And the second was that elected members should serve for terms of around 15 years

And the second was that elected members should serve for terms of around 15 years. The first would significantly reduce the patronage of the party leaders, including the Prime Minister, ensuring that political nominees were not just party hacks. The second would ensure that the elected members were not sacrificing their independence by looking over their shoulders at the whips and worrying if they were going to be reselected next time. Both would have made the Lords more independent without in any way threatening the Government’s right to see its business through. It says a great deal about Tony Blair’s attitude to parliament, not to mention his addiction to patronage, that Lord Wakeham, one of the foxiest pragmatists in British post-war politics, was still too high-minded a reformer for the Prime Minister.Why does any of this matter? Because at a time when cynicism about politicians is at greater heights than it has ever been, the electorate has a right to more than, in the brutal words of the White Paper, answering the question every five years or so “Whom do you choose to govern you?” Because the function of parliament is to do more than confer the trappings of legitimacy on the government of the day. It is to force the government to explain itself and in doing so to become a better and more responsive government.When cabinet government is significantly deader than it was under Margaret Thatcher, it’s truer than ever, and certainly truer than when Lord Hailsham coined the phrase that we are living in an elective dictatorship.

The Public Administration Committee should certainly demand at least a 50-50 system of election and appointment. And MPs must amend the Bill to include Wakeham’s minimum requirements on the Appointments Commission and length of elected terms. For once it’s up to Parliament to grasp its own destiny.d.macintyre independent.co.uk
More from Donald Macintyre. The kington family all went to Canada this year to spend Christmas with the wife’s relations, and very nice it was too, especially as I was taken to my first ice-hockey game, to see the Toronto Maple Leafs play the Buffalo something or others.

It was a cold day by British standards, and maybe by Canadian too, which I guess is why all ice-hockey games are played indoors, where the audience sits in the warm behind tall plastic walls, which protected us from the flying pucks and also from the superb athletes who go about skating at 100 mph or come to a complete standstill as they attempt to punch each other senseless.”See that?” said brother-in-law Keith, my mentor, at one point. “Our number 16 was nearly crushed to death against the wall by one of the opponent’s fellows, so he’s having a good look now at his number. We may expect some retributory action later on.”
In fact, ice hockey is a wonderfully skilful game most of the time, more like ballet than anything, as the skaters twist and float, accelerate and double back, improvising their whirling choreography constantly according to the whims of the puck That’s in the middle of the ice When you get to the edge it’s a different matter. The puck never goes into touch, it simply bounces off the wall, and when it goes behind the goal it is still in play, so ice hockey then becomes more like a game of pin ball, as the players attempt to whizz the puck round the wall and back up the rink.Inevitably it hits a stick or a skate and gets jammed, so there is a frenzied outburst of tribal dancing as four or five players scrabble for the puck, like Morris dancers turning very nasty In fact it seldom turns nasty. It just gets clumsy, as if ballet dancers suddenly started kicking each others’ shins. I was sucked in and found myself getting behind The Canadian juniors as well, especially as they seemed to be beating everyone, though they had a tough time overcoming Sweden in the quarter-finals, squeaking through 3-2.