What the new peerages tell us about the party leaders
James Forsyth 1:00pm
Today’s peerage list contains more interesting names than usual. Jullian Fellowes — Downton Abbey, Gosford Park,
Snobs — is the one who will get the most attention. It is a sign of how confident David Cameron is feeling that he has risked the reopening of the whole class question. But perhaps, the
most intriguing Tory appointment is Patience Wheatcroft. One imagines that she wouldn’t have taken the role unless it was a way to allow her to serve on the political front line.
Howard Flight’s appointment to the Lords rights a wrong: his sacking as a candidate before the 2005 election was as unfair as it was hasty. A few MPs who stood down have received peerages — Sir Patrick Cormack, David Maclean, and Richard Spring — and there are the usual smattering of donors, though Sir Anthony Bamford is conspicuously absent from the list. Alistair Cooke, of the Conservative Research Department, and Michael Dobbs, of House of Cards fame, will both be great additions to the Lords.
The Labour list shows Ed Miliband’s intellectualism: three of his ten peers are academics. Maurice Glassman’s acceptance of a peerage is a coup for Ed Miliband given how hard the Tories have courted London Citizens, the community organising group that Glassman works with. Steward Wood, the man who masterminded Ed Miliband’s leadership victory, will, I hear, shadow Sayeeda Warsi. I also expect that Oona King will be offered some kind of media-facing role.
Nick Clegg’s list is the least interesting. The most noteworthy names on it are Susan Kramer, who lost to Zac Goldsmith, and Nicol Stephen, the former leader of the Scottish Lib Dems.
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Vulture
November 19th, 2010 1:32pm Report this commentNow that the ineffably smug Fellowes has been made - well, not exactly a real Lord since they no longer exist, but a Dave Lord- is there any chance that he will quit boasting about his enormous wife's non-job as Lady-in Waiting to Princess Pushy Panzer-pants of Kent?
SUSAN HILL
November 19th, 2010 1:54pm Report this commentThe ennobling of Fellowes has made me, for the first time since I was an undergraduate, contemplate leaving the Tory party and voting for - well, something else. Anything else. Good writer. But otherwise snobbish, pompous, stuck in the 1930s and a very very bad move on DC's part. I am absolutely serious- and appalled.
dearieme
November 19th, 2010 2:14pm Report this commentThat's a bit hard, Susan, on a chap who has made the singular contribution to national life of making Taki sound sane.
David Lindsay
November 19th, 2010 2:21pm Report this commentMichael Grade is a Tory? You can be given a peerage just for being Deputy Leader of the Lib Dems on Luton Borough Council? And will the consolation prizes for Oona King never end. She was notable for nothing except having been beaten by George Galloway, until she also became notable for having been beaten by Ken Livingstone.
If parties are to be allocated a certain number of working peerages each year, for people who would then be expected to attend with sufficient frequency that their attendance allowances would amount to salaries, then the parties should seek nominations from their branches (including those of affiliated organisations in Labour's case) and put out to a ballot of the entire electorate those with the most nominations, up to one and a half times their respective allocations.
Thus, if a party were entitled to 10 peerages, then it would put out the names of those with the 15 highest numbers of nominations. Each of us could then vote for up to five, and the highest scoring 10 would get in.
Every four or five years, the 12 units already used for European Elections would each elect three Crossbenchers, with each of us voting for one candidate and with the three highest scorers being ennobled.
TrevorsDen
November 19th, 2010 2:50pm Report this commentIf it were a sin to be educated at a private school - then Michael Foot would never have become leader of the labour party. Poor Vulture, stuck in the past.
And deary me today what contempt Ms Hill must have for all historians, so stuck in the past.
Still, the shocking nerve of the man - to be so successful.
mick
November 19th, 2010 3:01pm Report this commentnot bothered about political support just how much will this new lot cost
lescam
November 19th, 2010 3:07pm Report this commentWould love to know Taki's thoughts, on Fellowes' peerage! Maybe he will treat us to a dissertation on this subject, in due course.
I always think, every time I read the list of new peers, of W.S. Gilbert's wise words; "When everybody's somebody, then no-one's anybody". De-valuing the peerage by anointing party donors, nobodies and social climbers, just makes Britain look stupid.
SJH
November 19th, 2010 4:22pm Report this commentThis a list of Tory peers which makes my conservative blood boil. How can David Cameron, with all his sanctimonious cant about cleaning up politics, pour Tory party donors into the upper house of the legislature?
And what about Andrew Feldman, Cameron's mate from Brasenose and Tory fundraiser.
Julian Effing Fellowes?
This stinks. Bring back hereditaries. Flood it with anarchists. Hire it out for weddings. Do anything with the House of Lords except continue this demeaning charade.
I'm off to CCHQ with my sledgehammer.
Robert Eve
November 19th, 2010 4:38pm Report this commentWhat on earth is noteworthy about Susan Kramer?
Fex Urbis
November 19th, 2010 4:57pm Report this commentWith the odd exception what a spectacular collection of nobodies.
David Parker
November 19th, 2010 5:40pm Report this commentThe membership of the House of Lords has already been so debased by the elevations by Blair and Brown of so many incompetent and unpleasant failed Labour politicians and dubious donors that many decent people would now think carefully before accepting a peerage.
HampsteadOwl
November 19th, 2010 8:13pm Report this commentRest assured Fex Urbis, Alistair Cooke is certainly the odd exception.
And, SJH, careful with that last line. That's the sort of language that these days could earn you a visit from plod.
Bishop Hill
November 19th, 2010 8:13pm Report this commentWasn't it David McLean who kept trying to keep MPs' expenses under cover?
Cynic
November 19th, 2010 8:17pm Report this commentThe list of Cameron's peers cements his legacy as the heir to Blair.
steveal
November 19th, 2010 8:55pm Report this comment"Alistair Cooke, of the Conservative Research Department, and Michael Dobbs, of House of Cards fame, will both be great additions to the Lords."
Really? In what way?
Naomi Muse
November 20th, 2010 9:34am Report this commentThe new peerages tell it how it is:
. Neither party intends to reduce the size of the House of Lords, whatever they say
. The flavour of the moment is appointed as a Lord.
No change there. Now we have to get them to cut the Lords by half at least, so which will be on the receipt of the daisy petals as they chant, 'We love you, We love you not, through the whole shebang.
The Lords used to be a place I aspired to ending up because of the quality of the debate, but I cannot see what some of these ennoblements will do to help the Country right now, or that they have merit.
SUSAN HILL
November 20th, 2010 11:45am Report this commentBaffled by the comment about my despising historians. Is Fellowes a historian ? I have great respect for historians. Puzzled here.
Richard M
November 20th, 2010 12:52pm Report this commentAnyone who has funded a political party, should be strictly barred from the H of L.
Cash for peerages is just not acceptable.
Also anyone receiving an EU pension, or major income from any outside organisation should be barred from membership. To be in the political system you must be financially neutral and not in the pay of another. Time to have a real clean of both houses.
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