When in a hole - stop digging. A basic rule for most people - but not governments.
The House of Lords avoided the close scrutiny which MPs went through (thanks to a determined journalist, and no thanks to the MPs themselves) but every so often there emerges a whiff of corruption.
Recently Baroness Udin and two colleagues were suspended for serious expenses frauds. Not kicked out - merely suspended. Not jailed - suspended. The coalition government go on about reform quite a lot. However their announcement of 54 new peers does little to reassure that they mean what they say.
As the Guardian online reported, "By what logic does a government which is cutting the size of the House of Commons do what this one did this week? Under the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill, the number of MPs in the elected house will be reduced by 50, from 650 to 600. Yet this same government yesterday increased the number of members of the unelected House of Lords by 54 to nearly 750. "
"More importantly, the new appointments, many of them involving rich donors to all three parties, give a sugar rush to the old politics that the coalition says it wishes to destroy. "
Note that last bit ,'many of them involving rich donors to all three parties.' So no change there then. 'Cash for Lordships' is alive and well. Inspector Knacker could not find sufficient evidence to prosecute the Blair team. Fancy that! A bunch of characters slipperier than a bag of eels writhing in WD40 could not be nailed down. So it must be legal. Stinks to high heaven - but it is legal.
Tweaking the size of constituencies and reducing the number of MPs has some merit. However it is pissing in the wind when the scale of real reform is considered.
A second chamber made up of wealthy donors buying status, party hacks, ageing celebs and a handful of the great and the good is not fit for purpose. Adding more of the same is no answer.
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