Rumours of Lords Reform: Three criticisms.

 I'm sorry, I really am. I'm a pro-Coalition Conservative. I used to be a Liberal Democrat, long ago, and I have many friends who remain of the yellow persuasion. I normally try to see the silver lining in whatever storm-cloud currently besets our government. But this is too much.

 I've heard it elsewhere, but one link will suffice: Liberal Vision report that, if the Liberal Democrats lose the AV referendum, David Cameron will have to throw them a serious bone. Worse still, rumour is that the bone in question could be a fully elected House of Lords. As support for AV "collapses" this scenario is looking ever more likely. It cannot happen. I'm not the biggest fan of much of what goes on on the Conservative back benches, but if David Cameron tries to push this through I may have to stain forever my reformist credentials and go to the trenches with them.

 There are three main problems that need to be addressed: first, what is an elected Lords actually for; second, David Cameron can't simply continue making concessions he has no mandate for on issues as serious as the constitution; third, the Liberal Democrats need to grow up and get used to losing.

  The House of Lords is a revising chamber. It doesn't have the power to initiate or veto legislation from the Commons. It is a mixture of appointed experts, party dinosaurs and fascinating constitutional relics who between them bring experience and specific expertise to legislation drafted by career politicians in the Commons, and then compile recommendations that the politicians with a mandate debate.

 Before you can insist that the House of Lords needs to be elected to have a democratic mandate, you need to work out what it actually needs that mandate for. It doesn't require an electoral mandate to carry out its current duties - indeed, elections would probably negate its current function. Making the Lords elected would grant it a mandate to challenge the Commons - do we want that?

 One thing I've not heard much (if at all, in my recollection) is why Britain needs a bicameral, American-style legislature. The logic simply seems to be:

 We have a House of Lords = It is unelected! = Let us fix that.

 That isn't good enough. If the House of Lords' role as a chamber of revision is unnecessary, that on its own is simply a case for its abolition. Supporters of Lords reform need to first articulate their case for an equally-weighted bicameral parliament, and then win the country round to the idea.  Until they do that, they have no right to enact it. 

 It certainly can't be delivered as part of a grubby ransom payment, which brings me to my second point. Quite simply, the constitution of the United Kingdom is more important than David Cameron's premiership. Labour screwed around with the constitution, instituting the Supreme Court in place of the Law Lords and assaulting the integrity of our kingdom with devolution, but at least they changed the constitution because they believed in change. 

 David Cameron has never given much (if any?) indication of being in favour of serious reform to the Lords. He's certainly never articulated clearly why we need a powerful second chamber. The manner in which he's going about this is a sorry reflection on him. He should not - and certainly should not be allowed to - play fast and loose with the constitution of our union to try to preserve his rule in Number 10. He bounced his backbenchers into supporting the AV referendum, and that is quite far enough. They didn't sign up to anything more, and he has no mandate for it.

 Really though, the final share of the blame must rest with the people putting Cameron in this position: the Liberal Democrats. As a Coalition supporter I'm very disappointed, but the Liberal Democrats are - to put it mildly - not performing particularly impressively in government, and their behaviour on this occasion is little short of disgraceful.

 They lost the General Election. They didn't win a majority for their arch-reformist ideals, even on total share of the vote. They're a protest party that hasn't propped up a government since the 1970s and hasn't participated in one since the Second World War. Yet their stars aligned, a hung parliament combined with a particularly daring Conservative leader and they have their chance in government. This is their opportunity to demonstrate that they are a serious party capable of governing the country.

 Their primary focus during this government should be accruing credibility, aiming for a payoff in 2015 when they can claim credit for helping steer our country through a dire economic crisis as part of a stable and effective coalition government. That would be a long-term view. Instead, they're constantly fretting over short-term popularity, and pandering to a party base completely unused to the discipline and realism required in a party of government.

 Both the Conservatives and Labour have been very unpopular in the past. Both have had their 1983's and their 1997's, periods in which their rivals were totally in the ascendant and serious soul-searching was required. That both these parties remain the big players in British politics is testament to a key lesson the LD's need to learn: if you're doing anything important or difficult, to govern is to be unpopular. Governing parties do haemorrhage council seats whenever they have to enact a tough, serious measure, or tell the electorate something they don't want to hear. Short-term unpopularity is less important in the long run than being perceived as a sensible, mature party in the long-term. I don't think many people can claim the Liberal Democrats are there yet.

 The other thing the Lib Dems need to learn to do is learn to lose with grace. They got a referendum on changing the voting system out of a Conservative party deeply opposed to the idea. They never got a guarantee of victory nor did they ever get promised some kind of insurance against defeat. If AV is defeated in May, the Liberal Democrats should stop, assess the campaign and try to work out why they lost. They should not turn to David Cameron and ask what serious constitutional form he's going to offer them without a referendum to keep then in government, to make up for the one they have failed to acquire from the electorate. That is not the way a mature coalition partner behaves, it is the thought process of a spoilt child.

 Despite the macho talk of Vince Cable's 'nuclear option', the Liberal Democrats have a lot more riding on the Coalition than the Conservatives. This is their chance to prove two things: first, that the Liberal Democrats are a serious party of government; second, that coalition governments are strong and stable enough to steer the country through even this most tempestuous of times. If they terminate the coalition mid-term, in some fit of petulance over not being given something they had no right to extort from their coalition partner, that will stick in the minds of the electorate long after the ever-fickle anti-cuts storm has faded away. It will not only tar the Liberal Democrats, but it will taint the perception of coalition government - the very thing they claim to champion - in the minds of the electorate. The LD's terminating the coalition will just demonstrate that, when times are tough, coalitions don't work.

 Lords reform is a terrible idea that hasn't been put before the public even as a debate, let alone a vote. David Cameron should not butcher our constitution to hold onto power. And the Liberal Democrats should learn that being in government involves disappointments, defeats and dirty tactics, before its too late.

 Update: Almost as if to prove my point, Liberal Democrat President Tim Farron writes in the Times (23/4/2011) that a House of Lords elected by PR would have more legitimacy than a First-Past-The-Post Commons. That's the best argument against PR for the Lords I can think of.