You'd think they'd be interested in at least their own self-preservation, but 🤷‍♂️

I agree it's unusual, but it seems to me more about what happened before than what's coming next. The Tories under Johnson were unusually aggressive about stuffing every institution they could with ideological lackeys, and then Labour have been bizarrely uninterested in ejecting them.

That man is so lucky Musk is around

I've never actually been to a Cheesecake Factory, maybe it's rubbish. I've been to loads of fast food places in Canada though, and discovered that they all do the same 6-8 menu items. Like, obviously all the burger places do soft-serve, but also 'Dairy Queen' does chicken tenders. Land of plenty!

It also thinks it has the right to prevent British parents from having a stay-at-home mum or dad as a partner, but only if they are foreign.

Let's also presume that Bradley and his wife's child is British. This British child is being brought up in a home in which their parents cannot choose how to divide their labour for the child's best interests. How does this help this child?

I genuinely want an explanation. Note that the *effect* here is to make Bradley's British wife a second-class citizen in Britain; by marrying a foreigner, she has forfeited the right to decide with her partner how best to raise their child. A British woman who marries a Brit has that right. Why?

AvT's ideas might lead to a reduction in the second, but if anything make the first worse.

If these are your concerns, the logical choice is just abolition. Abolish, and do not replace.

My problems with the HoL are, in order of importance:

1) It is an anti-democratic insult to have an unelected chamber in your legislature that can and does block legislation from an elected government, and
2) Its practical purpose is as a vector for corruption in British public life.

The independent body idea is *less* democratic than being appointed by an elected government, and is likely to lead to a membership with all the background and viewpoint diversity of the High Court judiciary.

AvT does not suggest an answer to 1) in her post, but the most common one is that we need a 'revising chamber', a highly debatable proposition to say the least since so many democracies manage without. But it's not obvious to me why a constantly-rotating membership would *help* with scrutiny.

Two useful questions for Lords reformers to consider are:
1) Why do we need a second chamber at all?
2) What are you actually trying to achieve?

They want to financialise 'every possible difference of opinion', can look forward to dozens of these stories every week until they go bust I suppose

Jul 2024: We're signalling we're tough so we can't tackle child poverty now

Nov 2025: Tackling child poverty is a moral mission

Dec 2025: No increase in housing allowance, the hand of the market will sort it

Oh well, at least the electorate are loving it!

Baffling government really. The PM and Chancellor seem to be close and utterly reliant on each other, yet one wants to do 'stern father of the nation on everything social and also some giveaways to Our People In Industry' and the other wants to do 'yay The City! yay deregulation!'

Not very politically sustainable either, it seems