Lords vote: Cameron angry over rebellion

In a dramatic move late on Tuesday,91 rebel Conservatives forced Cameron to drop a crucial vote on reforming parliament’s upper chamber,or the House of Lords — a key demand of his Liberal Democrat partners in coalition government.

The vote would have imposed a legislative timeline for a transition to a new House of Lords with 80 per cent of its members elected. The government effectively conceded,for now at least,to the rebel group.

On Tuesday evening,however,the government won a separate vote on the principle behind a mainly elected chamber with a majority of 338. The vote means that proposals for an elected House of Lords,reducing its current size from 826 members to 450,will proceed to their next stage of parliamentary scrutiny in the autumn.

If Cameron fails to keep his promise on the House of Lords,Lib Dem lawmakers may in turn decide to oppose Conservative policies,crippling the government’s legislative agenda and placing the increasingly frayed coalition under further strain.

Members of parliament described dramatic scenes after the vote on Lords reform was pushed to the autumn at the last minute on Tuesday to avoid what would have been the coalition government’s first major parliamentary defeat.

“Just witnessed a very angry PM lambasting Tory (Conservative) MP Jesse Norman. Finger pointing and prodding towards Mr. Norman. Not very prime minister like,” opposition Labour lawmaker Karl Turner said in a tweet from the scene. One newspaper report of the incident quoted a Conservative lawmaker as describing Cameron’s behaviour as disgraceful.

An aide to Cameron said however there was no major argument,only that the prime minister was rightly annoyed. Conservative lawmaker Peter Bone called rebellion a nail in the coalition government whose mandate is to fix Britain’s ailing economy and tackle its budget deficit.