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June 28, 2007
Lord of all the talents
Has Brown just signalled his preference for keeping an appointed element to the Lords? That is my take on his move earlier today to give a peerage to Sir Mark Malloch Brown so he could be appointed to the post of minister for Africa, Asia and the UN. And they may be more of that tomorrow, when the full list of ministers is announced.
One could argue that by definition bringing in 'all the talents' means having the scope to bring in people from outside politics into government positions, and under our system the only way of doing that is to appoint them to the Lords. The only other - much riskier - way would be to try to parachute them into safe seats when the opportunity (such as the forthcoming two by-elections) arises.
So unless Brown is going for one last, grand, use of these patronage powers before he reforms the Lords and makes it completely elected, we may be looking at a hybrid House after all.
Posted by malcolmclark on June 28, 2007
