[OT] Prime Minister/ Parliament vs. President/Congress?

[UD]

IIRC, this seems to be on its way out. I seem to recall that, for reasons which I will never fathom, the House of Lords has recently been whittled down to 90 or so hereditary peers (maybe less). Any Brits care to confirm this (and/or explain to me why this is occurring)?

-Tiberius

Basicly, its trying to bring more democracy into the system, remove power to people who are elected rather than those who have it as a 'birth right'. All good in my books. However this is good in theory dosnt always work out in practice, because the elected representatives have political allegiences to partys. All very confusing.

(The House of Lords gets a chance to vte against any act passed in the House of Commons, up to three times. It kind of acts as a government buffer, making sure excessive laws and measures arnt passed. Although it can also keep progresive ones back.)

 

[andrew]

The Paralment was created to limit the abuse of Kings.

Some might argue that the English parliaments were used by the monarchs to limit the abusive power of the nobility while giving the monarch greater power by forging an alliance with the middle/lower classes. The non-nobility in return got greater access to government and were able to look to their own interests instead of leaving everything to the feuding nobles.

But that would be a topic for another forum.