UK's House of Lords Speaks To Voters Via YouTube, Blogs

PHPNerd writes "In a bold move to connect with the next generation of young British voters, the House of Lords has launched a YouTube video series that will detail what it does and make it more accessible to the younger generation. It accompanies an experimental blog in which various Lords write about political issues and can receive feedback from anyone around the world. The article quotes spokesman Owen Williams saying, 'We're trying to engage with younger people and people who may not be interested in politics. We looked at YouTube because it appeals to people outside the political elite.' Is this doomed to failure, or should more governments be doing something similar?"

House of Lords Rap

'We're trying to engage with younger people and people who may not be interested in politics.

Uh huh. And why would people not interested in politics tune into something about politics? Are they going to be rapping or something?

We are the members of the House of Lords
And what we're laying down won't make you bored.
We debate the shit the House of Commons proposes,
But we ain't no rubber stamp like some people might supposes.

Re:

Yo Woolsack, don't think I is gay,
'Cos I gonna ask the Hon. Member to give way
Whilst some fools be acting bent,
We ensure all legislation gets an independent review before receiving Royal Assent.

M.C. McGonnagal

Re:House of Lords Rap

When Britain really ruled the waves,
In good Queen Bess's day,
The House of Lords made no pretense,
to intellectual eminence,
or scholarship sublime.
Yet Britan won its proudes bays,
in good Queen Bess's days.

When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,
as every child can tell,
the House of Lords throughout the war,
did nothing in par-tic-ular.
Yet Britain set the world ablaze,
in Good King George's glorious days.

And while the House of Peers withholds,
its legislative hand,
And noble statement do not itch,
to interfere in matters which,
They do not understand,
As bright will shine Great Britains rays,
as in King George's glorious days!

May I be the first to say

I welcome our new YouTube over^WLords.

Tried it before

Connecting to them pesky youngsters has been tried before. It didn't turn out so well [youtube.com].

As someone from the US

I would not only encourage young people in Britian to watch youtube, but to also have more tea parties.

Love,
American Nerd.

Constitutional Role

YouTube videos would seem to be entirely consistent with the English constitution, according to Bagehot [wikipedia.org]:

"The fancy of the mass of men is incredibly weak; it can see nothing without a visible symbol, and there is much that it can scarcely make out with a symbol. Nobility is the symbol of mind. It has the marks from which the mass of men always used to infer mind, and often still infer it. A common clever man who goes into a country place will get no reverence; but the 'old squire' will get reverence. Even after he is insolvent, when every one knows that his ruin is but a question of time, he will get five times as much respect from the common peasantry as the newly-made rich man who sits beside him. The common peasantry will listen to his nonsense more submissively than to the new man's sense. An old lord will get infinite respect. His very existence is so far useful that it awakens the sensation of obedience to a sort of mind - the coarse dull, contracted multitude, who could neither appreciate or perceive any other."

Will it succeed? Depends on the execution...

If they try to "make it cool" in an attempt to make it accessible, it will fail and be quite embarrassing (see HoL rap above!).

If they make it accessible by speaking plainly, relating the issues to how they affect young people, Britain, and the world, it might have a shot at moderate success. (particularly if they show it in schools)

In any event, if executed halfway decently, I believe they should be commended for trying, regardless of the outcome.

The House of Lords

The great thing about being a non-elected lord is that you don't have to do and think vile things to get elected. Perhaps it's a sad fact, but true. Years ago, there was a police attack on a number of really quite harmless hippies in Wiltshire. Unfortunately a member of the Lords was passing by on his motorcycle, observed the whole thing and reported it to the Lords. The outcome was not pleasant for the police. I am quite sure that a local elected politician would not have rocked the boat in this way.

Re:

That was the Battle of the Beanfield [wikipedia.org].

The peer was the Earl of Cardigan.

The police largely got away with it, of course.

A little girl is losing faith in democracy!

Or rather, I wouldn't be surprised if one did.

The unelected house of lords appears to be contributing most of the good governance of the UK whilst the elected house of commons is contributing most of the crappy stuff.

If we can't fix our system of government (the main probably being we lack a proper head of state, leaving the head of government with excessive powers) then how can we convince younger generations that democracy is worth it?

Re:

I'd say the problem isn't anything to do with the head of state, it's the fact that the legislature cannot hold the executive to account in a meaningful way on most occasions. Indeed, the Commons is often bypassed as the government makes up policy as it go

Re:

But the point is partly that the Lords are NEVER beholden to anyone's favours to get elected.

Under your system, I think we would see a rush of "retirements" and a great many underhanded deals of the type "You elect me and I'll elect you".

If someone is know

Re:"We lie cheat and steal... "

For your information.... the House of Lords is not an elected body, it consists of members who have been given the priviledge (with a very few now who have inhereted it).

Some might say that this is a problem because it's not representative. However, unlike an elected body it's free to make decisions on their merit without the worry of being popular. i.e. it doesn't have to pander to the current tabloid whims.

Also, it has the advantage of having a large number of non-partisan members who aren't on the political party leash, many of which are experts in the fields of business, science and the law.

The main purpose of the House of Lords these days is to put a brake on all those stupid, popularist, knee-jerk bills the current encumbent party tries to force through. Of course, they don't like this and are hence trying to "reform" the house and make it weaker.

Re:

Erm...what? I don't know where to start...

Let's go with;
Firstly; rank and privilege are actually not respected by the majority here.

The British consitution, as it stands, establishes the supremacy of both Parliament as a whole and the Commons within Parlia

Re:"We lie cheat and steal... "

They don't make the decisions, the House of Lords cannot create or pass laws. All they can do is approve or reject bills that are sent to them by the House of Commons. If they reject a bill, the Commons can modify it or not as they see fit and send it back again. A few years ago the Parliament Act was passed to give the government a means of forcing a bill through when the Lords repeatedly reject it, although I don't know the details of it.

To be perfectly frank, at times the Lords is the only thing standing between us and yet another stupid, knee-jerk law that would do more harm than good. If you've been following UK news lately you'll have seen a number of instances of bad anti-terror laws being abused to do things including making sure families are in the right area for the school they want to send their children to to enforcing local rubbish disposal rules.

Oh, and none of the Lords are self-appointed; some inherited their titles from their parents, while these days most are awarded them by the government.

Re:

Oh, and none of the Lords are self-appointed; some inherited their titles from their parents, while these days most are awarded them by the government.

So the government gets to choose who will watch over the government? What could possibly go wrong? ;)

Son: mom, may I eat all the cookies in the cookie jar?
Sock puppet: be my guest!

Re:

Well since Lords are appointed for life what ends up happening is that the current government is watched over by the Lords appointed by the last few governments. It works pretty well. Many of the Lords appointed by the current government are seen in the

Re:"We lie cheat and steal... "

Yes, silly us, why would we want a democracy, when a panel of experts can make all the decisions for us. No thanks, sir, I am from Czech republic, and we lived under such system for 40 years (the self-appointed body of "experts" being http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Czechoslovakia [wikipedia.org]).

You've got to be a troll, because only a troll could deliberately misunderstand the way the British Parliamentary system works so badly. Where's my (-1, Wrong) moderation option?

Re:

To expand on this -- the British system of "constitutional monarchy" with House of Lords and House of Commons has been in existence and working fairly stably for over half a millennium. If it was such a terrible, terrible idea, and doomed to failure by ne

Re:"We lie cheat and steal... "

And now we need someone else to vote for us and validate us, otherwise we'll be shown for the rotten crooks we are, and people will stop wanting to partake of our poison fruit.

The Lords do not need to win votes: they are appointed for life.

They also tend to be rather better than the Commons in terms of serving the people (they have often voted against legislation that undermines civil liberties, for example), because they are far mroe independent from the executive.

Re:

Don't knock it. Australia has Senator On-Line received a mere 8000 votes, but an interesting concept. http://senatoronline.com.au/ [senatoronline.com.au] Our (well, I am British as well, but cannot vote there as I am not resident) upper house is elected of course.

Re:Goodbye House of Lords

The House that has in recent years so often tried to foil the plans of the government to erode the rights of citizens is a useless anachronism?

Re:"we're cutting your net off for p2p, vote for u

"Represent US rather than them"

I would argue that everybody should be represented in the house of Lords. And in general the people who are appointed have either held power or are well versed in 'speaking truth to power'. Together they make up a broad political cross-section of society that is largely driven by the priciples of science and law, it's quite amazing sometimes to sudenly hear a politican make sense and express doubt when they have been freed from the schackles of party policy. I would also argue that the US copyright regime and a large spontaneous US festival in the 60's should not be on top of their agenda.

IMHO setting up shop on youtube is an excercise in transperancy (others may see it as propoganda), either way there are plenty of old farts from the 60's like me who use it, and transperancy (or access to all propoganda's if you like) is always a GoodThing(TM). OTOH the second life thing sounds like an experiment with 'the new media' that was sold to someone without a clue, I would expect better from THoL.

Re:

Not for now.

Speaker blocks moves to put parliament on YouTube [computing.co.uk]

"Footage from the chamber and committee rooms are only available subject to a licence which is issued by the speaker.

Martin will not allow material to be available on web sites such as MySociety