All hail Mad Frankie Maude, noble Lord of Cabinet Office Axemen

Former Cabinet Office minister and architect of the coalition government's IT spending controls Francis Maude has been handed a life peerage. The announcement means Mad Frankie can can continue to wield his axe against the IT "oligopoly" behind the scenes and in perpetuity from the House of Lords. Maude announced he would be …

[tony2heads]

Creator of GDS

Create a giant object of FAIL and get a peerage!

[Rich 11]

Re: Creator of GDS

Situation normal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank god

Badly needed reinforcements to the upper chamber there. There are way too few of them in there, and they do such spectacular work.

[Fred Flintstone]

Re: Thank god

We really need a <sarcasm> tag here..

:)

[theblackhand]

Re: Thank god

Are you sure we need the tags? I think I need a sponge to catch the drips...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Thank god

The problem is that Labour filled the Lords with as many of its own people as it could, so now the Conservatives have to have a go at evening it out.

I think there should be a maximum time limit that each Lord can sit, say 15 years, with the parties being allowed to allocate new Lords by proportion of their general election vote. Lords would then become a rolling average of the last three general election results while keeping the numbers fixed and without implementing direct voting.

We'd need to get rid of a few hundred Lords first, mind.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Thank god

"We'd need to get rid of a few hundred Lords first, mind."

Nice. Can I please suggest the same way the french did in 1793. I have a tumbril we can use.

[tony2heads]

@Hadvar

NO. We will do it the traditional English way of getting rid of lords with a block and an axe!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @Hadvar

That's the French way. The English way was to say "tone it down, or we'll apply the French method"

[bigbob]

Lords reform, you say? Lib Dems agreed that last time, but Tories reneged, and the Lib Dems were booted out by the public.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lib Dems wanted a directly elected upper house, which completely defeats the object of it.

My proposal gives them a fig-leaf, a fig-leaf to the parties unfairly represented by FPTP ( UKIP, Green ) while keeping the purpose of Lords intact, stops parties from rigging it in their favour and keeps it more sensibly sized.

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

directly elected upper house

The LibDems must be asking a very strange question if the answer is "600 more politicians".

It is all going to be moot as the various parties stitch up some answer, very much less than perfect but one that can be well greased and slipped through both houses, to the west Lothian Question, legitimate SNP aspirations, illegitimate SNP aspirations, English devolution etc.

Expect change generated by business as usual.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I've just realised you weren't replying to me - this forum isn't great at showing who's replying to what.

[Tim Worstal]

I know one person who was a likely Labour peer this time around if they'd won. That alone was worth seeing them lose....

[Anonymous Coward]

But Lord Blair has such a nice ring to it...

What's that you say? The ring isn't from the name, it's from all the money acquired from being a Middle Eastern envoy?

[Anonymous Coward]

The ring isn't from the name, it's from all the money acquired from being a Middle Eastern envoy?

I suspect it's more from "one to rule them all" (etc).

[x 7]

the second chamber should be elected by a proportional representation system - maybe single transferable vote though I'm open to other suggestions - at the same time as the general election for the commons, which should remain first-past-the-post

that way you get a majority government and lower chamber, with a more balanced and representative upper house

I'd put a rider on it as well that "professional politicians" - i.e. anyone who has not had a real job - should be barred from the second chamber. And you'd probably want to ban anyone under the age of 40