The Prime Minister has continued with establishment tradition by appointing his chums and cronies to the House of Lords. At the same time, Blairite saboteurs have been rewarded for their services. We must abolish this feudal relic.
Two weeks ago, on Friday 31 July, Boris Johnson announced the appointment of 36 new peers to the House of Lords. Infamous as the world’s largest unelected legislative body, Britain’s upper house is a rogues’ gallery of cronyism and sleaze.
In keeping with the long-held tradition of appointing establishment chums, Johnson’s appointments include: Russian billionaire press mogul Evgeny Lebedev, who was coincidentally owner and editor of London’s main evening paper during Johnson’s time as mayor; the cricketer and famous Brexiteer Ian Botham; and, of course, the PM’s own brother, Jo Johnson.
One last kick at Corbynism
Also among our eclectic cast we find a handful of former Labour MPs – a gracious gesture perhaps? However, we need only look at which ‘Labour’ politicians have been honoured to understand the real reasons for these appointments.
Take, for example, former human being and Dudley North MP Ian Austin. Amongst other acts of sabotage, in the embarrassing climax of his inglorious career, Austin urged ‘traditional patriotic voters’ to vote Tory in the 2019 general election.
Similarly, we find a whole host of other Blairite turncoats and careerist cretins now being elevated to the Lords, including Frank Field, John Woodcock, and Kate Hoey. These ‘honours’, in short, are simply a pat on the back from a venal government for which all these wreckers have served their purpose.
A life of luxury
The very fact of its unelected existence – let alone its endless grotesque inflation – is an affront to the principles of even bourgeois democracy. But the ills of the House of Lords go far beyond this.
For many of its members, it is little more than a source of passive income, as well as providing numerous other perks and privileges. In the past, our noble peers have claimed expenses for such things as piano-tuning, moat-cleaning, and even the refurbishment of a personal bell-tower!
According to the Guardian, our 36 newest ladies and gentlemen will likely cost the taxpayer an extra £1.1 million per year. And this is not including the £323 payment for every day they deign to attend a meeting. By contrast, statutory sick pay for workers currently stands at a measly £98.85, per week.
Kick out the Lords – Kick out capitalism!
So rotten is the House of Lords, that even establishment mouthpiece the Financial Times described it as “a sitting invitation to sleaze and malaise”. Likewise, the Economist described the recent appointments as “the smell of rot”.
Keen to mask this ugly stench, both publications echoed the longstanding call for reform of the Lords. Presumably they are keenly aware that – with the developing crisis of capitalism – the establishment requires a veneer of legitimacy to its discredited organs of rule.
Yet the fact that this situation is left to endure – and, indeed, to worsen – must not be taken as a failure of their system. In fact, the system is working just as designed: to concentrate power in the hands of an ever more privileged and unaccountable few. Corruption has always played a key part in this.
The House of Lords must be abolished, along with all the other relics of feudalism – including the Monarchy. But only with socialism, based on organs of workers’ democracy, will anachronistic institutions like the Lords be swept away for good, along with all the corruption endemic to capitalism.
