So deep is the mess the government has got itself into over constitutional reform that it may be about to turn to Billy Bragg, a left-wing singer-songwriter, for the answer to its problems. This is not to denigrate Mr Bragg. Known variously as the Bard of Barking and Britain's Woody Guthrie, he made his name in the 1980s playing concerts in support of various lost causes, such as Arthur Scargill's striking miners, and has an unlikely passion for constitutional reform. He has, for years, been plugging a plan to reform the House of Lords that, against all odds, is being taken seriously in high places. More of the Bragg proposal later. The reason the government just might embrace it is that it has no viable plan of its own for reforming the House of Lords. Last year the House of Commons, presented with a cornucopia of options from a wholly-elected to a wholly-appointed second chamber, farcically failed to back any of them. This week, things went dramatically worse, and the government needs to find a way out of the jam it is in.
展开▼
