Arguably the United Kingdom was not a true electoral democracy until the 50s and until decolonisation. In the early 20th century the United Kingdom governed much of the world and non of those people had much say in the government that governed them.
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I think people outside the UK don't really understand the value of the Lords or the way it works, which is remarkably restrained and serious even given various governments' attempts to stack it, and your comment is giving a crucial wrong impression.
With a handful of exceptions, I'll take the UK House of Lords over a dysfunctional elected senate. There's very little bad-faith use of powers there and far less obstructionism, compared to, just say for example, the US Senate, which is almost totally dysfunctional.
The US counterpart isn't so much the Senate as the Supreme Court: permanently appointed partisan lawmakers. The US Supreme Court is limited in that it can only make law on the cases brought before it, but it's been a critical flashpoint for so much social change in the US. To a certain extent the US "gets" to have a dysfunctional senate because critical civil rights issues are fought in the courts instead.
(The people complaining about "judicial activism" have a very real point that a lot of critical US law comes from the Supreme Court, it's just that that includes basic things like "allowing people of different races to marry despite what Virginia wants")
It is also a problem that everyone runs to the US for comparison and not, say, the UK's elected devolved assemblies. Which seem to be reasonably functional with their proportional systems. (Stormont is dysfunctional because of the civil war, not structural issues in the assembly itself)
What precisely do you find dysfunctional about the Senate compared to the House of Representatives or UK Parliament?
As I understand it in the USA system, you can get legislation starting in both houses that often get merged.
Whereas in the UK (apart from the one single form of the veto) the Lords can only delay or offer amendments to legislation, and the Commons can reject them.
It puts the Lords much more in the service of the Commons than the comment I was replying to suggests. People outside the UK might see an unelected chamber making law, but it doesn't and can't. It can only offer reflection and advice.
The US system, I'm sorry, but your Senate is wilfully obstructionist in its roles in federal appointments and judges, the majority abuses procedure to suit it, and it is abusing both the two thirds majority rule -- by simply refusing to even sit when things won't on the face of it won't get past strict party loyalty -- and the filibuster.
Look at how unseriously it treated its role in the impeachment or Obama's supreme court picks; the whole world sees an unserious, childish organisation.
There is party representation in the Lords but it does not work the way it does in the Senate, because nobody is running for election (there are also many "crossbench" peers who have no affiliation).
Second, the way your system elects senators is by no means impervious to the MTG types. John Kennedy, Josh Hawley, Kyrsten Sinema -- these are not serious people; they either act in bad faith, play up to their base or don't turn up. Hawley is actively bad, John Kennedy is a fake and a disgrace, and Sinema is wasting her seat. (Let's agree not to talk about Rand Paul or Ted Cruz.)
Because of how the Lords works, almost nobody is in that sort of position, and the Lords functions in a genuinely more collegiate way. I mean someone offered to resign -- in good faith and all seriousness -- from a ministerial position in the Lords for being late.
> As I understand it in the USA system, you can get legislation starting in both houses that often get merged.
> Whereas in the UK (apart from the one single form of the veto) the Lords can only delay or offer amendments to legislation, and the Commons can reject them.
Correct. I think this point actually makes it a more effective chamber of deliberation because the Senate is empowered to bring forth an alternative, initiate legislation that the House is unwilling to, or stop legislation in its tracks.
> It puts the Lords much more in the service of the Commons than the comment I was replying to suggests. People outside the UK might see an unelected chamber making law, but it doesn't and can't. It can only offer reflection and advice.
I don’t see this as a feature. A Senate in service to the House would be subordinate and less effective. If it works for the UK, great, but your Parliament has passed much legislation in the past 20 years that has made it a less appealing alternative to my own country over time, to me at least. Still a wonderful country to visit, just respectfully not a place I would choose to emigrate to. :)
> The US system, I'm sorry, but your Senate is wilfully obstructionist in its roles in federal appointments and judges, the majority abuses procedure to suit it, and it is abusing both the two thirds majority rule -- by simply refusing to even si when things won't on the face of it won't get past strict party loyalty -- and the fillibuster.
If you can stomach a single podcast episode on the American system of government, Constitutionally Speaking’s latest episode, Episode 77, has a good primer on the Filibuster in an American historical context and why we have it. The long and the short of it is, it benefits both parties, at least in the present, but likely only has a few years of life left in it because of our contemporary political situation. It’s 3/5 to bring cloture so the Senate can proceed to the next item on the agenda, and the Senate has both the power to revise its standing rules and does so regularly. If you can stomach two episodes, the preceding episode covers how the US House functions.
> Second, the way your system elects senators is by no means impervious to the MTG types. John Kennedy, Josh Hawley, Kyrsten Sinema -- these are not serious people; they either act in bad faith, play up to their base or don't turn up.
Resistant would be a more honest way of putting it rather than impervious, and I didn’t mean to suggest it was impervious, merely resistant.
That said, I agree with your assessment of the individual Senators save for the fact that I wouldn’t put any of them in the same league as the two House members I listed nor many more that I could list. One of the nice things about deliberative bodies of all stripes though is that they tend not to speak with one voice.
> Because of how the Lords works, almost nobody is in that sort of position, and the Lords functions in a genuinely more collegiate way. I mean someone offered to resign -- in good faith and all seriousness -- from a ministerial position in the Lords for being late.
It’s possible that this statement is true about the Lords being more collegiate, but my understanding of the Senate from listening to both Senators in interviews and from people who have worked on Senatorial staffs or spent a great deal of time in the chambers is that the Senate is quite a fair bit more collegiate than the podium and television camera politics let on. They all have a base that needs pandering to to one degree or another in order to get re-elected, they’ll do their pandering for the cameras, but I do wish we could throw out the audiovisual recording devices from both the House and Senate floors.
Christ. I was born here and I wouldn't emigrate here.
Yes, and important point. India had a pet parliament, but the prime majority of Indians had no option to vote. In fact, it was mostly Britishers themselves who sat there until mid-192X