Tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph splashes on the news that Justice Secretary Jack Straw is about to announce plans to replace the House of Lords with a 300-member fully elected second chamber. The paper reports:
"Ministers are ready to announce their plans, which follow years of fruitless
cross-party discussions and several votes in the House of Commons, in a bid
to wrong-foot the Tories with polling day less than two months away. Labour's plan is to provoke elements inside the Conservative Party to object
to the reforms – which would allow it to paint David Cameron as wedded to
old ideas of privilege.""Under the government's proposals, members of the new chamber would be able to
be subject to a US-style "recall ballot" which would disqualify
them for incompetence. The plans would see all members of the new-look assembly being directly
elected – ending the system of party patronage- with polling under some form
of proportional representation system taking place at the same time as
general elections. One third of the new chamber would be elected on each occasion – with members
serving three terms, up to 15 years, once elected in a similar system to the
one in use to choose members of the US Senate."
Read the full story here.
This strikes me as last-ditch unprincipled politicking which amounts to constitutional vandalism of the worst New Labour kind.
Jonathan Isaby