How many parties are there in your parliament?

90 hereditary peers still sit though?

 

Yes. Which will expire when they either leave or are deceased.

 

No as I understand when a sitting peer dies those with a hereditary peerage vote on a successor. Eventually as peerages become extinct (assuming changes are not made to female succession) hereditary peers might die out but that would be glacial change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By-elections_to_the_House_of_Lords

 

Past tense.

 

The FIRST ninety two there have been bye elections since then as lords died to elevate another hereditary peer into the vacated seat.

 

http://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/about-lords/lords-appointment/
I don't know what your point actually is.
I suggest that you check this website as it describes how members of the house of lords are elected.

 

My point is their are still people sitting in the lords whose only qualification is that they posses a peerage and are popular amongst their fellow peers.

 

I don't see the problem.
I'd like to ask you whether simply voting for a representative automatically makes for a better government?

 

It makes for a representative government and reduces inherited privilege.

 

But not necessarily a better government.
There are tons of examples of where a fully representative government has turned against it's own people or others in which they've been ineffectual.

 

You could describe it that way, but actually they are 'popular' and there because they were the ones who actually turned up on a regular basis and participated and contributed well to the process (as opposed to the hundreds of previous (mostly Tory) peers who were only ever wheeled in when their party told them to turn up and vote). The '92' were kept in place because they were actually the ones who did something useful, and had experience at doing it - effectively a transitional arrangement so that the previous expertise of the House wasn't lost altogether, and the baby wasn't thrown out with the bathwater when it came to the HoL being able to perform its functions effectively.

The Lords does fulfil a useful role as part of the checks and balances of the procedures of parliament, but they don't have any real 'power' as such (the Commons does have supremacy over them, and all they can effectively do is ask them to think again about something - the Commons can use the Parliament Act to pass laws without the agreement of the Lords). That said, that doesn't mean I don't support democratic reform of the HoL - I do, but that doesn't mean I need to dismiss the current chamber and its uses in practical terms (it actually performs its function reasonably well despite the flaws in its composition), or that I don't see some potential dangers in an elected second chamber (another group of elected members, potentially demanding more power on the basis that it is elected, and potentially with an arguably better public mandate if it is elected by PR and the Commons remains elected by FPTP).

'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' - the HoL is partially 'broke' in terms of its democratic accountability, obviously, but we do need to be careful to 'fix' it in a way that doesn't make it even more 'broke' than it is already in terms of its ability to effectively perform its necessary functions!

ETA - My feelings are similar when it comes to having 'royalty' as Head of State - it's a ludicrous and undemocratic system in the modern age, but as long as they don't get any real power it actually works extremely well! I've yet to see a better way of appointing a purely ceremonial, and therefore not politically controversial, figurehead. I know it sounds stupid, but having an elected ceremonial Head of State has massive dangers in dividing the country, so as long as the actual government is democratic and the Head of State has absolutely no power I don't see it is a priority to change. The priority there is to remove and residual powers from the Head of State, IMO, rather than change the way the Head of State is appointed, even if the current system is a darned silly one!

 

Regarding the mention of "royalty" and its function in a modern state, from the perspective of a country [Italy] which has substituted the Crown as Head of State with a President of the Republic [but with substantially the same institutional functions] I can say that until the institutional "job" of the Monarch is ruled by laws and the legislative and executive functions don't depend on the Crown, but are legitimated in a democratic way, I don't see differences.

In fact, after the reelection of Giorgio Napolitano as President of the Republic, here there are journalists who call him "King George", since the only real difference between the Italian President of the Republic and Queen Elizabeth is that Giorgio has been elected by the Chambers of the Parliament [with the contribution of representatives from the Regions], while Elizabeth was born Princess ...