The House of Lords serves as a check and balance against a government running amok. Now, they’re not necessarily a good check or balance, but every government needs one. Very occasionally they have been - to be mildly disingenuous - useful idiots. (And occasionally, obstinate asses, but I digress.)
Ideally though, we could do with a House of … whatever’s below Common, because if the ones in the Commons are commoners, what does that make the rest of us?
And how would we stop corruption in this lower, lower house?
But nonetheless, it would be useful for a government to have to take heed of people who are closer to the real world. (And I don’t just mean MPs’ surgeries or correspondence because the repercussions for falling behind on that are slim at best.)
The House of Lords serves as a check and balance against a government running amok.
But checks and balances from a body that by design is vastly conservative and somewhat religious is not a FAIR checks and balances.
If the government is elected democratically instead of first past the post like in UK, the checks and balances is democracy itself, but also the supreme court, as laws must align with the constitution.
Parlament is also a form of checks and balances.
So no House of lords is not a form of Checks and Balances, they are a form of oppressing the will of the people, so they don’t take too much power or money away from the rich. That’s what it was designed for, not as an instrument to improve democracy.
Ideally though, we could do with a House of … whatever’s below Common, because if the ones in the Commons are commoners, what does that make the rest of us?
Rulers will probably never be actually average. Even in a pretty good democracy. But I can say for sure, we are closer here in Denmark than the UK, because our democracy is better designed and more democratic.
The House of Lords serves as a check and balance against a government running amok. Now, they’re not necessarily a good check or balance, but every government needs one. Very occasionally they have been - to be mildly disingenuous - useful idiots. (And occasionally, obstinate asses, but I digress.)
Ideally though, we could do with a House of … whatever’s below Common, because if the ones in the Commons are commoners, what does that make the rest of us?
And how would we stop corruption in this lower, lower house?
But nonetheless, it would be useful for a government to have to take heed of people who are closer to the real world. (And I don’t just mean MPs’ surgeries or correspondence because the repercussions for falling behind on that are slim at best.)
But checks and balances from a body that by design is vastly conservative and somewhat religious is not a FAIR checks and balances.
If the government is elected democratically instead of first past the post like in UK, the checks and balances is democracy itself, but also the supreme court, as laws must align with the constitution.
Parlament is also a form of checks and balances.
So no House of lords is not a form of Checks and Balances, they are a form of oppressing the will of the people, so they don’t take too much power or money away from the rich. That’s what it was designed for, not as an instrument to improve democracy.
Rulers will probably never be actually average. Even in a pretty good democracy. But I can say for sure, we are closer here in Denmark than the UK, because our democracy is better designed and more democratic.
The UK doesn’t have a constitution, and it won’t get one any time soon. They’d have to get rid of the monarchy first, and that isn’t going to happen.
Plenty of countries with monarchies have constitutions.
True. And none of those countries is the UK.