open Democracy News Analysis - Lords, Senators, what should we call them?, Anthony Barnett - Comments

Alex Parsons on "Lords, Senators, what should we call them?"

Alex Parsons — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:21:44 +0000

Hang on, if recalls are triggered by 1/3 of the electorate who originally voted for a Senator supporting one, that implies we’ll need to know who those voters are. I know in practice votes can already be matched back up afterwards, but I think there’s a difference between the theoretical capability in the event of fraud allegations and writing the use of it into the democratic process. Assuming recalls are not only implemented but used on occasion, that’s a lot of votes that would have to be checked, I just can’t see a way to use recalls in multi member systems without severely harming the idea of a secret ballot. Recalls seem like interesting ideas for executives (but perhaps hard to adapt from the US strong two party culture) but don’t seem to make a lot of sense in legislatures.

Best I can come up name-wise for a sortition house is is ‘Guard (or Watcher) of Parliament’ to sum up their role not as legislating members but as keeping MPs honest and guarding against Parliament becoming too disconnected from the public. Maybe a tad literal but hey.

Not logged in on "Lords, Senators, what should we call them?"

Not logged in — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:27:44 +0000

I care less what they're called and more how they are elected and what their purpose is. They should serve 6 year terms, so they can uphold the law without being venerable to public opinion which would prevent them removing our civil liberties in the aftermath of a terror attack.

However, there should be different classes of senators (or whatever else you want them to be called), like in the US, so they are elected in two year intervals ever six years, i.e. the first class elected in 2009, the second in 2011, the third in 2013, and then the first again in 2015.

They should be able to be recalled by the public, but, unlike the governments proposals, they should be senior to MP's (and paid accordingly) because their six year terms would shelter them from the short term whips of public opinion, but make them more venerable to long term public opinion.

Of-course that will never happen, the MoJ will do whatever is in the best interests of the broken Westminster system.

Anthony Barnett on "Lords, Senators, what should we call them?"

Anthony Barnett — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:58:28 +0000

Peer less, or can the blind lead the blind?

Not logged in on "Lords, Senators, what should we call them?"

Not logged in — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:25:30 +0000

From Keith McBurney

If, as you say, they appear to be selected before elected, then 'The Peerless 400' because that is what their parties will expect from them in return - peering into less. 'The Unscrutable 400' is in similar watered down vein.
Aye Ours,
Keith

Not logged in on "Lords, Senators, what should we call them?"

Not logged in — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:43:00 +0000

The government is already committed to a partially open list system (ref. Lords reform white paper last year). It remains to be seen how open the system will be (there has been cross-party support for fully open lists or STV), but they certainly won't be closed as they are for European elections.

James Graham
Quaequam Blog!

Not logged in on "Lords, Senators, what should we call them?"

Not logged in — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:51:21 +0000

Or, I suppose you could just call them the House of Peers - partly, also, because it would be their job to 'peer into' legislation from the other place.

David, aka Britology Watch

Not logged in on "Lords, Senators, what should we call them?"

Not logged in — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:44:28 +0000

How about the 'House of Free Citizens' to evoke its civic, representative, class-less and non-partisan character . . . supposedly? A member of the House would then be called and addressed as Citizen so-and-so.

In a similar vein, there's always 'House of Equals'; members addressing themselves, accordingly, as 'peers' (. . . ) or as 'my Equal' - that's quite neat, even if I do say so myself.

'Senator', at root, means 'wise old man'. So we could also call them 'Elders', I suppose. Though not 'sages'!

David, aka Britology Watch

Toque on "Lords, Senators, what should we call them?"

Toque — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:58:47 +0000

Party lists? Oh great, like we haven't had enough of political parties and their jobs for the boys mentality.

Lords, Senators, what should we call them?, Anthony Barnett

Tom Griffin — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:00:28 +0000

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): The government will soon publish its plans for the Lords. By all accounts it will go for a wholly elected second chamber doing the same job that the current House of Lords does.

By refusing to make the Commons do a proper job, a second chamber will be needed to clean up the mess, if it can, on an everyday basis. I'm not talking about rejecting proposals like 42 days, which the reform will be designed to prevent. To be democratic it has to have experienced politicians elected to it. Hence it will be a 400 seat chamber elected by some kind of proportional method. Watch out for the party list system. If the Sunday Times is right, Straw will have thought up a nice wheeze to distract everyone by offering voters the powers of recall.

Once this would have been a huge step forward, if they were replacing hereditary peers. Now, hum. We have an independent House which is to the left of the Commons for the first time ever, forcing MPs to do their work and providing a degree of legislative independence from the executive that the Commons simply cannot do.

So what does it so - it abolishes this impediment to its corrupt and servile ways. Apparently all three parties will agree on the legislation to go through after the next election. So do we have a choice? No, this is democracy. The excuse, that this will prevent the existing Lords from rejecting the legislation after an election. (Could they say, but hang on, the public were not given a choice so we don't accept that this is the will of the people?)

I think it is time for some imagination. Peter Carty and I wrote a pamphlet on The Athenian Option saying that the Commons should be the legislature and the second chamber should ask such questions as: is this law in understandable english? and MPs did you read this? and will this do what you say? This kind of scrutiny and assessment could be carried out by the equivalent of an Athenian jury. It's called sortition. You'll hear a lot more of that word, even if it is not yet in your spellcheck. The Athenian Option is about to be republished by the excellent Imprint Academic in a new series.

But however they are chosen, what should we call them? Senators, like Supreme Court, reveals the American-slavishness of our political class. can't we think of something better. Whether elected or selected by lot, can there be a better, less Roman-imperial name?

The winner will get to chose whatever book he wants from Imprint Academic.