Peering into political patronage

The House of Lords Library has published a briefing note which provides details of all appointments to that undemocratic obscenity since May 1997 with tables showing by party affiliation all those appointed under Blair, Brown and Cameron - swelling the current ranks of the unelected Lords to 781 (compared to the 650 strong House of Commons):
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/LLN-2013-040/peerage-creations-since-1997

No rhyme or reason to latest state intrusion on union autonomy in Britain

Yesterday the Lords inconclusively debated Part 3 of the Lobbying Bill – which if enacted will introduce statutory regulation of trade union membership records. Ahead of the debate former TUC General Secretary Lord Monks had demolished the ‘Coalition’s proposed union-bashing legislation’ in an article on the Labour Lords' website:
http://www.labourlords.org.uk/the-plot-thickens
  The Lords debate can be read here, with excellent contributions by John Monks and other former union leaders who now represent Labour in the second chamber. Man-of-the-people Viscount Younger of Leckie put the case for the proposed anti union legislation, citing the need for ’confidence in their (union) accountability to their members’, and Liberal Democrat Lord Tyler made a vicious contribution linking the government's proposals to the Collins Review of the union Labour link:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/hansard/lords/todays-lords-debates/read/unknown/276/

August is Not the Quietest Month... This year

August is usually the quiet month in the political calendar, the sleepy summer season where our parliamentarians take themselves off to foreign climes for a spot of R’n’R, and re-acquainting themselves with their loved ones. Not only our ministers and MPs but the political correspondents, the Pollys and the Andrews, for whom politics is a spectator sport concentrated on the London Arena (sorry, Houses of Parliament).