Kamlesh Patel was made a People's Peer in 2006. But he is now not merely a member of the Government, but a Whip (which in the Lords also includes answering questions, since not every Department always has a Minister there).
Being one of Gordon's Goats without actually joining the Labour Party is at least understandable. But being a Whip without doing so is inconceivable, and it is quite impossible that any such appointment has been made.
Yes, my application is in, if only to see how far it will get. But the wider point is that People's Peers, if the whole thing is to mean anything at all, could very usefully be confined to those whom, frankly, none of the cartel parties would ever admit to membership, certainly not to that of any parliamentary caucus.
Like me.
Like many of whom I broadly, or rather more than broadly, approve: Peter Hitchens, Neil Clark, John Laughland, Phillip Blond (and even more so, behind him, John Milbank, who really would get in if he applied), and others.
But also like, say, Oliver Kamm, whom Labour would never re-admit now that he has said he voted Tory last time, and after he spent the run-up to the last General Election encouraging other people to vote Tory.
Or Douglas Murray, who used a Spectator diary column to proclaim his having voted Labour in the Ealing Southall by-election (because of a bust-up with Sayeeda Warsi on Question Time), so need not bother applying for the Conservative Party's approved candidates list. Murray, I might add, is younger than I am, and would easily be the youngest ever life peer.
So come on, Oliver Kamm and Douglas Murray, to name but two. Don't you want your perspective represented in Parliament, both now and for decades to come? My application is in. Are yours? If not, why not? Don't you think you'd get in?
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My understanding is that Lord Patel took the Labour whip in the Lords after his appointment as a peer, but before being made a Whip.
ReplyDeleteI think it's been pointed out before that you don't really have the experience or achievements to justify making you a peer. Yet. Maybe in a couple of decades - depends what you do.
(Neither, I should say, does Douglas Murray.)
In a couple of decades I'll be older than rather a lot of the Cabinet are now!
ReplyDelete"I think it's been pointed out before that you don't really have the experience or achievements to justify making you a peer"
Compared to whom? Most of those created in the Blair years (a very high percentage of the current House) literally bought it.
Absolutely anyone is more distinguished than, say, Michael Levy, or Waheed Ali. Just not as rich.
Compared to Lord Patel, for a start. Actually, compared to every non-hereditary peer I can think of.
ReplyDeleteAnd Lord Levy and Lord Ali both had very successful careers before becoming peers - even though you may not particularly approve of them.
Absolutely anyone is more distinguished than "Lord" Mandelson, as well. Honestly, he's been back a fortnight and it's started already.
ReplyDeleteBy the time this sort of process was complete, you would be about as old as George Osborne is now, and much older than he was when he was made Shadow Chancellor.
"Lord Levy and Lord Ali both had very successful careers before becoming peers"
ReplyDeleteAs what? Nothing terribly "noble", to say the least. The Big Breakfast? I ask you! They bought it. Come on.
Neither of them turns up much, either. That is a feature of Blair's Lords for cash: time was when people bought the seat in Parliament, plus the title that went with it. Whereas now they just buy the title, plus the seat in Parliament that goes with it, but which they do not use.
Yet the Lords is still a functioning House of Parliament. It still has votes, and proper questions, and all sorts. Not like down the corridor.
"you would be about as old as George Osborne is now"
I am no more a member of the Bullingdon Club than I am a member of the Groucho Club. Whereas I wouldn't be too surprised if Douglas Murray were a member of both of them.
Anonymous 17:40 is one of those people who believe you have to be semi-retired or older to do anything politically beyond serving the drinks.
ReplyDeleteBut then they happily support a London-imposed teenage parliamentary candidate when the sitting MP retires.
What's that you say? You can't find anyone local? Well why the hell do you think that is?
Either a member of the Bullingdon Club or a member of the Groucho Club, depending on the party.
ReplyDeleteIf not both.
And I don't just mean both clubs.
Is Anonymous 17:40 a member of the Bullingdon Club, the Groucho Club, or both?
ReplyDeleteNeither.
ReplyDeleteBut he so, so, SOOO wishes that he were.
Deep into middle age with nothing to show for it. You can always spot them.
I think he's older than that. A bitter old man. Your critics mostly are.
ReplyDeleteThis blog alone is qualification enough. Your range and depth of knowledge would fit into the Lords perfectly. It would be wasted on the Commons, and completely wasted on any of the three parties.
ReplyDeleteBe gentle on Anonymous 17:40. No, he's not as clever as you. But nor would he have had the same opportunities even if he had been. Things were much harder in his day. And everyone under 40 looks about 12 to him now. That will come to us all eventually.
You are very kind to both of us.
ReplyDeleteOf course there is nothing new about very young peers. Although they couldn't take their seats until they were 21, there have even been posthumous sons who inherited peerages at birth. Then, at 21, they started turning up. And you are quite a bit older than 21.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, quite a bit...
ReplyDeletePosthumous sons who inherited at birth can still vote and stand in elections for the elected hereditaries. How old do they have to be?
ReplyDeleteConsiderably younger than I am. It would certainly be no older than 21, and might even be 18 now, like the Commons in theory.
ReplyDeleteYou make a very interesting point. By that route, and most especially among the very few Labour hereditary peers, a seat in the House of Lords is still perfectly possible at 21 (if not 18 - I'll have to check), not just in theory as in the Commons, but in practice.
The title, not the job. Yes, that sums up people like Anonymous 17:40.
ReplyDeleteTo him, a peerage is just a super-knighthood. So it doesn't matter what, if any, political opinions you hold.
But it's not. It's a seat in Parliament. So it matters like hell what, if any, political opinions you hold.
And it matters like hell that great swathes of public opinion are either under-represented or not represented at all.
Go for it, David. But expect post and emails coming out of your ears from the newly enfranchised if you get in.
I look forward to it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that there have been plenty of peerages awarded that were not deserved - some of them absolutely disgraceful. But obviously, you'll agree that two wrongs don't make a right. So what do you think makes you, personally, a good candidate for a peerage?
ReplyDeleteOh, I have submitted that at some length to the Appointments Commission.
ReplyDeleteBut the top and bottom of it is that I offer several decades (God willing) of representation to a position and numerous consequent views which, despite having a considerable following in the country at large, are not currently much represented within the parliamentary process, and indeed ever less so as the few remaining such peers die and the even fewer remaining such MPs are replaced on retirement (or, in at least one case so far, by means of deselection) with cartel politicians of whichever nominal party.
Add in that the removal of the hereditaries has massively upped the age profile (the idea that peers have always at least ordinarily been old is historically illiterate, and that history goes all the way up into the last decade) and massively reduced the representation of everywhere outside London, including the North, with the North East particularly hard done by. That Londonisation was greatly exacerbated by Blair's creation of huge numbers of what were almost exclusively very metropolitan peers indeed.
And add in that there is no mixed-race person in either House, that there is no one born in a remaining British Overseas Territory in either House, that no one born in Saint Helena has ever sat in either House, and that there is still (indeed, increasingly) the age-old under-representation of those of us who attended either or both of state schools and non-Oxbridge universities.
"My application is in. Are yours? If not, why not? Don't you think you'd get in?"
ReplyDeleteI probably would get in. But why would I want to? I have a proper job.
As you would have to have. It's unpaid.
ReplyDelete