Whose fault will it be?

[sheldrake]

I understand where you are coming from Shelly, but you have a habit of making duff points. Stuffing the Lords has been going on forever, it is part of the ebb and flow of politics.

The Lords now has more Lib Dem and Labour members combined than it does Conservatives. That's largely a result of the Blair era.

Creation of the Supreme Court was part of that, the top court was moved from being a sub-committee of the HofL to being a regular institution of the state created by statute*.

The problem with the supreme court is that it's interpreted a new role for itself in politics. The ruling on prorogation was completely unprecedented, politically motivated. The court has painted a big target on its own back.

[quote[
Both BBC and Ch 4 (and S4C) were created before Blair. The BBC is already subject to an external regulator (Ofcom) like other broadcasters - are you suggesting it should be on a different leash (content-wise) from the others?[/quote]

Ofcom was completely ineffective at stopping the BBC from continually putting more remainers than leavers on Question Time panels. The best way to reign in the BBC would be to make its funding subject to pleasing its audience, just like a private-sector broadcaster. i.e. end the license fee and turn it into a voluntary subscription. Only people who acknowledge that the BBC is acting as an increasingly unpopular propaganda vector for the views of London's middle class, and who wish that to continue, are annoyed by this idea. Which is to my mind a clear sign we should do it.

Maybe there will be a name change, but it will still be the same thing. The creation of the Supreme Court has made this easier. Commentators have suggested that creating the Supreme Court made the judges more activist, but I am sceptical of that, I think they would pretty much have come to the same decisions in the recent constitutional cases were they still the "House of Lords". The law underlying decisions that recently made the headlines has been decades in the making.

Sumption himself didn't think so until a couple of days after the prorogation ruling when he realised he shouldn't be seen to contradict the court after several weeks insisting that the court shouldn't interfere in a parliamentary matter.

[greyspoke]

I think you may have missed the point Shelly. None of them are created by Blair, they are things that were there anyhow, and they are not constitutional. The packing of the Lords by every administration we have ever had is not a constitutional change, it is the constitution - that is why it needs changing. Will Boris change it? Of course not, because now the Conservatives are in power they will pack it with their own people. Whingeing about the BBC and fiddling with it also happens every time.

[sheldrake]

I think you may have missed the point Shelly. None of them are created by Blair, they are things that were there anyhow

The composition of the Lords today was significantly a creation of Blair. The supreme court was created by Blair.

The packing of the Lords by every administration we have ever had is not a constitutional change, it is the constitution - that is why it needs changing.

I think you forget that the Lords used to have an inbuilt bias towards conservatism from all the hereditaries. That changed under Blair.

Will Boris change it? Of course not, because now the Conservatives are in power they will pack it with their own people.

I'm okay with that. I'd rather institutions had an inbuilt bias towards my own opinions.

Whingeing about the BBC and fiddling with it also happens every time.

Maybe this time we're serious.