Genuinely regrettable. The appointed life peers system is worse than the traditional ‘hereditary sortition’ (if you will).
The former creates a class of semi-sinecures of equally questionable quality yet beholden to the political system of the moment. Life peerages become awards for donors and loyalists, a legitimized corruption. The house’s composition becomes an ever-growing competition based on unlimited partisan appointment. The house becomes less thoughtful, more unwieldy, more pointless, more expensive. It will inevitably be abolished on this path.
In contrast aristocrats are at least less likely to owe anything to a special interest, and more likely to hold firm to unpopular but perhaps higher ideals: they owe their position to no other power center, neither voters nor parties. They are also inherently invested in the nation’s long term success. It’s hardly democratic but at least it’s not a wasteful partisan circus.
My pitch would be to keep a small number of intra-peerage elected hereditary peers, keep the bishops, add various ex officio academics - but fill the majority of seats by true sortition. Every British subject is liable to be drafted, and paid, into a year or two of part-time lordship. (Though I’d grant the whole house a right to easily expel such members, should they fail to meet basic expectations.)
I wonder if you might find the book “Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case” by Tongdong Bai to be interesting. It delves into exactly these issues: how to ensure that long-term interests, or the interests of future generations, are also taken into account, and not just the interests of the current electorate.
A lifelong hereditary appointment is an affront to democracy imo. It is regrettable we have a monarchy, but their power is very limited. The Lords however have a regular say in the production of laws. A second house is good. But hereditary appointment is only one degree removed from some divine right.
But I entirely agree about political appointments. You only have to look at the last set from the Tories/Boris to see that the system has been abused.
Did you ever actually read the candidate statements written for the hereditary by-elections whenever a new spot opened up in the Lords?
Seriously, they're worth a read. A collection of posh nobodies all with a 'long career in business/finance' but rarely any particular concrete achievements to talk about. My favourite is Earl Dudley, who stands at every single opportunity seemingly only in a desperate attempt to promote his semi-pornographic youtube channel.
Sortition sounds great in theory, but I don't think it's well-suited to a permanent chamber. Use it for citizens juries, or appoint a time-limited jury to scrutinise a single reading of each bill, similar to the work of a select ctte today.
It's worth considering that the life peers system is similar in many ways to the Roman Senate, which worked fine.
Senators got that way by popular election rather than by appointment, which is a significant difference.
Appointed life peers are even more similar, basically identical, to appointed officers in an imperial court. Courts operate on appointments as opposed to heredity when the throne is powerful.
It looks to me like only the king can create peers. If a British king was interested in reclaiming some power, that would be a promising place to start.
The former creates a class of semi-sinecures of equally questionable quality yet beholden to the political system of the moment. Life peerages become awards for donors and loyalists, a legitimized corruption. The house’s composition becomes an ever-growing competition based on unlimited partisan appointment. The house becomes less thoughtful, more unwieldy, more pointless, more expensive. It will inevitably be abolished on this path.
In contrast aristocrats are at least less likely to owe anything to a special interest, and more likely to hold firm to unpopular but perhaps higher ideals: they owe their position to no other power center, neither voters nor parties. They are also inherently invested in the nation’s long term success. It’s hardly democratic but at least it’s not a wasteful partisan circus.
My pitch would be to keep a small number of intra-peerage elected hereditary peers, keep the bishops, add various ex officio academics - but fill the majority of seats by true sortition. Every British subject is liable to be drafted, and paid, into a year or two of part-time lordship. (Though I’d grant the whole house a right to easily expel such members, should they fail to meet basic expectations.)