The House of Lords...

I suppose that unlike some, I do love and rejoice in the history of the UK. As much as I dislike the "class system", as shown by the royalty. I do not agree that they are in any way better than my local street sweeper or lolly pop lady, or even more worthy than a nurse, a dentist or even a mere blogger!

Aah but they do provide us with a tangible link to our past, they are a pageant, a glimpse of what once was. They in all their robes and finery are a spectacle as only we English can do so well. One that many other countries envy, they respect our history and pay money to come and see it.

I too adore our pageantry and castles, the history of these lands, being able to trace our linage back more than 200 years, our hero's, their actions on our behalf, link them to this future, always visible, even if rarely ever acknowledged.

The United Kingdom has a wide and vivid history that stretches back through all our troubles, it shows the way we as a nation moved forwards, even when we moved forward in an unjust way, we changed and adapted. We learned to make mistakes but not be afraid to correct those mistakes. How we and the self belief that we had in ourselves as a nation, have made our mark on the world. We exported our sense of fairplay, our sense of justice, our belief in the rights of the common man. Think how worse would the world be without this nation having been here?

We have no reasons and precious little understanding of how or why the things that we do actually work, but work they do! We trust them to work, and for every jobsworth we have, we also have many that do the right thing, because it is the right thing to do.

As my case in point I give you the House of Lords, surely one of the strangest anachronism that exists, the idea that a set of the landed gentry, should have any concept of how to keep the common man free, on the face of it seems farcical. But that is what they do, Yes, I accept they occasionally make mistakes, who doesn't, but on the whole they do nothing but good. They are our safeguard, our first line of defence against the stupidity and ineptitude of the House of Commons. They are a balance, a check on the government. They cannot change the laws, they cannot change legislation, they can only recommend, and by doing so, buy us, the common people time to see the errors that the elected politicians have missed or misread. It gives us a chance to ask questions, a chance to say "hang on that is plain fucking stupid" or more basically, There is NO FUCKING WAY your doing that!!!

I am all for modernisation if something needs changing then by all means change it, but not just sake of being modern, of needing to be "Up to Date", of being "with it". Change for changes sake does nothing and usually cock's everything up.

The House of Lords actually works, so why reform? Is it that they do just what they are supposed to do? That they follow the purpose of their being so well, that they frustrate governments wishes? That they are a safeguard, that they do point out government follies? Why do the politicians hate the house of lords? bloody hell after years of questionable service by some bloody incompetent politicians are they and have they not been elevated to the House of Lords?

Yes by all means reduce the hereditary peers, as has been done, but to go for a totally elected house is foolishness.

Let the status quo remain, long live the House of Lords!