http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords?wasRedirected=true

 

composition wise, labour have nothing like a majority. The Tories have more hereditary peers. Being given the right to govern based on an accident of birth is and always has been a shit idea - those in positions of privilege did bugger all to improve the life of commoners historically.

(shhhhh, I'm slurring labour)

Seriously? Who has improved the lives of commoners historically, then?

Jim

Jim is an emperor :(

Things started improving as power was moved away from the lords. Civil rights movements have had a big impact in terms of applying pressure. The odd peer helped but mostly it's the commons that's driven change - mps campaign on issues that are important to the electorate and since most of them do actually have principles they generally work to meet their promises.

I meant who, specifically.

What people who were not societally/culturally privileged have improved the lot of commoners?

(I would argue that 'things started changing' as 'commoners' became the privileged class as power shifted from the church and monarchy to the merchant class. Who then, through their newly formed parliaments and so on, went on to improve the lot of their own particular class)

I'm not digging out bloody names and case studies for you!!! The suffragettes. There. Happy!?

 

In return, you can now tell me the name of one hereditary peer who did something really substantially good for us commoners without being forced to by the house of commons or the peasants who worked for them!

Which one of the suffragettes was not socially privileged?

 

I didn't say that the House of Lords ever instigated any particular legislation to improve the lot of the commoners because, well, for one, the House of Lords can't instigate legislation.

 

I'm saying that the privileged class, which through most of the 20th century has been the upper middle class, always works to improve its own lot, with some trickle down benefits for the classes below.

 

The Barons and their Magna Carta, for example. The landed 'gentry' of America with their Declaration of Independence. The rich, industrial Northern Americans with their Reconstruction.

The upper middle class is not the same thing as the hereditary peers - you seem to be arguing for going back to a version of the good old days where the house of lords was occupied by peers who earned their position there through being born in the right family by looking at a completely different set of people.

 

In the days of the Magna Carta, people working the land were not given any privilege or better quality of life automatically because of the Magna Carta.

 

Now I remember why I hate politics. I'll let someone who gives more of a fuck the chance to get in.

>>for one, the House of Lords can't instigate legislation.

 

Yes it can.

:$

I didn't say they were. You said all advances stemmed from unprivileged people, that's all I was challenging. The privileged class in any time will act in its own advantage, for the most part, and the classes 'below' will get a bit of trickle-down benefit. Which is what I was saying about the Magna Carta and the rest. The Magna Carta paved the way for parliament, however.