Fixed Term Elections

Sir_Humphrey

Either marklv is a moron, a Stalinist or a wind-up merchant.

marklv

tomterm8 wrote: »

Depends what the lawyers say; it seems to me that this is an act to extend the life of parliament, and can't be forced through using the Parliament Act.

In that case, the government can appoint a cohort of sympathetic Lib Dem and Tory peers and get a Lords majority.

marklv

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Either marklv is a moron, a Stalinist or a wind-up merchant.

I'm a political realist and you are an airy-fairy fool.

marklv

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

And they said that Brown was a sinister Stalinist. We have MarkLV.

If I was a 'Stalinist' I would favour dissolving parliament and permanent rule by prime ministerial decree. You are just preaching gibberish.

tomterm8

marklv wrote: »

In that case, the government can appoint a cohort of sympathetic Lib Dem and Tory peers and get a Lords majority.

They will find it difficult to do that, since nominations are generally made by the House of Lords appointment commission; in general, the aims of the commission are to appoint people in proportion of the number of seats in the commons BUT, people are only appointed when other lords die / retire in order to keep the total number of lords the same.

At the moment, Labour and the Lib Dems are a minority government in the house of lords.

marklv

tomterm8 wrote: »

They will find it difficult to do that, since nominations are generally made by the House of Lords appointment commission; in general, the aims of the commission are to appoint people in proportion of the number of seats in the commons BUT, people are only appointed when other lords die / retire in order to keep the total number of lords the same.

At the moment, Labour and the Lib Dems are a minority government in the house of lords.

The Lords will soon be abolished anyway. A Senate, elected by PR will replace this bunch of cronies and toffs.

tomterm8

marklv wrote: »

The Lords will soon be abolished anyway. A Senate, elected by PR will replace this bunch of cronies and toffs.

And you think that the conservatives backbenchers will vote for a PR elected house of lords? Interesting. I don't, as it happens.

StevieJ

marklv wrote: »

This is a lot of hot air about nothing. The 55% threshold is necessary in order to preserve a stable government throughout the 5 year term. I agree with the measure.

So how will the govt be stable if the LibDems leave the coalition and vote down all the Tory legislation on a simple majority.

tomterm8

It won't be. I suspect the agreement was hastily drawn up, and that what they are actually talking about is seperating votes of no confidence from votes of dissolution. And putting the power to disolve parliament into the hands of the commons... rather than the hand of the executive.

I am sure there will be a sunset clause, like in scotland, allowing parliament to be disolved if there is no replacement PM in a few days.

In which case, I personally, have little problem with it. But the coalition has already shown it can't explain policy well.

I would be really upset by a 55% vote of confidence, since that is highly undemocratic.

marklv

tomterm8 wrote: »

And you think that the conservatives backbenchers will vote for a PR elected house of lords? Interesting. I don't, as it happens.

They will have to, because that is the political reform that has been agreed with the Lib Dems. Those who rebel will risk being deselected and even expelled from the party.