A side note to the emerging story today that Starmer is set to make failing Mayor of London Sadiq Khan a peer to buy his silence after the expected Labour implosion at this summer’s local elections. Starmer has form when it comes to peerage appointments…
For all the hand-wringing about Tory proposals over the years, Starmer has already appointed more peers than any of the previous four prime ministers – and he’s barely two years into his premiership. That means Starmer has already made more new peers than Sunak, Truss, Johnson and May put together. The stats are eyebrow-raising…
Starmer is ramming the Chamber with dozens of key allies and former advisers – despite his previous complaints about Tory moves. He just appointed 25 Labour Peers in December. Along with reforms such as the removal of hereditary peers, the net effect is a political attempt by Labour to take control of the upper chamber…
Starmer needs the votes because his legislative agenda is getting shredded in the Lords, with big time failures on Chagos, workers rights, education and other issues. Labour claims it wants Lords reform but is pouring its own people into the House quicker than any recent government…
Starmer elevated the chairman of a hated regulator to the Lords on the same day that the Lords published a scathing report into said regulator’s numerous failings. Failing upwards is what British politics does…
Andy Roe – former Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade – was made chairman of the Building Safety Regulator in June this year. He will now sit as a Labour peer…
A report by the cross-party Lords Industry and Regulators Committee was released on Wednesday. Among other things it identified:
The conclusion: “We heard consistent and repeated complaints that the BSR could take more than nine months to make decisions on whether construction projects should be allowed to go ahead, significantly longer than the statutory target of twelve weeks for these decisions. In many cases, this has delayed or disincentivised refurbishments, safety upgrades and the remediation of dangerous cladding in high-rise buildings, leaving residents in unsafe buildings for longer and increasing costs for leaseholders.” Anyone who has come near this regulator hates it more than their mother-in-law…
The report follows a similar investigation by the YIMBY Initiative. Now its chairman gets a peerage…
Political peerages are out. Starmer is trying hard to eliminate all opposition in the Lords…
After a string of defeats on the Employment Rights Bill Labour is attempting to stuff the upper chamber with 25 new peers. Ex-Comms director Matthew Doyle, Reeves’ SpAd Katie Martin, and party turncoat Richard Walker get in…
The LibDems have been given five. See how long they keep up their opposition to Rayner’s bill now…
Reform gets zero, despite Farage asking for a modest number. Quelle surprise…
Read the full list below:
Continue reading “Starmer Packs Lords With 25 New Life Peers”
There is disquiet among Labour and Crossbench peers this week as many who backed the Government’s push to abolish hereditary peers, thinking they would stop there, now find themselves in Starmer’s sights. Never trust a Labour promise…
Dozens of Labour Lords and Crossbenchers, many of whom are over 80 or don’t have the best attendance record, supported Starmer’s move to abolish hereditary peers in the hope that the Government would kick any further reforms into the long grass. AKA, their own seats would be safe. But Starmer’s Leader in the Lords is shafting their own supporters with their latest move…
Labour’s Baroness Smith wrote in The Telegraph yesterday suggesting the government will pursue plans to force peers to retire at 80 years-of-age and punish non-attenders. This won’t end well for Labour’s own backbenchers and crossbench peers. The real story is that the opposition in the Lords is pulling apart Labour’s ill-thought through legislative agenda and proving a real frustration for Starmer. No wonder he is trying to gerrymander the numbers…
As Britain lurches towards multiple economic and social crises under Starmer, the government is forcing yet more legislative time to be spent on parliament debating its own existence. It’s a crunch day in the Upper Chamber as their Lordships tackle day one of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. The title is misleading, it’s not really about abolishing hereditary peers…
In fact, Labour’s Lords reform bill is an unprecedented attempt to gerrymander the political composition of the upper chamber. Guido has seen analysis circulating among peers opposed to the government: “We do not accept the Government removing active parliamentarians for political advantage. Removing members of our House by legislative force is a very different proposal and sets a dangerous precedent. If this executive can expel one group of peers by virtue of their majority in the Commons, future executives could use the same argument to expel any other group.” Chilling…
As things stand, the stats show the Bill will remove 79 Conservative and or Independent peers from the legislature – and just four who regularly vote with Labour. Despite all the fuss about Tory peerages, Starmer has been appointing his own new peers at a faster rate than any PM in the past three decades, meaning he will soon gain a majority in the Lords…
Under some of the proposals up to 46% of the current chamber could be removed by the end of this Parliament – the biggest purge of active lawmakers by the executive since Cromwell, and a huge executive power grab by the Labour government. Starmer is reshaping the House of Lords as a Labour controlled chamber – meaning parliament will be dominated by Labour in both Houses. One source described the move as a ‘Soviet style’ power grab. Labour’s not interested in Lords reform, just in removing political opponents who hold the government to account..
Red Wall Labour backbencher Jonathan Brash told GB News that Starmer should resign:
“I’m completely fed up about it, and I think it’s got to the point now where I genuinely think that, as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, it’s not a case of if, it’s when.”