In which I praise two Labour bloggers on Lords reform…

Given I’ve spoken before about the importance of a broad cross-party coalition to back Lords reform, it’s only right that I compliment two Labour bloggers who have spoken up on the topic of Lords reform in the last few days.

Luke Akehurst over on Progressonline [article no longer available] wrote,

Labour’s constitutional conservatives are gearing up for another rearguard action … Unlike the AV question, when the party outside parliament was as divided as the PLP, the wider Labour party has a clear and settled view on this one. The National Policy Forum, representing all the key party stakeholders, voted at the ‘Warwick II’ meeting in July 2008 for a wholly elected House of Lords.

As that is the view of the party, I hope it will be the case our frontbenchers make in parliament and that the whips will be making every effort to get every Labour MP and Peer to vote for it, and to stop Tory backwoodsmen delaying the legislation, when it eventually gets debated …

Clegg has got it right (the first time I think I’ve ever written that!) in saying the upper house needs a different voting system to the Commons, otherwise it will just duplicate it and not play a role in addressing the representational deficit caused by first past the post.

Meanwhile, on LabourList Jessica Assato wrote,

There’s a reason why Labour has always opposed the House of Lords and it comes down to a simple formula that unelected elites should not be allowed to frustrate the will of the people. It doesn’t matter that the inbuilt Conservative majority in the Lords was diminished with the appointment of decent lefty scientists, trade unionists, art establishment-ists, and industrialists under the Blair years. Even if the place was stuffed with Joanna Lumley’s and Rowan Williams’s, Labour people shouldn’t care a jot, because it’s the unelected bit that’s the problem…

It’s hard to bear it, but Labour needs to get behind Clegg’s reforms, even if that means using the Parliament Act. There’s nothing worse than a party in opposition playing politics with an important democratic issue such as this. It may feel good at the time, but the public will see it for what it is.