As mentioned, they shouldn't really have time for another job and MP's are currently supposed to declare other sources of income or benefit in kind. Unfortunately it's often difficult to find out the true source of the money and whether its a conflict of interest. As shown by the Peers in current trouble, you simply get a mate to put the questions up for you. Plus our media and journalists are so useless they can never be bothered to actually investigate these people.
So, in my opinion, ban all other forms of income and benefit in kind then, other than having secret accounts etc, it eliminates the option for MP's and Lords to receive money from groups/lobbyists etc and so have no incentive to particularly screw the public.

I'd agree an MP with a previous job is generally more desirable than not, but then our dear leader had a previous employment and he still has no idea about how most people live their lives. I also can't think of many jobs that could be done alongside being an MP that would particularly make a person more experienced or grounded. They can do voluntary work if they like.
If they want to write a book etc then they can wait until they've left Parliament to publish it.
Any investments can be put into a blind trust as well, to avoid any conflict of interest there.

What do you define as 'source of income' though? What if you have investments? Are you supposed to stop earning any returns on them whilst in Parliament? I personally don't have a problem so long as sources of income are completely transparent and subject to full public disclosure.

As for the second/upper house, I'm with cod'ead - it should be fully elected. I'd copy the Australian model, with the upper house elected at different intervals to the lower house (generally half the Senate faces elections at the same time as the lower house, although full elections for both can happen). That in itself acts as a natural brake on extreme politics, as its rare for a government to control both houses for long. I'd also go for PR for the upper house.

The Blair legacy?

The financial rot started during his time in office. Cheap credit being thrown around like confetti. People running around racking up ridiculous amounts of debt, with no real idea how they were going pay it off.

"Cheap" credit was the result of consistently low interest rates. The wider availability of credit happened long before Blair & Brown had control of the sweetie shop

Indeed. It was a crucial factor in developing the service-based economy that was to take over from the manufacturing one.

Just thinking about this and realised that I remember how, in the mid to late '80s, you'd go into a shop and they'd be nearly throwing credit at you. It was a real culture change.

The "Blair Legacy", in terms of economics, should really be the "Thatcher Legacy".
Blair and Brown saw that the mood of the country had changed and that voters saw the traditional Labour model as out of date and inapplicable, hence they switched to "whatever works" to lose the old tax-and-spend image.
Tax had become a dirty word and remains so.
However, without taxation, provision of services has to be cut, dropped or privatised.
Unfortunately, the "Me" mentality still prevails and too many are of the the "Why should I" persuasion to get a consensus of joint responsibility.
Even economies that were functioning social democratic models were seduced by Thatcherite ideals and are now seeing widening inequality and increasing poverty.

We must not forget where most of the debt came from, i.e. largely unfettered banking spivvery.
So far, I've heard a lot of rhetoric but seen no action from the coalition about this (and about tax avoidance), instead they are taking a wrecking ball to the remaining skeleton of collective provision.

What is government for?
Is it to ensure the benefit of the whole nation or is its purpose to subjugate the nation as a cash-cow for the few?

Back on topic, to describe the current state of the House of Lords as the "Blair Legacy" is utterly vacuous.
At least Blair made a start, but the coalition have since simply stuffed the place with more unelected yes-men than ever before.

Apparently, Thatcher once responded, when asked what her greatest achievement was, with: "Tony Blair".

I'm sure I noticed somewhere that Cameron created more lords in his first year in office than any other PM in memory.

Yes, 117.
Great isn't it, that without a majority from an election you can just shape the upper house how you wish?
Isn't democracy wonderful?

Lovely.

We could start with making them clock on and off, both in Parliament and their constituencies

Of course they would. It encourages you to spend in their shop and pay HIGH finance charges to them too if you're slow at paying. They particularly liked those with "sucker" written on their forehead.

Yes.

The point is that it was a culture change. And that the era of cheap credit did not start post 1997.

Thought you and others on here were all for changing traditional British culture!

Nope.
Absorbing bits of others, as has "traditionally" been the case, will continue rather than freezing at some fondly-imagined truly British point.

Traditional British culture is one of steady change. Some things hang around, like the monarchy and fish & chips. Some things don't, like white dog poo and casual racism.

"... the country of long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and, as George Orwell said, 'Old maids bicycling to holy communion through the morning mist'."

A charming vision, experienced by only a tiny minority of Britons and sitting totally outside the experience of the majority.

I don't even like warm beer. Or cricket. And old dears on bicycles are invariably oblivious to their surroundings, presenting a huge hazard to themselves and other road users. I do love dogs, though.

Not surprised. You don't seem to like anything English.

Beer (i.e. like ale but flavoured with hops) was introduced to England by the Flemish and is hence a very good example of the parts of our culture that have been assimilated from elsewhere.
By the way, I don't like warm beer either, I like my pint of bitter at a cool (i.e.normal cellar) temperature.

Cricket is, on the other hand, very much an English product, even though the name is from the Dutch.

Every shadow, 100% is a long shadow, this is due to our latitude. 100% of Britons experience them.

Cricket grounds? Surely, wherever you live, there's a nearby cricket field of one sort or another, and I don't believe that there's anyone in the country who could honestly claim never to have experienced the sight of cricket in the evening.

"Warm beer" is meant to indicate that the serving temperature of what you might call a traditional British ale is considerably less chilled than the ubiquitous "lagers" forriners are used to, so seems warm to them. I think such warm beer is universally available and I reckon a pretty high proportion of Britons have experienced it.

Green suburbs are where the majority of Britons live, and although some may be greener than others, it seems odd to suggest that green suburbs are out of the experience of anyone.

Dog lovers? No shortage of dogs on anywhere, from the toughest sink estates all the way to Buck Palace. You can't mean that.

Pools fillers? Well, the quote gives away its age there, but when the pools were in their heyday, I'd say that it was the working classes who played them more than any other, although it was widely popular and by no means restricted to them.

People cycling? Church buildings? Morning mist?

Thinking you're a bellend for suggesting that we should deport everyone who refuses to recite your Pledge of Britishness and 'not liking anything English' are whole worlds apart.

Stop the innuendo and say what you mean

As I'm sure you already know, most of that quote is from John Major predicting that, despite being in the EU, Britain would still be describable in those (his) terms in another fifty years.
Whilst the "Britain" that he described was really more English than British, we do recognise the elements of his description, even though the total vision is really a myth.

If he'd mentioned the "Indian" takeaway that many of us crave more than a decent cup of tea upon returning from foreign parts, the rise and rise of the over-refrigerated pint of "lager" or the ubiquitous availability of olive oil or muesli he might have struck a more resonant chord.

To avoid setting up another thread, what do we all think of today's post-Blair Labour Party? The last few days have been a revelation. First we had Ed Balls with his amazingly pathetic ideas to solve the nation's crisis, namely cut winter fuel payments to a few well-off pensioners. Wow, that'll make all the difference. Then there was his vague "policy for growth" and "jobs for our young people". It's laughable. Although is it? If they take payments away from better off pensioners that will pave the way for the better off to argue against contributing as much in future, to everyone else's detriment. If such a policy were to be introducued the sensible (not a Labour strong point) way would be to continue to make payments but subject them to tax (to the extent they are not already) and the better off will then pay back a higher percentage without feeling unfairly treated. There would be savings in administrative costs too (burden shifted to the better off pensions via self-assessment).

Now we have the second Ed (the unelectable leader himself) saying he'll [ucap[/u benefits, which as Paxo said presumably means that when the cap is reached no one gets any more money?

I have to ask myself whether, after the Militant Tendency infilitrated Labour in the '70s the Tory elite have now infiltrated Labour? We saw it with tuition fees - Labour (the self-professed "people's party" *) could get away with introducing them which paved the way for the Tories to hike them up. Now Labour is talking about divisively getting rid of universal benefits, of capping welfare, not ring-fencing NHS expenditure (after started privatising things when in office), etc. Things the Tories haven't had the nerve to do but would love to. In short, Labour are paving the way for the complete dismantling of everything their party ever did or created that was good.

Even if you were not to take my cynical view, surely Labour's leadership is showing the paucity of its thought and ambition? Firstly, they rail against the Tories policies in some of these areas then because opinion polls show people overwhelming in favour (at least conceptually - until the penny drops at their own feet) Tory policy they change to be "tougher" than the Tories. They are not leaders, they are followers completely out of touch with "the people" (in the majority sense). Not only that, they are still followers of an outdated Tory ideology. Why can't they frame a vision of the UK that is different, uplifting, credible and positive? Why are they in politics at all? Certainly not to "make a difference" to anyone other than themselves.

They are wet, out of touch and third rate. The Tories are the same, but second rate in that they at least lead the way in the inept ideology that manifest itself as modern British politics.


(*) But which "people"? This is the question that I've been asking for years - who does Labour represent?