A British Senate

Today's Telegraph piece, on which comments are welcome over there as well as here:

Recall elections are a Lib Dems’ charter for nuisance. And the Labour Party Conference did not cheer the abolition of hereditary peers to the rafters the way it used to. Heard it all before. Heard a referendum on electoral reform before, too. But when it comes to an elected second chamber, it looks as if they might actually do it this time. For good or ill.

Here’s a plan. Each of the 99 units that are the English ceremonial counties, the Scottish lieutenancy areas, the Welsh preserved counties and the Northern Irish counties should elect the same number of Senators. Four? Five? Six? How big do we want the Senate to be? For the sake of argument, let’s say six per county. Each of us would vote for one candidate, and the top six would be declared elected at the end. Another six, who would have to be Crossbenchers, would be elected in the same way by the country as a whole. Certain newspaper columnists and others could be told to put up or shut up. They would in any case be glad to put up.

Party candidates should be selected by submitting the shortlist of two to a ballot of all registered voters in the county. As ever with primaries, there would be nothing to stop unsuccessful candidates, or anyone else, from putting up as Independents. There should be a residency requirement: candidates for the Senate should have to have been registered voters in the county (or, perhaps, one immediately adjacent) throughout the previous 10 years. And while Ministers should have to appear regularly before the Senate in order to answer its questions, Senators should be banned from being Ministers. It would thus be possible to build a career specifically as a legislator.

And we might even ban parties that contest Commons elections from contesting Senate ones. This would allow new formations to emerge, and locate them within the parliamentary process. An economically and socially libertarian, internationally neocon party, if you must, although I’m not sure that anyone would vote for it. But also a High Tory paleocon party, an Old Labour Left party, an Old Liberal party (quite possibly the old Liberal Party, which still exists), a party for us Old Labour High Tories, and others. With none ever having a Senate majority.

Let’s make the most of this one. There could be plenty of most to make.

As I have already had cause to comment:

You’ve never been to County Durham, have you? Among many other places.

I freely admit that I use the term [Old Labour High Tories] for effect. Which it certainly has.

But more broadly, in The Broken Compass, Peter Hitchens recently asked where “right-wing Labour” had gone. Well, less of the “right-wing”, please. But I know – and I mean that I really do know – exactly what he means.

Imagine a political movement with an absolute commitment to the Welfare State, workers’ rights, consumer protection, strong communities, conservation (not environmentalism), fair taxation, full employment, proper local government, a powerful Parliament, and a base of real property for every household to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State. Old Labour, indeed. For that matter, High Tory, indeed.

And imagine a political movement with a no less absolute commitment to the monarchy, the organic Constitution, national sovereignty, the Union, the Commonwealth, the countryside, grammar schools, traditional moral and social values, controlled immigration, and a realistic foreign policy. High Tory, indeed. For that matter, Old Labour, indeed.

When Labour was like that, it got a lot more than the twenty-two per cent of the eligible vote with which it managed to win the last General Election. Turnout in its traditional heartlands was a lot more than the one in three that some of them recorded last time. And the Monday Club and Alf Garnett Tendencies were a lot less significant among those who bothered to vote at all than to be able to maintain a party capable of winning two Strasbourg seats and a place on a Question Time panel.