Yesterday was Lords Reform Day in the blogosphere, marking 94 years of the statement in the Parliament Act 1911 that it was time to have an upper house established on a “popular rather than hereditary foundation”. Strangely, among the many bloggers who responded to a call on Pledgebank to contribute, there was a remarkable degree of consensus. Many, many bloggers were drawn to the idea of a House of Lords chosen by lot, on an analogy with jury service. (Total disclosure: I am forever barred from the jury room, having worked for the Crown Prosecution Service. Which is a pity because I’d love to take part.) Even Tim Worstall, who suggested what was essentially a new hereditary peerage, embraced the notion of chance as an elector.
Why this curious degree of blogospheric harmony?
I commented over at Jamie Kenny’s (who spoke out for election by lot) that it’s probably because every blogger thinks they could do better given the chance, somewhere down the depths of the unconscious. Otherwise they wouldn’t blog in the first place.
(Note: in the comment that originated this post, I committed an outrageous cockup by attributing the title of the post to Adam Mickiewicz. God knows why. It was Shelley!)