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Comment by iopq | Hacker News Reader

Because it's appointed elites deciding how the government should be run?

You could call them appointed elites, or you could call them a distinguished technocracy, many of whom are not career politicians, but instead respected scientists, military officers, artists, composers, former heads of public bodies, business leaders, sportspeople etc. They bring an insight to government that many politicians cannot.

When you look at it from that angle I think it makes a lot of sense and is actually rather progressive.

> I think it makes a lot of sense and is actually rather progressive.

I don't think that the House of Lords is "progressive". Put it this way: In only two countries do senior clergymen automatically get a seat in a house of Legislature: Iran and the United Kingdom.

It's not progressive company to keep.

> Put it this way: In only two countries do senior clergymen automatically get a seat in a house of Legislature: Iran and the United Kingdom.

Well, there's at least one other sovereign state in which people hold legislative office by virtue of holding particular senior religious office -- and which goes further in that there are no other legislators -- Vatican City.

But that's a bit different...

Yeah it's not perfect.

respected scientists, artists, composers

I can't actually think of anyone in that category in the Lords. There's Doreen Lawrence, Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, though. I do wonder how she gets on with Lord Blair.

Surprise yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_House_of_Lords.

There's at least two composers on there I recognise, I can't actually see artists at the moment, but there are several people from the art world, and several scientists.

Also: people from human rights organisations, nature conservation organisations, farmers, medics, bishops, atheists, lawyers, spies, bankers, people who work in child protection, housing for low income people, people from elite sports, people from popular sports, social workers, and lots more people without the notes to immediately say what they do.

(Yes there's also quite a lot of retired career politicians).

I'm never been a Lib Dem voter but I can hardly grudge the likes of Paddy Ashdown a place in the House of Lords.

Marine, SBS, MI6, parliament, helping sort out Bosnia... quite an incredible CV.

> I can't actually think of anyone in that category in the Lords.

The two that immediately spring to mind are Lord Robert Winston and Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

The standard argument is that it turns out appointed elites doing this works fairly well (they quite often block bad legislation), in principle partly because they don't have to pander directly to the electorate. I don't think it's an optimal system, but I can't deny it does have some advantages of this sort.

The concern with changing it is that you could simply make things worse, even if on the surface more meritocratic. For instance, if it just ended up filled with the same career politicians as the commons and just agreed with everything they said. Of course it could end up better as well, in principle, but I'm not sure the government could be trusted to implement things that way.

Well, at least they could rename them!!!! House of Lords really sounds like they are supposed to be above everyone else.

And while you are at it, remove commons as well, as it sounds really degrading. Suggestions for new names anyone?

There's already a term, and we (the UK) uses it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_house

Edit: And the Commons is called the Lower House<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_house>. In a parliamentary system, the lower house actually has more power.

> Because it's appointed elites deciding how the government should be run?

Yes, and?

I agree; but you asked "Why does the UK still have the house of the Lords?" - why would that make the House of Lords vanish?

The point that I am making is that the British establishment has a very strong bias in favour of the status quo; i.e against change. Especially change that doesn't benefit them.

Something that has existed for centuries doesn't just stop existing even if you and I don't like it. Adhering to tradition is a tradition. Something has to happen to make it stop, and that thing has to be strong enough to overcome the establishment's inertia.

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