Why does anyone bother with elections at all? Just let the historic aristocracy of every country keep running things. Apparently they’re more representative of the people than elected politicians.
So what? Twenty-two chartered accountants, including one Liz Truss, were elected to the Commons at the last election. Are there more of them in the Lords?
According to this link, 30% of the MPs elected at the 2015 election had an occupational background in business. Why do you keep assuming that MPs don’t have just as varied – if not more varied – experiences than hereditary peers?
I am genuinely baffled how you’ve come by your position. If you were saying that MPs are not very representative of the British populace – I would agree with you! MPs are generally better educated, more affluent, and more white-collar than the population at large. But saying that hereditary peers – who are even MORE likely to be highly educated, affluent and move in upper class social circles – somehow are more representative of the population at large, is absurd on the face of it.
Aristocrats – they’re just like us!
Professional politicians self-select. People who have seats in Lords tossed at them (perhaps by “some watery tart threw a sword at you”) are somewhat random. Random means just that, representative of the group from which they are drawn, a random sample.
A truly random Lords, would by definition be truly representative.
Because we prefer our legislatures to be democratic rather than representative.
I guess it all depends what aspect of the British public we are trying to represent. Opinions would vary on that question.
If ethnicity, then the UK is roughly 13% “non-white” and the commons is pretty close (10%) certainly closer than the Lords ((8%).
If higher education, then both are a way off. Both are roughly the same at around 85% who went to university and the proportion in the population at large is debateable but likely well below 40%.
Gender? the proportions are not too dissimilar (Lords 29% women, Commons 35%)
Sexuality? no idea. Class? no real idea (though the small proportion of heriditary lords are by definition aristocratic). Height? weight? music taste?
One might say that the commons scores highly on selection by political affiliation. Surely it must because the numbers selected reflect public voting?..well not really. In 2015 UKIP gained 12% of the popular vote and had no representation at all. Same for the Greens with 3%. In the Lords there is much greater fluidity and freedom to hold cross-party affiliation or none at all. That aspect at least is a better representation of public political affiliation than the rigidity of the commons.
One key thing that is highly unrepresentative in the commons is the fact that everyone who is there, wants to be there, and wants to be an MP. That suggests a mindset not necessarily shared by too many in the general public.
One other way that the Lords might be more representative of the public at large is that many of them didn’t ask for their seat, nor set out their career to attain it. That, at least, might suggest a different, less politically-skewed and less partisan mindset even though it doesn’t make the Lords necessarily more representative of the public overall.
It is tempting to assume that Lords=heriditary toffs, fox hunting, public school, buggery, crumpets and ermine and once upon a time that was true (the name doesn’t help). Elements of it still remain but that is reducing over time as the balance shifts.
I wouldn’t want them making laws without being directly elected but nor do I think a lack of direct election makes them unsuited to holding the commons to scrutiny. I think they are representative enough to do that job and with a few tweaks here and there it could be even better. (remove most of the bishops, remove the heriditary peers, assign those seats to the various key offices and positions in industry, art, environment, education, science etc)
(ETA when I mention the Greens it seemed to imply that they had no representation at all, not so. They had the grand total of 1 MP when their vote share suggested 18-20 would be more representative of their support. They shared the same problem of a representation deficit that UKIP did, but perversely the Greens had more representation than a party that got four times their vote share…go figure.)
I think this is where you and I are just unable to get on the same wavelength. You’re positing that “self-selecting” and “random” are the two, opposite ways to appoint politicians to office. But you can have a process that isn’t self-selecting but is also not “random.” And choosing leaders from a very, very small circle of demographically homogenous hereditary peers is in no way random.
Although I’d also dispute that service in the Lords is not “self-selecting” – none of them have to agree to serve.
The heriditary peers in the Lords make up less than 90 of the 700+ seats and getting less as time goes on.
I’d prefer there to be none and I’m sure we’ll get there in fairly short order.
They are randomly selected from those families. (Lady Someone got the title rather than her sister.) If we thought it was worth having a truly representative Lords, we could take steps to make it even more random. That is an interesting thought experiment but beyond the scope of this discussion.
But is it even important that the legislature be representative of every race, sexual persuasion and medical malady? Probably not. Diabetics can probably be served by a legislature that has “too few” diabetics. At some level we must ask how identity politics are.
- No they’re not and even if they were choosimg from members of a family is very unlikely to be representative of the population.
- It really seems like you don’t know what “random” means,
They are not randomly selected – which specific peers are selected to fill the hereditary peer seats in the Lords is determined by the House of Lords Act which provides that different hereditary peers are elected according to different rules – some are elected by the whole house, some by Conservative peers, some by Labor peers, etc.
But at this point we’re just talking past each other. You have a definition of “random” and “representative” that is completely alien to me.
Yeah I agree.
Well, I’d at least thank him for bringing up the issue, so I could know how the House of Lords is actually populated. It’s not something I’ve ever really thought about, but when I’d hear mention of it, I always assumed it was all hereditary peers.
Good to know it’s not.
Of course I am talking about the hereditary lords, especially before the reforms of a few years ago.
A person is born. He gets a title for no reason or talent, only because of who his parents are. He is the same as the baby two bassinettes over. Just as likely to be smart or stupid. Just as likely to be Gay or Straight. Just as likely to succeed in life, or to fail. Just a typical baby. He may earn great honors, or not, but he is in line for a lordship.
For the random accident of his parents.
But they don’t enter the Lords at birth. Hereditary peers enter the Lords when (1) they inherit the title, which mostly happens later in life, and (2) they get elected by their fellow hereditary peers. By which time they have disproportionately enjoyed an upbringing, education, career and social networking systematically characterised by material and social privilege and entitlement. They are not remotely representative of the British people by age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic class or shared experience.
Nowadays they are elected by their fellow peers, previously not so much.
Using just the accident of birth as a means of selection ensured both the ill and the healthy, the dislikeable and the popular are a mirror of humanity in general. On occasion there have been poor Lords who attended just for the per diem. (One lived in council housing, I regret I cannot find his Telegraph obituary.) More than a few people have become lords young.
If we wanted an even more representative Lords, we could easily tweak a few rules. But of course that is outside the scope of this discussion.
Is your argument that maintaining the hereditary Lords in the House of Lords would be more representative of the British public (no typo this time) than an elected, possibly renamed, House of Lords?
I hope I’m not strawmanning your argument. Please restate it if I am. But countering the argument described above is the fact that none of the 92 hereditary peers sitting in the House of Lords are female.
Also, I took a look at the first five hereditary peers sitting in the House of Lords who were elected by the whole House. All five went to “public schools” (in the UK, that means schools that charge fees and can select their students). Four of the five attended university/higher education.
I think the popular impression is that hereditary peers mostly have privileged childhoods and opportunities not available to the general public. My belief is that the popular impression is generally true, even if there are exceptions. I’d argue against a law that excluded hereditary peers from the House of Lords. However, the law that only hereditary peers can be selected for 92 seats in the House of Lords is both undemocratic and unrepresentative. If Keir Starmer has any interest in reforming the House of Lords, I believe the hereditary peers would be one of his targets. I also believe he’d have more success attempting to modify the current makeup of the House, rather than totally restructuring or replacing it.
Starmer knows well that the House of Lords is an anethema to the left wing of his party and they would like to abolish it and replace it with something else. He is throwing them a bone of contention.
The SNP in the Scottish Parliament refuse to nominate new Lords. If Labour also refuse to nominate Lords, this will make the body progressively unbalanced politically and put pressure on the Conservatives to reform it. He knows there is no way they can do this. It helps put clear water between a Labour campaign and the Conservatives in the competition for the centre.
Starmer is also carefully positioning his policies to avoid another Brexit debate and avoiding the immigration issue.
He wants to get his party elected. To do that he has to be very careful and outmanoeuvre Sunak. For that he needs to keep the radicals in his party under control who typically want a broad swathe of left wing policies as party policy. Starmer wants a long term success like New Labour under Blair.
Regretfully, I think you’re right. My regret is that I think there is a strong case for the House of Lords to be reformed. At the very least, the Lords who are tasked with reviewing legislation should treat it as a full time job and not rely on per-diem based on if they signed the entry log on their way to lunch. (I may be exaggerating.)
I’m not a fan of the Labour Party, but I don’t mind Keir Starmer as a politician. If he runs in January 2025 with a sensible platform, I could possibly vote for him. But I don’t think a plank of abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected chamber could be a part of a sensible platform.