[OT] Bush vs. Gore - Was: [Sussex] Linux is capitalism, Microsoft is communism?

[Stephen Williams]

On Wed, 2004-10-27 at 11:48, Steve Dobson wrote:
> Geoff
> 
> On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 08:29:58PM +0100, Geoffrey John Teale wrote:
> <snip>
> > I for one would support the following:
> > 
> >  - The removal of the monarch as the head of state (that doesn't mean I
> > want us to stop having a Queen, it means she shouldn't at any level be
> > involved in our system of government).
> > - The abolition of the house of lords.
> > - The removal of religious text and procedure from government.
> > - The replacement of the "first past the post" electoral system with
> > "one person one vote" on a national scale.
> 
> While I agree with you about proportional representation and the religious
> text, but the others I have issues with.
> 
> 1). If the Queen is not the head of state then what is the point in having
>     a queen at all?  Also, who is going to be our head of state?  The PM?
> 
>     The problem with a politician as the head of state is that they are 
>     not all pure.  In that case of the States was last represented by a
>     man the lied under oath (or used legal contortion), and by a war
>     monger.
> 
>     While the Monarchy is not perfect either, at least our Queue does
>     represent 1500 years of English (and later British) history, no
>     politician can represent that.  That is useful in a state visit.

The present monarchial system is fine. It might be mildly broken, but is
there a way of fixing it that doesn't make things worse?

> 
> 2). What are you going to replace the House of Lords with?  A group of 
>     (mainly) government appointed lackeys, you can't like that system judging
>     from your arguments on the Supreme Court.
> 
>     The House of Lords, before the reform, was all but powerless.  Any bill
>     that the Government really wanted passed could be forced through under
>     the Parliament Act.  The HoLs useful role was that they could delay any
>     bill giving time for a Government rethink or of the people to protest
>     more causing a political rethink.
> 
>     Unless the members of the House of Lords are voted for by the people
>     (in which case they can't be lords) then I would rather they were still
>     under the old system.  I can remember many old PMs arguing for reform
>     of their own parties bill in light of their own experience and wisdom.
> 
>     To my mind our old system, while far from perfect, had found a way to
>     mix the short term but publicly accountable politician with the long
>     thinking, never changing Lord of the Manor type.
> 

Personally I thought the House of Lords was reasonably constituted
before "New" Labour started fiddling. The current Lords is a joke. If we
can't go back to the old system, let's have a properly elected second
chamber. All those retired PMs and elder statesmen could stand as
candidates.

> Steve
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Sussex mailing list
> Sussex at mailman.lug.org.uk
> http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/sussex