Veteran officers of the American Revolution were so inspired by George Washington's Cincinnatus-like qualities that they named America's first veterans association The Society of the Cincinnati (and Cincinnati, Ohio was named by the group). It was formed to preserve the new country and to help widows and orphans of the Revolutionary War. Sounds good, doesn't it? Not everyone thought so.
Ben Franklin opposed them because he believed they were trying to become an aristocratic order, which was totally unacceptable considering we had just fought a long, bloody war to get away from such things.
So when I read the news from across the pond about a corruption scandal involving Tony Blair and the House of Lords, I found it very interesting. It seems a key financial backer of Labor's (Labour?) 1997 campaign, Chai Patel, was appointed to the House of Lords by Tony Blair. It looks as if the man is purchasing a powerful position in government. Blair has been interviewed by police twice.
The scandal prompted Tim Luckhurst, a Scot and former editor of The Scotsman, to write a commentary article about the scandal in The Los Angeles Times:
Britain's upper house, which scrutinizes and revises laws passed by the elected House of Commons, plays a valuable constitutional role. It can block and delay government legislation, and it serves as the country's Supreme Court. But it is scarcely more democratic than North Korea's National Defense Council. Its membership of 732 lords consists of party appointees, Church of England bishops and hereditary aristocrats. No British voter elects any of them.
For as long as party leaders have been entitled to nominate them, there have been suspicions that the nominations can be bought; similar allegations badly damaged the reputation of Prime Minister David Lloyd George in the second decade of the 20th century. Prestige and power appeal to the rich, and it is not astonishing that some would want to use their money to acquire both. But no truly democratic system of government can afford to allow such a thing.
Labor came to power in 1997 determined not to. It embarked on reform of the upper house by stripping some hereditary aristocrats of seats their families had filled for centuries. Then it stopped, in part because Blair was reluctant to give the House of Lords a democratic legitimacy it might use to challenge the will of the elected House of Commons. The perverse consequence of this stalled and partial reform has been to give the prime minster unprecedented power to appoint new lords to replace the ones he expelled.
When you look at it you say "No - that's just wrong !". But it flies anyway and just works. The house of Lords used to work largely with the hereditary principal - which has its good points. People are effectively chosen at random (good), but have similar backgrounds (bad).
More recently Lords are appointed (the question of whether Tony Blair's Labour party sold peerages in exchange for loans is the subject of a police investigation at the moment). This system means that the great and the good - or at least the rich and influential - get appointed. Generally only the good turn up most of the time as the rich people have better things to do.
The problem with elected representatives in these days of political science and voter psychology is that all we get are the most accomplished con-men (&women) to run the country ( ie Tony Blair). My point is that this by no way guarantees the required talent to run the executive of a government.
This is perhaps a major advantage of the American system of splitting powers and having a more professional executive manned by people who the President thinks will do a good job (you just need a President smart enough to hire talent), instead of whoever doesn't drool in public from the minor celebrities that get elected as MP's in the UK. (I'm being over harsh to make a point - many of our MPs are good, educated and principled - but the system is now working to make sure there are going to be fewer of them and more token female, lesbian and whatever minority has a sizeable vote and a grudge ism. *It should be pointed out that the two groups don't correlate - Mrs Thatcher is my personal political hero, but she got there on raw talent - and a clever election campaign to be leader, not favours or social engineering).
I should say that being an MP, or trying to be one, is no picnic. And its a mistake to beat up on those people who are willing to stick their necks out and stand for office, but the system is working to change the type of people who do that and not necessarilty for the better.
In the end we, in the UK, need a better way of manning our executive.
Links:
LA Times article
House of Lords
The Society of the Cincinatti
History of The Society of the Cincinnati (highly recommended)
Cincinnatus (dates are B.C.)
3 comments:
The Gorse Fox does not question his sainted Prime Minister - there is no doubt - he, like his party, is utterly corrupted by the power they have.
He does, however, defend the concept of hereditary seats in the House of Lords. As you comment, it is tried and tested and had served us well for hundreds of years. But also, because the upper House was made up of these hereditary positions, they were able to look at legislation from a long term perspective (after all they want their heirs to inherit their position). The issue with the Commons (lower house) is that it has a perpective that is focussed on the next election; because the Lords was not directly influenced by elections they tended to look at things with a more strategic view.
Gorse Fox mourns the irreperable damage that Tony Blair has done to the checks and balances of government. He cannot adequately articulate his utter contempt for this current British Government.
I hadn't considered (or otherwise heard) the strategic view a Lord would take.
We have exactly the same problem here that you have with the Commons. Legislators want to be re-elected more than provide the best leadership for the country.
Re-election usually depends on whether a legislator successfully steered a lot of federal money back to his or her home district.
There's a huge conflict of interest, and it is something I've been thinking about for a long time. We need federal legislators not tied to any specific region of the country, perhaps in addition to the system we have now. That would curb the money-grab.
"Et Tu, Chai?"
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