighting with sixty year-old weapons. Just like in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, the captivating saga of the Middle-East peace process, and now Libya, I am reasonably certain that Western sabre-rattling will be followed up with a bomb or several in Syria to support the people we suddenly care about there, and the outcome will be the same: a lot of soldiers with sand in their underwear, a few dead, and an admission of ultimate failure, all for the bargain price of more than a trillion dollars.

So why do we care at all? Well, there's a goodish lake of oil under the deserts at the unfashionable end of the Mediterranean, but that's not it, or there'd be a Saudi-Arabia-shaped whole in the world by now. I suspect it's more to do with the fact that developed Western nations all really would quite like some nice big empires again, but are stymied by a lefitsh concern who delude themselves that many parts of the world are acutally better off without us. The only thing left to do then is to go and show off our big shiny penises guns and tanks by pretending to liberate a country from an oppressor who in many cases was put in charge by the west in the first place.

If only we got something out of the whole sorry business, I'm not sure I'd mind so much. Charging off on a proper imperialist war, in which we might at least break even, would make some sort of sense. The clowns whose heads we continually feel the need to bang together might even learn something about how to run a country. I like to think that just before Britain quit many of her colonies, there may have been discussions not unadjacent to a famous Monty Python sketch, and the beneficial proceeds of empire are clear for those with eyes to see. Now though the only things we build after decades of war are democratic systems for people who can't make them work, which in a country ruined by war, theocracy and desert is hardly surprising. At any rate, the denizens of the Cradle of Civilisation are well used to dictatorships by now, and have well-developed conflict-orientated ways of sorting out disputes. Why waste money on trying to make them do it our way, when it's more than likely they'll get it wrong and have to be violently shown the way again in two decades' time? It'll end in tears either way, so we might as well keep our chaps out of it if we're only losing money.

Imposing a political system cannot be done in a half-arsed manner. It has been shown over and over again that as soon as the tanks leave, it all goes downhill. The obvious solution is either not to put the tanks there in the first place and let people massacre each other, or not to remove them once the shooting has stopped. Put in political systems and make sure they stay there by running them ourselves. Teach the illiterate, free the women, feed the hungry and heal the sick, or do none of those things and stay at home. Let's stop being so squeamish about the issue - it's all or nothing, and it's got to be worth everybody's while.

The World's Bottomless Money Pit

When I was at school, I recall watching recordings of news footage and documentaries on all sorts of global disasters. A particular favourite topic of my teacher was the recurrence of famine in East Africa, and every time we did a case study, someone would raise their hand and say, "But sir, it seems they have a famine there almost every other day. Why do people stay there?" I always thought this was a good question, but it provoked gales of fury from the decidedly lefty master and was never really answered to my satisfaction. However, I think now is a good time to be asking such a question, along with a couple of other pertinent ones.

Since 1950, East Africa, most particularly Ethiopia, but Somalia and Eritrea were also frequently affected, has suffered nine really big famines, in 1958, 1972-1973, 1984-1985, 1991-1992, 1998-2000, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2011. Most of these were caused by drought and then exacerbated by local warlords taking advantage of the situation to have yet another bust up, but other aspects such as an exploding population and backward agricultural techniques contribute greatly to the problem, and it seems clear to me that here we have what may almost be termed an uninhabitable region, at least until some proper farming techniques are implemented, and the inhabitants stop fighting each other long enough for some infrastructure to take root. And yet none of these things happens because every time East Africa shows the world once again that it is incapable of looking after itself, the developed world pitches in with oceans of cash to fix it.

So far the aid budget for the latest crisis stands at $2,013,059,376 in tax money, or enough for about $15 for each of the 139,719,295 who call this congenial region home, with a further $612,729,918 pledged. Only about 28 million people are in need of emergency food though, so that brings the total up to $94 per person. $94! Anywhere else, you have to work for that kind of money. Since 2000, Ethiopia alone has received roughly $1.2bn per year in foreign aid, and this is discounting any charitable money. These figures beg the question of where on earth all of this money is going. Apparently not much goes towards putting seeds in the ground.

It is difficult indeed to see pictures of emaciated African children, and it is good to do one's bit, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that government aid is worse than useless, creating conditions in which people live from harvest to harvest rather than learning from the mistakes of any one of the previous famines and continuing to ignore the simple equation of hunger: Constant Sexual Activity + Desert + Tribal Warfare = Starvation.

So why are great chunks removed from our wages almost on an annual basis just to be thrown into the vast money-pit of Africa? It's not as if we don't have problems of our own. One might even feel good about it if it actually made any difference. I believe it is time to stop this farcical business of pointless "food assistance". By all means, give through a charity, but the government is not there to bail out the citizens of other countries who can't run their affairs properly. It is the primary function of government to look after its own - that's why we have one, and more to the point, why Ethiopia has one too. However, somewhat like the benefits-addicts which plague and disfigure British cities, what is there in it for East Africa to sort itself out when it can rely on such incredible sums from countries and continents that actually function? It is time for Africa to start standing on its own two feet.

With thanks to Guy Somerset for a couple of links.

Modern Major-General?

In 1878 W.S. Gilbert penned the words of I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General in which he poked fun at the imbalance between erudition and actual military prowess of senior officers in the late 19th century British Army. Such was the importance of a good classical education that very little time was set aside for the actual learning of tactics, and if an officer was fortunate enough not to see much action, he would quite likely be no more a military man than the ghastly Lord Sugar is a credit to the Upper House. How far away that world seems now when we see hordes of barely literate roughs tumbling through the school gates waving around their n A* A-Level grades which nevertheless aren't quite enough to get them a place reading Crayon Sharpening at Luton Reformed Poly.

Perusing my Twitter feed today, I noticed a missive from an officer of the Students' Union of King's College London - an reputable and upstanding institution - telling the world that "pulchritudinous" is a noun. That a post-graduate student at one of the UK's leading universities should not only be ignorant of the difference between a noun and an adjective, but willingly show everyone that ignorance is a good illustration of the sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in now, for along with the rest of the country, Our Education System Is Broken.

Naturally we have heard much about this over the last week - badly (or even barely) educated thugs from the more rioty end of town charging about setting fire to things is a cause for much soul-searching among the Guardianistas, but they've got it all the wrong way 'round. Why does nobody now boast about being able to write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform? Because the state education and exam system is so busy trying to make sure every ineducable basket case feels included and special that those who want to actually learn rather than merely be taught how to get an A are stymied at every turn. To prove my point, I have a challenge for you. Go and find the closest jubilant A-Level student and ask them to describe, even in the vaguest possible way, the plot of any two Shakespeare plays except Macbeth. I bet you they couldn't tell you. In fact, ask about Macbeth too. They can probably barely remember that.

Now this is not to say that British schoolchildren are stupid. Far from it - many are vastly more worldly and well-read than I am, but the opportunity is not given to them to develop, purely as a result of the tyranny of the exam boards. These monstrous institutions set the public exams, like A-Levels and GCSEs and are paid to do so by the government. What a surprise then that 98% of A-Level students passed. Education statistics looking a bit woeful? Somebody whizz 'round to OCR or Edexcel and have a word... Even worse is the fact that somehow these clowns (who, remember, cannot even get the questions right) have managed to acquire a monopoly on intelligence. The only way to get a good job now is to have the right results. Don't have three As and a 2:1? Enjoy your box, you smelly homeless person.

The contagion has even spread to our universities, and more so now that they are commercial operations. The concern for league table rankings in all parts of the education system means that nobody actually learns anything from it - they just tick the boxes their teachers tell them to.

So how to fix Britain? Easy. Burn down the exam boards and have schools set their own tests. Such education built the world's biggest empire, but now look at us. Exam boards, j'accuse!