Bishops in the House of Lords have been urged to become involved with the reform of the upper chamber. Reports this week said that the Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, would propose replacing the Lords with a wholly elected 300-seat senate.<\/p>\n
The think tank Ekklesia and the democracy campaign Power2010 said last week that reform was inevitable. In an email campaign that targeted the 26 bishops who sit in the Lords, the two groups had forwarded 59,681 messages by Wednesday calling on them for \u201cclear and principled leader\u00c2\u00adship to take this forward\u201d\u009d .<\/p>\n
The emails asked the bishops to sup\u00c2\u00adport \u201ccore principles\u201d\u009d that both Chris\u00c2\u00adtian and non-Christian demo\u00c2\u00adcrats could share, which included the requirement that people of faith should face election with no special privileges and no reserved places.<\/p>\n