Friday 17 October 2008

I, The People's

I laughed out loud when I read the suggestions that I apply to become a People's Peer. But I might just give it a go after all. Not because I would expect to get it, but if anything to illustrate that I wouldn't while, say, the doubtless worthy but hardly demotic Elspeth Howe did, even though she would have been raised to the peerage anyway (see below on that one).

There is a widespread fantasy that, because they have to Crossbenchers, People's Peers have to be non-political, or at least non-party-political. They don't. They just have to sit as Crossbenchers, which is not the same thing at all. The material for potential applicants makes this entirely plain. Is Geoffrey Howe's wife not a member of the Conservative Party? Somehow, I think that she is. For that matter, there is absolutely nothing to prevent them from taking a party whip once they are safely in the House of Lords, even on their first day.

They are picked by a committee, itself picked by another committee, the chairman of which was duly one of the first people to be made a People's Peer. Seriously. That week on Any Questions, even Roy Jenkins had to admit that everyone who was anyone had known that these particular people were going to be given peerages in the next round, and that this scheme just happened to be the next round.

Someone involved in the process made a remark to the effect that "we'd hardly send a hairdresser to the red benches, would we?", and the GMB duly inaugurated a sadly unsuccessful campaign to have a hairdresser among its members made a peeress. Which raises an interesting point: the sorts of people who used to be made Labour peers from trade union and other (such as co-operative) backgrounds would never be raised to the ermine these days, so perhaps they should apply to become People's Peers instead?

An unsuccessful initial applicant was Peter Hitchens, who argued that he articulated a widespread perspective which is nevertheless excluded from the parliamentary process. Well, I certainly hear that. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that economically social democratic, morally and socially conservative British and Commonwealth patriots are actually at lot more numerous than people who agree with Hitchens about absolutely or almost everything, and account for a significant part of the Mail on Sunday's market lead: they would never or very rarely buy the Daily Mail, but they buy the Mail on Sunday every week largely or exclusively in order to read Peter Hitchens.

There are still some peers like this, but they are really rather old. Age is one of the PC cards that I can play if I have to: I had thought that I was now beyond ever being the youngest person to do anything, but I would still be the youngest person ever to be made a life peer. And, unless I am very much mistaken, and given that Afro-Caribbeans identify as black, there is now no mixed-race member of either House, despite our rapidly growing numbers (one in five children under five, for example).

Anyway, if nothing else, I would have no difficulty writing and placing an article on this little adventure.

So keep watching this space.

10 comments:

  1. Good luck, and all that, but I don't believe you're actually qualified to be a peer. By which I mean that you don't have any significant achievements to your name, that I can think of. So I'd be surprised if you got it - and I don't think you deserve to get it. The committee would be absolutely right to turn you down.

    (That might change in 20 years or so. Depends what you do with your life.)

    That's not to say that there haven't been other peers who are underqualified - of course there have. But two wrongs don't make a right.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's a good idea. I'll apply too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Do. And do let us know how you get on.

    CDC, you're thinking of the usual route to these things, which is exactly what this scheme is not supposed to be.

    As I said, I don't really expect to get it, although who even applies for it these days? Most people think that it was a one-off, but in fact it still exists.

    And being the voice of widespread but soon to be entirely unrepresented opinion (how much longer can certain Labour or ex-Labour peers live, or at least turn up regularly?) seems as good a qualification as any.

    ReplyDelete
  4. And being the voice of widespread but soon to be entirely unrepresented opinion (how much longer can certain Labour or ex-Labour peers live, or at least turn up regularly?) seems as good a qualification as any.

    Well, I'm not at all sure that you are that.

    If you are, then you don't need a peerage to get into parliament. If you're not, then you don't deserve to get there.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "If you are, then you don't need a peerage to get into parliament"

    Alas, you probably do these days: the historical abberration (for so it is) of electing all MPs from single-member constituencies by First Past The Post, the safety of most seats for one party or another, the vice-like central grip over local parties, the total interchangeability of the parties at that central point, the star-struck deference of their dwindling (mostly elderly) activists in the country at large, and so forth.

    ReplyDelete
  6. So you no longer think you have much of a chance in NW Durham?

    ReplyDelete
  7. I didn't say that. After all, the only application process for the Commons is that of simply standing for election, pretty much rigged though most such elections now are.

    And the circumstances here are going to be very particular: even though it knew that Hilary Armstrong was not getting any younger, and even though it knew that there would be an all-women shortlist when she retired, the Constituency Labour Party has failed to identify and cultivate a local successor, so is looking at the imposition of some Emily's Lister or other from deepest Islington.

    Which won't go down well round here.

    Won't go down well at all.

    ReplyDelete
  8. If they give you a peerage then you can't stand for the Commons. Maybe they'll do it for that very reason.

    A lot of Hitchens-reading Old Labour are Catholics like you, whereas Hitchens-reading Old Tories are mostly Protestants. That Old Labour Catholic tradition really could do with someone high profile at Westminster.

    If in the Lords then only initially. An elected second chamber will come within the next 10 years at most. And then, still only in your 40s, you could stand for the House that provides the Prime Minister.

    ReplyDelete
  9. If they gave you this and Clerk to Stanley Town Council, they'd get rid of you electorally but you'd still be set up for life. Are they so thick that they will look this gift horse in the mouth?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Being Clerk is not exactly a full-time job whatever the wage. If they have any sense they'll do as Jim suggests and let you spend two or three days per week in London. The Clerk's job is really two or three days at most. For forty grand.

    ReplyDelete