Sixty Joyless De-Britished Uncrowned Commonpoor Years (1949-2009)

Elizabeth II Vice-Regal Saint: Remembering Paul Comtois (1895–1966), Lt.-Governor of Québec
Britannic Inheritance: Britain's proud legacy. What legacy will America leave?
English Debate: Daniel Hannan revels in making mince meat of Gordon Brown
Crazy Canucks: British MP banned from Canada on national security grounds
Happy St. Patrick's: Will Ireland ever return to the Commonwealth?
Voyage Through the Commonwealth: World cruise around the faded bits of pink.
No Queen for the Green: The Green Party of Canada votes to dispense with monarchy.
"Sir Edward Kennedy": The Queen has awarded the senator an honorary Knighthood.
President Obama: Hates Britain, but is keen to meet the Queen?
The Princess Royal: Princess Anne "outstanding" in Australia.
H.M.S. Victory: In 1744, 1000 sailors went down with a cargo of gold.
Queen's Commonwealth: Britain is letting the Commonwealth die.
Justice Kirby: His support for monarchy almost lost him appointment to High Court
Royal Military Academy: Sandhurst abolishes the Apostles' Creed.
Air Marshal Alec Maisner, R.I.P. Half Polish, half German and 100% British.
Cherie Blair: Not a vain, self regarding, shallow thinking viper after all.
Harry Potter: Celebrated rich kid thinks the Royals should not be celebrated
The Royal Jelly: A new king has been coronated, and his subjects are in a merry mood
Victoria Cross: Australian TROOPER MARK DONALDSON awarded the VC
Godless Buses: Royal Navy veteran, Ron Heather, refuses to drive his bus
Labour's Class War: To expunge those with the slightest pretensions to gentility
100 Top English Novels of All Time: The Essential Fictional Library
BIG BEN: Celebrating 150 Years of the Clock Tower

Thursday 8 March 2007

Whither the Lords

They would have us elect the Lord God Almighty if they thought they could get away with it. Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways; reclothe us in our rightful mind, in purer lives thy service find, in deeper reverence, praise...

The long ascendency of democracy is reaching its zenith, and with it will come the final purge of the nobility, reflecting the triumph of modernist legitimacy and merit over the ancien regime notions of hereditary rights, privilege and honour. Even today, the ancient House of Lords Spiritual and Temporal remains the most distinguished body of collective human achievement and wisdom anywhere in the world, despite the corrupting handywork of "cash for peerages" Tony and his like-minded predecessors. It is lamentable that with an 80% or 100% elected Lords the quality of that great chamber will surely decline, and become beholden to special interests, opinion polls and spin doctoring in the process.

Gone will be the independence and wise countenance of the last of the great noble gentlemen. In its place will come the grandstanding, power grubbing politicians and all their loathsome baggage. Having destroyed the Second Estate and all of its inherited glory, they will now surely feast their eyes on the First.

UpperHouseDate: Ben Russell writing in The Independent, manages to smear the entire noble history of the Lords by citing eight ignoble examples over a 1,000 year period. I could come up with eight examples from the House of Commons this year alone! Loathsome, worthless degenerate!

8 comments:

Flambeaux said...

Is there a solution? Besides prayer, I mean.

Dundonald said...

This vote was largely meaningless, and one should not take the result at face value.

The members of the House of Commons do not wish to see a rival chamber, equal in stature to the Commons by virtue of the fact that their selection method is “democratic”, and thus "legitimate". The Government (and MPs) would prefer to see a weaker subservient chamber that can be subverted by the Parliament Act whenever the need arises.

Thus, the Government’s preferred “reform” option was to retain a sizable appointed element to replace the hereditary Peers. By selecting the Government's least favoured option (100% elected), MPs have essentially kicked the process of Lords reform into the long grass, using a Johnny Wilkinson sized boot.

Roy Eappen said...

I also oppose most of Blair's reforms to the h=House of Lords. It is disgraceful

Anonymous said...

Wither the house of lords - please. and the unelected senate in Canada as well

The Monarchist said...

The Senate, yes, but not the Lords, which has an entirely different and noble tradition. The stars are really lining up for Prime Minister Harper on almost every issue in Canada. Now he can say see, they're even reforming the Lords of Parliament, so what possibly can be the justification for having an appointed upper house here.

J.K. Baltzersen said...

I am no fan of what has happened to the House of Lords, through constitutional reforms, since and including Parliament Act 1911.

When Winston Churchill – while having no regrets about his stand on the bill that became Parliament Act 1911 – spoke in 1947 against what was to become Parliament Act 1949, further eroding the powers of the upper house, he explicitly stated that it was good "we" thought of not abolishing Their Lordships' absolute veto against bills "extending the life of Parliament".

What good is that if "the other place" is changed beyond recognition?

The Monarchist said...

Precisely, JKB. The Westminster tradition requires its members to maintain a Westminster disposition, and because they increasingly haven't, the whole system is being radically altered. A fully elected House of Lords changes the whole centuries long dynamic. It changes everything.

Anonymous said...

My opinion on this matter is summed up in a maxim, that human history is divided into two phases:

"What would it hurt?"
"How was I supposed to know?"

Invariably, chastisement in the second phase is the great corrective upon which we fickle men rely.