The new politics: unconventionally lording it

Under the Salisbury Convention, the House of Lords does not block government bills that were included in the manifesto.

How’s that going to work now? Will they apply it to policies that were in either party’s manifesto, or only to ones that were (in one form or another) included in both? What about a policy that’s a compromise between two manifesto pledges?

However, if Phil Cowley (via John Rentoul) is right, then the Tories and Lib Dems should have enough peers to get their way most of the time anyway.

(On Lords reform, the Lib Dem manifesto promised “a fully-elected second chamber” and the Tories’ said they would “work to build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber”. Their coalition pact commits them to “establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation”.)

Update: Gosh.