The House of Lords is the most expensive day care centre for elderly cronies, failed politicians and friends of the powerful in the UK. It accommodates over 800 members carefully selected for their contribution to massaging the egos of Prime Ministers and/or making huge financial contributions to political parties. It is an affront to democracy and should be closed down immediately. It exists to represent, maintain and promote the ancient British class system which thrives on lickspittle deference to authority, inherited privilege and a power and wealth generated entitlement to rule.
Lords Paid More a Day Than Unemployed Receive in a Month
The Daily Allowance these hand-picked and hereditary relics are entitled to claim has been increased to £323 (from £305) which is greater than the £317.82 Monthly Allowance paid to a single Universal Credit claimant only after a rigorous process of form filling and means-testing.
Hundreds of the 800 Lords are known to turn up only to sign in at the Lord’s Chamber before departing to their assorted gentlemen’s clubs for refreshments, golf courses for light exercise and/or boardrooms to pontificate on the need for hard work and paying workers the absolute minimum to live. Parliament staff record only when a Lord or Lady signs in not when they leave. Some keep the taxis or chauffeur driven cars running while they execute the labour intensive task of signing their name.
Nothing underlines and highlights the obscene gulf in income and power which scars the dis-United Kingdom than the conscious decision to pay privileged and often millionaire Lords and Ladies more for a day than we pay a single Universal Claimant to try and survive for a whole month. It is a disgraceful and disgusting state of affairs. We effectively practice a socialist welfare system for the rich and a cruel market economy welfare system for the poor.
Most of the Lords and Ladies nowadays are appointed under the Life Peerages Act of 1958 which permits Prime Ministers and Leaders of parties at the House of Commons to select their mates to sit on the red leather benches for the rest of their lives. No talent is required. No skills are essential.
Indeed being a failure in your political and/or business career is often rewarded with a peerage as long as you have been an obedient and loyal friend to the Prime Minister or respective party leader. It is a form of sickening patronage which turns my stomach and should turn the stomach of any responsible adult with a functioning brain cell or two.
House of Lords is an Affront to Democracy
The film ‘Parasite’ could have been all about the snivelling, grovelling occupants of the House of Lords who will do anything and abandon all principles to get their hands on the red ermine robes which signify they have become part of the British elite but lost their moral compasses and democratic souls in the process.
That the Labour Party still nominates individuals to 'serve' in the House of Lords over 100 years after their founding documents and manifestos committed them to abolishing the anti-democratic carbuncle is a deep stain. The perfect depiction of an oxymoron is precisely a Labour Lord. Any former trade unionist and/or Labour politician who accept a seat in the Lords should hang their heads in shame.
One prime embarrassment is Lord David Brookman who once represented steelworkers as the General Secretary of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (1993-1999). He compounded his shame of accepting a Life Peerage by managing to claim an incredible £50,000 in Allowances and expenses in the space of one year, 2018, without ever speaking or even submitting a single written question.
He was, however, not alone as dozens of other lords and baronesses also never took part in a single debate, while almost a third of the 800 peers barely participated in parliamentary business over a 12-month period despite costing almost £3.2m in allowances.
Labour Lords are Fine Definition of an Oxymoron
In Scotland during the 2014 independence referendum three of the most vocal opponents of the YES Campaign were failed Labour Party flunkies who formerly supported abolition of the Lords but slavishly ‘rubber- eared’ their previous dislike for the Chamber to grab the red robes of shame and then obediently rage against the dignity of independence.
I daubed Lords Reid, McConnell and Foulkes the ‘three stooges of the British Establishment’ who fought harder to save their own jobs than they ever did for anyone else’s job as in an independent Scotland there would be no unelected and undemocratic chamber.
Alistair Darling was the former Labour Government Chancellor of the Exchequer under Tony Blair and still a Labour MP during the 2014 referendum. He advocated working alongside the Tories in the newly created ‘Better Together’ campaign to save the British union. He sought to spread as much fear, distortions and downright untruths about independence as possible. His own dodgy dealings were conveniently swept under the carpet by the unionist media.
The guy who changed the designation of his 2nd home four times in four years to allow him to claim the costs of running his family home in Edinburgh while cashing in on the multiple purchases and sales of homes in London at the taxpayers’ expense, was the unionist pin-up boy tasked with convincing Labour voters in particular to decline the chance for self-respect which independence offered. The former QC was mired in investigations over dodgy expenses claims in 2010 and had to resign from the prestigious Faculty of Advocates in Scotland after they threatened to investigate his finances.
Life Peerages are Reward for Slavish Commitment to British Establishment
However, he performed his loyal duty for the British state and although unfit to be a member of the Faculty of Advocates he was ‘fit’ enough to be elevated to the parasitic patronage home for the pathetic failed politicians in 2015 when he became a Lord and was given the title of Baron Darling of Roulanish.
There he sits alongside the ‘three stooges’ aforementioned and all the other former Labour politicians and trade union leaders who bring shame on the proud history and traditions of the labour and trade union movement. The founder of the Labour party, Scotsman Keir Hardie, would ridicule and roast these turncoats for their shameful decisions to accept British class stained peerages.
Last week there was talk of another politician in Scotland being rewarded for failure. Former Scottish Tory party leader Ruth Davidson failed in her stated objective of becoming Scotland’s First Minister and despite being incessantly promoted by the lame unionist media in Scotland she couldn’t even muster as much Tory support across the country than despised former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
The UK State pays privileged and patronage junkie Lords and Ladies more in a day than we do in means-tested entitlement benefits to single adults to survive for a month. That is a deplorable and shameful state of affairs. It should enrage you and supply you with one more in a long list of reasons to abolish the unelected House of Lords
