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@bq
Regardless of its undemocratic make-up, the House of Lords used to be an effective second chamber. One could argue that during the last two Tory governments era it was often the only effective opposition.
It wasn't so much reformed under Blair as neutered, and then replaced with a bunch of Tony's mates and other yes-men. The result has been an explosion in bad legislation being passed unchecked. I would remove the bishops, peers and life-peers and replace it with directly elected (as in share of the vote, not seats) representatives. Then I would increase its powers so as to provide a proper check on the excesses of governmental power.
I do not find it easy to see the benefits of the Human Rights act. Our real and tangible rights are stamped on daily, as at the Earth Summit protests and replaced with pseudo-rights, many of which are to the detriment of this country's ability to do things like lock up (or deport) criminals, for example.
And as for the working tax credit, I agree with the concept of not hammering people with lower incomes with so much tax, and making work pay more than benefits, but the administrative mechanisms by which that has been achieved are so convoluted it must cost the country a fortune to run. What is wrong with just lowering the basic rate of tax, NI, or raising allowances? (I also know it's very easy to defraud. My girlfriend was hit with a demand for the repayment of thousands of pounds of tax credits despite the fact that we have never claimed them.)
NHS funding has been increased but so has the pressure on the NHS to meet government targets, implement initiatives and so forth.
Then there is the massive erosion of our civil liberties through the creation and subsequent misuse of very widely specified legislation, the illegal war in Iraq, the badly planned and resourced war in Afghanistan, after promising 'an end to boom and bust' completely destroying the economy. Or there's presiding over the loss of more manufacturing jobs than Thatcher.