Iain Dale’s timely blog post about the need for Bishops sitting in the House of Lords to avoid party politics has got me thinking. Am I alone in noticing that the issue of House of Lords reform has almost completely...

When I think of the House of Lords, I think about trust, honour, nobility, honesty and integrity. The formal title of the House of Lords is:The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.If a Peer's honour is found to be in question after an investigation carried out by Lords Interests sub committee, th...

I am democrat and I instinctively support elections for the House of Lords, on the basic principle that those who legislate for us ought to be directly accountable to us, the voters. However, the speech of Baroness Betty Boothroyd has awoken a deep fear in me about these reforms. Currently the big criticism is that appointments to the House of Lords is down to patronage of the Prime Minister and P...

The House of Lords has rejected 42 days internment for “terrorist” suspects by 309 votes to 118 - apparently the biggest defeat in the House of Lords in living memory. If proof was needed of the importance of an independent upper house, unaffected by the whims and whips of party politics, this is surely it.  Despite

As I mentioned when blogging Ming Campbell’s speech from Liberal Democrat conference, the motion in favour of Lords reform was passed overwhelmingly. That in itself was not a surprise, but that does not mean actually securing Lords reform will be easy. Two immediate ways you can support the campaign for House of Lords reform are:

Letters From A Tory has been crunching the numbers, and discovered that those in the House of Lords have nearly as highly a developed penchant for living high on the hog (on our money) as their loathsome Commons counterparts. Of course, if we knew that every single member of the House of Lords was spending all their time doing their duty to Parliament and the United Kingdom by working extremely ha...

In 1997 the Labour Party manifesto outlined that under a Labour government the House of Lords would be reformed so that “the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute…“. It was clear that change appeared to be on the agenda and the House of

Whilst the News of the World scandal has drawn virtually all of the attention, the clock has started ticking on the work of the Joint Select Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill. Comprising twenty six members appointed from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, it is charged with

Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire: With reform of the House of Lords back in the news following the latest scandals over who is in it and how they behave, now seems a good time to provide some background on its political make-up. Since political parties first emerged in British politics, the then wholly hereditary House of Lords

With reform of the House of Lords back in the news following the latest scandals over who is in it and how they behave, now seems a good time to provide some background on its political make-up. Since political parties first emerged in British politics, the then wholly hereditary House of Lords consistently had a very