Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States, once said "I consider the British as our natural enemies." 200 years later, George W. Bush said the United States "has no truer friend than Great Britain". The reality of the Special Relationship is probably somewhere in between these two statements.
Yesterday, the Senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee no doubt felt it was closer to the former when they announced they had been forced to suspend their investigation into the release of the Lockerbie Bomber due to lack of cooperation from the United Kingdom.
Eight years ago things seemed very different. American and British troops were fighting side by side in Iraq and the British Prime Minister was worshiped in Washington. A change in government on both sides of the Atlantic, the BP oil spill and the release of the Lockerbie Bomber has diminished that. But even at its height, the UK didn't get much out of the Special Relationship, throughout the world Tony Blair was portrayed as an 'American poodle' and whenever British coroners investigated British deaths from American friendly fire, the US always refused to cooperate.
The history of the relationship between the US and UK is long, complicated and swings from mutual mistrust to shared adoration and back again with the regulatory of a pendulum. The future of the Special Relationship is unclear. Currently, the US's most important international association is with China, and the UK's links with Europe and increasingly India (with which the PM wants to create a 'New Special Relationship') are far more central to the British economy.
When meeting David Cameron last week, President Obama kept referring to the US and UK having 'a' Special Relationship, as opposed to calling it 'the' Special Relationship. Barrack Obama is the first US President not to be an Anglophile and David Cameron has little interest in foreign affairs. As a result, the Special Relationship would seem to be entering one of its many dormant stages.
It seems unlikely that the US will ever be just another country to the UK, or vice versa, but in the near future, the relationship between these old enemies and allies will not be so special.
The BBC's chief political correspondent, Laura Kuenssberg, has interviewed each of the candidates for the Labour leadership.
In a little over two months, one of the interviewees will be the Leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, putting themselves forward as an alternative Prime Minister for the British people. So it's well worth a look for anyone with a vote in the forthcoming election.
Prime Minister's Questions is the centre of the political week in the United Kingdom. There is something very British about forcing the country's most powerful person into a bear pit once a week to face heckles and questions from fellow MPs. In many ways it embodies the makeup of a parliamentary democracy, where the executive is directly accountable to the legislature.
And yet last week John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, voices his dismay at the culture of PMQs, describing it as 'scrutiny by screech'. Mr. Speaker proposed several changes in an attempt to try to lessen the boisterous and unruly nature of PMQs.
The Problem is though, the atmosphere of the chamber during PMQs is as a result of the culture of the Commons, and as most politicians eventually find out, culture is the hardest thing to change. Even John Bercow admitted that "no committee can legislate for [culture]". Recordings of PMQs from Harold Wilson's time as Prime Minister show that the rowdy culture hasn't changed much in decades.
So perhaps the culture of PMQs can't be changed, but the people can and will. Last Wednesday's session was the last with David Cameron facing Harriet Harman. It's quite sad actually as Harriet Harman, as I mentioned in a previous blog, has been doing a rather good job of flustering Mr. Cameron.
Next week the Prime Minister will be at the White House with President Obama, so Nick Clegg will answer for the government's actions (which will be interesting to see). Parliament then goes into recess and when MPs return to Westminster there will be a new Labour leader!
Labour's main strategy since the formation of the coalition has been to split the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats apart. It is an obvious approach, but one which may rebound if not done wisely. This has implications for the Labour party leadership election as each candidate wants to show that they are the wisest one of all.
David Miliband attempted on Twitter to convince Liberal Democratic MPs to vote against the coalition's budget, calling Nick Clegg a "dumb waiter" of the government. The budget passed with ease.
The problem is that Labour's attempts to prize the governing parties apart might end up bring them closer together – uniting them against their common political enemy.
Mike Smithson of politicalbetting.com has predicted that the coalition will fall on 6 May 2011, though not as a result of Labour. The date of the prediction is the day after the proposed AV referendum. Whatever the result, one of the coalition parties will be very unhappy on that day (the Conservatives if AV wins, the Liberal Democrats if it doesn't).
The next Labour Leader, whoever they are, will have to act very carefully next May if they want to continue the 'divide and conquer' strategy with the coalition.
If the next Labour Leader acts wisely, we might see the collapse of the coalition, an election and maybe even a Labour Prime Minister by this time next year. Acting unwisely may lead to a successful coalition lasting for a full five-years and Labour out of office for a generation.
In 2007, during the Liberal Democrat leadership election, Vince Cable served as acting leader. Mr. Cable excelled in this role and left many Liberal Democrats wishing that he had stood for the leadership.
Harriet Harman, the current acting leader of the Labour party, is shining in her role and yet, like Cable, she is not standing for the leadership to the regret of many Labour members. What made Vince Cable so popularity was his great performances in the House of Commons, at one point saying of Gordon Brown "The House has noticed the Prime Minister's remarkable transformation in the past few weeks from Stalin to Mr. Bean." Ms. Harman is also performing very well in the Commons, saying of Vince Cable this week "The House has noticed his remarkable transformation in the past few weeks from national treasure to Treasury poodle."
This is hardly surprising as Ms. Harman was Leader of the House for 3 years, meaning she was in the chamber for most of the time, listening to and answering questions on many topics. So she knows what works and what doesn't. The next Labour leader might want to ask her advice before taking to the Commons, just as Nick Clegg did of Vince Cable.
Tax rises and public service cuts a two things which tend to make government's unpopular. Today the Chancellor did both. And yet, through carefully explaining how and why these things will be done, maybe George Osborne won't become 'the most unpopular man in the UK'.
The British people aren't stupid and polls show that the public think (in theory) tax rises and public service cuts are inevitable and needed. Though theory and reality are two different things, time will tell how unpopular the new Chancellor will become when the people begin to feel what he announced today.
After the formation of the coalition government, there was talk about what would happen to the Labour party which found itself in opposition for the first time in 13 years and facing mixed centre-right/centre-left government. The most likely scenario seemed to be, with the Conservatives and Liberal Democratic taking up the middle ground, Labour would be pushed into talking about issues which are to the extreme left of most voters. In this new again of politics, even the most logical conclusions can be proved wrong very quickly.
In a BBC interview today, Ed Balls again said that one of the biggest issues in the UK at the moment is immigration, a topic normally talked about by those to the right of the political spectrum. Having said that, the people inclined to vote Conservative have benefited the most from recent immigration which has helped fill the worker shortage, and Labour voters are most disgruntled with the migration of skilled workers from Eastern Europe, who are erroneously believed to be taking jobs and housing. In fact the increase in support for the BNP at last year's local elections came mainly from disaffectioned Labour voters, not Conservatives.
Perhaps Mr. Balls believes the old conclusion that immigration is a right wing issue may not be true any longer. If the Labour party elects Ed Balls as their new leader, they will have chosen a path that will change the structure of politics as much as the coalition.
Standing out as a leader was the mission for the candidates at last night's Newsnight hustings, yet none of the five contenders completed their mission.
At PMQs today, David Cameron said the candidates looked 'like a Star Trek convention', though I don't think the Prime Minister's view is necessarily impartial.
It's hard to judge how each candidate did, there was no clear winner. With the exception of Diane Abbott, the candidates seemed nervous and unwilling to stand out for fear of saying the wrong thing. Even for political nerds, it wasn't all that interesting, yet the winner of the Labour Leadership could end up being our next Prime Minister.
It's said that all powerful nations have an original sin. With the UK, it's Ireland. The British have filled many dark pages in the history books with atrocities in Ireland, but in recent history the darkest day was 30 January 1972 (Bloody Sunday) when British paratroopers opened fire on a crowd of people in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
Commenting on the publication of the inquiry into Bloody Sunday, today David Cameron (who was five years old when the killing took place) apologies in the House of Commons for what happened on that day. The apology was honest and unreserved, even though it should have been said by a British Prime Minister 40 years ago. There is now a fragile peace in Northern Ireland and in laying out the unforgivable David Cameron may have opened to door to forgiveness.
The hustings have started for the Labour leadership election and apparently Diane Abbott has been the clear winner in most of the confrontations.
It reminds me of the response to Nick Clegg's performance during the TV debates of the general election. Diane Abbott is also getting the most favourable media coverage, as did Clegg.
In the end this attention didn't bring great success to the Liberal Democrats (they lost six seats). Perhaps the same will be true of Diane Abbott, but somehow I doubt it - there is a feel of momentum in her campaign. It will be hard to keep that up until September, but she might just do it.
So, she's done it! Diane Abbott, along with Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and bothers David and Ed Miliband, received the MPs needed to get onto the ballot paper for the Labour leadership.
There is now a very small chance that Diane Abbott will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. When I say 'very small' I mean miniscule, but still a possibility nonetheless.
David Miliband is the favourite to get the leadership by some way. He was Foreign Secretary for three years, he's been an MP since 2001 and studied at Oxford and MIT. He also has the most nominations from Labour MPs, is seen as a Blairite and his brother Ed, is also going to appear on the ballot paper. Being the favourite though, doesn't mean he's going to win.
As I said in a previous post, the AV system of voting in the Labour party makes the outcome hard to predict. Diane Abbott is popular with the left of the party, which makes up a large section of the trade unions and party members who have 67% of the vote.
The next leader of the Labour party will face a fragile coalition government which has to make dramatic and unpopular cuts to the public services. It is entirely possible that the next Labour leader, if they do their job properly, could lead their party to victory at the next election and walk into Downing Street as Prime Minister. Which of the five candidates is best suited to do this job it is the unenviable decision for the Labour party.
So will Ms. Abbott one day be PM? At this point it seems very unlikely, but then people said the same about Margaret Thatcher in 1975 and Barack Obama in 2007.
We in the United Kingdom often describe our nation as 'one of the world's oldest democracies'. But in reality, the UK is not a democracy, neither is France, or the United States or even Switzerland. In fact no country in the world is a democracy - not a real democracy anyway.
A democracy is when the will of the people is enacted, where every decision is decided by the people. That's not what happens in our system of government. We don't make the decisions ourselves, we elect the people to make the decisions for us. Today those people who we elected just over a month ago said they want us to make some of the hard decisions, and in so doing brought us closer to being a real democracy.
Today the Chancellor said that the public will be consulted on where cuts in the government should be made. This is something rather unique in the UK, the idea that a government, faced with bringing pain to great sections of country, should ask the public what to do, instead of making unilateral decisions. The flaw in the plan is the flaw in democracy, which is those with the minority view get exclude. The highest population of the UK is in southern England, but most government spending is in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and northern England. Will public services be cut in the areas of lowest population, but perhaps the most need?
The other flaw in democracy is that if the wrong decision is made, the public only have themselves to blame, which is perhaps why the idea is so appealing to the government. If in five years time the public don't like the pain caused by the cuts, the government will just have to say 'but it only what you told us to do'!
In the last four years Japan has had six Prime Ministers. Quite a startling fact, made more startling by the variety of reasons for their departure. Junichiro Koizumi, who had been Prime Minister for five years, retired in 2006 and was replaced by Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe. On his first anniversary of coming to power, Mr. Abe resigned for health reason, although during his year in power there had been two resignations and a suicide in his cabinet as a result of scandals which, amongst other things, lead to a significant drop in the government's poll numbers. Yasuo Fukuda was the next Prime Minister, but he was forced to resign two days short of his first anniversary in the job after failing to get crucial legislation through the upper house of the Diet (the Parliament of Japan).
Mr. Fukuda was replaced by Taro Aso who left office less than a year later in a more conventional way for democratic leaders – he lost the general election. The election's winner was Yukio Hatoyama who ended sixty years of almost uninterrupted Liberal Democratic Party government. It was hoped that an electoral mandate would lead to a sustained period in power for the new Prime Minister; in fact Mr. Hatoyama was in office for less than seven months. The latest Prime Ministerial departure was due to the cabinet resigning en masse following the breaking of an election promise to close the US base on Okinawa. The next and (as I write this) current Prime Minister of Japan is Naoto Kan, the former Minister of Finance. Mr. Kan must be hoping he can last longer than his most recent predecessors.
During Gordon Brown's periods of unpopularity in the country, Labour MPs had plotted on several occasions to remove the Prime Minister from power. The argument against such action was the myth that changing the PM twice in one Parliament would be democratically unsound. Tony Blair won the election in 2005 and was replaced by Gordon Brown in 2007 who thought about having his own election three years earlier than was required, before infamously changing his mind at the last second. As the economic crisis emerged and Labour's place in the poll dropped lower than shares in Northern Rock, Labour MPs began to wonder if a different, more media aware Prime Minister might help the party's chances more than Mr. Brown.
To change a PM a second time without consulting the people, so the argument against removing Mr. Brown went, would lead to an immediate election. This argument seemed to prevent a coup against the PM as Labour MPs feared what would happened to them if there were an election soon after they'd stabbed their leader in the back. However, as Japan shows, the argument was flawed as in a parliamentary system, the people elected the legislature which then determines the government. Another flaw in the argument is this; why is changing the Prime Minister once without an election acceptable, but not twice or three times or more?
Perhaps Japan shows the real argument against such action and why continuity in government is important. Aside from the democratic issue, Prime Ministers need to be able to feel comfortable and confident doing the job (this is true of all work) but it takes time before this can happen. Also, a nation's current prestige is often related to the people who are in power at the moment. Just think of the world's view of the United States under George W. Bush and compared it to the US under President Obama. In an economic crisis, a nation's prestige is important, but not knowing a country's political leader because they change every few months cannot help that country's standing.
Next Wednesday the nominations close for the Labour leadership. After a slow start, there has been a flurry of nominations this week. The biggest riser has been Diane Abbott who has moved from one nomination to seven in a matter of just a few days. This may not seem like much, but a big task for a candidate in any election is convincing the electorate they can win. This is especially true with Labour MPs, whose votes are public and they don't want to upset the new leadership by having supported another candidate.
Looking at the numbers, it seems like Ms. Abbott has little chance of winning. David Miliband has almost double the 33 MPs needed for nomination, his brother isn't far behind and Ed Balls has exactly the correct number of MPs to get him a place on the ballot. Andy Burnham still needs a few more nominations, but he insists he will make it. Then there is John McDonnell and Diane Abbott whose nominations are in signal figures. And yet, there still is a sense that Ms. Abbott could make it. The undeclared MPs are disproportionally form ethnic minorities, from whom Ms. Abbott says she has the most support and she is popular in the wider party too.
The system of nomination in the Labour party was specifically designed to keep left-wing candidates (like Ms. Abbott) off the ballot paper. In the actually election, two-thirds of the vote comes from the ordinary party members and the affiliated originations, who are significantly to the left of most Labour MPs, not to mention the general public. This means that when left wing candidates do manage to get onto the ballot, they tend to do rather well.
For example, left wing MP Jon Cruddas received the highest number of first preference votes in the 2007 Deputy Leadership election. If the Labour party had the same system for electing its leaders as the Conservatives, Mr. Cruddas would now be Deputy Leader. The reason why he is not is due to AV.
The Alternative Vote (AV) is a form of preferential voting. Instead of voting for just one candidate, the voter puts a '1' beside their first choice, and a '2' beside their second choice. If no one candidate gets more than the 50% of first preference votes, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and the second preference votes of that candidate are added to the remaining candidates. If no candidate still doesn't have over 50% of the vote, then the next candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and their second preference votes are redistributed as before. This goes on until one candidate has over 50% of the vote.
As I have said in previous blogs, where the second preference votes of eliminated candidates go is hard to guess, making the result hard to predict and the election that much more exciting. This time next week, we'll know what the ballot paper will look like and the election proper will have started.
The House of Commons, known for its boisterousness, especially during Prime Minister's Questions, was strangely polite and quite today. The tragedy in Cumbria no doubt was partially responsible for this. In many ways it was similar to Gordon Brown's first PMQs which took place just days after attempted terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow.
When he first became Leader of the Conservative party, David Cameron said he wanted to put an end to 'Punch and Judy politics' which the Commons is known to produce. This was quickly forgotten, and as Leader of the Opposition Mr. Cameron continued the adversarial tradition of Commons' debating. Perhaps today's politeness on the part of the Prime Minister was an attempt to return to his original policy of orderly discourse.
One of the most striking (and distracting) things to notes was the Prime Minister's lack of the notes! Pervious PMs have had a massive folder permanently in front of them during PMQs, which contained the government's position on every issue which might be asked about. David Cameron however, for most of the time, didn't have one piece of paper to hand. I wonder how long this innovation will last.
Harriet Harman, acting Leader of the Labour party, performed well, although having been Leader of the House for the last three years, she is used to the atmosphere of the Commons. One thing missing was a third party. Before, the leader of the second largest opposition party (normally the Liberal Democrats) was allowed to ask the PM two question, but of course the Liberal Democrats are now part of the government and their leader sat silently next to the Prime Minister.
Talking of the Liberal Democrats, today the nominations for the Deputy Leadership closed. There will be two candidates for the job - Simon Hughes and Tim Farron – and the election will take place next Wednesday.
Some Labour MPs must look on with envy, their leadership election doesn't end for months. At the moment is looks like only three candidates - David Miliband, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls - will be able to get the support of 33 Labour MPs, which is required for them to be nominated. All three candidates are white Oxford educated men, and two of them share the same surname and parents. This is not the image of diversity for which some in the Labour party had been hoping. There is still a little time for other candidates to get nominated, the deadline is next Wednesday – the same day as the Liberal Democrats Deputy Leadership election and David Cameron's next PMQs.
In ancient Rome, when a triumph general returned home after a great victory, he was paraded through the streets while being cheered by excited crowds. To make sure the adoration of the masses didn't go to his head, a slave would always be placed near the general and repeat the words "hominem the memento" (remember that you are just a man). Today, the UK has a similar procedure for keeping its political leaders grounded – Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs).
Members of the government were required to answers questions in Parliament long before the office of Prime Minister was invented. But Prime Ministers have only had to regularly answer questions in parliament since relatively recently, only the last 50 years in fact.
Tomorrow David Cameron will take part in PMQs for the first time as Prime Minister. Of course, he is used to the scenario having been Leader of the Opposition for five years, but he was the one asking the questions then, now he has to answer them.
During the election campaign, many Americans watching on the other side of the Atlantic were surprised to hear that the UK had never before had live TV debates. "But you have TV debates all the time" they said, "We've seen them on C-SPAN".
The Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (or C-SPAN for short) shows live coverage of Prime Minister's Questions in the US, where it gets very respectable ratings. Americans seem bemused as well as a little jealous of the fact that every week when Parliament is sitting, the British Prime Minister is summoned to the House of Commons where he or she must answer questions from ordinary MPs on any subject they like. There have even been calls for the US President to go to Congress and answer questions as a direct result of Americans seeing PMQs.
Strangely, the British public seem far less interested. The ratings for PMQs are very low, especially in comparison to the TV debates during the last election. The atmosphere of the House of Commons is inherently rowdy and the Prime Minister is free to answer the question however he or she sees fit, which normally means evading the question. The timing doesn't aid public interest either; Prime Minister's Questions starts at the strike of noon on Wednesdays and lasts thirty minutes, during which time most people are in work or having lunch or both.
Tomorrows PMQs might get slightly more interest as for one week only they'll take place at 3pm, at which point we'll see how good our new Prime Minister is at answering questions for a change. Historically, it takes some time for a new PM to get used to the ordeal of PMQs. Margaret Thatcher was famously very poor when she first became Prime Minister, but over her many years in power she grew to become the master of the Commons. Tony Blair's first years at the government dispatch box were difficult as he was against Leader of the Opposition, William Hague who had been a prominent member of the Oxford Union and was an expert debater. During his time, Gordon Brown made several notorious mistakes, such as accidently saying he had 'saved the world', and when asked about allegations he'd been bullying his staff, Mr. Brown just replied "any complaints are dealt with in the usual manner".
It should not be forgotten that PMQs is an incredibly stressful and difficult task for any Prime Minister. In the past some have excelled and some have faltered, tomorrow David Cameron will face acting Labour leader Harriet Harman, as well as all the other MPs, and we will find out if he is just a man.
A few weeks ago I received an email from a friend of mine in Bogotá, who talked of an excitingly close election which could see a change in government for the first time in over a decade. She was not however, talking about the UK election.
Today Colombians are going to the polls to elect their next President, who in Colombia is the head of the executive as well as head of state. If no one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote there will be a run-off election next month between the two highest polling candidates in today's vote.
The incumbent, Alvaro Uribe, has been President for the last eight years, having served two terms. The constitution prevents him from running for a third, which President Uribe must think is a shame as he currently has an approval rating of about 60%. In fact President Uribe did try to change the constitution to allow him to run for another term – but this was vetoed by Colombia's constitution court.
You might have thought that President Uribe's popularity would aid his hand chosen successor – the former Defence Minister, Juan Manuel Santos - but Uribe's choice isn't doing as well as expected. Mr. Santos still leads the polls but not enough to avoid a run-off election. The other main candidate is Antanas Mockus, the former Mayor of Bogotá and the Green party candidate – he was also diagnosed with Parkinson's disease earlier this year.
One of the criticisms of the UK election was all the main parties were effetely the same ideologically - this cannot be said of the Colombian election. Mr. Santos would continue the conservative legacy of President Uribe, Mr. Mockus on the other hand would signal a radical change in Colombia's domestic and foreign policy.
Change is an exciting prospect in any election, but a radical shift in politics at the top might destabilise some of Colombia's more delicate issues such as fighting against powerful drug cartel and left-wing guerrilla groups.
Santos and Mockus are both far ahead of all the other candidates in the polls and are likely to face a run-off vote, in which anything could happen. Expect more from the land of Shakira very soon.
UPDATE My Colombian friend just Skyped me to say that Juan Manuel Santos received 47% of the vote, with Antanas Mockus only getting about 22%.
This is something of a surprise, as it was expected to be much closer. There will be a run-off but it seems almost certain Mr. Santos will be Colombia's next President. It seems continuity has won over change.
It was exactly a year ago when MPs would wait in fear for the publication of the next day's Telegraph. Every new front page of the newspaper gave more revelations of extravagant expense claims which, although within the rules, were completely unacceptable in the eyes of the public (as well as anyone with any amount of common sense).
It was hoped that with the election of a new parliament (and the ending of the pervious 'Rotten Parliament' as it became known) politicians could rebuild their deeply tarnished reputation. Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg said that cleaning up after the expenses scandal was a key priority of the 'new politics'.
However, the front page of today's Telegraph had an unpleasantly nostalgic feel. The new Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, is said to have claimed over £40,000 on what he said was his second home but was in fact a home owned by his partner - who happens to be a man.
There is talk of the Chief Secretary resigning, but I doubt this will happen. David Laws has apologised and will give back the money, and he is protected by the fact that he is one of the few Liberal Democrats who the Conservatives actually like. Also, the fact that Mr. Laws' private life has now become very public will no doubt lead to sympathy from the famously fair-minded British public, and thus help to dull any anger directed at him.
The coalition and David Laws will survive - the lasting damage however is to politics as a whole, as for a second Parliament in succession, MPs are marred by expenses. Although I doubt many people would have believed the new government, new parliament and new politics would bring an end to scandal, it's never good when cynicism is vindicated.
UPDATE: DAVID LAWS HAS RESIGNED Alright, so I was wrong, David Laws has resigned as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It's quite sad on a human level, but I think it may help exorcise the coalition from the expenses scandal of the last parliament.
The fact is, David Laws' resignation was one of great dignity, a complete contrast from some of the previous politicians forced out over expenses who went kicking and screaming from office.
David Laws has not survived the latest scandal, but I think the coalition and the new politics will.
So the House of Lords will soon to be getting some new members; Michael Howard, the former leader of the Conservatives, Ian Paisley, former First Minister of Northern Ireland, and John Prescott, former Deputy Prime Minister who became world famous when he punched a voter during the 2001 election campaign.
To be a peer of the realm is not a bad life, being able to influence legislation without having to worry about annoying things like elections. The new members must be wondering though, how long they'll have to relax in the Lords before the chamber is pulled down around them.
The question of how the United Kingdom, which claims to be one of the oldest democracies in the world, can have an unelected upper chamber of the legislature is long established in British politics. In the last election, all three main parties promised to reform the Lords, making it more democratically accountable. Although the Conservatives said this was not a major priority, and also Labour had promised to reform the Lords during the previous three elections. Though to be fair to Labour, they did remove most of the hereditary members of the Lords. Before the last government's reforms, you could join the House of Lords by inheriting the position from one of your parents. Thanks to Labour, this is no longer the case, but that was more than a decade ago and there hasn't been much change since then.
These days, in order to be a member of the House of Lords for the rest of your life, all you need is to be made a Life Peer by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister. Church of England bishops are members automatically, and until last year the Lords was also home to the twelve judges which made up the last court of appeal in the UK, but they have now moved to the newly created Supreme Court across the road from Parliament.
Although still unelected, the Lords is no longer a house of nobility, and it now more closely resembles the Senate of Canada or the Seanad in the Republic of Ireland. In both these places, members are chosen by elected representatives of the people, but not by the people themselves.
There have been consistent calls for a completely elected House of Lords since the days of David Lloyd George, who had historic battles with the disruptive upper chamber and eventually managed to significantly reduce their power over legislation which had been approved by the elected House of Commons. Even Lloyd George could not bring democracy to the Lords though, and in the end he accepted a peerage himself, dying just a few months later (although I don't it was as a result of joining the Lords).
Now the coalition (or at least the Liberal Democrats in the coalition) wants to get on and finally complete the process of reform by taking that final step and having an elected upper chamber. Although there are inevitably a few issues which need to be sorted out first.
A concern with House of Lords reform is the people who would be lost if the chamber was elected. Anyone can be appointed to the Lords, and often some of the great minds of the day have found themselves being offered a peerage. Currently, Robert Winston sits in the House of Lords and is able to comment on and amend legislation as it goes through Parliament. It seems unlikely that people like Lord Winston would want to put themselves up for election, so they would be lost if any major reform to the Lords was to take place.
One other reason why, in recent times, many people have been reluctant to change the Lords is that, bizarrely, the unelected Lords have a strange tendency for standing up for democratic values a lot more than the Commons. Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights groups Liberty, once described the House of Lords as the "guardian of fundamental rights".
For example, in 2008, 42-day detention without charge (described by some opponents as an affront to basic freedom) was forced through the House of Commons, in which Labour had a large majority. But when it reached the Lords it was blocked and never became law. There is a fear that this culture of standing up for democracy against the will of the party in government might not survive if the members of the Lords feared punishment from their party bosses at the next election. Meaning, ironically, having a wholly elected legislature might result in the UK becoming less free and democratic.
So it looks like it is going to take a while to sort out all of these issues, perhaps the new Peers announced today will have some time to get comfortable on those red benches.
In the last government Peter Mandelson developed a reputation for collecting governmental titles and honours. By the end, his full title was The Right Honourable, the Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham, First Secretary of State, Lord President of the Privy Council and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. William Hague once joked that "it would be no surprise to wake up in the morning and find that he had become an archbishop".
One title never bestowed on the Lord Mandelson however, was that of Deputy Prime Minister. Indeed, the office of Deputy Prime Minister was vacant throughout Gordon Brown's premiership. The history of that office is a peculiar one, mainly due to the fact that it is relatively new.
Offices of State in the UK normally have ancient histories. There has been a Chancellor of the Exchequer, for example, since the early 14th century. The office of Deputy Prime Minister however, was only created in 1940 following the formation of a coalition government - that sounds familiar.
Back then the political parties had united together to better fight the Second World War, and Conservative Prime Minister Winston Churchill wanted to give the leader of the Labour party, Clement Attlee, a title of high authority. So he created the office of Deputy Prime Minister.
Since the Second World War the title has been used sporadically. Prime Ministers have been reluctant to give it away for fear that it would create a possible rival. This meant that in recent years, when the title was used, the Deputy Prime Minister was normally someone who the PM didn't feel was a threat to his or her leadership. John Prescott for example had no desire to remove the word 'Deputy' from his title.
A problem for any Deputy Prime Minister is that the title doesn't have a defined role or job in government other than filling in for the PM when he or she is off at international summits or on holiday. American politician John Garner, who served as Vice President during Franklin D. Roosevelt's first two terms in the White House, once infamously described the Vice Presidency of the United States as "not worth a bucket of warm piss." Some British politicians have felt a similar sentiment could apply to the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
So when David Cameron appointed Nick Clegg as his Deputy, the Prime Minister wanted to make clear that this was not just an empty title given to make the Liberal Democrats feel a false sense of prestige. As a result, Mr. Clegg was also given special responsibility for political and constitutional reform.
Most people get sudden onset narcolepsy when politicians start to discuss constitutional reform, but Liberal Democrats have been talking about it for years and now their leader is in a position to actually do something about it.
The coalition document, which sets out a plan for the government's next five years in office, talks of a new voting system for the House of Commons and an elected House of Lords. Fixed-term parliaments are already planned.
Nick Clegg also holds on to one of Peter Mandelson's old titles, Lord President of the Council. Normally, the Lord President has a propionate role in the State Opening of Parliament, but last Tuesday Nick Clegg chose to remove himself from the ceremony. Perhaps this was a sign that he plans to be a reformer. In the end though, he may have some impressive titles, but it's the Prime Minister who has the power and the last word on policy.
I'm Philip, and the idea for this blog was suggested to me by my friend, Deborah. I suspect that she may be the only one who’ll actually read it, hence its name.
It is my hope that this blog will give an impartial commentary on politics (often rare in the blogosphere) for those people who are perhaps not avid followers of politics, but nevertheless want to know about the goings on of the political world.
