So! If hereditary peers can vote in the house of lords, it is not democratic is it ?

Question

So! If hereditary peers can vote in the house of lords, it is not democratic is it ?

Answer 1

no but neither was communism and they still voted

Answer 2

Herditary peers must now be ELECTED  to Parliament! Visit http://www.lordsappointments.gov.uk

"In May 2000 a historic change was made to the way in which non–party–political members of the House of Lords are appointed. The Appointments Commission was given the key role of recommending to Her Majesty The Queen the names of individuals we think should be appointed on merit.

We ask the public to self–nominate or to nominate others they think should be appointed to the House of Lords and the Commission assesses all the nominations against the published criteria.

Eight new non-party-political appointments, recommended by the Commission, were announced in 2007 (six on 15 February and two on 18 October).  They joined the seven announced on  3 May 2006 and those in 2005 ( two on 22 March and five on 22 July).  Seven were previously  announced on 1 May 2004 and the first fifteen appointees were  announced in April 2001.

This website also sets out information about:

the Appointments Commission, including the Commission’s role, membership, code of practice and register of interests;

  

the nomination process. You can read the updated information pack [114KB DOC] in its entirety or go straight to the introductory letter, the nominations process, the criteria the Commission will use in assessing nominations and the  nomination form [44KB DOC].

Please use the website feedback form to give us your comments on the work we do. And, of course, may I encourage you to think about nominating someone – it might be yourself - who you think meets our criteria?

Dennis Stevenson

Chairman of the Appointments Commission "

So,some changes have been made...this monarchy is constitutional more than democratic in some ways.But the monarch isn't all powerful and shares responsibilities with Parliament these days.

Answer 3

Good thing. I would rather have people there with a modicum of wisdom and experience than the elected lickspittles and psychopaths found in the lower chamber.

Answer 4

It is - or was -constituted in a very ridiculous way by today's ideas, but it has very little power.

The two things go together.

If you replace it by an elected chamber, they will want more power.  What legitimacy have the House of Commons got that THEY don't have?

A nominated chamber has dangers of croneyism

Perhaps abolition would be the best option.

Advocated by a young politician in 1905-10.  Called Winston Churchill.  I wonder what happened to him.

Tony Blair's dangerous constitutional tinkering blinded most people to the way his governmant was grinding the faces of the poor.

Answer 5

It is about as deomcratic as the supreme court is in the u.s.a.The judges there are chosen by whichever president is in power at the time and wield considerable power long after the president who elected them has left office.

Answer 6

Things worked a whole lot better when the majority of peers were hereditary. However, the dictators that are our government are working on erasing the last vestiges of our democracy and will soon have what you want. That is a full compliant load of crawlers.

Answer 7

The only true democracy is Switzerland where the population gets to vote on legislation reguarly.  The rest of us live in republics, constitutional monarchies, etc.  The UK is a parliamentary monarchy.  The House of Lords is a vestige of old times.  Now, the hereditary peers get to elect members from their ranks to the house of lords and sit with the apointed for life members.  As all legislation comes from the house of commons, the UK is not unlike the constitutional monarchies.  After all, when was the last time a bill was vetoed by the Queen or squashed by the House of Lords?

Answer 8

No, but then the governernment can invoke the parliament act to override them, thus restoring the clever-stupid balance....

Answer 9

Well, our system is not true democracy, and never has been.

New labour has long had committees and groups wielding real power, whom no one has actually voted for!

A two house system does have advantages, very often the real 'testing' of proposed legislature takes place in the upper house, away from the yahoo-ism of the other place. And the life peerages act has for many years ensured that, unlike the other place, you are likely to find an expert on almost any subject somewhere in the house of peers.

Answer 10

Well, no.  Nobody ever said the House of Lords was a democratic institution.