Disraeli Room

"... A wholly elected House of Lords would challenge the supremacy of the House of Commons enabling it to justifiably claim authority to hold government to account and to represent the people. For the public, this might endow the Lords and Commons with equal legitimacy. The houses would cease to complement each other and would start to compete, with the Lords more likely to exercise its full powers. Put simply, two wholly elected chambers runs contrary to the correct operation of our parliamentary system and would require a complete re-evaluation of the function and purpose of the House of Lords ..."

"... Following the removal of all but 92 of the hereditary peers in 1999 (there is surely some irony that the 92 hereditary peers are the only democratically elected element in the upper house!), the House of Lords has become noticeably more confident and effective. With an increased sense of legitimacy, the Lords has defeated government legislation more than 500 times since 1999 and has become more insistent upon legislative amendment, which is good for democracy and for the quality of legislation ..."

"... The concept of limited altruism is that individuals are selfishly motivated to perform a purely altruistic act. Any individual shovelling snow off their pavement will get little or no benefit, they
spend an hour or so in hard physical labour at the end of which they still have to walk through the snow in-front of other peoples houses to get anywhere. However if everybody shovels snow then there is a considerable collective benefit because whilst all must exert a lot of effort to do their bit the pavements are now clear and walking is made a lot easier. Furthermore, and this is the clever part, because it is immediately obvious who ha

"... Still, it’s hard to figure out what Fini is up to. Few expected such a socially liberal turn from him – Fini now supports both research on embryo stem cells and same-sex civil unions, a strange choice for a conservative coming from a neo-fascist background. While it is true that the coalition launching FLI, with Fini as their candidate, indicates a young generation tired of Berlusconi’s unkept promises, once the novelty is gone voters will find themselves dealing with actual options ..."

"... The principle of the equality of condition has resulted in making individuals feel independent, and has thus produced massive social atomisation. Every individual is primarily concerned with his or her own material interests. As a result, the complete loss of social solidarity renders it impossible for democratic culture to flourish. At the same time, increased societal disunion makes it extremely easy for governments to deceitfully manipulate public opinion, mainly for their own gains ..."