House of lords

What should worry David Cameron about tonight’s meeting of the 1922 Committee on Lords reform was that it was not just the usual suspects who spoke out against it. The two MPs presenting the case against were members who have never defied the whip: Jesse Norman and Nadhim Zahawi. Those present were particularly struck by some polling data that Zahawi, who used to run YouGov, presented. It showed that when asked what issues were a priority for them zero per cent of the electorate mentioned reform of the Lords. Even when prompted, this number only rose to six per cent. But Zahawi’s polling shows that if reform does go ahead, almost two thirds of the public want a referendum on it.

Andrew Adonis, one of the policy brains of the Blair government and now seated in the House of Lords, has a letter in tomorrow's edition of the Spectator responding to Neil O'Brien's cover article of last week. In it, Adonis suggests one way that the political class could help purge the Londonitis from its collective system: move the House of Lords to Greater Manchester. Here's the full text of the letter, for CoffeeHousers: Sir, As Neil O’Brien rightly says, London is New York, Washington and LA rolled into one, which is unhealthy for our national politics. So I have a serious suggestion.

The motion passed by Liberal Democrat conference this morning means that the party is neither supporting nor opposing the Health Bill. The rebels having lost the vote on whether or not to debate their ‘Drop the Bill’ motion, but managed to amend the so-called Shirley Williams’ motion to remove the line calling on their peers to vote for it. This is a blow to the leadership who were confident last night of winning the vote this morning. But it is nowhere near as bad as the conference — which, remember, still has the power to make party policy — deciding that the bill should be dropped. It is, though, another sign of how deeply this bill has divided the Liberal Democrats.

Finally, Lords reform becomes interesting: it could be the issue that splits the coalition. Lord Oakeshott's admission of this yesterday has made the newspapers today — but it will come as no surprise to Spectator readers. James Forsyth drew out these battle lines for his cover story last week, and it's worth reprising his arguments as the rest of the press has yet to catch up.   Self-preservation is a powerful force in politics. Even if the Lib Dem vote recovers, it's likely to do so in different constituencies, meaning most Lib Dem MPs are likely to lose their seats. As Lembit Opik’s music career demonstrates, it's tough to find work out there. Making it to a revamped Lords is their best option.

Both the Tory and Lib Dem manifestoes promised to reform the House of Lords, as did the Coalition Agreement, but the gulf in enthusiasm between the two parties is enormous. For many Lib Dems, this is of course — as Nick Clegg put it in December — ‘one boat that urgently needs rocking’. For many Tories, it is something to be ambivalent about, or to oppose. Which is why the politics around the ongoing Lords Reform Bill are likely to be so fraught. James has already written of how there are ‘more than 81 [Conservative] MPs prepared to vote against it.

House of Lords reform is one of those subjects that make most people’s eyes glaze over. But it is going to dominate the next parliamentary session. The Queen’s Speech will include a bill for elections in 2015 for 20 per cent of the seats in the Lords using a ‘Proportional Representation’ voting system. This bill will take an age to get through the Commons, where it has to start if the coalition is to use the Parliament Act to push it through, let alone the Lords. One of the things that’ll be fascinating to watch is how large a Conservative rebellion there is on the issue. There are already Tory MPs mobilising to block the kind of Lords reform that Clegg wants.

Yesterday's YouGov poll for the Sunday Times had a few interesting nuggets buried beneath the top line (Lab 40, Con 39, as it happens). Here are some of the most topical findings: 1) Clegg’s tax proposals are very popular. 83 per cent support the Lib Dems’ policy of increasing the personal allowance to £10,000. This might explain the 12-point jump in Nick Clegg’s net approval rating since last week. And there’s strong support for the ‘mansion tax’ that Vince Cable’s been pushing since 2009. 66 per cent back ‘a new tax upon people with houses worth more than £2 million’ — something Clegg called for again last week — and 50 per cent support taxing those with houses worth over £1 million.

Rarely can a government have been so pleased to have been defeated. The Tories are, privately, delighted that the Lords have voted to water down the benefit cap, removing child benefit from it. The longer this attempt to cap benefit for non-working households at £26,000 stays in the news, the better it is for the government. It demonstrates to the electorate that they are trying to do something about the injustices of the something for nothing culture. The matter will now returns to the Commons where the coalition is confident it can be reversed. I understand that Nick Clegg remains solid on the issue, despite the fact that Ashdown and Shirley Williams led the Lib Dem rebellion in the Lords on this amendment.

Tucked away on page 15 of today's Times, there's an insightful story about Lords reform (£) by Roland Watson. And it's insightful not just for the new information it contains, but also for the familiar truth it confirms: reforming the House of Lords is going to be one helluva difficult task. You see, while both halves of the coalition committed to a fully- or ‘mainly-elected’ upper chamber in their respective manifestos, only one half of the coalition is particularly eager to force it through now.

Under cover of discussing the Open Society and its enemies, Nick Clegg today set out his personal agenda for the next year of this government. Indeed, Clegg's speech to Demos earlier was perhaps the purest distillation of his politics since the big set-piece number he delivered at the Lib Dem conference in 2008. It contained many of the same themes as that earlier speech: ‘social mobility’, ‘civil liberties’, and ‘democracy’. And it added a couple more for good measure: ‘political pluralism’ and ‘internationalism’. The Deputy Prime Minister described these five political impulses as ‘the source of my liberalism’.

I understand that Number 10 will lean on Cabinet ministers not to object to what the boundary review does to their seats. This is an intriguing development because at least three Tory Secretaries of State are deeply unhappy with the proposed changes to their constituencies. It’ll be fascinating to see whether Downing Street can persuade them to hold their peace on the matter. Their disquiet reflects broader grumbling throughout the Tory parliamentary party. All sorts of conspiracy theories are doing the rounds. Number 10 needs to move quickly to offer some reassurance to nervous MPs. If the boundary review’s plan is to be made agreeable to the Tory parliamentary party, Cameron is going to have to persuade an awful lot of MPs to retire.

MPs are queuing down the corridor on the first floor of Portcullis House as they try to get hold of a copy of the proposed boundary changes which have just been released under embargo. Boundary changes can make a huge difference to an MP, converting a marginal into a safe seat and vice-versa. Boundary reviews are a whip’s nightmare as they will set MPs of the same party against each other. The danger for the two coalition partners is that MPs’ take to rebelling on emotive issues for their parties in an attempt to win any selection head to head. This is why Cameron went out of his way to promise all Tory MPs that no one would be left without a seat at the Tory parliamentary dinner last Wednesday night.