The Lords - a seat can be bought for a nice donation to the Labour Party

The House of Lords has never been a perfect chamber to act as a check on the passage of legislation from the Commons.  After all, the heroic deeds of an Elizabethan nobleman 400 years ago doesn’t mean his descendants will have any of that fighting spirit, nobility or intelligence to warrant their place in such a chamber. The House of Lords certainly needed some reform, but the wholesale removal of hereditary peers which began in 1999 can be seen as an act of class warfare conducted by a Marxist Labour Party cabal intent on destroying any vestige of British tradition and heritage. New look – old cronies The new look of Blair’s House of Lords is hardly inspiring.  The same old cronies who have either retired from the Commons or otherwise been deposed by the voters, such as former left-wingers like Neil Kinnock who despised the Lords throughout their earlier political careers, but now happily wears the ermine, and wealthy friends and donors of the Labour Party. It is the latter group which poses a serious challenge to the “democratic” process.  The idea that a wealthy business person can buy his place in the upper chamber should set alarm bells ringing through the entire British establishment, but so supine and fearful have the traditionalists become that Blair is able to ride rough-shod and appoint his friends and wealthy backers without any serious opposition. Those who have funded the Labour Party only to find themselves ennobled include Lord Sainsbury, Lord Drayson, Lord Levy, Lord Hamlyn, Lord Paul and Lord Bhattacharrya. Labour Asian donors According to the Sunday Times of 7th August 2005, two Asian businessmen and wealthy backers of New Labour are lined up for peerages; steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and ready-made meals baron Sir Gulam Noon. Mr. Mittal started giving to the Labour Party when it became the party of government in 1997, with a modest sum of £16,000, loose change to a man whose wealth has been estimated at £14.8 billion.  However, this year Labour announced that he had donated £2million to party coffers. Gulam Noon was knighted for services to industry in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2002, and this  aroused controversy within the Labour party itself after it was disclosed he had donated £200,000 since Labour had come to power.  Sir Gulam is a pauper by Mittal’s standards coming a mere 777th on the Sunday Times Rich list with estimated wealth of £50 million. Anyone who still believes that the Labour Party is a party of the workers, for the workers, must seek urgent medical attention.