The United Kingdom is one the oldest Parliamentary democracies on the planet. The Palace of Westminster is sometimes described as the “mother of parliaments” – though the man who coined that phrase, the great reformer John Bright, was in fact referring to England not its Parliament.
Though many democracies around the world have adopted elements of the Westminster system, there’s been little enthusiasm for one of its most prominent features – the House of Lords.
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The ‘Upper House’ of the British Parliament is an anomaly – the product not so much of a long and illustrious history, but of a series of half-finished reforms. It is a botch-job and everyone knows it.
This doesn’t appear to be a problem for other countries. Almost without exception, the mature democracies of the world manage perfectly well with either an elected or no second chamber – and yet the British balk at both options.
We may not love the House of Lords, but we’ve had it for so long that its abolition would feel like an amputation. As for the other option, the creation of hundreds more elected, paid politicians would not be welcomed by a country heartily sick of politics.
The underlying failure on the part of House of Lords reformers is that they don’t have a credible answer to a basic question: What would be the point?
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