Events | 2009.06.06
This rush for the Lords shows Labour is a barrier to reform | Martin Kettle
More than 50 of the party\'s MPs are scrambling for a place in the upper house. The only aspiration they still stand for is their own
Deadlines concentrate the mind. With the clock running down on Gordon Brown\'s government, an increasing number of Labour MPs now have the unreformed, all-appointed House of Lords in their sights. Unfortunately for today\'s swelling ranks of constitutional reformers, this does not mean the Labour mood is finally hardening into a last-ditch resolve to create an elected second chamber before an expected Conservative election victory next year. Quite the contrary.
New Labour always saw itself as a party of aspiration. As its era ebbs, however, the only aspiration for which a large number of its MPs stand is their own. Joining the lords is for many a greater obsession than reforming them. Speaker Martin, soon to be rewarded for his failure with a seat in the upper house , is a role model for the envious colleagues he will leave behind.
My information is that an unprecedented number of Labour MPs are already queuing up to swap the green benches of the House of Commons for the red benches of the House of Lords after the next general election, due by June 2010. At least 52 sitting Labour members – one in seven of the parliamentary party elected in 2005 – have already formally solicited Downing Street to be included on any list of new peers to be appointed after Labour\'s expected defeat.
The lure of the Lords – a title and an allowance system worth £45,000 a year for life – is not new. But the scale of it certainly is. Today\'s jostling reflects the unusual size of the Labour backbench class of recent years. But it is also partly a product of Brown\'s way of doing politics. Rarely has a party leader made so many promises – including promises of jobs and honours – to so many people on his way to the top. Labour MPs have got used to operating in a market of patronage, promises and favours.
The figure of 52 wannabe Labour peers does not include the ranks of the as yet unennobled past or present cabinet ministers of the post-1997 era. None of these, starting with Tony Blair and Brown, needs to lobby. By convention they can eventually expect life peerages – if they want them – after their Commons careers come to an end. Nor does it include any of the Blair or Brown era advisers, bag carriers, union allies, party donors or other political chums who may also have hopes of a title.
The most striking feature about the more junior Labour MPs who have asked Brown to see them right is that many of them have not publicly announced their retirements and are still intending to fight the next general election. They include current chairs of select committees as well as past and still serving middle-ranking and junior ministers. While the list also includes MPs who can properly be described as long-serving backbenchers, it also contains others who have only been at Westminster since the first Blair landslide in 1997.
The fact that so many MPs want to be measured for ermine tells us two huge things about the Labour party at Westminster today. The first is that Labour MPs are overwhelmingly reconciled to their defeat. Brown presides over a party that has flipped from triumphalist to defeatist within less than two years. In the absence of a change of leader, they are simply going through the motions.
The second is that Labour is stuffed with people who know no other life than politics. Much has been written about the professionalisation of modern politics, in which student pols climb a ladder from Commons intern to research assistant to councillor to special adviser, and ultimately to MP and minister. Less has been said about where such careers go after the loss of a parliamentary seat. The 52 supplicants to Brown are a reminder that a logical next step is to become lobby fodder in the upper house. And a peerage, do not forget, is often a ticket to the boardroom.
This process is not unique to Labour. A former Liberal Democrat leader tells of his anger at the scale of jockeying for the Lords in his party. Right now, however, we are watching a quiet but large and desperate Labour race to the lifeboats. The extent of the desire to cling to the system is striking. While some of those who have put themselves forward might traditionally have entertained hopes of a seat in the Lords, many have done little except represent their constituents and vote the way the party whips have told them. Their careers are utterly unremarkable. Increasingly, though, that is qualification enough for the Lords. The conceit that the Lords are more independent and more distinguished than the Commons was already becoming a Westminster myth. The pressure to reabsorb so many defeated Labour MPs into the Lords over the coming years will dilute the claim further.
All this raises some very big questions about Labour\'s credibility as a party of reform. Labour undoubtedly contains plenty of people who want to see transparency of MPs\' expenses, more backbench power, a wider democracy, restored local government, electoral reform for Westminster, and an elected second chamber. It also contains lots of others who want none of these things and who believe with an inextinguishable tribal passion that they are all weapons to weaken Labour and attack its voters. To these Labour people, the notion of a new politics is just a cover – naive at best and malign at worst – under which the party\'s enemies and fairweather friends wish to destroy Labour\'s power and influence for the Tories\' benefit.
In-between there are many shades of grey, of which David Blunkett\'s article today is an example. In this, Labour is a mirror image of the Tories. But this is also why it is hard to believe in Labour as a united or reliable means for delivering long-term political reform. In the end, Labour is a sprawling coalition. As with all coalitions, this is sometimes a strength and sometimes a weakness. In the current public mood – though this may not last – it is the latter. Labour does not know what to say because it is divided about where its interests lie. As a result, under its indecisive leader it says little. The ambivalence and the silence are eloquent. If you want a new politics, then, as its incorrigible ambivalence toward the Lords reveals, today\'s Labour party is as much a barrier to reform as a vehicle for it.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]8/labour-reform-a-new-politics
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