So yet another Blair induced change which has gone wrong.

Lord Sewel has resigned due to being caught snorting cocaine and cavorting with a prostitute. This man was a minister in Blair’s government and was given a place in the house of Lords. Blair and his cronies did this because they were envious of the hereditary peers whose families had been members of the House for centuries and he didn’t like the supposed privilege of these hereditaries.

But what has happened since he got rid of the hereditaries? They’ve been replaced in the Lords by political appointments in a cynical attempt to get his legislation through the upper chamber on the nod. So, that didn’t work and now we have had several Lords (not any Ladies or Dames as far as I know) who disgraced both themselves and the institution. Just lately we’ve had Lord Haddingfield, a Tory peer who fiddled expenses, Lord Janner allegedly a child molester, Lord Archer, disgraced author, and in 2013 Lord McKenzie and Lord Laird were suspended for various reasons. This is not to say that the hereditaries contravened the spirit of the code of conduct, but it appears the Blair experiment has failed with the number of Lords being somewhat below the standard expected of our legislature.

Not that MPs are any cleaner, there are many examples of corrupt goings-on amongst MPs of all parties. No, nobody’s perfect but for goodness sake, shouldn’t we be looking up to our elected legislators? I sometimes think that the selection process for prospective MPs is not that thorough and for elevation to the Lords for political appointments doesn’t exist, just on the whim of the leader of the party at that time. Hardly a ringing e

A faint hope but will we ever have a corruption free, non misbehaving upper and lower house? Not while there is a general and creeping change in the way people behave, the minority that is. The majority of the population are law abiding, conscientious people who don’t break the law or frighten the children. Parliament and the people who elected to occupy it or those that are appointed, like Lords should act and live such as the rest of us would look up to them. Sadly that is not the case, and there really is no one who would be a roll model to most people, except perhaps one: The Queen.