this from 2024, more today
Yesterday’s blog on Therese Coffey created some passionate responses. Here is my favorite actuary who clearly is no fan of the House of Lords
Here is Will Hutton, clearly keen to reinforce my view that Therese Coffey voice will be amplified by her being a member of the parliament and a deputy prime minister. He is not keen to hear it.
Here is a regular commentator on my blog
It was having just read these comments , an endorsement of my position that I came across this admonition from the Australian David Harris that I have due respect for the SOS – clearly he means Therese Coffey.
This is not just about Therese Coffey, it is about the use of the House of Lords as a place to reward former political stalwarts and manage current MPs with carrot dangling
As my actuarial friend puts it, the appointment of Therese Coffrey is the best argument for the abolition of the House of Lords. There are others in there who have been rewarded not on a meritocracy but a political basis.
My attack on Therese Coffrey is personal because the people behind the Truss disaster are being rewarded while the impact of their actions is being felt by ordinary people who have every right to be outraged not just at the 2022 budget but at the lack of accountability by the people who were responsible.
If we decide we are gong to put former cabinet ministers in glass cabinets with Baroness titles and the freedom of social media to display their ignorance, I am determined to call it out.
We are , as a nation, doing things to put right the wrongs that “Jnamdoc” details in his blog above.
I cannot , as a blogger, be bracketed with Will Hutton, whose achievements you can read here, but I think I have a voice that is heard and that we will do work in 2026 and beyond to put right the damage the Conservative wrecking crew administered on Britain between 2010 and 2024.
There are many good people from the Lords who come to our events on Tuesday and read this blog. They will debate what we can do positively with our DB legacy to help pensioners and beyond, they will debate what we can do to create new pension using CDC and what we have saved through DC. We take these matters seriously and do not make politics out of our work administrating, pricing, valuing and investing funds for the future.
I hope that the people who support this blog and what we are doing through AgeWage and Pension PlayPen, will want to ensure we do not need to abolish the Lords. It should help to clean up our society , economy and government.
The House of Lords should properly govern us.
The level of uncertainty on values is troubling.
Who benefits from this? and is the current position no accident but the objective?
Hello Henry,
We should not have to abolish the Lords
I am not qualified to discuss whether the particular MP is suitable for appointment to the Lords but I would say that I would never have voted for her nor, for that matter any of the MPs that were in that Cabinet, given that they were ‘foisted’ upon us by the Conservative Party i.e. not elected. I would have thought that the USA, having closely watched that debacle (Johnson, Truss), would have learnt a lesson but apparantly not. Nor, does it seem, have we…!
Who was it who said ‘Democracy is a messy business but the alternative is worse’? I’m not sure (never having studied politics) whether or not all the European Governments vote for all of their legislature. However we do know that one of the larger and richer Countries does. Where are they at the moment? For the last year they are being governed by a convicted felon who swept to power on a wave of (well campaigned) popularity (I am for You; they are for them). A big surprise to the BBC who had readily presumed that Kamila Harris would easily succeed yet, surprisingly, the UK Bookies didn’t! As promised the re-elected President immediately set about being spiteful to those who opposed him, plus other self-indulgent and shameless actions. On the one hand the New York Times gives details of what problems are being beset for Europe etc while, on the other hand, the media’s main concern here is ‘the boat people’. Something that Britain has had to deal with since 55BC. At least the current lot aren’t Vikings.
True that appointments to the Lords are politically strategic for the Parties involved. However, who would be interested in stand in an election for the Lords and what qualifications would be desirable? Returning to the USA: their Senate (and Congess) have reportedly been victims of intimidation by the current President and are also spectators to a President who believes he has full rights to any decision regardless. All they can do is hide behind their Judiciary. Accepted that when their Regulations were prepared, the view presumably was that any President would use his rights sparingly and with the full co-operation of Congress and the Senate. Understandably they had no expectations of the current President’s demanding attitude. History will show that such an aggresive and self-centred attitude will quickly ‘wash down’ into their society and that the World will, as a consequence, become doubtful of their sincerity.
As we have seen with Johnson and Truss, when things here get that bad, the MPs can call for a Vote of Confidence. That might go if the House of Lords was ended.
As the saying goes: be careful what you wish for.
Kind regards,
Tim Simpson
Tim, thanks for this measured response. You are right, we do not have elected Lords and Ladies and by and large we get good ones. There are those who inherit their places but they are fewer. If, we the commoners cannot throw tomatoes , we can vent our frustration at the ones we have no time for! They can vent their frustration back. I am pleased to have had a few on the Pension PlayPen lately and we’ll go invite new ones as they arise.