They would under electoral reform! (OK, perhaps putting a little too much faith in politicians there...)

But meh. I don't like the idea of a birth-right giving someone the power to sit as a Lord and decide on legislation. And as much as the Lords can protect us from stupid legislation, it also can prevent good legistlation becoming reality, effectively existing to maintain things as close to the status quo as possible.

Do away with the peers, make it elected (perhaps withsome portion of life time appointments in specialist areas), and remove the Parliament Act to prevent tits like Tony Blair can't force through anything they bloody well like because they can rely on the fear within their own ranks of the whip system.

Assuming we're not going for violent revoluion, of course.

Elect 'em for life, then :D

I dunno, it's all fucked.

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.

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.