Best Time to Abolish House of Lords

I guess a Senate with equal representation for each of the 9 regions in England plus Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

I think the system which would be chosen would be something like the Irish Senate, with indirectly elected members and very much playing the second fiddle to the HoC. Such a regional kind of system only works in federal nations, where the rights of first-order subdivisions are firmly established.
 

Devvy

Donor
The HoL has lesser powers because it is appointed, not directly democratic. Make it fully elected, and you give it plenty of moral authority to oppose the HoC at every turn.

Personally, I'd just leave the set up as it is, convert it to a House where the Prime Minister appoints 40 "Lords" per year (of which maybe a half would reflect the makeup of the HoC, and the other half as the Government wishes) who would each sit in the House of Lords for 15 years, and then retire (they may be reappointed if a future PM wishes to after their 15 years has lapsed). Keeps it appointed and under the democratic chamber, a house of solemn review, but stops the Government stuffing new Lords in whenever convenient and keeps it slightly up to date with a slow constant churn of members. Something along those lines anyway.
 
The HoL has lesser powers because it is appointed, not directly democratic. Make it fully elected, and you give it plenty of moral authority to oppose the HoC at every turn.

Sure, but as a general rule, lower houses are more powerful than upper houses. The American Senate is the big exception to this rule.

This general rule is largely because the lower house is the one to propose legislation. I imagine even a fully and directly elected House of Lords would have de facto lesser powers although in Britain a new de facto convention is the same thing as amending the constitution.
 

kernals12

Banned
The HoL has lesser powers because it is appointed, not directly democratic. Make it fully elected, and you give it plenty of moral authority to oppose the HoC at every turn.

Personally, I'd just leave the set up as it is, convert it to a House where the Prime Minister appoints 40 "Lords" per year (of which maybe a half would reflect the makeup of the HoC, and the other half as the Government wishes) who would each sit in the House of Lords for 15 years, and then retire (they may be reappointed if a future PM wishes to after their 15 years has lapsed). Keeps it appointed and under the democratic chamber, a house of solemn review, but stops the Government stuffing new Lords in whenever convenient and keeps it slightly up to date with a slow constant churn of members. Something along those lines anyway.
Those 2 things are not directly connected.
 
How about no. :mad:

The fact that the Lords are not elected means that they don't have to pander to populism. That, and the fact that they have forced the government of the day to either back down or water down laws that would curtail civil liberties several times.

An elected second chamber would need to have very precisely defined powers, and, even then, it could end up in deadlock if different parties (or coalitions) control both chambers. The UK does not need a US-style senate.
Yes and it meant that Britain missed several chances to solve the Irish Question amongst other things, during which extended process btw the Lords most certainly pandered to the worst type of populism. The best chance of getting reform would be if the Liberal Party had somehow kept out of WW1 and Irish Home rule had gone ahead after the 1911 Act with the Lords still trying to stop it, as indeed seemed likely in 1914..
 
Yes and it meant that Britain missed several chances to solve the Irish Question amongst other things, during which extended process btw the Lords most certainly pandered to the worst type of populism. The best chance of getting reform would be if the Liberal Party had somehow kept out of WW1 and Irish Home rule had gone ahead after the 1911 Act with the Lords still trying to stop it, as indeed seemed likely in 1914..

At least part of that was Gladstone declaring that it was his way or the high way, though.
 
In Information technology terms, this is Rapid methods vs Waterfall.


Guess which was adopted first and which is now the norm ;)

For the few non nerds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_application_development
Either one of these seems a big improvement over the status quo.
https://books.google.com/books?id=9...=onepage&q="rapid methods" waterfalls&f=false

The status quo is, for example, a department store being fanatical about pushing their employees about selling the credit card!

And when the employees are not crazy about it, the company doesn’t respectfully listen and perhaps even find something more valuable for the employees to do. No, that would feel like defeat, like a sin, and just plain feel weird.
 
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An all-time classic non-interchange between theory and practice would be the “war on drugs.” Began around 1986, and only now thirty plus years later are we beginning to talk about winding it down.

And with the opioid crisis, which has caused human harm, well, it’s back to the same old moralistic approach.
 
An all-time classic non-interchange between theory and practice would be the “war on drugs.” Began around 1986, and only now thirty plus years later are we beginning to talk about winding it down.

And with the opioid crisis, which has caused human harm, well, it’s back to the same old moralistic approach.
The War on Drugs arguably goes back to the sixties if not longer ago than that.
 
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