Political appointments and reform of the House of Lords. A letter in the Western Daily Press.

In my view the burgeoning House of Lords, largely made up of party donors, cronies and former MPs, should be abolished entirely.  Why have a second chamber to "scrutinise and revise" the work of the House of Commons?  After all if members in the Commons fail to do their job properly and introduce bad legislation they can be voted out of office.

However, if there must be a House of Lords this letter from Robert Craig, published in the Western Daily Press on November 7th, includes a reasonable suggestion of how to create one.

Lords reform should focus on parties.
Political appointments to the House of Lords should be in proportion to the number of votes cast for parties at the previous general election. That would lead to the presence of parties not currently represented in the Lords such as the Greens, the English Democrats and Ukip, without increasing the number of Lords.

One might have thought that Stuart Eels ( Western Daily Press November 3) would welcome the existence of Ukip as a party (rather than individuals) in the Lords, and a reduction in the vastly inflated number of Liberal Democrats whose party was rejected by the British people in last May's general election.

On the subject of the EU, Colin Fountain, in the same edition, referred to how Malta ignores EU law on hunting and trapping leading to the massacre of migrating turtle doves and other small birds, pushing them towards extinction. The British government, as a member of the EU, must be conniving at Malta's illegal actions. Over-fishing of sand eels in the North Sea has led to worrying declines in puffin numbers. This would appear to be a another failure by the EU and the UK government.

Six years ago David Cameron told the electorate to vote Blue and get Green. It is hard to see any evidence of him honouring that declaration.

Robert Craig

The Saxish Home Rule League