House of Lords Sleazefest

Don't you just love the whole House of Lords scandal? I must admit I had to laugh... a lot. The socialists in New Labour were salivating at the thought of getting into power and socking it to the elitist Lords. "Currupt!" They said, "Undemocratic!" They said. All I can say in response is "What a collosal balls up!".

News is that recently enobled peers, mostly Labourites (you know, that Party of the working class, those against capitalism and the evil of self betterment), have been setting up consultancy companies and making a pretty penny from 'influencing' amendments on bills that affect their 'clients'. Didn't we see this coming?

In 1999, the Government completed a deal with the Lords to remove most of the hereditary Peers and passed the House of Lords Act 1999 leaving amongst the majority of appointed Peers a rump of 92 Hereditary Peers until the second phase of reform was complete. These 92 were elected from within those who had had a right to be members of the House of Lords as a result of their hereditary status. This arrangement was intended to be purely temporary until the second stage of reform was completed. This led to some claims (perhaps not all serious) that the elected Hereditary Lords were the only democratic members of the House.

Don't get me wrong here, I have no interest in supporting a bunch of silver spooners who's titles may have be earned by heroic deads of their forefathers (or not), but that are rarely are deserved by those who follow. One only has to look at how many country estates have disappeared to see how incompetent many of these peers are, I mean how difficult can it be to earn a substantial legitimate living having 'Lord' before your name? In my opinion you would have to be pretty dim to fall on hard times...

The thing that I do not like is the fact that Labour came to power on the basis of 'no sleaze'. Er... I don't mean to be funny but how many sleazefests have we had from Labour now?

There is a great article here from Iain Dale, who keeps a blog post up to date on Labour sleaze. (We are up to 70.. he says)

We then see some of this Labour government's appointed peers accussed of improprietary in the Lords. Hypocracy? You may say that... I couldn't possibly comment.

The thing we all know is that most politicians are in it for their own ends. Don't give me all that c**p about altruistic efforts to do their part, it is total and utter rubbish. If it was for social means you wouldn't need to be paid huge sums of cash; £63k Salary, £100,000 staffing allowance, £22,000 in 'incidental expenses',£3,000 London supplement, £24,000 'additional cost allowance', 47.2p per mile 'travel allowance', £10,400 'communication allowance'plus all computer equipment supplied and maintained.

Thats not a bad deal. Approximately £232,000 to run your business and pay yourself. You will also be interested to know that since labour got in the basic pay of an MP has risen by an average of £1666 per year. Nice

I would be very interested to see what percentage of MPs earn more money as an MP than they did in their previous jobs. Of course people will go on about the PM and senior ministers getting nowhere near what they woud have in Civvy Street. Gordon Brown only gets £194,000... boo...hoo. Never mind Gordon, it is estimated that Tony Blair has made £12mn since he got out, so don't fret too much. Having left us all in the worst economic situation we have faced Blair wanders off with his golden winnings. Why is no one complaining about that?

I know I have ranted on in this post and strayed off the point, but it gets right up my nose that Labour came in and messed with a system that has been working for 400 years. I am aware that most should not be there. Most titles in the old days were given out to cronies of the King or Queen, some for heroic deeds, but most for sucking up to whomever was in power at the time. Once enobled you could use your title to enrich yourself in support of the powers that be...

Wait a minute... perhaps things haven't changed all that much after all.