There's a surprise: reactionary, conservative parties scupper Lords Reform

Boy, was I annoyed with Nick Clegg yesterday. One thing about being on holiday in this country is that you can't escape news. Well, I could switch my phone off but it just doesn't work like that. So, I was not chuffed that he chose the first proper day of my holiday to announce the end of Lords reform. My half pint of pear cider in the Magners Pasture was rudely interrupted by details of his statement. At least there were two other Liberal Democrats we'd met by chance to discuss it with.

Clegg faced a really rotten situation. David Cameron couldn't persuade his coalition-hating right wing backbenchers to support the Lords reform that they'd all been elected on and had supported going in to the Coalition Agreement. What was he to do? In the event, he is the only leader to emerge from this with integrity and dignity.

There was no way that he could simply let it pass. His decisive action yesterday to scupper a pet project of the Conservatives, the boundary changes, is entirely appropriate. Cameron really wanted those boundary changes to happen, particularly as they would benefit the Conservatives disproportionately. Nick Clegg could not afford to just sit there and take a clear breach of the Coalition Agreement without any consequences. If they'd got away with it once, we'd have risked total impotence within the Coalition and that could not happen.

Now, I know I said the other day that I wasn't too happy with the idea of using the boundary review to punish the Tories. I do however, understand where Nick is coming from. We have to wrap this up and move on. While I think people would expect there to be consequences - you can't break an Agreement and expect to get away with  it scot free - they don't want to see protracted public argument that would destabilise the Government. One clear, rational statement, presented in reasonable terms, was the right thing to do.

There is one aspect, though, of voting down the Boundary Review which really annoys me. Nadine Dorries, whose seat would have disappeared if they'd gone ahead, now gets a massive reward for bad behaviour.

It seems very clear to me that neither Cameron nor Miliband had the slightest inclination to ensure Lords Reform, which they both apparently support, actually happened. Nick Clegg was willing to negotiate with them. He offered Cameron the option of changing the legislation to include a referendum before Lords elections took place, but the Prime Minister wasn't willing to let the people have their say. He asked Ed Miliband how many days of Parliamentary debate he wanted to see and Miliband wouldn't even give him the courtesy of a reply.

The reality of the situation was that Nick was faced with a weak Prime Minister who couldn't control his own backbenchers and an unprincipled leader of the Opposition who was not prepared to enter into genuine negotiations. Nick acted decisively, rationally and intelligently.

I'm glad that he had some choice words of criticism for the Conservatives in his statement:

My party has held to that contract even when it meant voting for things that we found difficult. 
The Liberal Democrats are proving ourselves to be a mature and competent party of Government...
And I am proud that we have met our obligations.

But the Conservative party is not honouring the commitment to Lords reform...
And, as a result, part of our contract has now been broken.

Clearly I cannot permit a situation where Conservative rebels can pick and choose the parts of the contract they like...
While Liberal Democrat MPs are bound to the entire agreement. 
Coalition works on mutual respect; it is a reciprocal arrangement, a two way street.  

I have told the Prime Minister that when Parliament votes on boundary changes for the 2015 election Liberal Democrats in Parliament will oppose them.
When part of a contract is broken, it is normal to amend that contract...
In order then to move on. 

Lords reform and boundaries are two, separate parliamentary bills…
But they are both part of a package of overall political reform.
Delivering one but not the other would create an imbalance – not just in the Coalition Agreement, but also in our political system. 
Lords reform leads to a smaller, more legitimate House of Lords.
Boundary changes lead to a smaller House of Commons, by cutting the number of MPs. 
If you cut the number of MPs without enhancing the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Lords...
All you have done is weaken parliament as a whole…
Strengthen the executive…
And its overmighty government that wins.    

The Conservatives already know we're no pushover - we've forced Osborne to raise benefits in line with inflation when he didn't want to, we've insisted on more action on the environment and renewable energy than the Tories feel comfortable with. They know that we're a force to be reckoned with within the Government. That message doesn't really get across as well as it could to the general public. The challenge for Nick and his team is to ensure that it does, while balancing that with the need for the Government to look professional and competent. I'm encouraged by the way they did that yesterday.

Lords Reform dropped? Sulk a bit, then carry on...

So, if the Guardian is to be be believed, David Cameron is about to drop Lords Reform because there is no way to get it past the right wingers in his party who all stood for election in a manifesto that included changes to the Upper Chamber. If David Cameron isn't a bit scared that Peter Bone and Nadine Dorries have the upper hand in his party at the moment, then I'd be very surprised.

As a Liberal Democrat, I'm gutted that it looks like one of our major constitutional reforms, backed in some form by all parties in 2010 and therefore endorsed by the electorate, looks like it's dead in the water. When we've come up against a silly Tory plan we really can't live with, we've at least behaved like adults within the Coalition and made changes for the better.It's clear that we've succeeded, given the depth of the hostility towards us that openly emanates from the Tory backbenches.

David Cameron has abjectly failed to show that he leads a modern party. His true colours have come out. I doubt he was ever that keen on Lords Reform anyway, certainly not enough to put any effort into getting it through. His leadership looks weak and as under siege from the right as John Major's was - and he has far less in the way of political skill than his predecessor. It's not pretty. Bone, Dorries et al will be all pumped now and looking to scupper other Coalition measures they don't like, with equal civil marriage no doubt top of their list.

The Labour Party have chosen the path of unprincipled opportunism. They could still change their mind and decide to back the programme motion which would allow the legislation to proceed. I can't see it, though. They see their mission as one to destabilise the coalition and if that means voting against things they say they believe in, then so be it. Be clear, it's not about protecting the people of Britain from cuts because they would have pretty much done all the same things. We know Darling talked about raising VAT and for every £8 the Coalition has cut, Labour would have cut £7. It's about showing that Coalition doesn't work so that they and the Tories can go back to the bad old days of keeping all the power to themselves. Labour are supposed to be progressive, but they're hardly putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to enacting constitutional reform. I wrote a few weeks ago about how Paddy Ashdown led the Liberal Democrats into the lobbies for the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 when they could have brought Major's government down. Yes, we might want to harbour dreams that it could have led to a Labour/Lib Dem coalition with John Smith asn PM, but we can't be certain of that. The divisive election campaign that followed might have led to a withdrawal from Europe that would have been disastrous for people's livelihoods. At elast we were true to ourselves and what we believe in. Then and now, we act like grown ups, for the good of the country.

So, what should happen now? We should definitely sulk for a bit. We are quite definitely on the side of the Angels here and we have been wronged by people we'd made an Agreement with. We've stuck by that agrreement, endorsed by a Special Conference of our Party, when at times we would have rathered not, when it was clearly not in our electoral interests to do so.As Willie Rennie said after the local elections, any idea that we were ever in this for ourselves is clearly nonsense.

But sulking won't get us very far. So the other possibility is revenge. Do we scupper the boundary changes that we really don't want? I am not so sure.

If we have the chance to demand change, it has to be change that means something to ordinary people, not change that would give us a better chance of retaining nmore seats. What would be on my list? Well, first, scupper Theresa May's appalling family immigration rule changes. UK citizens should have the right to have their spouses live with them in this country regardless of income. End of. The web snooping stuff can join Lords Reform in the legislative bin, too. Let's not even waste the Committee's time. Bin this illiberal nonsense now.

What other prizes could we exact? Because of the Liberal Democrats, the wealthiest are now paying more tax, but not enough. Let's look again at the Mansion Tax, build a case for it in the country. Let's get a real campaign going. The wealthiest are not yet paying their fair share and we need to look at this again.

We have to resist any Tory moves to give a sub-inflation rise in benefits and the minimum wage. We held our nerve and insisted on the full whack last year and we have to do the same again.

And we must absolutely not give any ground  on equal marriage. In fact, we might want to take it further and follow Scotland's example and allow those religious bodies who want to carry out same sex marriage ceremonies to do so.

We must look again at mental health, an area Nick Clegg has done so much to break down stigma and make sure people have access to the right therapies. Let's look at where we could add to that, to really improve the quality of people's lives, particularly in light of the study this week that showed that people with Depression, stress and anxiety have a higher risk of premature death from heart attacks and strokes.

So, yes, we can allow ourselves some anger. We need to make sure that the blame for the failure of Lords reform is equally shared between both conservative parties. We need to remind people for years that we wanted democratic change, the others blocked it.  We must not allow this to break the Coalition, though, which is still the best possible Government for this country at the present time. We need to continue to behave like the honourable grown ups we are within the Government but we must be more robust about saying no constructively, emphatically and publicly.

Nick Clegg needs to take Cameron on a bit more, particularly on post 2015 policy ideas. They are fair game.

Of course,  it's not too late to reform the Lords. All the Labour party has to do is to say it supports the Programme Motion and we can get on with having a nationwide debate about it. If we have to agree to a refrendum in the process, I'm prepared to go with it. Will Ed Miliband's party have  the courage of its convictions to do that?  Even  if he does, the Tories will still have broken the Coalition Agreement and we need to make sure that they are seen to give us something in return.

Let's just not have reserved places for Bishops in the House of Lords - make your voice heard

The link I'm going to direct you to in a minute is a wee bit inaccurate, cos it says "No Bishops in the House of Lords."

That's not strictly speaking what the petition that comes with it is asking for. I certainly have no objection to any Bishop standing for election to the House of Lords and getting there with a bit of legitimacy behind him. I say him, because being a bishop is only open to men at the moment and will be until the very earliest next Summer.

However, the plans for the reform of the House of Lords announced by Nick Clegg earlier this year still have reserved places for Bishops in an 80% elected Chamber. I'd prefer a 100% elected Chamber, to be honest, but what I'm most opposed to is the fact that places will still be reserved for Bishops. I really don't think it's appropriate for any religious organisation to have seats kept by for it in Parliament in this day and age.

That's why I've happily signed this petition, from the Liberal Democrat Humanists and Secularists, which calls on our parliamentarians to resist this part of the proposals. The Petition says:

We, the undersigned, believe that there should be no bishops sitting in the reformed House of Lords, in line with the Liberal Democrat policy that no seats in Parliament should be reserved for any group or individual on the basis of their beliefs, religious or otherwise.

The UK parliament is the only democratic country that gives seats in its legislature to religious representatives as of right and we believe that this is unfair, unequal and undemocratic. The government's current proposals give even more privileges to Church of England Bishops than they currently have, and create an independent and largely unaccountable group of individuals inside the second chamber. We believe this is inappropriate and unacceptable in the legislature of a modern democracy. We urge those dealing with this bill to remove this provision from it at the earliest opportunity.

If you agree, please go and sign here.