House of lords

The government has successfully defeated the two Lords amendments to its Article 50 bill. MPs voted down the first amendment, committing the government to guaranteeing the rights of EU nationals, by a majority of 48 -- which means the government managed to increase its majority of 42 from the first vote. On the 'meaningful vote' amendment, this was defeated by 331 to 286. The clean bill will now return to the Lords where it is expected to pass tonight with no further amendments -- after Baroness Smith, the shadow leader of the Lords, promised there would be no protracted game of ping pong. The fact that the meaningful vote amendment was defeated by such a comfortable margin ought to put any would-be rebels off trying to put it back in.

Tonight the government suffered its second Article 50 bill defeat in the House of Lords. Peers backed an amendment calling for a 'meaningful' parliamentary vote on the final terms of withdrawal from the EU by 366 votes to 268. Heralding the result, Lord Heseltine said Parliament must be the 'custodian of national sovereignty'. The bill will now return to the Commons where Theresa May will hope to overturn the amendment, along with the issue of guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens. The government had been braced for defeat on both of these issues but regardless this now presents them with a headache -- convincing pro-Remain MPs not to rebel.

If Britain really is still a nation of shopkeepers, the Government seems to be picking its enemies rather unwisely with its plans to ramp up business rates - in some cases by as much as 400 per cent over the next five years. The policy - and the somewhat bungled attempt by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid to defend the plans - has already sparked a big row, which shows no signs of calming down. The Daily Mail is clear who we should point the finger at: Sajid Javid. The paper says the Communities Secretary made a ’magnificent’ arrival on the frontline of British politics with his speech in 2015 in which he promised that the Government would be a ‘true friend’ to business owners. He seems to have forgotten those warm words, the Mail says.

The government has no majority in the House of Lords and a majority of peers were pro-Remain. But despite this, the Article 50 Bill will get through the Lords I argue in The Sun this morning. Why, because the reason that we still have an unelected chamber in the 21st century is that the House of Lords has a strong self-preservation instinct: it knows its limits. If the Lords were to try and block something that had been backed in a referendum and had passed the Commons with a majority of 372, then it would be endangering its very existence. Indeed, I understand that the Labour front bench have already made clear through the usual channels that they won’t try and block the bill. There will, of course, be attempts to amend it.

‘A Bill to confer power on the prime minister to notify, under Article 50(2)…’. When it comes to the House of Lords, some of those trying to amend or delay the bill will be paid pensioners of the European Commission. Peers are obliged to declare any interest that ‘might be thought by a reasonable member of the public’ to influence the way they discharge their parliamentary duties — unless it is an EU pension. In 2007, a Lords subcommittee said that because their contracts oblige them to support the EU, an EC pensioner who made ‘intemperate criticism of the commission’ would have contravened their obligations under the Treaty of Rome ‘and therefore could in theory damage his pension’.

Labour’s confused stance on immigration riles the tabloids in today’s papers - with the party’s position described as ‘bone headed’ in the Daily Express. Meanwhile, prison reform is on the agenda elsewhere, as the Guardian says Liz Truss should release the thousands of prisoners still locked up despite serving more than their minimum sentences. But whatever is done to sort out the mess of Britain’s prisons, it’s no time to make them more comfortable for inmates, says the Daily Mail. Here are what the papers are saying this morning: The Sun hits out at Labour in its editorial this morning, saying the party’s policy on immigration shows what a mess the opposition are in.

Although David Cameron's resignation honours were widely criticised for cronyism, it's fair to say that Jeremy Corbyn's one appointment to the House of Lords caused just as much upset. The Labour leader was accused of a conflict of interest for giving Shami Chakrabarti a peerage after she chaired his anti-Semitism inquiry. Apparently unfazed by the negative publicity, Baroness Chakrabarti of Kennington was introduced into the Lords today. Alas, it seems she couldn't find reason to smile.

One of the big political rows of the autumn will be over the proposed changes to constituency boundaries. Labour is unhappy about this (and everything else) because the proposed changes could lose the party around 30 seats which it could ill afford at the best of times. And this is the worst of times. But though the recalculation will help the Tories, there are nerves about whether every Conservative MP who wants to stay in Parliament will be guaranteed a seat. There are also grumblings that this change is not being proposed alongside a reduction in the number of ministers, which will make the executive loom even more powerful in Parliament, thereby weakening the legislature’s ability to scrutinise and hold ministers to account.

Another honours list comes and goes and yet again my name is not on it. I don’t think either the Prime Minister or Jeremy Corbyn realises the hurt that this flagrant oversight engenders, both in myself and of course in my public. For countless years I have tried, selflessly, to make the world a better place, to illuminate the poor and the downtrodden with the light of love. I have endeavoured, wherever I can, in my own way, to bring comfort to the sick — not only those who are physically infirm, but also mentals. And yet — nothing, nix. More pertinently, with regard to the latest honours list from David Cameron, I was at a party at the end of last year and offered Sam Cam a fag.

We could be heading for a colossal constitutional showdown. Earlier this week, Baroness Wheatcroft told the Times that she and other peers are hoping to muster up a Lords majority against the invocation of Article 50, even if the Commons votes in favour. This would be extremely dangerous. Confrontations on this scale can be resolved in three ways. All end badly for the remainers, the Lords and the country. First, there’s packing. The government can fill (or at least threaten to fill) the Lords with sympathetic peers to get its legislation over the finishing line, provided the monarch agrees. The most fractious and feverish confrontation between the chambers, over the Great Reform Act 1832, was resolved this way.

Jeremy Corbyn is absolutely right not to resign as Leader of the Labour Party. Those calling for his resignation – including those members of the Parliamentary Labour Party who supported the vote of no confidence against him – betray an astonishing misunderstanding of what the project called 'The Labour Party' is all about. Here’s the history lesson they all need to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest. The project now called 'The Labour Party' owes its origin to a conference called in London in 1899 to discuss the palpable erosion of trade-union rights as a result of a succession of legal judgments. Out of that conference something called 'The Labour Representation Committee' was established (it changed its name to 'The Labour Party' in 1906).