After the last few theoretical posts, I might as well set out some details about the sort of polity I would like to see. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my ideal constitution looks rather like the British constitution, albeit more refined and much more self-confident. At the head is a hereditary monarch, sworn to God and anointed by God’s Church. Most of the business of government (perhaps a little less than in Britain currently), however, rests with a bicameral legislature, one house of which is elected by universal suffrage, one of which is entirely unelected. I will go on to discuss exactly how I would refine that constitution. I will start out with more ‘sensible’ ideas regarding the composition of the House of Lords, and gradually veer off into ever wilder fancies. You have been warned.
First, Lords Spiritual. May the British Humanist Association gnash their teeth, though I have a bone for them to gnaw later. For as long as English laws have been written, English bishops have had a hand in them. Secularist angst notwithstanding, the (not remotely accidental) result has been the finest legal system known to man. Lords Spiritual directly tie the legislature to the pursuit of the common good. I am not wholly insensitive to the claims of pluralism, however, and I say that the proper response to them is to expand the Lords Spiritual to reflect (somewhat) the pluralism within society.
I suggest that one third of the Lords should be Anglican (not necessarily bishops, or even specifically members of the Church of England: it is the Parliament of the United Kingdom, after all); another third should be Christian leaders, with denominational distribution reflecting demographics; the last third should be other religious leaders, distribution reflecting demographics again. Christians are counted twice (ie Catholics get a share of the Christian seats according to the proportion of Catholics in the Christian population, and a share of the final third of seats according to their proportion in the total population; I am undecided as to whether Anglicans should be counted three times). I am, with something of an ironic smirk, open to including humanists among the final third of Lords Spiritual. A final note on this: since religious hierarchies tend to be male, the Lords Spiritual are likely to be male-dominated. To alleviate this, I suggest specifically seeking out female religious leaders, hence what I have previously described as my ideological USP, seats reserved for nuns.
Among the Lords Temporal, I would like a healthy balance of epistocrats and episto-commoners. That is, I want reserves of deep learning in the Lords, in the form of the finest historians, economists, and perhaps even philosophers that the academy has to offer. Nevertheless, knowledge does not suffice for wisdom, and probably the most profound cleavage in British society is between those who have graduated from university and those who have not. To ensure that the latter have a voice in government, I would reserve a substantial number of seats for non-graduates.
Beyond this, my thoughts are rather vague, but essentially I want the community of the realm to be represented. Various ‘natural constituencies’ would be identified and assigned delegates: ‘the business community’ and the trade unions, the world of arts and the world of sport, the public sector and the charitable sector, and so on and so forth. Oh, and one of those natural constituiences would most definitely be the hereditary Peers of the Realm. To balance out this last point, one might well want to consider prisoners, the homeless, and even asylum seekers as ‘natural constituencies’ to be represented amongst the Lords Temporal.
So much for the principles of composition. How will the Lords be chosen? Naturally, I would start with the Queen. She would talk to parliamentarians, trying to get a sense of who is most respected and admired across all the benches. She would then call upon those most respected parliamentarians to form a committee charged with selecting the Lords. The members of that committee would, in turn, try to put together a larger team of staff who they respect, trust, and believe to be good judges of characters. What the Queen did in Parliament, this team would do in the country at large: talk (and above all listen) to people, trying to find out who within specific religious organisations, academic fields, and various natural constituencies is widely respected and admired. There would be no votes and no qualifications, only personal judgements of character, for which there is no adequate substitute and without which we ultimately cannot do.
Once this system is established, moreover, it can be extended to the Commons: potential candidates would be subjected to similar scrutiny, and only those who won the respect of the committee would be eligible to stand.
On to the matter of instruction in virtue: I would have a National Service. I envisage something rather more substantial than the obligatory Gap Year proposed by the Right Honourable Rory Stewart; it would be a major social force. I am not entirely sure what it would do, though since communities generally are so desiccated, I take it that there is a great deal of scope for more community-building projects. I would encourage involvement from all faith groups, the humanists included: representation in the Lords Spiritual can be tied to support. Ideally, each faith-group (yes, even the humanists) would have (quasi-)monastic institutions embedded within the Service.
I saw someone on twitter suggest that National Service could be tied to pensions; that sounds perfectly sensible to me, and it could be tied to state benefits quite generally. There might be a Service Stipend functioning as a basic income. As with the selection procedures for the Lords, I would put trust and personal judgement, and not bureaucratic legibility, at the system’s heart. Local service leaders would decide what sort of work was appropriate to which people: some would simply get the stipend for nothing, the physically disabled might spend a few hours a week contributing to a listening service from home, the mentally disabled might spend a similar amount of time at an animal sanctuary or with the elderly, and so on. The point is not to make sure that only the deserving receive assistance (though it may be hoped that they system will help the ‘undeserving’ to address whatever issues are holding them back) but to encourage a spirit of service in all, and secure for each the psychological benefits of knowing that others value their contribution.
We will consider more general roles for the service later. For now, let us return to parliament. I would complement the merely passive ‘approval by committee’ criterion with an active one of contribution to the service. This would not be like the more gentle contributions tied to basic state benefits, but an intensely demanding contribution evaluated by service leaders. Ideally, the potential parliamentarians would spend a significant amount of time within the (quasi-)monastic institutions discussed earlier. They would only be eligible to enter parliament given the approval of those with whom they served.
What goes for the legislature, meanwhile, ought equally to go for the judiciary. Advancement as a judge would be similarly contingent on service, since law is fundamentally a matter of morality, and not technical competence. Further to this, I would institute a new court, either above or instead of the current Supreme Court, which would essentially be a revived Star Chamber. Its core of standing members would be the Queen, the Archbishop of Canterbury, one or two other Lords Justice Spiritual elected by the rest of the Lords Spiritual, the Lord Chancellor, and the Lord Chief Justice. For any given case, specific outside counsel would also be appointed: this is counsel in the general sense, inclusive of both lawyers and non-lawyers having special understanding of the matter at hand. For each appointed outside counsel, however, an ordinary member of the public would be assigned by lot. The point of this Star Chamber is to take the weightiest matters outside of the purview of judges qua legal experts, and, instead of merely shunting them back to the legislature, placing them in touch with the transcendent.
All right, now for the really eccentric stuff. First. I take it as axiomatic that hierarchy is inevitable. We are not so much faced with a choice between hierarchy and its absence, as between an honest and a covert hierarchy. Of course, an honest hierarchy is better. I haven’t much to say on the details of a good hierarchy, except that there should be clearly-defined, widely-acknowledged, and above all high expectations on those near the top. The main point I want to discuss is the relationship between the hierarchy and the National Service. Advancement in the hierarchy should be dependent upon service.
There are many ways in which one might plausibly be said to advance in the hierarchy. Going to university? Do service first. Russell Group? Do more. Oxbridge? More again. Entering a profession? Service. Career in finance? Whole lot of service. Academic chair? Service. Editorship of a newspaper? CEO? You get the idea. The rites of passage would be somewhere between the gentle, just doing one’s bit associated with state benefits, and the full rigour of entry into parliament and the courts. One might worry about the squandered talents of competent pricks. This can be addressed by affording them a hybrid status subject to certain penalties: say, liability to higher tax-rates, inability to attend major cultural and sporting events, and general ‘exclusion from polite society’.
I think that covers all I want to say for now. An unelected upper house to represent the community of the realm, encompassing Lords Spiritual to ground government explicitly in the pursuit of the common good, some Lords selected for the value of their knowledge, and others to represent the many people lacking a university education. A selection procedure based on personal judgements of character, and a general aversion to bureaucratic legibility. A National Service to bind all to the care of all, and train all, especially the powerful and privileged, in virtue.
This is the third part of a loose series. Part 1 sounds out the idea of a Christian mean between pagan and liberal worldviews; Part 2 tries to delineate that mean more directly.