I'm sorry, Canada. There is no way we're going to win this one. If we're talking about scandals in the unelected upper reaches of Parliament, we are once again going to have to bow down to the British. They have taken the gold, slapped the edge of the pool, spiked the ball. And now they're doing a victory lap, with a cheeky flash of orange bra just visible beneath their ermine-trimmed crimson gowns.
Sure, our senators can smell a full trough or an empty business-class seat at 100 paces, but their transgressions are so humdrum … so Canadian. They don't like airplane food (who does?), they lose receipts in the bottom of their bags (who hasn't?) and sometimes they forget where they actually live (hey, it's a big country!) But in terms of proper, I-can't-look-away, ignominy-for-the-ages, we will have to turn to Britain's unelected upper tier of Parliament, the House of Lords.
Particularly, we will look at John Sewel, a.k.a. Lord Sewel, who only a week ago was the deputy speaker of the House of Lords and, deliciously, the house's ethics watchdog. All that changed on Sunday, when the tabloid Sun newspaper caught Lord Sewel in a sting, in which he was filmed snorting something that looked awfully like cocaine, and allegedly "cavorting" with prostitutes while wearing an orange bra. Unfortunately for Lord Sewel, he was also caught on tape dismissing David Cameron as "the most facile, superficial prime minister there has ever been" and claiming that his old ally Tony Blair went downhill after "he fell in love with George Bush."
Only two weeks before, Lord Sewel had written a triumphant piece about the Lords' new code of conduct, which he helped create: "The number of Members who break the House's rules is small. … But the actions of a few damage our reputation." On the Sun's tape, however, he is heard railing against the "thieves, rogues and bastards" who are his peers. (Literally: They are called lifetime peers.)
Ordinary Britons will forgive a lot of bad behaviour. They're used to the Royal Family and members of Oasis, after all. But, like the Canadians who felt fury at our Senate expenses scandal, they do not like hypocrisy and entitlement gone wild. They did not appreciate Lord Sewel moaning about the stinginess of his £200 ($409) per diem or the meanness of his rent-controlled flat (you would think he would know better than to complain about a subsidized flat in a city where people live in rooms better suited to Chihuahuas).
Lord Sewel resigned his speaker's post, but it was too late. A flood of anger was unleashed. The Daily Telegraph calculated that the £300-a-day expenses of 20 "silent" peers who seldom speak in the House cost the public £1.6-million. The Economist listed five peers who had actually served jail time, including Jeffrey Archer and Conrad Black (Lord Black of Crossharbour, interestingly, is listed as taking a "leave of absence" from the House beginning June, 2015).
The Mirror newspaper used this opportunity to renews its call for Lords reform, pointing to Baron Hanningfield, jailed for nine months in 2011 for fiddling expenses, whom they refer to as "shameless expense cheat," "pilfering peer," and, my favourite, "the brazen baron."
"'The Lords is stuffed full of cronies,' wrote a member of Britain's Electoral Reform Society. "The vast majority of peers have worked in politics before or are party donors and ex-hacks." According to musician Billy Bragg, the upper house is "a great steaming pile of patronage." Even former deputy speaker Julian Grenfell warns that Lords "risks becoming a laughingstock." (He might want to rethink, "risks becoming.")
It sounds familiar, doesn't it? Welcome to our nightmare, Britain. Except it's a larger problem there: There are almost 800 peers in the upper house, including, improbably enough, Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Our senate capacity is 105.
As in Canada, British critics have called for a variety of reforms, from abolition to election to appointments by party based on percentage of the popular vote. Astonishingly, in the face of this fury, Mr. Cameron's plan is to actually increase the number of Tory peers in the House, by perhaps 50 in the near future, so that the number of Lords reflects the number of Tory MPs in the House of Commons (although it won't reflect the popular vote). But he's a man who has just won an election, not a man about to start one. He has four years to spray air freshener around the room.
Our federal election, for better or worse, will be dominated by talk of Senate reform, and the resumption of Mike Duffy's trial will only make the screams louder. Will the electorate favour the NDP's plan of abolishment, or the Conservatives' plan to stop watering the upper house until it shrivels away like a neglected ficus, or the Liberals' plan to institute "merit-based" appointments? (Which raises the question of precisely how senators were appointed previously.)
Undoubtedly the problem will be passed to the next government, the constitutional equivalent of one parent handing the other a baby with a stinky diaper. Somebody's got to clean it up, but no one's volunteering.