Gordon Brown is right to highlight that the document he has seen that advocates appointing even more Tory peers to avoid challenges to the party’s legislation is corrupt and fails to understand the basic principles of a second parliamentary chamber (Boris Johnson is planning to fill the Lords with his cronies and legitimise bribery, 29 July). Many of us from all parties who have witnessed the raft of new Conservative peers are appalled, but unsurprised.
David Cameron appointed more peers per year than any other prime minister before him. Boris Johnson makes him look like an amateur. This isn’t just about appointments, but Johnson’s willingness to break rules that don’t suit him, including his failed attempt to unlawfully prorogue parliament.
In the last parliamentary session, with a raft of contentious policies, the Lords sat longer and later than the Commons to scrutinise legislation. And did it well. For example, when the government sought last-minute, badly drafted, unworkable and unjustified attacks on the right to protest, it was peers from across the House who made a stand against them. And the document is right on one point: Tory peers did fail to vote. Not just through poor political management, but because of ministers’ failure to make a convincing case.
Reform is desperately needed – but we don’t have to wait until the next election. The House of Lords itself is crying out for change now. For example, the Burns report has plans for a smaller, more balanced chamber and the Grocott bill would end the absurdity of hereditary byelections. The government’s sole proposal has been to move the Lords out of London – presumably to make it easier to avoid challenge. This must be the first time in history where the second chamber is proposing reforms and the government is resisting.
Angela Smith
Labour, House of Lords
• My admiration for Gordon Brown is reinforced by his speaking out about Boris Johnson packing the House of Lords with cronies. Brown’s 2008 attempt at reform is a beacon for those of us who have long argued for structural reforms. Our national narrative of tradition and exceptionalism, held in place by institutions such as the Lords and a constant diet of pomp fed to us by a compliant media, has created and sustained inequality and poverty in Britain, and long sapped the energy and creativity of so many people before it can take root.
It is a pity that Mr Brown’s predecessor did not use Labour’s large Commons majority much earlier to initiate a strategy of structural reform. Sadly, I cannot see Keir Starmer heeding Mr Brown’s call to arms, despite the evident support for such changes in his own party and across the country. So how do we make use of Boris Johnson and Lynton Crosby handing us all “the strongest possible case for long overdue reform”, if political leaders on all sides lack the courage to embrace it?
Christopher Tanner
Llandovery, Carmarthenshire
• Gordon Brown’s article is profoundly depressing as it confirms how illusory our democracy really is. The House of Lords might not be perfect, or totally representative in its current form, but only in this chamber is there enough resistance to power-grabbing legislation, such as the original schools bill that would have handed over unprecedented control to Whitehall. Universal suffrage so long and so courageously fought for is being snatched away in plain sight.
Yvonne Williams
Ryde, Isle of Wight
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