sheila

There has been, nytraveler, major reform of the House of Lords. As a consequence it now comprises 92 heredetiary peers elected proportionately by party by their fellow hereds, and the remainder are Life Peers. Some of them were put there by political patronage (about 170 used to be MPs, for example), some are members of the great and good with no politcal leanings, some are ditto with political leanings, and many now, are what are called "working" peers- expected to turn up, debate and vote- there is no such expectation of the great and good, but they may if they choose. Not, of course, to forget the 12 Law Lords and 26 Anglican Bishops.

Most are, indeed, middle class

nytraveler

Sorry - it still doesn;t sound very middle class to me - but thenI don't have all of the details. Are these pople sill pursuing their usual profession or job to make a living and being a peer part-time (like working for a charity)?

And are MPs considered middle class? I don;t know their average incomce - in the US not all but the almost all senators and a considerable majority of congressmen are millionaries.

sheila

Class, my dear, has nothing to do with money

You don't get paid for being a peer, so, essentially, you do have to stick with your day job. You do get an attendance allowance, but it wouldn't pay a mortgage:0

For example, my friend Liz was made a peer about 4 years ago. She's a senior manager with the charity, Age Concern England. her boss (who, incidentally, is also a working peer- for another party) adjusted her hours so she now works less than full time for ACE and is in the house when she's not working. Remember the Houses of Parliament sit till 10pm on a normal day.

The only people on the UK who are properly upper class are the aristocracy, so, you will see than only about 13% of the HoL could be so described.

But, really, such distinctions are pretty much dead in normal life.

nytraveler

OK, now I see the difference. Many of the people you are calling middle class we would not - here money/income clearly is the major part of "class" and when you have enough your interests/POVs do change. And then it doesn't matter who your family is, or what country you were born is, or where you went to school - you are no longer middle class. You are then noveau riche - and give up middle class attitudes as fast as you can.

In the almost all of the US having a horse - unless you're a farmer - would automatically move you out of the middle class - or at least to the margin of upper middle class/upper class. And if you spoke to the average middles class person about fox hunting they would assume it was some sort of stupid joke.

flanneruk

nytraveler:

I'd argue that Glyn Williams has both got the politics wrong, and seems to be using "middle class" in a very odd way. So you're getting a rather warped view of what's going on here.

Britain's parliamentarians are, by any standards, middle class. Apart from a few toffs, a handful of people who've made money and then gone into politics or got into the Lords, and one or two chancers who married money, practically all 1300 of them (650 in each House) are, by US standards, middling going on downright poor.

Our system makes it practically impossible for anyone with a serious career behind them (except in law or in publicly-funded jobs) to get into Parliament, unless they can manage a nomination to the Lords. And even then, people like John Browne (CEO of BP) are in a distinct minority. Most new Lords come from the non-profit sector: retired civil servants, working academics, politicians at the end of their career, judges, charity workers. Many, if not most, look like natural New Labour supporters.

The ban on hunting is strongly supported by Labour MPs - partly because they probably do care more about the animal rights issue, but undoubtedly also out of a series of class envy attitudes connected to the belief that only toffs hunt. Labour so dominates the Commons that debates are almost a waste of time.

The ban is opposed in the Lords partly by the few toffs. But mostly by working or recently retired middle to upper managers - inevitably urban. Their opposition obviously comes partly from being, or working with someone, connected to the countryside. That's a tiny part of the opposition, though, since almost no-one lives in the English countryside or has the faintest idea where the nearest Hunt might be. And more people believe in the existence of Iraqi WMDs (and FAR more believe in the tooth fairy) than believe the nonsense the pro-hunting lobby puts out about the economic importance of this rather bizarre way of getting yourself killed.

The real Lords opposition is ideological. Whether fox-hunting is crueller than other options for controlling this pest isn't, they argue, for the State to decide. If it is cruel, and people want to be cruel to animals, it's a matter for their conscience, and no more the business of the law than whether they commit adultery or attend church.

A fascinating case study for some in debate-ology. But one of the many British examples of class being quite irrelevant to the debate.

PS The Hunts don't publicise themselves much, and it's generally thought poor form to give out meets on the Web (not because they don't welcome spectators -of all classes - but because of the ill-will of many of the spectators they get). But Hunt Point-to-Points are relatively uncontroversial and well worth watching as a slice of England that might not disappear soon. See www.mfha.co.uk/events/index2.html

nytraveler

Well, I still don;t get this - why should private persons be able to decide when/how to be cruel to specific animals - even if they believe there are too many of them. We have literally millions of excess deer that no one can figure out what to do with. (In many places the number of deer/car accidents on major highways is shocking.) And limited hunting is allowed. But there are rules and seasons controlled by the states. People can;t simply wander into the woods at random with knives and start chasing and butchering the poor animals for fun.

Shane

flanneruk, that you for the very interesting politico-CULTURAL mini-essay you took time to write. As an American Anglophile, I follow events of Britain with great interest. I find that Mr. Blair has used fox-hunting and House of Lords reform with great finesse. As his pal, George W. Bush, tosses a spare bone to appease his religious right base, PM Blair appeases his Left (Glenda Jackson, Tony Benn and the like) with appeals to class hatred all Laborites feel for the country squires. Make that Labourites. Sorry.

AR

Any reform that keeps Jeffrey Archer out of the Palace of Westminster is a thoroughly useful one. Can we keep hunting with hounds as long as they are chasing that kerb crawler Archer?