Possibly last chance to reform Lords

On 7 March 2007, MPs will have the best - and possibly last - chance to democratically reform the House of Lords for a generation. Visit the Lord's Reform Day website that is dedicated to encouraging MPs to vote for a predominantly or wholly elected second chamber, and to reject proposals to retain political patronage. It has plenty of good info on the site. I've already emailed David Drew MP and would urge others to do likewise from the website.

"Hereditary privilege is completely at odds with a modern democracy that claims to offer opportunity to all regardless of their birth. It is for this reason that members of the House of Lords should be elected. It is also essential to remove the Bench of Bishops; religious privilege is as much an outrage as hereditary privilege. Religion and the state should be entirely separate."
Rebecca Elliott, Penarth, Vale Of Glamorgan

Some will remember earlier this year I bought myself a virtual online peerage - Baron Booth of Bread Street - to highlight the terrible state of affairs where it appears that people can buy there way into the House of Lords (Click labels to see previous blogs). Amazingly investigations continue on that..heres a quote from Director of Unlock Democracy Peter Facey:

"The loans-for-lordships controversy has raged for a year now and is severely damaging British politics. As long as political parties are reliant on large donations and they retain the power of patronage, the perception of sleaze will remain. The main parties however appear to be unable or unwilling to see this, with Sir Hayden Phillips' attempts to develop a consensus on party funding deadlocked, and the government insisting that a third of the second chamber should continue to be appointed by party leaders. It is time they woke up."

We are long overdue reform.