It seems inevitable that the House of Lords will be radically reformed or abolished altogether. To be replaced by some kind of elected Senate.
Great Britain embodies more vibrant and awe inspiring traditions than any other nation. Their relevance today lies in knitting together our past to our future. Providing a rich continuity of the eternal values of wisdom, fair play and respect. Values which the House of Lords has personified in its magnificent nearing 450 year history.
The House of Lords provides a width of expertise on a spectrum of subjects. And the Lords frequently use their insight to persuade the Commons to consider complex matters more prudently and maturely. Often recommending common sense revisions and amendments to proposed legislation. Quite frankly, the Lords are so intertwined with our monarchy, mother of parliaments and British way of life that it’s abolition would be a real tragedy.
This new so-called Senate would of course mean more career politicians with personal agendas. Naturally, the inauguration of this new upper chamber would cost the taxpayer millions. We are in danger of destroying centuries of British heritage in the name of political correctness. And to satisfy the thirst of the political classes to open further career paths for them in every walk of British public life.
The House of Lords admittedly has become more party political in recent years but there are still sufficient cross benchers, hereditary peers and Lords temporal to dampen the impact of ideology. With politics and spirituality in hand, So much so that the Lords tend to be freer thinking and more independently minded than their counterparts in the Commons. Indeed the party whip system is less rigid in the upper house and thus the Lords have greater freedom to express opposition.
Do we really want the upper chamber of our parliament to be so intensely dominated by career politicians and party politics as the Commons presently are? In the same way as I would argue that an elected President could never carry the authority or be as effective as our Queen, an elected upper chamber would not be as effective as our present House of Lords.
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