The only difference between suicide and martyrdom really is the
amount of press coverage- Chuck Palahniuk

Labour-1983 all over again?

It was only around a month ago when I got the pleasure of talking to a Baroness of the House of Lords, and we talked, strangely enough, over the need for reform in the House of Lords. We agreed on the need for change in terms of age, with the average currently at 70 and all but ruled out the possibility of a 2nd elected Chamber over the contradicting function of it and the House of Commons. According to me and the rest of the room, this made sense, because whilst we admitted it wasn't perfect, nothing was and alternatives looked scarce. Reform was unanimously and silently preferred in a room of around 50 along a Baroness, strong opposition against, a very weak and reactionary Ed Miliband...  There will be riots...

The USA has many things that the UK doesn't, for example: bad cars, fake bacon and the fact that I can't walk in an alcoholic shop without getting decapitated under suspicion of age drinking. But whilst, unfortunately, some of these ideas are filtering over to the UK, there's one I'm well and truly against, and it just happens to be Labour's next big proposal... What a surprise...

In 1983, Labour infamously made the "Longest suicide note in history" with their manifesto for that years election favoring extremely left wing policies and ideologies, which frankly bewildered many Labour supporters to voting Conservative in a landslide victory for the right wing party. This has been argued as a reason for the rebirth of Labour under Blair in 1997, and whilst this is in the past, events seem to be re-occurring. One of the proposals in the infamous 1983 "suicide" manifesto was to abolish the House of Lords, and it has striking similarities with the proposal by Miliband today to replace the House of Lords with a Senate. Cue the canned laughter.

Recently resigned  Scottish Labour Leader, Johann Lamont, accused several Labour MP's of being dinosaurs over the treatment of a Scotland wanting to devolve. It has been very clear that the conviction of the promises made by Miliband to Scotland have been poor, and that her resignation left a scar in his Scottish reputation (it's hard to believe he had one anyway). So in clear retaliation, much like the one made by the "Big Three" in the Scottish Referendum, Miliband has proposed a senate which would elect Senators from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England. But as far as I see, it's just glorified false hope with no more potential of his hopes of being Prime Minister next year. Miliband has clearly just seen warning signs from Lamont's resignation, realized he was in a hole, made a very shoddy glorified proposal and stuck a sticker on it. Admittedly, there is a problem in the ratio of members of Lords from constituencies, especially in London, but how does this solve the issue? Not the ratio issue, the wider picture, the one that shows the UK's falling turnouts. This would have no affect on turnouts, and because it's only a glorified House of Lords, people would perhaps have less faith in politics, after all, no one wants an expensive change in politics only for it to have no impact. In conclusion: Miliband, actually have some creativity and come up with clever proposals that will work, not retaliate like a 5 year old on the naughty step.

Jordan Ifield (or should Miliband just step down?...)