The Balloon Is Going Up

The unreformed Lords is now a bloated balloon.  This is the opinion of Lord Michael Oakeshott who was sent there in the year 2000 to stiffen up the rambling Liberal Democrat element and to reform the place.

He has had very limited success and in the last century and more the House of Lords has gone from a hundred or two of the greatest magnates in the land who believed in their sort of divine right to rule to a seething mob of placemen (and women), surrogate lobbyists and expenses claimers of the first rank.

It now outnumbers the just about elected House of Commons by many hundreds and does not begin to get near the job it is supposed to do.  It frustrates and complicates any sane attempt at government, on the rare occasions it is attempted.  The place is a political and administrative quagmire.

Now the infighting among the Liberal Democrats has begun to the entertainment of us all he has felt obliged to resign and give up the ghost as well as attending the Lords.  There is investment banking to be done and even that would be better.  He has made a statement.

The Statement in full is here, scroll down a little.  It does not tell us a lot but does remind us of the ignorance of most of our political class as well as their personal malevolence.  If this is the way the country is run then its present state can be little surprise.

It was a couple of weeks ago, we were taking our daily stroll when we were waylaid by two local Lib' Dem' fanatics out on a jihad against potential UKIP voters.  An obviously aged couple tottering along trying to track the local foxes we were not evidently a threat to society, if only because our walking sticks were not up to it.

After some insufferably arrogant and condescending interrogation, the Lady noticing the back straightening and the gleam decided enough was enough, I was shape changing into drill corporal mode. 

What was alarming was that in their arrogance they had made wild assumptions and were simply not reading the signals.  She made her excuses and we left, what worried her was that I was smiling, always a bad sign.

It was too late.  They had asked for our address so I had given them one.  It was a small house not far away with a large number of big men from by the Baltic who have a profound dislike of people asking questions.

I wonder if they voted Lib' Dem'?