Friday, 19 November 2010

Lords A Leaping

The new peers were announced today, in a list of 'working peers'.

Perhaps this is to distinguish the new peers from the other lot of peers who presumably do little work.

They include:
The millionaire car importer Bob Edmiston, who gave £2m to the Tories, the Conservative party treasurer Stanley Fink, and the Labour donor Sir Gulam Noon.

Howard Flight, a former deputy chairman of the Conservative party, and Tina Stowell, a former deputy chief of staff to William Hague when he was opposition leader, were also on the list.

Better-known names include the screenwriter Julian Fellowes, celebrity divorce solicitor Fiona Shackleton and the former defence chief General Sir Richard Dannatt.
Dannatt, the former chief of the general staff who clashed with the last Labour government over Afghanistan, was nominated by David Cameron when he was leader of the opposition, but has chosen to sit as a crossbench peer.

Others promoted include: Rachel Heyhoe-Flint, the former captain of England women's cricket team, Susan Kramer, the ousted Liberal Democrat MP, and Oona King, the former MP recently beaten by Ken Livingstone in the contest to become Labour's next candidate for mayor of London.

5 comments:

dazmando said...

On another note on the older peers 80 of them never even turned up to the chamber last year

Adrian Windisch said...

And some of the new ones probably wont, Michael Grade must be a busy man.

The reason given for making so many new peers is to address the imbalance, too many Lab peers. So why make 10 more Lab peers? And in particular Oona King?

Better reform the system, kick the lot of em out, let the public vote on some new ones with PR. Then we will get some Green peers.

Ed said...

Yes, and BNP peers as well. How can this strike you as anything other than an awful prospect, even bearing in mind your own interest in getting a Green Lord in?


Ed

Adrian Windisch said...

That would be democracy, getting what people voted for. A few Bnp Cllrs have gotten elected, then ejected when the public see how rubbish they are.

I expect the same will happen with the MEPs. Time will tell.

Ed said...

Quite a high proportion of the electorate would vote to bring back the death penalty, that doesn't mean it's right.

Anyway, thanks for clarifying your position on extremists in the Lords.

Personally I'll be voting to retain FPTP to avoid anything like this happening, if it comes to a vote.


Ed