Harry's Blog

I'm sick and bloody tired of hearing about this whole cash for honours inquiry. I feel like I must have fallen asleep and missed something somewhere. When the did the world change?

For a thousand years you'd lend the ruler of our nation some money, get him laid, help him fight a war or some such leg-up and in return he'd give you a bit of Cornwall and let him called yourself Lord Whathisface.

That's just way the way things have always worked. And there's been no harm in it. People who wanted to be called Lord Somesuch got to do so and it really meant sod all to anyone else.

Now suddenly this kind of thing is illegal and being investigated by the police. Even worse the government is being so mealy-mouthed and shy about the whole thing. FFS Tony just come out and say, "Yep they lent us a few quid so I got Liz to give them some pointless bauble." Grow a fecking backbone why don't you.

And while we're at it, what's with this dismantling of the House of Lords? This has to be one of the stupidest acts perpetrated by a government in quite some time. Admittedly in my lefty youth I'd have had the whole lot lined up and shot, but then I actually studied politics at college and then university and saw the records for the work the peers do.

The fact is the democratic process is a crock, it allows the very worst in society to gain positions of power. We should be limiting their abilities to gain influence, not provide another branch of legislation for them to get involved in.

Having an unelected chamber was bloody good for our form of democracy. It provided a bulwark against the stupidity of successive extremist governments because its members did not have to fight elections. Instead it was a place full of experts on a variety of subjects who debated subjects long and hard, not to win votes or gain any power, but because these issues mattered to them.

Just look at the record of the Lords against Thatcher's government. It was a constant thorn in her side and prevented some of the more stupid extremes of legislation she tried to enact. If the Lords had been an elected body it would have been stuffed with Tory yes-men and we'd have waved goodbye to any kind of moderation.

For a democracy to work it doesn't necessarily follow that all branches of government have to be elected. I'm saddened that hundreds of years of history is being wiped away because some Labour arseholes can't distinguish between the real world and the world that existed in their head when they were lefty polytechnic students.