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be that as it may, i can vote governments out and new ones in. the benign dictatorship of the lords is imposed on us. it's simply undemocratic to have hundreds of unelected, unrepresentative politicians passing laws and deciding how this country is run. at least get shot of hereditary peers.

More and more I feel that my contributions to this country are simply not appreciated.

did you show them your cake?

You can try, but the shitty voting system doesn't really help you.

Most of the hereditary ones are gone now, roughly 90% are life peers.
Strangely though, lots of the backroom staff say that the hereditary ones were a more representative bunch. They didn't get paid in the same way as the present system, so a lot of them saw it as a public duty and basically did it for free.They also had a strange rule where you couldn't read from a prepared speech. You could refer to notes, but if peers were suspected of reading they would be heckled down. It meant that you couldn't stand up and read a speech provided for you by a researcher, so you had to be absolutely sure of your subject.

^ This.

Considering most of our 'elected' representatives are in it for the money or being on a Board of a major company. The idea that the Lords are a 'check' on their shenanigans is good for me.

Remember all they can do is refer a bill back to Parliament, they can't create one or add their own amendments.

are you ok with 26 bishops being given seats because jesus?

Plato's 'philosopher kings' in practice. Well it used to be.

When it works, it is pretty good. They can actually initiate bills, but it is very rare. The assisted dying bill is one of theirs.
Spot on about the religious types though.

@Pifko

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32333474

You have a religion you'd like represented?

Yes,
we are up there with Iran in having theocracy rather than a democracy.

Yeah, right. We are just like Iran in this country.

This is bullshit. And I can prove it because I can post this and not have the religious police 'disappear' me.

Way to miss the point there, champ.

Sure. All of them.

#creepingsharia

^replel

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32337990

Expect more drivers on phones, cat is out of the bag about lack of enforcement.

A Ukranian journalist with clear pro Russia/Putin views was gunned down in Kiev yesterday. The news doesn't seem to have reached the UK press yet, but keep an eye out for articles about Oles Buzina. As a Putin sympathiser the guy might have been a bit of a cunt, but then again there is that whole freedom of speech thing to consider.
Apparently this is the latest in a string of masked hitmen taking out dissenting voices in Kiev.

My two pence; there's no way Ukraine is deserving of NATO support for a long time yet. While my sympathy leans towards Ukranians who want to remain independent from Russia, you can't just erase the fact that there are a sizeable proportion of the population who feels otherwise. I'm no expert on Ukraine, but to me it is starting to look like one of those post-colonial countries where ethnic discord is seen as a zero sum game.

right. so the penalty for driving a ton of speeding metal whilst not paying attention to where it's being pointed has gone from 'that's very, very, very naughty' to a staggering 'that's very, very, very, very, very, very naughty'.

golfclap.

@greenhell jump the lights on 5kg of steel and it's £50

Is it less if you have a scaffold pipe bike?

It was on Radio 4 news programmes yesterday, apparently a huge amount of former supporters or ministers from Yanukovych's government have died or 'committed suicide' since the revolution. Maybe Russia and Ukraine have more in common than they'd like to admit? Both seem like very dangerous places to be political opponents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAexMc8FL6I

waterloo on fire. AGAIN.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/great-portland-street-fire-huge-plumes-of-smoke-seen-over-central-london-near-bbc-10184771.html