Led by Lord Mandelson, whose titles now include “First Secretary of State and Lord President of the Council”, there are now seven members of the Cabinet in the House of Lords. Gordon Brown is bringing in his unelected cronies to rule us.
This is an incredible step back in time for British democracy. It is the most Cabinet Ministers from the unelected House of Lords for over a century.
My first thought was that it was the most ministers from the House of Lords since the government of Lord Salisbury was defeated by the Liberals.
But incredibly, I am pretty sure that Gordon Brown’s government is less democratic than Lord Salisbury’s, because several of Salisbury’s ministers, like Lord Randolph Churchill and Lord Hamilton, were sons of peers and actually elected to the house of Commons. I haven’t checked it, but my suspicion is that this is the most undemocratic Cabinet since the Liberal Unionists walked out on Gladstone in the 1870s.
This really does defy belief. This is the Labour Party?