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Say 'no' to a Senate, the Americanisation of the UK has gone far enough, an OK competition

   Anthony Barnett 2 December 2010
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   Peter Carty and I tried to make this obvious point in our book The Athenian Option. No, we actually did make it, more than once.  Established thinking, however, prevents it from being registered. And Tim goes along with this received failure of wisdom. For example, you have to empower the Commons to be the legislative chamber, so that the second one can scrutinise it. But today, we have two legislative chambers. Retain this structure and it follows that the upper house has to be controlled by party whips. If it is taken in isolation from the Commons, there can be no democratic reform of the House of Lords

   Calling it a 'Senate' is a classic, spin doctors way of evading this. New Labour always wanted Britain to become like America without having to have a constitutional revolution. What could be 'more radical' than 'replacing' the Lords with a Senate? But what a betrayal of the English tradition - that we have to reach across the Atlantic to bring back a term consciously modeled on Rome so that no one mistook the new republic as looking to Greece and democracy?

   Surely, whatever it is, we can call it something that is rooted in our own traditions?
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