Criminal Lords CANNOT BE stripped of their Titles

Sir Fred Goodwin has been stripped of his Knighthood without having committed a criminal offence, others too in the past have been stripped of their Honours and yet (and I was not aware of this) CRIMINALS, members of the Lords, convicted of a crime and having been sentenced to terms of imprisonment (many of them a joke at our expense again) cannot be stripped of THEIR titles and prevented from sitting in judgement on LAWS that we have to adhere to.

I recently posted A Dishonourable System of Honours and noted that a committee of their chums had said, "that if they pay back the funds that they defrauded from us they should be allowed to resume their seats."

I heard another MP, sorry, forget his name but he was a conservative, on the Radio 4 Today programme last week, argue that they have been punished enough by having been sent to prison!  

This just goes to show how out of touch these people really are from the rest of us and what a cosy little arrangement that they have and that  they want to maintain......., protecting their own and of course themselves as many in Politics see the end of their political careers out as members of the Upper House.  So in that vein, they certainly don't want the law to be changed, just in case they are caught out and subsequently end up with a criminal conviction.  As it stands now, it doesn't matter; they can pay their fine spend a few days in a comfy open prison and get straight back to the warm cosy chamber wrapped in their ermine furs looking down with contempt at us and a system that can take no real action against them!

I am sick and tired of this and so should every right thinking person be, and so I have created an e-petition to try and force this matter to be debated in the House of Commons.  My Petition reads:

e-petition

Change the Law to Allow convicted Member's of the House of Lords to be stripped of their Titles

Responsible department: Cabinet Office

Members of the House of Lords convicted of a criminal offence and imprisoned, can, after conviction and time spent in prison, re-take their seat in the Upper Chamber. I want the government to change the law to allow ANY member of the upper House, convicted of a crime, to be stripped of their title and removed from that body, regardless of whether they are sentenced to a term of imprisonment or not.

We, need 100,000 signatures on this, so, if you are as sick and tired of these people laughing at us, and enjoying the fruits of their Dishonourable attitude  towards us and our country, can I please ask you to sign the petition here and ReTweet on Twitter and post it on Facebook and encourage everyone you know to sign this, so that we can try and get the law changed.  Please also send it to your constituency MP and ask them to sign it as well, you can find your Member of Parliament by entering your postcode here.

This is my email to my email to Jackie Doyle-Pryce MP:

Dear Ms Doyle-Pryce,

I have started an e-petition that I will be circulating through Twitter and Facebook to call for a change in the law to allow peers who are convicted of ANY criminal offence to have their title removed and of course for them to be disbarred from sitting in the upper house.

We have seen Sir Fred Goodwin have his title removed, and he hasn't been convicted of any offence, yet members of the upper house who have been convicted, sentenced to terms of imprisonment and can then return to the chamber.  This is totally unacceptable.  I also find it unacceptable, that this appears not to have been debated in Parliament, or at least not that I am aware of.  It may be that I am being cynical over this, but it appears to me the lack of movement on this issue, by all political parties shows a complete lack of understanding as to how members of the public feel about this matter.  While MP's of all parties clamour for the heads of some bankers and not others, yet fail to clear up their own 'house'  seems to show that you are not interested in doing so.  Prove me wrong on this by a) signing the petition and b) raising the matter in the house and by encouraging the Prime Minister and your colleagues to do the same.

I look forward to hearing from you shortly as to you position on this matter.

The link to the e-petition is:  http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/29062

You can also read my blog on this matter at: http://tomstronach.blogspot.com/2012/02/criminal-lords-cannot-be-stripped-of.html

A Dishonourable System of Honours

The British Honours system is a Joke that we shouldn't be laughing at any more.


I see that a group of MP's, as reported in the Telegraph,  are now calling for Sir Fred Goodwin to have his knighthood taken away from him, not before time.  I also note that the last time this happened was in 2010 when American Robert Allen Stanford who is in prison awaiting trial on charges that his investment company was a massive Ponzi Scheme.  Prior to that Robert Mugabe, the leader of Zimbabwe had his knighthood removed in 2008!


Now while I think it is right and proper this is at last happening in regard to Goodwin for the misery his actions and poor management have inflicted on many lives touched by the banking scandal I again ask why there are no calls for members of the House of Lords to be similarly treated?


I see in a local rag today that Lord Hanningfield's lawyer says that he,'may return to public life' and he goes on to state that, "He has first hand experience of how people are treated in the criminal arena, and thinks he can make a significant contribution to debates on the issue".


This is the man you may recall was charged and convicted of fraud over his expenses and is still under investigation by Essex Police for expenses related to his time as leader of the County Council.  This is the man who, when convicted, was sentenced to 9 months, yes 9 months in prison and served 9 weeks yes NINE WEEKS and so, this makes him eminently qualified to resume his seat in the house of lords and to sit in and contribute and vote on laws that we, the ordinary people of the land,  must abide by!  I think not!


But it is by no means just this piece of human garbage who attained political status and position through the offices of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair (Labour), who nodded this through in 1998 from a list supplied by the Tories. 


Then there is Lord Taylor , he got 12 months and served 3 months.
Baroness Uddin never charges but told to repay £125k 
Lord Archer   Who can ever forget his list of criminal proclivities, and the list goes on and on, and apart from all being members of the house of lords and all being disgraced members of that body the other thing they have in common is that at some point, even those who become convicted criminals, can take their seats back in the house, claim their expenses and pronounce on laws that we have to abide by.


This is wrong and yet what do we get we get a committee of their chums saying that if they pay back the funds that they defrauded from us,(via The Huffington Post) the people, they can resume their seats and all will be well and they will be forgiven!  WRONG, WRONG, WRONG on so many levels.


If they are convicted, they should have these titles removed from them and thrown out on their ears, they should not be allowed to sit in judgement of laws that we have to adhere to, but will that happen, no it wont because the boys and girls club that is Parliament probably recognise that underneath many MP's and members of the Lords are just as dodgy as each other and it is a case of 'thank god I haven't been caught out, yet'.  Cynical, yes I am, and so too should you be....   




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