There are many reasons why the House of Lords should be removed. Boris Johnson ably (for once), albeit inadvertently, aided the case with his resignation honours.
Ignore all those who were refused and then note the appointment of this person:
Miss Charlotte Katherine Tranter Owen
Wikipedia struggled to make an entry for Charlotte Owen, so lacking in note has she been. This is what they have to say:
Charlotte Kathryn Tranter Owen (born 1993)[1][2] is a British former special adviser.[3] In June 2023 it was announced that she was to be granted a life peerage in the 2022 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours.[4] Owen will be the youngest life peer in British history.[5]
Owen graduated from the University of York in 2015, gaining a 2:1 in Politics and International Relations.[6] She is not known to have any formal professional qualifications or experience of work. She worked as an intern and parliamentary assistant, before joining the 'Number 10' Political Unit as a special adviser in an unknown role under successive prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.[7] [8] In her special adviser role, Owen worked 50% for Boris Johnson, and 50% for the Chief Whip and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, Chris Heaton-Harris. At the time, there was much speculation given her modest achievements, as to what significant contribution to British society was made to justify the ennoblement.[9]
Two paragraphs, with no known work or professional experience outside Westminster, and just eight years out of university, she has been ennobled.
I will ignore the unfair tittle-tattle, and gender is not an issue for me: a man with the same experience would be subject to identical questions from me.
And that question is a simple one, and is what has this person done by the age of 30 to justify being a member of the House of Lords for life? My answer is that nothing can justify this.
But if this is possible, it is time for the Lords to go, in my opinion.
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I haven’t heard / read any tittle tattle but it is impossible, given the character also involved, not to add 2+ 2 and come up with a 4.
Since this is a family orientated blog I will pass over in silence the fragrant Charlotte, Mr Fatberg’s past history with women, the precise meaning of the phrase “special adviser” and “compromat”. Obviously, there is no connection implied or imputed by this random list of words and phrases.
Abolish the Lords, indeed. To be replaced with? I’d favour a lottery of all UK citizens – who then sit for 2 or 3 years & who have the power to reject all gov legislation. They would have their own full time advisers. This would make life deeply uncomfortable for politicos… good. & like a jury, they (the 2nd chamber) could not speak at all to the press. & perhaps they could be located in……….Scunthorpe or somewhere well away from the Wezzie village.
I have been saying a similar thing for ages. That way we get the whole population engaged and these days you don’t even have to go to London or Edinburgh, It can all be dome from home. We need something better than anoth party political chamber that dances to the whip’s tune
If you are actually serious that is one of most deranged set of suggestions I’ve seen in a long time.
A group of people drawn at random able to just override a democratically elected government?
And, apparently, operating in secret with no scrutiny?
I should make clear I do not support Mike’s idea
I also have reservations about Citizen’s Assemblies
Deranged qui moi?
I was not suggesting the 2nd chamber operate in secret, just that the meeja would not be able to speak directly to them – or only via spokespeople. Randomly selected people seem to do quite well delivering what is left of British justice (the best that money can buy eh what!) – maybe we could try a second chamber selected as per jury service. Of course we could continue the way we are going (or not). But what is interesting is this:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/13/quarter-in-uk-believe-covid-was-a-hoax-poll-on-conspiracy-theories-finds
I’d suggest that it is Indicative of a population so completely & totally detached from the political process, that they have zero trust in UK politicos. 25% of them. Doubtless we will see in due course what happens when a population that is completely & totally detached but is also heavily armed (USA) gets really really pissed off. The option of not involving UK serfs meaningfully in the political process is not an option. Adding, …..Liebore is attempting to shrink and control its membership – the mob at the top want it to stay as a smallish easily controlled clique. They don’t want PR, they are happy for your vote not to count. So by all means take no action, by all means call me deranged …..but if you can see what I can see etc.
Do you think he took Carrie’s advice on this one?
Crony honours, including to the Lord’s, has been rife for decades. I believe there was some controversy about Harold Wilson’s resignation honours. So it was not invented by Boris.
But it does undermine the legitimacy of the Lord’s which, I agree, should go (in its current form). The problem is that this has been stated many times over the last century, but no government can agree on what should replace it. So the madness goes on.
I was struck that, given modern life expectancy figures, she is likely to be a member of the Lords for another 59 years. I’ve reluctantly realised of late that we live in an aristocratic theocracy, and this makes that even worse.
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/calendar/?d=2023-06-13#cal43735
A debate tomorrow motion to regret and decline the public order act. The two people bringing the debate are Jenny Jones and Vernon Coaker. Yesterday Prem Sikka said if he was there he would vote with Jenny Jones and ignore the labour whip, which obviously Coaker is doing.
We obviously need a second chamber to control the first. It happens occasionally.
I wonder if Johnson has still asked them all not to take up their seats in the lords to avoid by-elections.
Additionally why on earth would a 30 year old be interested in entering the lords? Surely drinking to excess, smoking Benson & Hedges, listening to Zep and Deep Purple and disappointing one’s parents would be more appropriate?
I was well ver all that at 30
I had payrolls I was responsible to by then
I look forward to the BBC interviewing this person once she is ennobled, to find out what she says for herself about her qualifications, her politics, and her agenda (if she has one).
Certainly you, Richard, and many of your contributors to this blog, would also be better placed.
And I’m pretty sure that I would be just as good a candidate for the house of Lords as she is, and probably better, and I am not one to blow my own trumpet.
I would really not be interested
It would take me away from what I want to do
This is the measure of the ‘man’ – whom he considers worthy of honours!
Unbelievable.
When I sit here today at work on my lunch break looking at all the hard working, under-valued people doing good work, I can only totally agree with you.
This is one time where I respectfully disagree with you, Richard. I certainly agree that reform is needed to various aspects of the HoL (the members themselves also agree to this), including the system of PM’s honours lists. But I am not alone in thinking that the HoL does a very good job in its role as a scrutinising chamber, and that this is actually aided by the fact that members are appointed, not elected. Yes, the appointment system throws up some egregious instances like this one. However, it also enables the appointment of many people of real distinction, expertise, and experience, most of whom would never be willing or able to put themselves up for election to an elected second chamber (which, as Isabel Hardman shows in her book Why We Get the Wrong Politicians, costs large amounts of time and money). Hardman also provides extensive evidence that the HoL does a far better job than the HoC in scrutinising and improving legislation, again partly because its members are not as dependent on their parties for their careers. I do not think that replacing the HoL with an elected second chamber would be an improvement. A second chamber with significant power tends to lead to either gridlock or constitutional crisis or both (see, for example, the U.S., Japan, and Australia). A second chamber with the relatively weak powers of the HoL would be unlikely to attract high calibre people to run for election (though it probably would attract people of Charlotte Owen’s calibre, so the result would probably be more of her quality, not fewer). I predict that if the HoL were replaced, before long many people would be regretting what we had lost.
Let’s agree to differ.
I see no role for the HoL in any modern democracy
The only reason Prem accepted was so he could vote to get rid of it.
Agreed
But he works darned hard
I’ve been watching a zoom tonight on Covid and about it still being about transmission.
John Puntis was on, who runs KONP.
I asked whether Michael Mansfield had heard from the Met about charging Johnson and Hancock with misconduct in public office. John Puntis said that they had just heard that there was insufficient evidence, but they hope that the Hallett enquiry will put that beyond doubt.
Both Puntis and Mansfield would make good members of the HoL, if we have to have one.
Could have been worse Trump trying to buy off Stormy Daniels by sending her to the House of Lords!*!*!
A good many years ago I was surprised to find myself asked if I was interested in being considered for a peerage.
I felt however that there were others who would have made a better job of being a peer than I would so nevefr followed it up.
Just a few fairly random thoughts. Mike Parr’s proposal seems attractive, but would just 3 years be enough to get to grips with systems and issues? Who would the advisers be? Senior experienced civil servants? And if so where would the real power of such a chamber lie? We do need an effective revising/scrutinising/blocking second chamber to form an effective brake on untrammelled misuse of power by the Commons such as we are now seeing though. Not life peerages (say fixed term 15 year appointments renewable at term). This would give long enough tenure to see things through and perhaps avoid some of the short-termism that plagues us now. Not necessarily full time either. People of the calibre we need would want and indeed be needed to pursue and develop the skills and abilities that made them suitable to be there in the first place. But we would need a minimum commitment. Not London. Harrogate is quite close to the geographical centre of GB and would benefit from the necessary upgrade to its transport links. Other bids could be invited. And definitely not 800+. Which comes to the thorny issue of selection. I would want to see the major areas of expertise represented, Keep the Supreme Court justices. Also the Lords Spiritual but representative of all faiths and none. People with expertise in the major professions, academic disciplines (STEM and the humanities) and industries. And still the thorny issue of selection remains. Electoral colleges of the constituencies I have listed? Include a group to serve shorter periods chosen by sortition?
Lose the Lords Spiritual and add trade union representatives, I would suggest.
Not enough
I am intrigued that Alok Sharma got blocked by the committee . Why? Given the numerous other total charlatans that they let through what on earth as Sharma done to prevent him joining them all.
I wondered that, too.
Maybe because he is actually concerned with addressing climate change and expressed his visceral disappointment with the world leaders’ collective irresponsibility in this matter at the end of the COP he led.
I honestly find it astonishing that all the people who voted to leave the EU because of the nonexistent “unelected bureaucrats “ support the monarchy and the House of Lords. For centuries we have been trained to defer to our “betters”
And yet when our “betters” walk all over us we just shrug and accept it.