Common sense in the House of Lords.

[chuckskull]

On January 26, 2010, the UK's Lord Lucas of Crudwell and Dingwall—yes, it's a real title—stood up and told his fellow peers in the House of Lords that the new crop of anti-P2P "settle or we'll sue your trousers off" warning letters were a travesty of justice.

"In a civil procedure on a technical matter, it amounts to blackmail," thundered the libertarian lord-slash-blogger. "The cost of defending one of these things is reckoned to be £10,000. You can get away with asking for £500 or £1,000 and be paid on most occasions without any effort having to be made to really establish guilt. It is straightforward legal blackmail."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...lawyering.ars/

I'm quite shocked and rather pleased with this. They've even dragged the Lord Chancellor into it. Good on them, maybe they're not a bunch useless toffs after all.

[peterb]

This is almost a discussion for QT - I might move it! (Edit - moved with agreement of OP )

The House of Lords is often derideed for being 'undemocratic' - but in fact as an over seeing entity, it often brings common sense to bear on the excesses of the lower house. Again, the detractors would argue that if the elected house wishes to do something, and unelected assembly should not - and while that may be true of manifesto items (which the electorate - in theory - voted for, it is not necessarily true for non-manifesto legislation - and that is where the strngth of the House of Lords really lies. While it is split on party lines, it has often taken a more measured view in reviewing proposed legislation.

This is one (good) example).

[aidanjt]

Yeah, the House of Lords really does spring a surprisingly and shockingly sane dose of reality on the House of Commons on occasion.

[jimbouk]

Back when there was a strong majority they were the only thing standing in the way of knee jerk reactionary tabloid politics. It would be a shame if they were replaced with essentially another House of Commons.

[chuckskull]

Thanks peter

I'll happily admit, my opinion of the House of Lords is usually far from favourable.

In this case though they've done a far better job of standing up for what the people of Britain actually want. Compared to the House of Commons forcing through the Digital Economy Bill after only 2 hours of debate right before an election, which is a travesty of democracy in my opinion.

The bill gives powers to censor internet sites in the UK and disconnect internet users for alleged copyright infringement. Placing the burden of proof on the individual citizen to prove their not committing piracy. All this despite over 10,000 people contacting their MP's in less than 2 days demanding a full debate on the subject.

If this bill stays in effect this kind of behaviour by lawfirms will only increase.

So yup, debate away.

EDIT: Interesting read from Boing Boing co-founder http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...-cory-doctorow

[ipwiz]

I can't believe us joe public didn't mount a stronger campaign.... against the multi million corps

[MaddAussie]

FWIW the Lords always used to be a fairly effective brake on the excesses of the lower house. The change in the make-up over the last few years of the House of Lords has changed quite dramatically how it operates. Because there are less hereditary peers in there and a lot more life peers who where actually active politicians before getting a seat in the Lords thee are a lot of Acts that are getting railroaded through the Lords with out proper debate and proper scrutiny. The thing is I'm not sure make the Lords an elected house will improve this, in fact it will probably make it worse. The only solution I can see is that members of the general public each spend a year sitting in the lords (in sort of a jury service type thing)